No Need to Cry Cry Cry

With a close look at very-modern history, we can say with some objectivity that this is the year of successful partnerships in music. When hugely successful stars perform with other hugely successful stars, the result has been colossal. We have to look no farther than the Three Tenors and VH-1's Five Divas for evidence of this. But there is another trio that is making headlines all over the country. This group of stars is not well known outside their specialty of folk music, but in this genre they are the great ones. Dar Williams, Lucy Kaplansky, and Richard Shindell each have prosperous solo music careers, but they decided for one album to pool their talent and record a dozen songs under the name Cry Cry Cry.

Dar Williams, the most popular of the group, has put out three albums over the past five years and toured with the Lilith Fair tour this past summer. She is one of the Top 50 grossing touring artists of the first part of 1998 and has a fervent audience, with fans sometimes traveling up to 400 miles to hear her play.

Lucy Kaplansky has sang vocals with such folk powerhouses as Shawn Colvin, Nanci Griffith, and Suzanne Vega. She also has two albums of her own, the latest, "Flesh and Bone" was described by the Associated Press as "easily one of the best albums of the year." Richard Shindell, no slouch himself, won the 1998 American Federation of Independent Music "Folk Album of the Year" award for his album "Reunion Hill."

The reason for the name Cry Cry Cry is being kept under a hush-hush type of situation, but no one is crying over this partnership. The band formed when Williams and Shindell toured together last year. They discovered that they loved playing other peoples songs together. They called up their old friend Kaplansky who just finished her own tour and agreed to start their own band. They wanted to record what Williams called "an album that would cover the back roads of the United States and Canada, with material by artists who had been influenced by everything from traditional folk music to post-modern literature." And thus, Cry Cry Cry was born.

This self-titled album is comprised of songs by other people, some very famous and some very obscure. The first song on the album is an REM tune called "Fall on Me," which the members of Cry Cry Cry decided to do because they wanted to pay tribute to one of their favorite folk bands. Other semi-famous musicians covered on this album are Ron Sexsmith, Robert Earl Keen, and Nerissa Nields. The Sexsmith song "Speaking with the Angel" is probably the best song on the album. The way the three voices twirl around Ron's beautiful lyrics and Shindell's guitar playing is simply a joy to hear. Robert Earl Keen's song "Shades of Grey" is as Robert said "the best cover anybody has ever done of a song of mine." It was Dar's decision to do Nield's "I Know What Kind of Love This Is," calling this song "one of the inspirations for the album."

Undoubtedly, the most obscure song on the album is by a simple homemaker and part-time performer from Pittsburgh name Leslie Smith. Cry Cry Cry's version of her song "Northern Cross" is an a cappella version which sounds as lonely as the song's lyrics describe.

The band is currently one an American tour, which comes to our area for a First Night concert New Years Eve in Oakland, New Jersey and on January 17 at Town Hall in New York City. Not surprisingly, most of their shows have been sold-out, so if you would like to see one of the best bands in America today, go for it. You will not be disappointed.