CD Review

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Kathy Kallick My Mother's Voice
Review by Brenda Hough Copper Creek Reocrds
CCCD-0201
PO Box 3161
Roanoke, VA 24015

17 songs featuring Kathy Kallick and guest artists including "My Home's Across the Blueridge Mountains," "I Never Will Marry,"" Wreck of the Old #9," "Row Us Over The Tide," and "I'll Fly Away."

A few years ago, David Grisman, Jerry Garcia and Tony Rice released a CD called Pizza Tapes - a collection of good time songs sung around the kitchen table (with pizza no doubt) and this is Kathy's collection of kitchen table favorites. She even mentions Jim Nunally's studio kitchen so perhaps there was some pizza or pasta included. Kathy Kallick has been one of the mainstays of the Bay Area bluegrass scene with her participation in the Good Ol' Persons band, solo albums, and the current Kathy Kallick Band.

Kathy's folk roots were planted early by her mother. Dodi Kallick was an early urban collector of songs and spent time collecting and presenting folk songs in the Chicago area. In referring to Dodi Kallick's voice, Larry Ehrlich wrote, "it could be as tender as Carter Stanley, as plaintive as Piaf ...It could bring sorrow to your heart or a smile to your lips.." The expressive voice was certainly passed on to daughter Kathy and hopefully to the third generation as well.

The seventeen songs feature Kathy with one or two singers and the some of the songs would be in everyone's favorite list. "Hello Stranger" and "Shady Grove" feature Peter Rowan, and the talents of Suzanne Thomas, Claire Lynch, Lynn Morris, Laurie Lewis, Jim Nunally, John Reischman, Sally van Meter and Jody Stecher and Kate Brislin grace the other selections. The album ends with a love song, "Web of Birdsong," with its memorable phrase, "I'll belong to you and only you and never go away." Thanks for saving these songs for us - may they never go away.

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