| Sandy Andina's
light-hearted matronly folk songs chronicle low-key middle-class experiences: a weekend
retreat with the hubby drinking wine and soaking in Calgon; riding the El in the midst of
dense fog; watching a son grow from cradle to dorm.
It's not exactly the stuff of rock and roll
glamour, especially since Andina's originality and ambition are almost as unassuming as
her subject matter. The multi-talented singer-songwriter--a sometime comedienne, acoustic
guitarist and mountain dulcimer teacher--is coming off a long hiatus from a Chicago
coffeehouse career that began in 1980. She cut her teeth in venues like the now-defunct
Barbarossa and His 'n' Hers. Despite assembling dozens of songs over 30 years of
songwriting, this is her first CD.
Andina is no Joni Mitchell as a lyricist, and
her vocals lack the slick polish many pop radio listeners have come to take for granted.
What she is, however, is a mom-next-door with a very well-produced CD full of hummable
homey songs appealing to an audience left out by the hyper-hip sex 'n' philosophy of the
rock and roll scene.
The most remarkable performance on the album is
not Andina's, as solid and entertaining as she is: it belongs to producer Ralph Covert of
the Bad Examples, a local music giant. As with one of my favorite local records or recent
years (Matt Tiegler's Gods and Heroes) Andina's album came about after the
artist finished Covert's songwriting class at the Old Town School of Folk Music. Ghosts
and Angels, which jumps from one musical tradition to the next like a juke box in a
folk bar, lacks the freshness of Tiegler's very original record, but both CDs boast
Covert's clearly expert ear and gift for casting musicians. Check out the breadth of
stylistic borrowing on the 12 tracks on Andina's album: "A Girl Could Get Used to
This" opens the CD with Ben Lewis' flourishing gospel piano, subsequently giving way
to an upbeat jazz-folk arrangement with hot jazz solos by violinist John Knudzen. "A
Little Loyalty" is one of the album's few straight-ahead rock tracks. "Devil
Wind" surrounds Andina's voice with a snappy arrangement de Espana
featuring well-miked flugelhorn solos by Matt Lewis and Spanish guitar solos by Tom
Kimball. "Little Tomorrow," an ode to Andina's son, is a gratingly sentimental
lullaby transformed into something eminently listenable via some brightly recorded dobro,
vibraphone and dulcimer. "Fais Do Do" is credible Cajun complete with accordion
and "frottoir" by Mojo. "Pass the Bottle" is a 1950s-style "torch
song for married couples," in the words of Andina's liner notes. "If Pigs Could
Fly" is a hoe down for kids that Andina says she wrote after a few too many
renditions of "Sesame Street" and "Swinging on a Star."
"Fog," a sort of noir jazz tune, is less successful in appropriating its style
than most of the other tracks. "Ink and Pen" and "Vote Early" return
to the six-man-folk-band format. "Vote Early" is the album's cleverest track--a
satire on good old-fashioned Chicago patronage, graft 'n' intimidation ("Get your ass
down to the polling place /and vote like we told you to do / or we won't pick up your
garbage / we'll have it delivered to you"). "A Man Could Hurt Himself"
features a somewhat overwrought rock arrangement that's a bit out of place on the record
(if anything can be out of place on an album this diverse). "Ghosts and Angels"
finishes with a haunting folk-pop ode to the pre-1990s Chicago folk scene.
It all adds up to a solid CD debut for someone
who until now has been content to stick to the stage.
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