First Impressions...
Reviews
Gail
Wade "Journey"
Wade has an exquisite voice that ranges
easily between delicate and robust on her first album. The Colchester
singer wrote six of the 12 songs here and chose covers that span genres.
There's a jaunty, low-key version of Ain't Misbehavin' and a melancholy
take on Rosanne Cash's Will You Remember Me?. The title track,
an original, is a folk-gospel number with sputtering harmonica in the
background, and the bluesy ballad Try It On For Size is reminiscent
of early Bonnie Raitt.
~ Hartford Courant (
Hartford, CT / October 2005)
"Sound Check: Music News &
Views" by Eric R. Danton
«««««««« § »»»»»»»»
...from
CDbaby.com
On first listening there's a lot of music
in Gail Wade's CD Journey and it continues to grow with each succeeding
listening. It's been playing for a few days now, and I think I've finally
begun to take it all in.
Wade is unique
in that she's both a fine songwriter as well as a good interpreter of
other people's music. There's a range of styles here, from the Fats Waller
classic Ain't Misbehavin' to Roseann Cash' Will You Remember
Me, to Mark Irwin and Irene Kelley's Cajun flavored, finger-picking,
highly syncopated, It Wasn't Me.
Although her roots are firmly planted in the folk, singer-songwriter
tradition, she's a complete musician. She's difficult to categorize and
that's a good thing. If you were forced to categorize Gail Wade, you'd
probably come up with the hybrid title of folk, blues, and jazz oriented
ballad singer. While she shows her talent on tunes such as It Wasn't Me,
I really like her work as a songwriter and singer on her own blues-oriented
Try It On For Size, her gospel-tinged title track Journey, as well
as on the Richard Torrance-John Heany composition, Rio De Janeiro Blue.
It doesn't hurt at all that she surrounds herself with good musicians,
especially the multitalented Peggy Ann Harvey, who graces this album with
her work on fiddle, soprano sax, viola, harmonica, and flute. That's five
instruments, and it wouldn't surprise me if she played five more too.
But Gail Wade is a fine lead and rhythm guitarist in her own right who's
backed by Kevin Lynch on mandolin and guitar, John Urbanik on upright
bass, guitarist Steve Wade, and Ian Wade on percussion. Even Gary Ferguson
lends a harmony vocal on Harder Every Day.
This is her first CD, and I'd surely like to see more from her.
Six of the tunes are her own compositions, and judging from their stunning
quality, I'd like to see an entire CD of her own songs. She's got enough
variety in her work and style to pull it off too. Gail Wade has gone far
beyond that bedeviling hobgoblin of many singer-songwriters: everything
a medium tempo, syncopated, finger picking tune. This collection has some
of those tunes, but it also has blues, ballads, ragtime flavored jazzy
elements, and even a bit of Cajun flavoring for lagniappe.
"My
only disappointment is that you're 3,000 miles away... and that's too
bad for me. But I can hope. After all, Steve Gillette lives in Vermont
and he comes out to California every winter."
Lou Krieger ~ Palm Springs, CA
(November 2005)
Lou is a columnist/author/instructor/expert player of the game of poker.