Raising Kane

Kieran Kane, Kevin Welch, & Fats Kaplin
FitzGerald’s, Berwyn
Friday, February 3, 2006

New York and Oklahoma: Friends forever? Music is full of odd couples (Simon & Garfunkel, Burt Bacharach and Dr. Dre), and the pairing of Nor’easter Kieran Kane with Okie Kevin Welch can’t hold a candle to the mere fact a native of Queens plays country music at all. What’s strange is when it works.

The two-years-old You Can’t Save Everybody works because it sounds like dust. No one affects a Hank Williams twang or a Son House holler. The percussion — when their is some — sounds like someone patting their denim knees and the corners are as sharp as wooden spoons. Kane and Welch’s guitarparts are masterful without sounding professional, authentic but not reverent. You’d expect as much from Welch, whose dustbowl heritage had time to weather in that chapped, Panhandle clime.

But Kane? He should have as much dirt in his shoes as the Queen herself. Yet he penned more songs for Save than Welch (six to five, backed by a sepia cover of the late Ron Davies’ “Dark Eyed Gal”). But his discretion is even more key to the album, playing his hand evenly enough to spell any doubts to his belonging. If anyone steps out it’s Welch, whose “Everybody’s Working For The Man Again . . . ” isn’t quite subtle or poetic enough to be a protest of Guthrie or Seeger proportions. If any effort is human, however, it’s this one, so mistakes are permitted.

— Steve Forstneger

Category: Stage Buzz, Weekly