Acclaimed songwriters Richard Shindell & Lucy Kaplansky in concert at Odeum March 4

Posted 2/17/16

As solo artists, Lucy Kaplansky and Richard Shindell have been making critically acclaimed albums since the early 1990s, and each have contributed harmonies to every one of those albums. But with …

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Acclaimed songwriters Richard Shindell & Lucy Kaplansky in concert at Odeum March 4

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As solo artists, Lucy Kaplansky and Richard Shindell have been making critically acclaimed albums since the early 1990s, and each have contributed harmonies to every one of those albums. But with the exception of 1998’s one-off “Cry Cry Cry” album with Dar Williams, the two songwriters have never made an album together - that is, until now. And it’s been worth the wait.

As The Pine Hill Project, Lucy and Richard have released “Tomorrow You’re Going,” (Signature Sounds), an Americana masterwork produced by multi-instrumentalist and two-time Grammy Award winner Larry Campbell (best known for his work with Levon Helm and as part of Bob Dylan’s touring band, as well as sideman for Sheryl Crow and Willie Nelson). The album also features bassist Byron Isaacs, pianist Bill Payne (Little Feat), and drummer Dennis McDermott.

“Tomorrow You’re Going” is an evocative, sometimes rollicking, deeply moving collection of 11 songs from writers as diverse as Greg Brown (“Lately”), Nick Lowe (“I Live on a Battlefield”), even U2 (“Sweetest Thing”) and Elizabeth Ziman (“Open Book”). There’s also the lovely, wistful country twang they bring to Little Feat’s “Missing You” and Porter Wagoner & Dolly Parton’s “Making Plans” from which the album’s title is culled.

For Richard and Lucy, the album represents a homecoming to the music that set them both on the creative path. Ironically, one of the album’s overarching themes is the impossibility of going home, of undoing what’s been done, of going back in time. Lucy and Richard’s stunning harmonies powerfully evoke this sense of loss, while at the same time calling us all home to the broad cultural field where Americana, Folk, Country, Pop, and Roots Music meet. Rarely have two singers sounded so perfectly suited to each other and to the repertoire. They bring a new and deeply personal musical sensibility to this treasure trove of songs.

The name The Pine Hill Project was Richard’s idea. “I was reading Verlyn Klinkenborg’s The Rural Life right around the time we were looking for a name for the project,” Richard explains. “The second of these two sentences seemed to speak somehow to the idea of finding our own sound and voice, being who we are, and finding our own perspective on the broad, wide-open genre known as Americana: ‘It was a basic trope of Thoreau’s mind to search for a point of view slightly higher than the one you could gain from the top of Pine Hill. He couldn’t say what you might see from the very highest vantage point, but perhaps his own was high enough.’”

And indeed, the sound and the vision of The Pine Hill Project is lofty, timeless and beautiful.

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