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Jenny Doveson This music comes through a young Swedish small-town woman of 21 – who wrote most of these songs way before that, in her 20th and 19th year – maybe even before that… but it is extremely clear that her songwriting skills, as well as her singing and playing abilities, cannot be immediately referred to her young present life, but – of course – in many ways to her former life(s), where she has been doing something equally creative. I interviewed the artist last spring, quite extensively, and after that we couldn’t see eye to eye on a few matters, but I really don’t care about that; it’s just part of life and existence. Here I breeze briefly through this CD, which – although I’ve heard these songs since the spring of 2009 – seem a little different, a little more coherent and even more striking, in their CD guise, where they’ve reached a kind of finality, and I’m not thinking about the slight differences from the pre-CD versions, like the addition of a banjo here and something else there, but simply the decision to let it be this way and no other way. That in itself has a value, a certain strength – and magic. Even though I understand well the workings of influences and tendencies from former lives in an artist like Jenny Doveson, it is still HER work presented here, and she has done this all by herself, picking up her guitar just a few years ago at 17. This, in addition to what she has retained from earlier lives, has put a lot of demands on her, like fanatic rehearsing and fingering practices, the studying of songwriting traditions and suitable guitar keys and so on, after which all this knowledge, new and re-discovered, had to filter through her personality, which, still, in THIS life (she says it herself) is pretty poor; rather inexperienced. This music is like too fine a wine in a not quite suiting wineskin: the things come in the “wrong” order. This is unusual, except when it comes to that form of connection to the great knowledge of the collective consciousness that the savants represent, but Doveson does not belong in that group at all. She just happen to have an incredible amount of creative effect in her lap, and it might be overwhelming to handle, but this CD shows that she can and that she will. I’m sure, though, that the massive strength of her art has surprised her very much when it has matured so fast under her eyes and fingers.
The richness of these songs is to be found in the overall atmosphere of them; not in the detail, usually. This is probably because she has written them, to a large degree, intuitively. The texts are sometimes strange; even grammatically questionable – and she almost made a statement by not using the corrections I showed her way earlier, concerning some of these strange lingual mistakes, even though it meant showing these blemishes to one and all. Most people won’t even notice them, though (people are incredibly ignorant) and she will strive for any perfection that is attainable on later CDs, I’m sure, when she is freer from herself and doesn’t any longer feel that she has to make statements or draw lines that only hurt herself. The title song – All These Wasteful Hours – that on the CD is called In All These Wasteful Hours – is one of my favorites out of Jenny Doveson’s bag. It has a classical ring to it right from the start, and the accompanying banjo by Anders Pettersson renders the tune this extra ring that lifts it way above the average, and above most on this CD – and it has to do with the atmosphere, like I said before, but also with the recurring title words, which make you think in a certain way. The melody, in addition, swings and bends and breathes in an uncanny way. Doveson has an ingenious playing technique, letting the song gasp and sigh along the score, slowing down her great guitar playing momentarily at one brief instance to gather strength and momentum, where after she releases the amassed pressure like water rising behind a dam: masterly! This is one of the definite hit songs on this folk idiom release; a release, which must be categorized as sensational and completely original, however much everyone is going to refer to early Greenwich Village 1960s. Golden Gates was the first song that Jenny Doveson wrote; at least the first one she finished, as she told me in an interview. It is also one of the strongest, in my mind. It’s also a song for which I know the reason. It was an article in a paper about a lady that turned 107. However, it’s the tune itself – the urgent melody – and the aspect of the song, presented out of the view of that old person about to cross over from this life to her Bardo between lives. It is so touching, and Jenny Doveson’s lyrics touch my heart directly here, as I can imagine – remember! – my beloved late mother fumble with her keys at the door to Heaven, even though she, who was a thoroughly good person without blemishes, would have been very much welcomed to Heaven. I prefer to think about her nowadays as a Buddha who has reached liberation and enlightenment – but Jenny Doveson’s song here makes me clearly picture my mom at the gates of Heaven, nervous and humble – but completely righteous. It’s amazing that a song can touch me this deeply! I was amazed when I first heard Golden Gates; I still am.
The final song is an eerie one; It’s Getting Cold, Mama. It’s a blues, to begin with, in which Jenny Doveson shows that she can play – wail! – that harmonica as well as anyone you can think of – and you might think of a few certain guys when you hear Jenny’s harp! There are seven more tracks on the CD, but I’ve just dwelled on my three favorites here. Make no mistake, though; all the songs are more than worthwhile, and if anything works in this world of fast communications, Jenny Doveson’s name will take off and fly across the continents. There’s a hunger for the kind of art she provides; I can sense it – and it may also show some other artists that anything really is possible, if you set your heart to it. |
