‘Frozen 2’ more emotional, mature

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Henry faces down illness with creative gush

 ‘Frozen 2’, Various artists (Walt Disney Records)

No, there’s no new “Let It Go”. Let it go.

The “Frozen 2” soundtrack brings together everyone’s favorite princesses – Elsa and Anna – the snowman Olaf, good guy Kristoff and his faithful reindeer, Sven, for an impossible task: improving or matching the first “Frozen” movie’s songs.

Songwriters Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez have offered seven – six, if we’re being honest – original songs and they’re all lovely, rooted in Broadway traditional structures and each playing a key role in keeping the animated film moving. None will spend 33 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 charts like “Let It Go” but they deserve to be cherished on their own merits.

The template hasn’t really changed. Like in the first, everyone gets a song – Josh Gad’s Olaf sings his comedic “When I Am Older”, Idina Menzel gets the roof-raising (closest thing to “Let It Go”) “Into the Unknown”, Jonathan Groff’s Kristoff has the melancholy (and slightly reminiscent of a lost tune by the band Chicago) “Lost in the Woods” and Kristen Bell’s Anna closes it out with the mournful “The Next Right Thing”.

But this time Evan Rachel Wood – as Elsa and Anna’s deceased mother – sings “All Is Found” and joins Menzel on “Show Yourself”. Norwegian singer Aurora lends the soundtrack a whole bunch of spooky ahhhs and ooooohs as a supernatural presence. One nice touch is all four leads singing together in the sweet “Some Things Never Change”, which, with its refrain of “I’m holding on tight to you” is the inverse of “Let It Go”.

We get a direct link to the first film with the song fragment “Reindeer(s) Are Better Than People (Cont.)” and it is awesome to hear Menzel’s voice in fifth gear again. But missing are the inventive lyrics from the first, the “frozen fractals all around” and “Bees’ll buzz/kids’ll blow dandelion fuzz.” The lyrics this time are straightforward, less playful. It’s a more emotional album than the first, more mature and internal.

The album also includes remakes of three of the songs that play over the end credits. Panic! At The Disco superbly redo “Into the Unknown” into a glam rock song. Kacey Musgraves does a rootsy, almost Simon and Garfunkel version of “All Is Found” and Weezer does a very Weezer take on “Lost in the Woods”. The whole album is wonderful, but it has unattainably big snowshoes to fill.

“The Gospel According to Water”, Joe Henry (earMUSIC)

Given a few months to live released a creative gush in Joe Henry and the result is “The Gospel According to Water”, one of the best albums of his fruitful career.

Fortunately, Henry’s cancer is in remission while he continues to get treatment and his 15th solo studio album is being released a year to the day of his diagnosis.

Henry’s production work has won him three Grammys but, as the proverb says, sometimes it’s the shoemaker who wears the worst shoes. Henry proves it wrong by making a wise choice regarding his own work and leaving the 13 songs, which he initially viewed as demos, as stark and direct as they were recorded.

Accompanying himself on guitar, the sparse but supportive backing comes from the likes of son Levon on sax and clarinet, guitarist John Smith and Patrick Warren on keyboards.

Henry sings with his usual expressiveness but without exaggerating and doesn’t consider the songs “dark in nature” despite their time of origin, but rather a reflection of “gratitude, compassion to self” and being in love with life.

This is evident on tunes like the title track, “In Time for Tomorrow”, “Book of Common Prayer” and “Bloom” – songs that sound, at times, as if they could have been on Bob Dylan’s “Blood on the Tracks” had it been his reconciliation album instead of divorce.

Though there are concentrated mentions of death and prayers, one of the words heard most often is “light.”

Those who believe in miracles and trust in music’s healing power may consider the outstanding “The Gospel According to Water” as a pilgrimage, but even the skeptics and agnostics will be stirred by the depth and beauty of Joe Henry’s songs.

Also:

NASHVILLE, Tenn: Rock & Roll Hall of Fame nominees The Doobie Brothers are joining with singer and songwriter Michael McDonald for a 50th anniversary tour next year.

McDonald, who sang with the band starting in 1975 before starting his own solo career, surprised fans at The Doobie Brothers concert with a performance of “Takin’ it to the Streets” on Monday in Nashville, Tennessee, at the Ryman Auditorium.

Formed in Northern California, the group featured harmonies backed by the finger-picking style of guitarist Patrick Simmons paired with the R&B guitar playing by Tom Johnston, singing lead. They had hits with “Listen to the Music”, “Long Train Runnin’” and “China Grove”.

They earned two Grammys with McDonald for “What a Fool Believes” and “Minute By Minute”. The tour will begin June 9 in West Palm Beach, Florida. (AP)

By Mark Kennedy

This news has been read 5766 times!