Cormac
McCarthy

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Birch Tree series concert at BCC displayed modern folk at its finest

By Seth Rogovoy

Special to the Eagle

Pittsfield – In a brilliant performance Friday night that took listeners on an emotional roller coaster from side-splitting laughter to the brink of tears and back again, Cormac McCarthy displayed the art of contemporary folk at its finest.

In order to be an effective performer, a singer-songwriter needs to have many resources. Some of the obvious ones are good songs with a voice to match, effective if not virtuosic guitar accompaniment, and a pleasant stage presence that easily connects with the audience.

It also helps if the performer knows how to play off an audience and pace a concert, is a good storyteller and fleet on his feet with an impromptu joke, has interesting things to say about his songs and can make it all seem easy to boot.

In his show at Berkshire Community College as part of the Birch Tree Concert Series, McCarthy displayed all these qualities and more. If could bottle his formula, he’d have every would-be singer-songwriter clamoring to get a lifetime supply.

Bursting with charm and good humor, the graying yet youthful and irreverent McCarthy—no relation to the author – played two sets of songs drawn mostly from "Troubled Sleep" and his latest album "Picture Gallery Blues" (both Green Linnet).

The New Hampshire native who now lives in Maine introduced one of his songs facetiously as a "cowboy Celtic funk number". While "Small House" and the similar tunes hardly conjured up images of funkmeister George Clinton, they do exist in a unique realm equidistant from classic country and Celtic folk, albeit given McCarthy’s own idiosyncratic spin.

"Small House" boasts a catchy chorus with a mournful quality in the lyrics and McCarthy’s soulful yearning baritone. The verses, however, are edgier, as is often the case in McCarthy’s songs, with a typical one being: Woke up as happy as an Irish dog/ Wired and slightly deranged/ the perfect picture of an Irishman/Quick of wit and slow to change."

McCarthy surprised with some gorgeously resonant fingerpicking to match his throaty, resonant vocals. He told hysterically funny stories in between songs – some which connected to the tunes, others obvious stage patter he has perfected over the years. But it never sounded canned nor did it distract from what McCarthy came to do: present a selection his carefully crafted, original compositions.

"Marigold Hall" packed a novel’s worth of details about the inhabitants of a small New England town into a few verses about a Saturday night dance. "Light at the Top of the Stairs" was one of a number of McCarthy’s man-at-the-end-of-his-rope tunes, with the pressures of the world bearing down on him symbolized by a pile of firewood that has accidentally pinned him down in the subfreezing temperature.

"Picture Gallery Blues" was, as the title indicates, a modern take on the traditional blues form, this time one in which a walk through a museum makes the singer see things about himself he’d rather not face up to. And the "Immigrant Gangster" is McCarthy’s Scorsesean salute to his "sainted Irish grandfather, " who –at least in he song—reverts to crime in order to feed his hungry children.

McCarthy peppered his show with a few novelty tunes, the best of which was a tribute to his neighbors, "When You're in Maine." Song to the tune of the Doors "People are Strange."

McCarthy demonstrated that he is a truly gifted performer and entertainer on Friday night. I don’t ordinarily issue directives, but next time he comes within 100 miles you must go hear him!

(Seth Rogovoy writes regularly for the Boston Phoenix.)

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