Issue
#102
Feb.
‘07
Frank Critelli
is a veteran musician; his new album, Waltzing Through
Quicksand, is his
sixth studio release. Add to that various side projects, one-offs,
collaborations, and his relentless gig schedule, and you realize that
Frank is a
professional.
The problem is that in the
digital era (21st century), the music industry
has become a quagmire
of dashed hopes and broken dreams for many. Why is it when music has
become
even more accessible in this age that accessibility has doomed the
artist?
Whether the artist is a major label signed national act or a local
independent
favorite, it is the oversaturated industry that is swallowing them up.
The
Artists put their music out there, they step into the quicksand and
they slowly
sink away, sometimes never to be heard from again. It’s easy
to be sucked into
the ever expanding bog of overlooked and underappreciated musicians,
where some
fight the undertow for years while others quietly give up. Too many
gifted
artists’ contributions to this world are lost as they
helplessly disappear from
sight (hearing).
After countless years of flinging
album after album into the abyss, Frank Critelli
says - Fine, I can deal
with this, I’m going to throw myself into this quicksand
(that has claimed all
my music and most of my life, not to mention countless other
musicians), but
I’m not going to fight and I’m not going to give up
either. I’m going to waltz
through this with as much dignity, grace, and class as I can.
– That alone
elevates this album above the muck and mire of what is becoming a
wasteland of
musical expression.
The amazing part of all this is that
Frank accomplishes it with a poetic flare of writing which connects
each
listener to the song/song cycle/album in intangible ways. For as Frank
Critelli waltzes through the quicksand of the ever saddening
state of the
music industry, he intelligently binds the experiences of everyday real
life
(his, ours, and everybody else’s) to each story and relates
how we are all trapped
in our own quicksand. Listening to the progression of the album, the
way Frank
has created a flow, we slowly understand Frank’s message:
Don’t fight, nor give
up in the quicksand of life, but waltz through it, with as much
dignity, grace,
and class as you can – for that is when we can derive the
joyfulness that life
offers, that is how we can have a good time.
Frank is a teacher by trade,
and
here he guides us to learn. First he questions whether he’s
up for the task – I Sigh
lays out his doubts, “I know that
life seems / to weaken at the
seams / with broken hearts and bitter ends / and unrealized dreams,”
with a
very smooth contemporary, Americana
melody flowing underneath. Progressing in an upbeat fashion, this
opening
statement carries us along a dreamy landscape that doesn’t
profess to know the
answers: “be that as it may /
I’m still
here today / but ask me what I think that means / it’s hard
for me to say / and
I try / and I sigh.”
This
Predicament
continues with Frank still questioning if his
efforts are worth the challenge (the quicksand not only swallows you
up, but by
prolonging the inevitable it causes the mind to wander into fragile and
overwhelming territory). The beauty of this song is how Frank has
written this
personal search for validation of his art (in the concept of humanity)
through
the eyes of a personal relationship. “Well,
I don’t know if you’ve been listening / to what
I’ve said so many times already
/ Maybe I’ve been uninspiring / and that’s a heavy
load to carry.” This
relates to you as a listener of Frank’s music as much as it
relates to the
author’s significant other. In the span of 30 seconds, Frank
Critelli
exposes himself to let us know that we are also his significant other,
that he
does what he does for us, yet allows the lyrics to connect each
listener to
their own feelings.
Presented with a chilling
downbeat, This Predicament
showcases Critelli’s band: Rich Suarez,
on drums, lays down a solid
foundation with a lot of room for Don Horton’s
bass to walk along
Frank’s brisk and abrupt whole-chord strumming, with Tory
Lawson’s
strings catapulting the whole arrangement to the next level. It is this
level
that multi-instrumentalist Shandy Lawson grasps and
maintains throughout
the album in his chore as producer of Waltzing,
which was also recorded,
mixed, and mastered by him in his Media Park
studio, located in Farmington, CT. A
great cohesive match, this band (along with the production) is the
kind, the
good kind, which Frank needs to bring forth the poignancy of his lyrics
and
arrangements.
By the third song, Frank
puts the
demons to rest with What I Did.
It is as perfect a Johnny Cash tune as you’ll ever hear (in
fact if Johnny were
still alive I would make it my mission in life to get him to record
this song).
The band captures the man in black’s ultimate confession,
“What I did wasn’t pretty
/ What I did wasn’t nice / but I did what I
did / and I will not do it twice,” with a spot-on
take of vintage
Cash/Carter Family country. In this, Frank puts forth that we as humans
are
certainly flawed - “I’ll
take
responsibility / I’ll take all the blame / but as for my
humanity / I will feel
no shame / for what I did” - but as long as we can
honestly strive to make
ourselves better - “I’ll
keep on pushing
forward / and I’ll keep on falling back / every day / until
the day / my world
turns to black / for what I did” - then not only
can we make those around us
better, but we shall be forgiven in the end: “If
there is a heaven / I hope I go there / I’ll sing and dance /
and
raise a glass / as if god didn’t care / what I did.”
With that, Frank
finalizes his statement of purpose and dives into the
results…
The nine remaining tunes of Waltzing
evince Frank’s musical roots and find him writing and playing
with abandon.
Many songs here find him channeling his inner George Harrison (What I Chose, Goodbye (Hello), Orbiter, Come Away). It’s not
a stretch to imagine The Traveling Wilburys
playing the first two, while the latter two accentuate Shandy
Lawson’s George
Martin disciple studio skills and production (Can you say Blue Jay Way, Yellow Submarine, and Magical
Mystery Tour?). Only She Knows,
Conversation in a
Laundromat, Another
Day, and On
all give light to Frank’s knowledge of Jackson
Browne’s (late
70s, The Pretender, Running On Empty era) ability to build a solid
story, which
unfolds around infectious up-beat hooks that mask the dirtiness
underneath.
In
the end, Frank brings us full
circle with Have A Good Time
(making
this truly an album of continuity – a complete artistic
statement from start to
finish that flows perfectly for the true listener and connoisseur of
music).
Using masterful poetic techniques, Frank reveals that whatever
represents our
quicksand can easily be tolerated and overcome. All we must do is learn
to
waltz through it with as much dignity, grace, and class as we can:
“And you can bet I’ve
thought it over / but I
haven’t come up with anything / if you’d like to
talk it over / maybe we could
see things a little more clearly / and we’ll have a good time.”
Want
to Have A Good Time?
Try Waltzing Through
Quicksand
With Frank Critelli.
Waltzing Through
Quicksand by
Frank Critelli
is available now for: $9.98 + s/h*
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