tag:jonbrooks.ca,2005:/blogs/usa-press
USA press
2019-01-16T15:36:19-05:00
Jon Brooks
false
tag:jonbrooks.ca,2005:Post/5598722
2019-01-16T15:32:37-05:00
2019-01-16T15:36:19-05:00
No One Travels Alone Makes NPR Global Village 'Best of 2018' List
<p><a contents="Global Village 'Best of 2018' List" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://www.kmuw.org/post/best-18-allen-toussaint-folk-golden-age-middle-east-cool-covers">Global Village 'Best of 2018' List</a> </p>
<p>Tuesday, January 15 </p>
<p>Global Village hosts another little folk fest this time, with traditional, contemporary and folk fusion sounds. And since the January feature is Best of 2018, the show particularly focuses on music from the past year, including releases from guitar hero and English folk rock pioneer Richard Thompson, the eclectic Afro Celt Sound System, the U.K.’s Rheingans Sisters, Quebecois group Genticorum, Estbel from Estonia, Canadian singer-songwriter Jon Brooks, and from Scotland – Breabach and Talisk.</p>
Jon Brooks
tag:jonbrooks.ca,2005:Post/4442038
2016-10-28T13:10:20-04:00
2016-10-28T13:10:20-04:00
‘Closer to the absolute truth’: Jon Brooks powers the people at Taffy’s, Dayton City Paper
<p>By Joey Ferber </p>
<p>photo: Jon Brooks shares stories and collects some new ones at Taffy’s Sept. 21; photo: Jay Morrison </p>
<p>Don’t call him a singer-songwriter. Don’t call him a folk artist. Just go listen to the stories he sings. The songs of Toronto-based Jon Brooks strike the depths of human emotion, from anger and resentment to hope and redemption. </p>
<p>Brooks spoke with the Dayton City Paper about his Sept. 21 show at Taffy’s, writing and performing, and the hearts of small towns. </p>
<p>Jon Brooks: This is the first time that I’ve actually played a gig in Ohio. I like playing in small-town America. I like playing small-town anywhere, small-town Canada, small-town Australia. It’s in the little, tiny communities where you can actually feel the pulse of the country’s soul. </p>
<p>There’s a really strong folk ideal in that. </p>
<p>JB: Exactly. I love the side of this business where I get to travel to places. If I didn’t, I would be in the wrong vocation. If you’re a Canadian songwriter, you have to travel. There’s not enough work in my own country to eke out a living. I depend on the States, I depend on other countries, and I depend on travel, and, truth be told, that’s where the new songs come from. I’m basically out there collecting stories’ emotional data. That’s what I do, I go out there, and I get peoples’ stories, and I’m going to go to Ohio, and I know I’m going to hear a story that I cannot get off of watching CNN. </p>
<p>I’d like to talk about some of the aspects of “what makes folk, folk.” </p>
<p>JB: One of the safe ways to put folk into perspective is that pop music tends to come from the “I,” the “me”—“my problems, my car, my girlfriend, my marriage,” but folk… comes from the “we.” </p>
<p>I’m proud of the idea of folk as a subversive art form…as a way to point people to virtue, to point out the problems, to begin healing a wound by first showing what the wound was…to reveal ourselves to each other. And that, to me, was folk, and so I came from the tradition of Woody Guthrie and a lot of the revivalists in the ’60s. I wasn’t interested in pathological idealism, but I was interested in folk songs as a subversive and as a positive force. </p>
<p>As an artist, do you primarily identify as a songwriter? </p>
<p>JB: I wish people would have the courage and the will to just come see a songwriter… One of the saddest times was a gig about five or six years ago in Toronto, my hometown, and it was a CD release. I finished the sound check, and I was hanging outside the place and a group of young guys, probably in their late 20s, were walking by and looked in to see the stage, and one of them said, “Oh, it’s just a guy with a guitar.” And it’s like, man, if you could hear what that guy with the guitar was going to do and not just assume based on the instrumentation… “style” and “genre” are really destructive ideas, and I wish we’d get over it and move on. In a like manner, so is the binary understanding of fiction and non-fiction. The two are not two. They blur into each other; they’re the same. The greatest novels ever written ostensibly are fictional, but you know in your heart that every page was closer to the absolute truth than any so-called non-fiction book. </p>
<p>I agree. </p>
<p>JB: You know…there is a mystical union between the audience and the performer. We follow each other. It’s what keeps me inspired and passionate about this career – it’s a purpose for living. I will put up with society’s general disrespect of songwriters and gladly live just above the poverty line if we can continue the experiences I have on a stage with people. </p>
<p>So, are you working on new material currently? </p>
<p>JB: I’ve been busy writing, and I always feel perpetually two-thirds of the way there. It takes me a long time to write a song, it takes me an even longer time to decide whether or not I like it. It’s been over a year and a half since I released my last album, and my last album was all murder ballads. I got that out of my system, and now I’m determined to go into the opposite direction and sing…I certainly don’t know what “happy songs” are, but I do know the difference between a gentler, kinder, more healing type of approach to a song. </p>
<p>Right. Are there any other topics you’d like to touch on? </p>
<p>JB: The only thing I’d like to leave people with is the idea that a songwriter without hope for the human beast, I think, is a fraud. I feel compelled to remind people that I’m only doing this because I am, at heart, an optimist, and I think we can do better. This idea that this person is left, this is right, this is black, this is white… you know… that whole binary kind of worldview is what I’m trying to transcend. </p>
<p>-JoeyFerber@DaytonCityPaper.com.</p>
Jon Brooks
tag:jonbrooks.ca,2005:Post/4442037
2016-10-28T13:07:54-04:00
2016-10-28T13:07:54-04:00
Moth Nor Rust – review – Back Road Bound
<p>Moth Nor Rust, released in 2009 on Borealis Records, finally found its way into my home only yesterday. The first few listens already made me realise just how exceedingly fine an album it is. Yes, it’s Folk music, but somehow the musical style (as much as I am fond of it) is irrelevant, as the songs on here are quite simply that. Songs, and stories. Brooks could arguably be classified as a songwriter in the tradition of Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger or early Bob Dylan. No romanticising for the times of the Dust Bowl, Hobos and such to be found on here, though, his songs are firmly rooted in the early 21st Century. </p>
<p>At first listen his songs aren’t overtly personal, actually quite the opposite, as they are dealing with all kinds of people you meet on the streets. Whether these people are soldiers, working in a pub, an office or at Walmart, does scarcely matter – it’s their lives with all their contradictions, thoughts and problems these 10 songs are concerned with. Yet, for all this, they are highly personal stories too, Brooks’ convictions and beliefs permeate every one of them. So, you hear a lot of words such as justice, mercy, love, freedom and healing. Not many artists (whichever medium they are using) I can think of, can express their beliefs quite as eloquently and touching as Jon Brooks can. </p>
<p>Musically Moth Nor Rust is even more reduced compared with some of his other records (2014’s The Smiling And Beautiful Countryside and 2012’s Delicate Cages, still haven’t got the first two records of his) although these could hardly be described as lavishly produced either. On here it’s only him, his guitar and harmonica (and a bit of percussion, possibly only the body of his guitar). Still, the sound is clear, robust and rustic (but completely absent of traces of traditionalism and/or being ‘Country’), not in the least due to his resonant and muscular voice and the fine, natural guitar playing. Despite the lyrical themes and the often beautiful melodies (as on Small, War Resister, God Pt. IV, there is nothing maudlin or whimsical about these songs. </p>
<p>Moth Nor Rust is good for the soul. It’s a life-affirming record, making me believe the world has got the potential of being a slightly better place. All it does need is some more people taking his stance towards life and the world to heart, and doing the right things. </p>
<p>‘… if it’s not love, we can’t take it when we go..’ (When We Go) </p>
<p>by Jay Haeske </p>
<p>https://backroadbound.com/2016/06/12/jon-brooks-moth-nor-rust/ </p>
<p>June, 2016</p>
Jon Brooks
tag:jonbrooks.ca,2005:Post/4442036
2016-10-28T13:06:32-04:00
2016-10-28T13:06:32-04:00
Back Road Bound
Easy listening this is not. There’s meat on the bones on this record. Jon Brooks hails from Ontario, Canada and The Smiling And Beautiful Countryside is his 5th album to date. It is the first record of his I have heard, so I can’t really compare it with his previous output. He’s playing all of the few instruments heard on the album, actually it’s pretty much only guitars, a banjitar, plus some rudimentary percussion, which apparently is mainly his feet tapping and banging on his guitar. As you would expect, this makes for a rather sparsely instrumented and spartan album. The sound is dry, but quite substantial and good, with his gruff voice sounding like a little less moody Tom Waits (or Mr. Waits on one of his more friendly albums). <p>The songs range from the short, barely over one and a half minutes long These Are Not Economic Hard Times to the over 11 minutes long The Only Good Things Is An Old Dog. The latter of which expertly weaves together the story of a workplace mass killing with quotes from Shakespeare’s King Lear and Charles Baudelaire’s The Flowers Of Evil. A whole lot of songs on here are about murders and death. The Twa Sisters (also recorded in the recent past by Tom Waits on his triple-album Orphans) is based on a Francis James Child ballad and dates back to the 19th Century. It’s a long, splendid and hypnotic song with a lovely tune standing in stark contrast to the gruesome lyrics about betrayal, killing and mutilation. </p>
<p>My favorite song on here, Queensville is similar in that regard. Whereas The Twa Sisters is a pretty ballad, Queensville in contrast is a somewhat uptempo Hillbilly-Folk song with a catchy and upbeat feel to it. Equally uncomfortable lyrics however, about the unsolved murder of a young girl make for a captivating listening experience. </p>
<p>Album opener Gun Dealer is percussion-heavy and energetic and with its long list of available gun-models an excellent statement about gun-crazy cultures. People Don’t Think Of Others is yet another song I love dearly on here, the maudlin lyrics about a double suicide pact perfectly augmented by a melancholic tune and a gorgeous Folk arrangement. It’s also a fine pointer of where Jon Brooks is from with the opening lines of ‘He came from Elfros, Saskatchewan a flat town from which thwarted dreams are born, you could watch your dog run until lunchtime, or the indifferent trains ‘til morn’. Music from the Canadian Prairies breathing the wide open spaces and the secrets contained in them – in the case of The Smiling And Beautiful Countryside, the dark ones, where the ugly side of human nature rears its head all too often. </p>
<p>Highway 16 is again concerned with the human abyss, this one is a bout a truck driving serial killer, and on here the subdued mood of the song fits the unpleasant lyrics very well indeed. Felix Culpa is the darkest-sounding song on the album, the haunting sound of the banjitar and percussion accompaniment giving it a perfect Southern Gothic feel, reminiscent of a stripped down 16 Horsepower in their prime. </p>
<p>Album closer Worse Than Indians is inspired by a book about the relocation of a Dene tribe and a plea for forgiveness in the face of injustice and the wrong that has been done. </p>
<p>The Smiling And Beautiful Countryside is a convincing album by a songwriter with stories to tell, not always ones you necessary want to hear, but stories that will linger in your head for a long time after your heard them. His expressive voice and energetic musical accompaniment making the songs on the album all the more unforgettable. </p>
<p>-Jay Haeske </p>
<p>February, 2015</p>
Jon Brooks
tag:jonbrooks.ca,2005:Post/4442035
2016-10-28T13:05:06-04:00
2016-10-28T13:05:06-04:00
Music News Nashville
<p>“I’ve already done four albums that inspire: it’s now time to offend,” says Canadian singer/songwriter Jon Brooks about his latest project — “The Smiling & Beautiful Countryside.” Produced and recorded live in the studio by David Travers-Smith, this Borealis Records release is a 10-track acoustic collection of mostly violent, rural crime stories. The long tradition of the murder ballad continues, with Brooks’ keen ear for disturbing lyrical detail. </p>
<p>“God made all men, Sam Colt made ‘em equal,” sings Brooks in rootsy “Gun Dealer,” with a rapid-fire delivery of a horrifically real list of what’s available over the counter to good and bad souls alike. At first “Queensville” seems like a harmless ditty cheerfully performed on a banjitar, but it slowly becomes Brooks’ recounting of an unsolved murder of a local girl, for which a man was wrongfully convicted and imprisoned, only to be later exonerated through DNA testing. </p>
<p>This Kerrville New Folk winner could fascinate the ambitious listener willing to research his abundant literary and footnoted references, but he’s best when he chills to the bone with directness in “Highway 16” — the making of a killer. </p>
<p>Brooks’ near 12-minute, ghastly Capote-like rampage, “The Only Good Thing Is An Old Dog,” gets into the twisted-logic head of a done-wrong employee gone postal. In his raw, hissing vocal style backed by a pulsing guitar, he becomes the killer and takes us hunting with him from room to room as he racks up the office death toll: “Now 58 dead #whoscounting?/59, 60, 61 in Accounting.” Brooks dares to be morosely dark, but does it with panache. </p>
<p>by Janet Goodman </p>
<p>March, 2015</p>
Jon Brooks
tag:jonbrooks.ca,2005:Post/4442012
2016-10-28T13:03:40-04:00
2016-10-28T13:03:40-04:00
The StarPhoenix – A walk on the dark side with Jon Brooks
<p>“The smiling and beautiful countryside,” Sherlock Holmes once told Watson, presents as easily a “dreadful record of sin” as do “the lowest and vilest alleys in London.” Just check out those quaint British mysteries on PBS for confirmation. </p>
<p>In this brilliant and unsettling album, Ontario songwriter Jon Brooks often takes the voice of the killer, the predator, the lonely, alienated loser in spare songs of one guitar and a bit of percussion. Gun Dealer is the man who provides us with what we want – our fear, our anger, our hatred driving us straight to his door, while in People Don’t Think of Others and Laws of the Universe we hear that the world is a tough and lonely place and there’s not a whole lot you can do about it. </p>
<p>Highway 16 is from the point of view of a trucker picking up lost young women on the Trail of Tears and killing them – they hitchhike “to a place without elders/only Justin Bieber,” providing him with easy prey. And in The Only Good Thing is an Old Dog, the voice is that of a homicidal maniac meticulously working his way through his former place of employment, killing everyone he sees. Who or what made him? </p>
<p>In the title poem, printed in the CD cover, Brooks appeals to such songwriters as Joni Mitchell, Buffy St. Marie and Woody Guthrie, saying art is not all about reassuring people that what they’re doing is good and right. That’s not art – that’s a lie. And just for good measure, he gives us a minute-and-ahalf song These Are Not Economic Hard Times. No, not recession. “These are the days/After the days/When we were robbed.” Get it? </p>
<p>The Mandevilles </p>
<p>Windows and Stones MDM Recordings 4 </p>
<p>When Serena Pryne comes roaring out of the speakers to kick into syncopated stomper Hangovers, you’d think you were listening to a great wake-up song from a bunch of hard rockers, The Mandevilles from Niagara Falls. </p>
<p>Track two brings the classic image of a pair of young runaways leaving this whole scene, and the wonderful I Stole Your Band is Pryne declaring just what she did in a great bit of thrash because “you broke my heart.” </p>
<p>But then things take a curious turn. The plaintive guitar and vocal of Don’t Ask sound far more country than rock, except for the slamming beat. Come Around has a real country beat as Pryne sings about it being hard to tell “which side of the bed you’re on.” In Don’t Let Go she sings she was “Too drunk to shut my mouth this time,” another hurtin’ song about love, and Love is Like a Stranger is great hard rocking country. </p>
<p>By One Man Band, with its banjo and fiddle and more pain of an old relationship, the jig is up and on the floor. But who cares? Rock and country came from the same place, anyway. The Mandevilles marry hard rock to country, and no one goes away sad. </p>
<p>© Copyright (c) The StarPhoenix </p>
<p>February, 2015</p>
Jon Brooks
tag:jonbrooks.ca,2005:Post/4442011
2016-10-28T13:02:15-04:00
2016-10-28T13:02:15-04:00
Delicate Cages review from folking.com
<p>There’ll be no banner waving or singing of “Nearer My God To Thee” if the lyrics of Jon Brooks opening track “Because We’re Free” is anything to go by. This Toronto based singer-songwriter certainly knows how to put across his message in a self-assured style that will send a shiver down the spine of any ‘thinking’ man (that rules out any guests on the Jeremy Kyle show then) bringing back nostalgic memories of early Dylan and Paxton. If you’re going to get your point across then do it with the minimum of fuss and leave the reader to fill in the gaps using their own imagination as to what it is you’re trying to convey. On this recording it is an image alluded to yet never quite dangled like a guillotine suspended over a victim from an Edgar Allen Poe tale that entertains and enthrals in equal measure. Like a work of art Brooks way with words make you delve more deeply than you’re possibly accustomed to but let’s face it, in this day and age when we’re dictated by the likes of Tesco and Walmart as to what we should be reading then Heaven help us all. With sterling work provided by fellow musicians Joe Phillips (bass), John Showman (violin), Scott Dibble (guitars) and Carrie Elkin/Lynn Miles on vocals this album really is something special. By the way, (and this is aimed squarely on the shoulders of ‘folk’ artists and designers who try to be too clever) straight forward black text on a white background is far better for a majority of your audience as the accompanying booklet to the CD testifies! PETE FYFE </p>
<p>May, 2012</p>
Jon Brooks
tag:jonbrooks.ca,2005:Post/4442009
2016-10-28T13:00:53-04:00
2016-10-28T13:00:53-04:00
The Red Dirt Report Oklahoma City, OK
<p>CD REVIEW: Jon Brooks – Delicate Cages (independent) 2011 </p>
<p>http://www.reddirtreport.com/Story.aspx/21529 </p>
<p>For those of living south of the Canadian border, the name Jon Brooks probably doesn’t ring any bells. </p>
<p>And that’s too bad. Until recently I counted myself among those many millions. But now, having had time to devote to listen and absorb the 11 beautiful songs on Delicate Cages, I have come away … I don’t know … changed, perhaps? </p>
<p>These heartfelt tracks – which included “Because We’re Free” and a reprise of the same song – our portraits of the state of the human condition and the murky nature of politics and how people are affected, “cages,” if you will. It’s these “cages” that we either put ourselves in or find ourselves in that Brooks focuses upon which gives the album the emotional depth that makes it so powerful. </p>
<p>Brooks takes the album title Delicate Cages from a poem by Robert Bly called Taking The Hands – “Taking the hands of someone you love / You see they are like delicate cages” </p>
<p>Clearly inspired by everyone from Woody Guthrie to Bob Dylan to fellow Canadian Bruce Cockburn, Brooks focuses on “faith and free will” on Because We’re Free.” </p>
<p>Gamely playing a “banjitar” and getting backing vocal assistance from Lynn Miles, Brooks tackles “Fort McMurray,” a song about a love in the midst of the Athabasca Oil Sands and boomtown of Fort McMurray, Alberta. The imagery of “silver spires breathin’ in and blowing out a cat piss wind” is something folks here in energy-producing Oklahoma can probably relate to. </p>
<p>Reminding me a bit of Iowa folk singer Greg Brown, with his gritty voice, Brooks sings about “Mercy,” which he admires more than even a melody. Having spent time in the late 1990’s witnessing the devastation in war-torn Bosnia-Herzegovina, Brooks would recognize the importance of mercy in a hard-bitten world. </p>
<p>The French folk music I grew familiar with – Cajun and zydeco – while living in Louisiana, can be linked to French-speaking Canada and Quebec, which is what Brooks offers us on the engaging and melodic “Hudson Girl,” a true highlight on this collection. </p>
<p>What folk singer doesn’t love a song about a boxer – a pugilist – (Paul Simon, anyone?) and Jon Brooks gives us a modern take on that with “Cage Fighter” about a fighter named “The Sarajevo Sandman.” Brooks paints a musical picture, describing the “battery acid smell in my throat / It was the small of adrenaline” and ultimately the “lights out kick to the head” that takes him out. That bowed bass, played by Joe Phillips, adds to the stark, percussive eeriness of the song. </p>
<p>And like “Cage Fighter,” we get a folk song about the “Son of Hamas,” a political song – and a cry for love and understanding – presented in a way that brought to mind the aforementioned folk king of Canada, Bruce Cockburn. </p>
<p>Sings Brooks: “How can we hear amid deafening times, love whisper the truth?” Indeed, sir. </p>
<p>Those people on the fringes get attention from Jon Brooks, as we hear on his nearly two-decade old song “Visiting Day,” a more serious and melancholic take on the “outlaw” subject matter tackled by the Steve Miller Band on “Take the Money and Run” all those years ago. </p>
<p>And torn from the headlines and deliberately presented in the style of Bob Dylan’s “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll,” this simply called “The Lonesome Death of Aqsa Parvez,” Brooks tells the chilling story of a Pakistani-Canadian girl who was murdered in a Toronto suburb in 2007 – an “honor killing” – by her cab-driver father and her brother. Both would be convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. Oh, and what was Aqsa Parvez’s “crime”? The beautiful teenager refused to wear a hijab covering as required in some corners of Islamic society. The father and brother agreed the girl had dishonored the family by daring to disobey. I applaud Brooks for telling her story. </p>
<p>Delicate Cages is one of those albums that stays with you long after you put the disc back in the sleeve. Jon Brooks is clearly a caring, empathetic person who uses his songwriting talents to share stories we might otherwise not hear. </p>
<p>For more information go to www.jonbrooks.ca. </p>
<p>Copyright 2012 West Marie Media </p>
<p>February, 2012</p>
Jon Brooks
tag:jonbrooks.ca,2005:Post/4442006
2016-10-28T12:57:24-04:00
2016-10-28T12:59:20-04:00
Blues Matters!
<p>Jon Brooks is a Canadian singer/songwriter with a firm view of his role in the world “I want my songs to be three and half-minute pills which, if digested, induce upon the listener empathy toward others.” The music here suggests that he is very good at doing exactly that. The opening song ‘War Resister’ tells the story of Jeremy Hinzman, a notorious Iraq war resister who refused to go with his unit to Iraq and paid the price. The song carries a sense of the split in his mind in the vocals bust also in the delivery; weary and disturbed vocals over a simple acoustic guitar and kickbox. This could be Steve Earle or even John Prine and he gets the point across brilliantly. Brooks is very much the protest singer, railing against the iniquities of modern society – ‘The Crying Of The Times’ – or the lack of justice in the world. In ‘God Pt. IV’ he suggests a conversation between John Lennon, Larry Norman and Bono based on Lennon’s conversation with God in 1970 while the improbably titled ‘If We Keep What’s Within Us, What’s Within Us Will Kill Us, But If We Give What’s Within Us, What’s Within Us Will Save Us’ looks at the growing separation of the haves and the have nots and the gradual destruction of the skilled jobs for socially useful jobs as shelf-stackers and peanut vendors at the sports that the vendors can’t afford a ticket to. Like I said, a protest singer but he is enormously listenable to and while the songs cover painful subjects and the tone is unremittingly negative this is a massively worthwhile album and one to take a great deal of satisfaction from. </p>
<p>-Andy Snipper </p>
<p>April, 2010</p>
Jon Brooks
tag:jonbrooks.ca,2005:Post/4444397
2016-10-28T08:20:00-04:00
2016-10-30T16:20:37-04:00
Jon Brooks’ “Delicate Cages” is an incredible piece of conceptual art set to music
<p>By ‘Rebel’ Rod Ames, From Under the Basement </p>
<p>This past late spring, just prior to the 40th Annual Kerrville Folk Festival, I had the distinct pleasure of not only hearing the winner of the 2010 Kerrville Folk Festival New Folk contest, but actually had the privilege to meet him at my friend’s place, Lazy Days Canteen in Ingram, Texas. He turned out to be just as genuine a human being as is his music. </p>
<p>His latest album, “Delicate Cages” is just about as good as it gets. Mr. Brooks has one of the most dynamic voices in the music business, let alone the folk music business, I have ever heard. His lyrics are a no holds barred punch to the groin of politics in the world, but for the most part, are directed at his native Canada. </p>
<p>I miss the protest music of the 70’s. Hell, they had a significant role in the ending of a dreadful war in Asia! The craft of writing and performing a meaningful protest song has to me, up until now, been thought of as a lost art. Mr. Brooks brings that much needed emotion into his craft, reviving this apparently, not so lost art. As Mr. Brooks puts it, “Until love and compassion enters all levels of politics, the folk singer remains fully employed.” </p>
<p>Employed he will stay, Mr. Brooks goes on to say, “I’m not interested in writing ‘happy songs’ – I’ve chosen to write healing songs and for that reason, I’m obliged to reveal a wound or two now and then. That said, I’m less interested in writing ‘unhappy songs’: I want to write hopeful songs, inspiring songs and I expect I owe today’s listener some compelling argument as to why we should believe our present world can be improved, or healed. A song’s highest aim is to invoke empathy – to offer that rare sight of ourselves in others. In this sense, the songwriter is simply trying to ‘politicize love’, hence my contention: today’s songwriter should be a lobbyist for compassion to be our principle representative in government office.” </p>
<p>When I saw him on that perfect evening at Lazy Days Canteen, he played a tune about how the prejudice against English speaking people in Quebec brought him to a juncture in his life that eventually led him to meet his true love. Something beautiful emerged from a dark and bigoted time in the history of his native land. </p>
<p>The song was “Hudson Girl”. It is track four on “Delicate Cages” and is in dark contrast to the next track, “Cage Fighter”, which also happens to be what I would call my favorite tune on the record. It’s a deep, thought provoking tune about, not just a lost love, but a lost soul. </p>
<p>His music is in reality, collections of what the performer has gone through during another life while traveling throughout war torn Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1997. </p>
<p>Jon was unable write songs or perform them for awhile, eight years actually. However, inspired by the atrocities he witnessed – atrocities most of us only hear about on the evening news, the artist was eventually able to put these events to music, and through it all came this wonderful conceptual piece of art set to music </p>
<p>It is about releasing ourselves from the bondage or “cages” we sometimes place ourselves in. Mr. Brooks brings the events he has experienced in his life and paints stark pictures in his songs. However, he doesn’t leave us with feelings of despair, but with hope that these songs just might be able to wake some of us up enough to yearn for the desire to change the world a bit. </p>
<p>Write on Mr. Brooks, Write on! Pun is intended! </p>
<p>“Delicate Cages” is available now. It launched itself easily on to my top 10 of the year, maybe even the top 5. Literally, everyone should hear this amazing album. </p>
<p>‘Rebel’ Rod says to check it out! </p>
<p>http://fromunderthebasement.blogspot.com/2011/11/jon-brooks-delicate-cages-is-incredible.html?spref=fb </p>
<p>November, 2011</p>
Jon Brooks