In The Winter
Raymond Yates
Picador Records
1999
10 tracks
Listening to In The Winter is like walking into a big empty room in an old house. While you may be present in the here and now, the room surrounds you with a multitude of echoes. Unlike many young artists, Raymond Yates doesn't simply fill his songs with influences like borrowed furniture. Rather, he restores what he has heard to its former beauty, in the process creating something fresh and new.
A young artist, Raymond Yates shows surprising maturity in this, his debut release. As with all young artists, there is room for growth, but Yates has already gone a considerable way down that road. His lyrics are tightly written and evocative. His music is a complex, well-crafted blend of traditional and original sounds.
While Yates is a capable song writer, what makes In The Winter exceptional is his approach to the music. It is as a producer (at least of his own material and in partnership with Jothan Sargent) that he shows his greatest potential. This is not another of those soundalike singer/songwriter releases. Indeed, Yates eschews that designation, choosing instead the similar but somehow different "songwriter/vocalist" to describe himself as an artist. That may be what makes the difference: that unlike some others who put singing first, his priority is the songs.
Yates' arrangements are an intriguing blend of folk music and jazz ornamented with bits from the folkish end of both country music and rock and roll. The effect can be quite striking.
"Take You Home" is like one of those prismatic plastic toys you turn ever so slightly in the sunlight to reveal two pictures on the same surface. The echoes are here, not as direct copies of anything but more like allusions to times past. "Cottonfields" and "The Golden Rocket" can both be heard at different points in this song. This prism unites folk and country allusions in part through the words of the song, in part through some interesting shifts in melody, and in part through the combination of very folky roots drumming and a strong country fiddle. This first song sets the tone for the remainder of In The Winter.
"Wherever I Go" pulls the listener into the world of cool jazz. The mix here is rich, the sort of sound that backed up Roberta Flack thirty or so years ago. The lyrics and vocal style bring to the song a very Bill Withers feel.
"Goodbye, My Lady" begins with a guitar intro reminiscent of several Led Zeppelin recordings, then shifts into Leonard Cohen mode. The lyrics give the illusion of traditional folk, but the images and the theme carry the richness and darkness of a Cohen classic. Yates sings the song soulfully coarse like Cohen does. The drawn out cello and mandolin played like bouzouki only serve to enhance the effect. To a lesser degree, "Wherever I go" also has a certain resemblance to some of Cohen's work.
"Sunshine Sun" takes us back to some of the finer folk recordings by James Taylor in his early years. Over the light folk-rock instrumental, Yates has laid a poetic lyric that might have been written by Taylor himself or perhaps Cat Stevens. Again, there are the melodic shifts that give this music a quality all its own.
"That's Enough for Now" is either heavily influenced by Bob Dylan's "The Times They are Achanging" or else is drawn from the same traditional roots. The song is striking in both its similarities to and its differences from the Dylan song.
At some point following the official recording, there is the now obligatory extra track (which on some recordings is a bonus but more often than not is just more of the same). This track is fun. The recording is an experimental, strange, probably mostly extemporaneous piece that include quirky instrumental bits, cartoon voices, and other weirdness. It's the sort of thing you either like or not. I like it.
It is much to Raymond Yates' credit that he has not merely aped his influences but has built of them a solid foundation upon which his already impressive personal style is built. It will be interesting to see what age and experience will bring to the songs of Raymond Yates.
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