Live Reviews

WHITSTABLE FOLK CLUB (UK) Live Show Review Nov 2010
Canadian singer-songwriter Cara Luft was one of the highlights of last year’s folk club programme, delighting fans with her unique blend of folk, country, blues and rock. It turns out the admiration was mutual – she couldn’t wait to get back to the town and what she described as one of the best clubs in the country.

And what a return it was. Cara’s songs are often personal and always heartfelt, and she’s had some tough times since her last visit. She’s worked some of those experiences into new songs, but what shone through her lyrics was not just the raw heartache but the positive spirit that brings you out the other side, especially in Gonna Be Alright.

And if that all sounds a bit heavy, there was lightness too, and humour, particularly in the song she penned after her experiences being hauled over while crossing the border from Canada into the US. Moral to that tale – never let a friend leave something in your car that could get you into trouble.

Cara sang about the importance of friends – and judging by the applause at the end of the evening, she certainly made a lot of new ones here.

LEITH FOLK CLUB (Scotland) Live Show Review in the Scotsman **** (4 STARS)
THERE’S clearly some great word of mouth about Leith Folk Club going around among grassroots North American singer-songwriters, such artists having formed an increasingly frequent and rewarding strand of its weekly Tuesday night programme.

Born in Calgary and based in Winnipeg, Cara Luft spent three years as co-founder of acclaimed close-harmony trio the Wailin’ Jennys, before leaving in 2005 to resume her solo career. The troubadour life clearly suits her: appearing in Leith ahead of several similarly intimate gigs in the Highlands, she had already been touring in Europe since early June, yet there was nothing remotely jaded about their performance, just plenty of relaxed warmth and vivacity, including some hilariously extended anecdotes describing the origins of particular songs.

As represented primarily by tracks from her second solo album, The Light Fantastic, plus a few from its predecessors and the odd Wailin’ Jennys cut, Luft’s main musical heartland lies in country-folk territory, to which she brought an assertively strong, clear, pliant voice, with an assured command of dynamic nuance and contrast.

In its balance of dulcet sweetness and tangy twang, her singing also contained shades of Nanci Griffith and Mindy Smith, along with the steely, bluesy muscle flexed in a couple of rockier numbers, Give It Up (“about boys who need to grow up before they can fall in love with a real woman – like me!”), and You’re No Friend of Mine, a wry retrospective riposte to schooldays humiliation. A compelling cover of Led Zeppelin’s Black Mountainside, working in echoes of the Bert Jansch/Pentangle version, displayed the breadth and expertise of her musical references, while a winsome rendition of The Bonnie Lighthorseman offered further graceful acknowledgement of the folk-club setting.

THE STAR PHOENIX (Saskatoon) – Cara Opening for Loudon Wainwright
“[Opening for Loudon] was the wonderful Cara Luft, one-time Wailin’ Jenny and now touring solo. Straight in off the road from Winnipeg, Luft played a number of new songs from an upcoming album. Moving between two guitars and a fivestring banjo, she played There’s a Train, She’s Been Charged!, Portland Town and two stunners, Black Water Side and Come All You Sailors.  Luft had a big impact on the Saskatoon crowd, telling a few ripping stories and some great banjo jokes. So, she asked, how do you tune a banjo? Nobody knows.”

HOUSE OF BLUES (Germany) Live Show Review October 2010
(Translation) Cara Luft Spoils her Audience with Original Music/Serious Folk Music
She’s not particularly the biggest person (body-wise), and with her curly hair, simple dress, green-black striped knee length socks and footware she doesn’t look like the typical folk star.  More like the girl next door.

This Canadian Folk Singer doesn’t need high heels or glitter in order to make her noticeable, she convinces through being natural and having charisma.  Her instrument and voice are enough.  It is a voice that takes listeners to the place the song describes, that caresses them, warms them, awakens them, urges and calls.  A voice that is reminiscent of Joan Baez and Joni Mitchell but exudes so much independence and authenticity that there is no doubt about who is on the stage.

Her songs are a snap-shot of life.  In good singer/song-writer style she brings real life situations into her songs but isn’t shy of bringing classics such as Led Zeppelin’s instrumental “Black Mountain Side” into her own funky style.  She has no reservations either in music or her own life.  During the break she stood in front of the audience and chatted with them as though it was the most natural thing to do in the world.

Back on the stage, this young lady who loves to laugh transforms once more into a focussed musician.  Each song is different, ranging from those using acoustic guitars and banjos and moves with instinctive sureness in their genre between melodic songs, sophisticated arrangements and tough protest songs.

Romance doesn’t get a raw deal either.  “My Darling One” is laidback with lots of airy melodies and reminds us of our first great love.  It doesn’t last too long if one believes the song “Bye Bye Love.”  With “Jerusalem” she takes the middle east conflict on and in the song “Dallaire” rivers of blood flow from fallen fighters.

Cara Luft didn’t come alone to Germany.  As support she brought English singer and guitar player Scott Poley who accompanies her on her European Tour.  A good choice, because the Liverpudlian shows off an explosion of his guitar tricks, and being ever the gentleman, his playing doesn’t do a diservice to the melody.  Luft and Poley don’t just fascinate here in Eutingen, but have done so already in many other towns before that, and some fans travelled from Darmstadt, Frankfurt and also 20 kilometers from Gulstein to be spoilt by Cara Luft and the “Light Fantastic” (the name of her latest CD).

CAFE CASTANEDA (Germany) Live Show Review
Happy End in Harbshausen
Too much going on in the night before Halloween, a small audience found its way to Café Castaneda.  Cara Luft didn’t let this spoil her mood in Harbshausen, but provided funny anecdotes from previous performances, fresh songs with individual choruses and the invitation to sing along because as she was on the last leg of her tour she would be able to give away the prize for the best choir.  The title of the coolest venue had already been taken by Café Castaneda before the first song.

The dense guitar playing that the Canadian singer-songwriter and her British companion Scott Poley unleashed at the beginning of the show promised that this was not necessarily just a social event.

By the third piece, with the frequently used refrain “My Darling One”, the first and gladly accepted invitation to sing along came from the happy go lucky country singer, three other opportunities (eg Bring em all in) were to follow.

Depth didn’t fall by the wayside with so many happy people because between the cheerful songs there was sufficient room for dark themes, harmonies to make you hang your head (No Friend) or tricky guitar playing with which Scott and Cara transformed the almost already dirge like ballad “She Moved Through the Fair” into a vibrant promise.

Cara’s presentation of Jerusalem was also coined by aggressive longing and restless rhythms, a composition that stands for the desire for release of expression and of difficulties, that one is losing their way and there is no easy way out.  The song “Gonna be alright” is also about getting your life in order.  In this particular song of optimism the young vocalist clearly trudges her way step by step out of the valley of tears, while her colleague Scott knocks out the rhythm on the body of his guitar.

The programme had variety with songs of varying moods, though singing “Dallaire” (about genocide in Rwanda) Cara Luft showed she was a great songwriter.

Her small but firm Harbshauser followers called for Cara Luft and Scott Poley to play more than the usual two encores and even got one or two extra anecdotes from the tour, including a story about a packed-full local in which the organiser couldn’t provide an amplifier and where the concert was a joy on the ears for the first row.  The PA in Castaneda had easily managed to get a full house absorbed.  Next year the young vocalist will come to Harbshausen with her new album.

HOUSE OF BLUES (Germany) Another Live Show Review October 2010
Where Beautiful Music is In the Air
The Canadian Singer Cara Luft Charms in “House of Blues”

Bob Michaels (alias Robert Michael Krause) has operated his “House of Blues” by the train station of Hochdorf for a year and a half.  Ever since then there has been an international music series – continually coming and going.  On Sunday Cara Luft from Canada charmed with Folk music.

Together with guitar player Scott Poley from Liverpool, Cara Luft fascinated the audience with her glass clear voice, perfect guitar playing and wonderfully acoustic folksongs.  And they were initially seen by some guests merely as background music – a shame.

Her fan Kai travelled especially from Darmstadt with a group of people.  Therefore Cara Luft devoted the entire concert to him.  Cara Luft was taken by the fact that some music lovers had made the pilgrimage to Hochdorf on a Sunday evening.  Then 2 journalists focus their cameras on the music lovers: “through you we feel like Rockstars” grins Cara Luft.  In each and every note sung and every finger pluck of the guitar you could tell that Cara Luft grew up in a family of professional folk musicians.  She began to sing at the tender age of 4.  She was the founder member of the much acclaimed Folk trio “The Wailin’ Jennys” and was recognised with a Juno award, the Canadian equivalent of a Grammy.  She has been solo since 2005.

Despite the partly electric and rock arrangements of her CD “The Light Fantastic” being missing on Sunday, Cara Luft proved that traditional Folk music doesn’t have to sound stale, whether that was with her own songs such as “No friend of mine”, or the banjo classic “Portland Town” from Derroll Adams or with the well-known Led-Zeppelin traditional folk song “Black Water Side”.

Cara Luft pulled the audience under her spell with one song especially: “It’s not mine” she insists in a song based on a true story.  For at the American border she was found with a bag of grass in her car, that had been left there and forgotten by a friend.  The audience at least believed her more than the customs did: “it’s not hers” they sang loudly with her.

“Although we haven’t played any Blues it was an honour for us to play in the House of Blues”, thanked the singer.