Barbie Angell

I’ve never written a review of an album.  I can’t imagine why that is given my vast knowledge and immense adoration of so many varieties of music.  In fact, I was so passionate about the song “Pursuit of Happiness” from Nuno Bettencourt’s Schizophonic album that the word “pursuit” is one of my two tattoos.  And yet, my website holds multiple book reviews but none for any band or collection of songs…until now.

I didn’t choose to write something about Rare Bird Alert because of my on-line persona’s fictitious “crush” on Steve Martin.  It wasn’t something spawned of spending a few hours laughing with Steep Canyon Rangers’ fiddle player Nicky Sanders.  I wanted to write this because, after listening to the album a few times, I felt I understood it as a concept.  It didn’t appear to be a random selection of pieces chaotically strewn together.  Instead the songs complemented each other as if woven carefully by a lovely, old Southern woman quilting on her porch.  In my opinion that intricate thread which slips in and out of each song is love.

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