BOB CARPENTER-'74 hypnotic lost Silent Passage-floored me!

[jamestkirk]

Miracle Man
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6m6nHs6mpM0


Oh my god, so brilliant...so wasted a talent due to Warner Bros contract disputes. All too common, all too sad.

...but we finally have Bob's music to revel in today!!

Singer Bob Carpenter’s ‘Silent Passage’ Resurfaces (Exclusive Song Premiere)
12:00 pm ET
Jun 25, 2014 MUSIC


Bob died of a brain tumor in 1996


By ERIC R. DANTON

Silent Passage...with Emmylou Harris
https://soundcloud.com/noquarterrex/bob ... er/s-9Ng24

Singer and songwriter Bob Carpenter seemed destined for success when he was recording his debut album “Silent Passage” for Warner Brothers in 1974, until a contract dispute shelved the LP and short-circuited Carpenter’s budding career. The album became a lost gem of its era before it finally saw release a decade later on a small Canadian label. By that point, Carpenter had more or less given up on the music business. He died in 1995 of brain cancer.

With a reissue due of “Silent Passage” due this summer, Speakeasy today premieres the title track. The song showcases the Canada-born singer’s lived-in voice with an understated arrangement that includes backing vocals from Emmylou Harris. Carpenter recorded “Silent Passage” with producer Brian Ahern, who also lined up contributions from Anne Murray, Little Feat members Lowell George and Bill Payne, and session pros Russ Kunkel on drums and Leland Sklar on bass.

“I threw Bob into the deep end of the pool knowing his great voice and aggressive, hypnotic acoustic guitar style would infect them with equally powerful performances,” Ahern writes in the liner notes of the reissue.

The 1984 release of “Silent Passage” landed Carpenter on the bills of several folk festivals, but the singer’s growing interest in Buddhism became the focal point of his life. He had moved to L.A. in early 1995 to become a Buddhist monk when he fell ill. After he was diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer, he returned to Canada, where he died later that year.

“Bob Carpenter’s affable simplicity belied his deep, poetic soul,” Ahern writes.

The reissue of “Silent Passage” is due Aug. 19 on No Quarter. What do you think of the title track? Leave your thoughts in the comments.

For more music news, follow @erdanton.

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The Rising Storm.com-



Bob Carpenter’s Silent Passage was a Warner Brothers release from 1984. Supposedly, the sessions for this album were cut between 1971 and 1973 but the Riverman Records reissue OBI strip dates Silent Passage at 1975. Artists as diverse as Tom Rush, Billy Joe Shaver and Emmylou Harris have covered Carpenter’s material.

Bob Carpenter’s rustic, gritty vocals will probably be an acquired taste but don’t let this deter you from listening to this fine album. There’s a certain spirtual vibe that cloaks Silent Passage, also, it’s not the cheeriest record but not many country-rock albums are. The lyrics usually deal with depression, isolation, loss and the occasional religious overtone but these themes are common among many early 70s country rock/Americana/singer songwriter releases. It’s closest cousin is probably Bob Martin’s classic Midwest Farm Disaster.

Key tracks are the great, eerie Americana of “Gypsy Boy,” a spiritual highlight titled “Morning Train,” the desolate “Down Along the Border,” and the depressing but strangely optimistic “The Believer.” Some tracks such as “Miracle Man” and “Old Friends” offer up a more commerical rock sound while “First Light” is a folk gem with strings and organ.

Overall this is a very good, overlooked LP with many strengths. A quiet gem for the folk-rock and country-rock fans.

Old Friends
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuzuZ7UXNNI

Morning Train
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUV8Nia4jAg

[jamestkirk]

Bob Carpenter Silent Passage
http://exclaim.ca/Reviews/FolkAndCountr ... nt_passage


By Matthew McKean

Google Bob Carpenter and you'll get business professionals, athletes, sportscasters and a Grammy-winning country artist with the same name, but negligible returns for Bob Carpenter the songwriter, who was born on a reservation near North Bay, Ontario, recorded a folk-rock album for Warner Brothers in 1974 and then promptly disappeared.

The story goes that Silent Passage was shelved due to contract problems, so though 30,000 copies were pressed, they never left the warehouse and were eventually melted down. The LP finally came out in 1984 on the small Canadian label Stony Plain Records, but by that point, Carpenter had more or less abandoned his aspirations for a career in music in favour of becoming a Buddhist monk. He died in 1995 of brain cancer.

Silent Passage suffered a cruel fate, which is a shame because it's a subtle, beguiling and thoroughly gratifying record. This is down-to-earth folk-rock, complete with all the trappings of the early '70s. The rhythm and string sections, the horns and woodwinds and the organ will appeal to those who like to surround themselves with Nick Drake-esque ephemera, while Carpenter's decidedly more rough-around-the-edges voice will speak to the Leonard Cohen and Tom Waits crowd.

Carpenter's world-weary vocals and lyrics combine to create a spiritual, seafaring (he was also a sailor) and mystic-melancholic vibe. There are gorgeous, teary ballads here, but also some upbeat, commercial offerings. The title track, "Morning Train" and "Miracle Man," with its "Afternoon Delight" feel, are standouts, but the album is full of two-and-a-half minute gems and it holds up well.

The great Halifax-born Brian Ahern produced the record. At the time, Ahern had recently discovered Anne Murray and Emmylou Harris, both of whom sing on the album (he later married Harris), and he went on to have a hall-of-fame career producing dozens of records for a long list of country music icons. The session musicians who play on Silent Passage, including Russ Kunkel, Leland Sklar, Ben Keith, Buddy Cage and Lowell George and Bill Payne of Little Feat, went on to have stellar careers of their own.

In other words, the album was an achievement for everyone but Carpenter. A few artists — Billy Joe Shaver, Tom Rush and Emmylou Harris — covered his songs, but the record and the musician remain obscure. Bob Carpenter's Silent Passage has been overlooked for far too long; hopefully, with No Quarter's reissue, it will finally get the due it deserves.
(No Quarter)

[jamestkirk]

Gypsy Boy..
...sounds like a song Tom Waits would have channeled in his gravel voiced later days.


Love this one!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7Maf9xqNTA


The Believer...a sad song that at the same time is oddly uplifting
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38hDJQ6yVrE

[jamestkirk]

BOB CARPENTER:Silent Passages 1974
aquariumdrunkard.com Los Angeles

Known names like Emmylou Harris and Billy Joe Shaver recorded his songs, but Canadian songwriter Bob Carpenter’s work has largely been overlooked, spoke of only by true believers and searchers. As is the case with so many lost records, the trouble was there right from the very start: In 1974 Carpenter recorded an album called Silent Passage for Warner Bros. Records, but the label shelved it during contract negotiations.

One look at the credits list and the move seems unthinkable. Producer Brian Ahern put together a cast including his wife at the time, Emmylou Harris, along with Anne Murray, Lowell George and Bill Payne of Little Feat, and session all-stars like bassist Leland Sklar, pedal steel guitarist Ben Keith, and drummer Russ Kunkel to provides tasteful touches to Carpenter’s spectral songs. Perhaps there was some hesitation regarding the album’s tone. Though cushioned by pillowy strings and soft Technicolor flares, Carpenter’s voice is rough-hewed, a wrinkle that even the glossy horns and lite funk of “Old Friends” can’t smooth out. On songs like “Down Along the Border” he sounds scraped raw, and he slurs his way through “Now and Then.” There’s a palpable darkness hanging over the album as well. Many of Carpenter’s peers sang about the road with a wistful longing and romance, but on “Silent Passage” Carpenter seems drawn to it out of necessity or some unnamed dread: “Before the war I had no need for traveling/ indeed I do not know what made it so important to leave.”

The record collected dust for a decade until Canadian label Stoney Plain released in 1984, but it sees its first wide release in 30 years via No Quarter Records on August 19th. Carpenter passed away in 1995, but the record’s mystic country rock vibe has proved to have staying power among the initiated. “I heard of it through Doug Paisley,” says No Quarter founder Mike Quinn. “He played me that tune ‘Silent Passage’ and I was floored.” words / j woodbury http://www.aquariumdrunkard.com/contact/