Bruce Cockburn
Circles In the Stream

Bruce Cockburn is an extraordinary songwriter that I have always loved.

A prodigious guitarist (just listen to his instrumental collection "Speechless" to realize it), a calm and modest singer but adequate to his style, with an intimate and spiritual music that manages to touch the deepest chords of the soul and delivers pure, intense emotions that are difficult to describe in words.

His harmonies, never banal, evoke bucolic images of forests, sunsets, lakes, snowy landscapes (a bit like the sensations inspired by the new age, only Bruce started almost forty years ago!), while his lyrics, although tending to a certain individualistic perspective, also tell of the social world with its problems, sometimes leading to political protest. I was fortunate enough to see him in concert at the end of the '70s. While I was in line for the ticket, I glimpsed a friend who had attended the soundcheck and who, with a bewildered look, said to me: "On that stage, there is God who has descended to earth and brought his guitar...". Perhaps an over-the-top allegory but one I fully share and which expresses all the charisma and entity of the character. And after this long encomium, I move on to the album in question.

I chose "Circles in the Stream" for two reasons: first, because it was the first work of his I listened to and therefore the one that sparked in me the classic "love at first sight", then because this 'live' recorded in Toronto in 1977 is a happy synthesis of the first part of his career, the so-called 'acoustic period' (in my opinion the best) which goes from 1970 to 1976 and consists of the release of seven splendid albums, each more beautiful than the last, from which the material for this anthology was taken, along with the addition of five previously unreleased tracks. The brief prologue "The pipes the pipes" led by a bagpipe introduces "Starwheel", a beautiful evocative ballad with Neil Young-like reminiscences, followed by the rarefied and meditative poetry of "Never so free"; it continues with "Deer dancing round a broken mirror", an instrumental guitar piece played in open tuning, in which the Canadian showcases all his exemplary finger-picking; next is "Homme brûlant", a dreamy chanson sung in French, enriched by refined jazz counterpoints by the brilliant musicians accompanying him; follows "Free to be", a lively country-flavored episode that paves the way to one of the two masterpieces of the album: "Mamma just wants to barrelhouse all night long", a stunning and memorable blues for voice and guitar, filled with intense musicality (it's absurd that such a beautiful song has never been covered); soft and sinuous begins the second instrumental for guitar: "Cader idris", technically impeccable but maybe a bit dull; after the tender "Arrows of light", the festive yet melancholic country of "One day I walk" returns, leading to "Love song", characterized by a gentle Celtic atmosphere; with the seductive "Red brother red sister", Bruce honors the Canadian Native Americans; it continues with "Lord of the starfields", a deep and passionate mystical ballad (also appreciated by the English bishop Nick Baines who praised the union of rock and religious faith); the reflective break of "All the diamonds in the world" leads to the second masterpiece in voice & guitar formula: "Dialogue with the devil", a tormented twilight blues that at times reveals a David Crosby-like inspiration and contains a stunning solo made more incisive by the flanger effect applied to his six-string acoustic; the exultant "Joy will find a way" and the farewell "God, bless the children" conclude the concert, undoubtedly much appreciated by the audience.

After this work, Cockburn released three more excellent albums, then he started gradually changing direction musically by adopting choices that did not quite meet my tastes, therefore I have somewhat lost sight of (or rather 'ear' of) him. I highly recommend everyone to listen to his first eleven records (it is highly recommended to use headphones to catch all the nuances of his music).