Alive!
Noah Zacharin
Independent
1999
15 tracks
Noah Zacharin presents an interesting mix of folk, blues, and pop sounds. There are a couple of factors that make it interesting. One is that, where another artist might do a set that includes some of each genre, Zacharin effortlessly blends the styles so that they interact and enhance one another within almost every song. The other factor is Zacharin's voice. These days, many male folk singers strive for the sort of deep, full vocal epitomized by singers like the late Stan Rogers, and the blues singers go for a raw and raspy sound, so that even sweet-voiced lawyers go all whiskey-voiced on their weekend blues gigs. Noah Zacharin has a light sweet voice that rides above his ballsey guitar like a bluebird over a storm-swept sea.
Zacharin's vocal style should by now be considered old-fashioned, reflecting as it does the vocal interpretations of such mid-century singers as Dick Smothers, Norman Greenbaum, Keith Carradine, Peter Yarrow, and Paul Stookey to name a few. Yet his approach is not at all old-timey. Zacharin comes across not as old-fashioned or contemporary but timeless. The simplicity of both his vocals and his instrumental arrangements takes his music outside time to give it universal appeal no matter when or where it may be heard.
As live club recordings go, the songs on this release are extremely clean. Besides the title of the CD, the only clue that these are live recordings is that Zacharin has sometimes left in a bit of pre-song patter or post-song applause. While the sound does retain a certain analogue edge and fullness that I for one expect from a recording on tape, it's a very clean sound without the usual extraneous noises that tend to intrude on a club recording. Either Zacharin has a very good sound engineer or else his audience is very respectful and quiet when he's on.There's a sorrow in Zacharin's vocals, in his voice, that seems to go deeper than simply good acting. Beyond the lyrics, Zacharin's performance projects a sense of loss or longing for something past and gone. This is perhaps another difference between his interpretations and those of many contempory singers who give a cheerful lilt to even the most terrible story. Zacharin seems to be sincerely in touch with the humanity which resides within the lyric tales he sings.
It may have been a cost factor, but I was disappointed that Zacharin included lyrics for only the songs he had written and not those written by others. Out of my own sense of fairness to our fellow artists, especially when we borrow their work, I am also very surprised and disappointed that Zacharin gave lyricist/composer credits only on his own songs and not on the others. Here, for those who may be interested, are those credits: "Spoonful" by Willie Dixon, "Sweet Home Chicago" by Robert Johnson, "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" by Bob Dylan, and "On the Road Again" by Floyd Jones and Alan Wilson of Canned Heat.
[I should note that the above credits are mostly present in the copyright notice, but that's buried in an almost unreadable area inside the jewel case, where most readers will never look.]
From the first time I heard it, I have always found "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" overly long and, frankly, uninteresting. I still do. However, Zacharin brings the song a certain brightness and vitality that sounds less like Bob Dylan than John Hartford. This is perhaps the first version of this song that I could stay with right to the end.
Of the songs on this release, I prefer the blues numbers. I always liked the variant on the blues represented by artists like Canned Heat and Norman Greenbaum. Zacharin has the same feel for the blues, taking the listener back to a time when you could still distinguish hometown blues from mediocre classic rock. His performance on acoustic guitar, while simple enough, is earthy and expressive. His vocals are raw with feeling.
"Find my Baby" has an eerie swamp feel to it. It's a very visual near-blues number. Shut your eyes and it's easy to see some Ralph Bakshi animated teenage anti-hero roaming blue-lit late night city streets peering into windows and poking into places he should not be.
"Drinkin' Hard Tonight" is a more standard slow blues number. It rolls along with a steady rhythm ornamented by bright shards of guitar. The vocal tells a sad story of love lost and lamented. The lyric and the music are perhaps over-simple, but they're tightly written and, as a blues song, they work.
Zacharin performs "On the Road Again" much in the spirit of the original. Although this song was written and first performed only about four decades ago, it was written by two blues scholars and drew upon the traditional blues made decades before that. Zacharin' acoustic version could have as easily come out of the Thirties as the Sixties. While I could have lived without some of the awkwardness of the guitar solo during the bridge, this is over all a very cool treatment of Canned Heat's song.
Opening as it does with a very "Spirit in the Sky" sound, it's "Spoonful" which most reminds me of Norman Greenbaum's approach to the blues. That intro only serves to draw attention to Zacharin's high-end vocals, another trademark of Greenbaum. This is perhaps the best [in my opinion at least] blues number on this release.
Zacharin's "Sweet Home Chicago" seems to ignore the influence of later harder-rocking versions and revert to the song's roots. This is an acoustic version that could easily have been performed seventy or eighty years ago. This is a comfortable blues you can slip into like a big easy chair and relax while it takes you away.
The balance of the songs on Alive! are singer songwriter performances with a folkish edge, sometimes slipping over into the pop world. While they are well sung and played, they pale in comparison to the blues songs.
Alive! is Noah Zacharin's third release. The polish that comes with experience is evident in almost every aspect of this product, from the selection of songs to the finished packaging for the CD and jewel box. It's the music, though, that makes this release interesting and worth having.
Anyone interested in learning more about Noah Zacharin and his music will find information, including music clips, at www.NoahSong.com.
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