Oh the Wind and Rain: Eleven Ballads

A trait Brooklyn-born Jody Stecher shares with most urban-traditional singers is a careful attention to the history of the songs he sings, approaching them as valuable pieces of art in need of delicate restoration. In some ways Oh the Wind and Rain is Stecher's best album. It is certainly his most thematically consistent, comprising 11 ballads, all of which have long pedigrees, and he works each one as carefully as a man refinishing his grandmother's rocking chair. The arrangements here are marvelous, with Stecher supporting his easy, everyman vocals on guitar, banjo, mandolin and oud, bringing in interesting strands of folk DNA to flesh things out and give each of these ballads a full, complete feel, and at the same time, creating an album with remarkable unity and cohesion. The two obvious highlights here are the title tune, a poetically rendered murder and ghost story probably best-known in a version by the great autoharp master, Kilby Snow, and an unhurried-yet urgent-reading of that ballad of all ballads, "Barbary Ellen." In both cases Stecher finds the narrative and emotional center of the song, and then lets it wind out with its dignity and inherent structure enforced, yet he still takes care to leave its native mysteries preserved. And he's in no hurry, either. "Oh the Wind and Rain" clocks in at nearly nine minutes, and "Barbary Ellen" tops 12 minutes. Stecher believes a song needs as long as it needs to tell the story right, and that patience and eye for detail (not to mention his sturdy and wonderful playing) makes this album of ballads a true treasure. ~ Steve Leggett