Burt Street 2026
Conscientious tunesmith creates a soundtrack of a lifetime by finding a fresh context for songs which accompanied his existence anyway.
Discovered
It may not take the ability to weave words and melodies to fully appreciate a songwriter’s talent, yet it surely helps to see many a subtlety even a popular piece, let alone a deep cut, possesses and to perceive a new meaning with each new spin of a personal favorite. Michael Veitch’s own skills in this area are undisputed, especially after Judy Collins recorded his “Veteran’s Day” – one of quite a few numbers the American artist penned about war and peace, with the Holocaust never far away from his mind, either. Still, over the course of more than three decades, the Woodstock dweller didn’t really have a chance to cover the tracks which formed his own performative perspective. Veitch wouldn’t go for the obvious on “Discovered”; instead, Michael chose mostly obscure songs, including those by his mentors Jack Hardy and Shawn Colvin. However, the byproduct of such an approach, and the listener’s potential lack of familiarity with his choices, is the musician’s complete appropriation of them.
As the exception of the instantly recognizable “Walk Away Renée” – turned into a silky ballad and associated now with the murder of Renée Good, rather than unrequited love the album’s vibrant opener, “Misunderstood” from Richard Thompson’s cache of latter-day classics, deals with – shows, Veitch’s voice and guitar convey a wide variety of sentiments, and the devil’s dozen offerings on display run the whole gamut. He can tap into the Bernard Shakey sort of tremulous grandeur on Artie Traum’s “Hungry Dogs Of New Mexico” and reach for the blues rumble to engage in the smile-inducing call-and-response on another Michael, McNevin’s “Two Feet Ahead Of The Train” with equal elegance. There’s a cabaret sway to Veitch’s handling of Anke Summerhill’s “Windowsills” – brass-splashed and brazenly funky, if sung mellifluously and given an electric sparkle, – a divine transparence in Michael’s treatment of James Taylor’s “Secret O’ Life” and a jazzy loungeness to his endearingly relaxed reading of “Brooklyn” from Andrew Harrington’s repertoire.
The latter two tracks feature the Levin brothers – respectively, bassist Tony and pianist Pete – and that’s an indication of the craftsmanship required for the emotional detail in Veitch’s delivery of these pieces, with other people involved in “Discovered” adding more brilliant nuances to it all. So when Steve Taylor’s “God Bless Johnny Cash” and Jules Shear’s “If We Never Meet Again” lead Michael back to his beloved Americana and bring things to a close after an hour of soul-searching, the feeling of sweet fatigue will set in. A sense of a pleasant, if cathartic, job done well and with impeccable taste.
*****
