Howard Gladstone’s Concord Session is a “hybrid folk” album that holds a mirror up to human nature, in the age of environmental and humanitarian crisis, and a future we have limited time to shape.
It was recorded live on the studio floor by songwriter Howard Gladstone and guitar/bass/drum trio in 2017 but released in October 2021. It is an audiophile quality 192kHz/24-bit recording, engineered, mixed, and mastered by Peter J. Moore.
What you hear is how it went down and sounded in the studio over the two-day recording period. There are no overdubs. The only thing that was added were background vocals. It’s recorded in high resolution audio so every nuance and wrinkle is audible.
“The World’s Become A Warmer Place” is the longest song and most specific in dealing with climate crisis, plight of refugees and human nature.
In the song “rafts and boats are overloaded” with desperate refugees and are transformed into Phoenixes lifted into space. A mythological bird carrying humans to salvation is not a literal suggestion, just an imaginative reaction. Maybe it is an unconscious reference to Neil Young’s “After the Gold Rush.”
The lyric rambles around, perhaps never quite touching down, but hopefully shedding light and insight on this complex of knots that the world struggles to recognize, let alone untie.
Does the song work? Not for me to say. I love the instrumental bedrock laid down by Tony, George and Bob on this song. In the second half of the song, they soar. I later wrote another version of the song, to focus on the environmental crisis. It is called “Crossroads” and appears on my 2020 album, The Promise. I like both versions and cannot choose one over the other.
“Regret” was originally recorded with the trio, but I found the vocals easier to deliver and more convincing with piano. George Koller added the bass line on “Regret” which is about living without regret, if possible.
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