Laura Sandage: Reviews

"This year's sweetest surprise was hearing Laura's songs. They are quite wonderful. Give a listen."

SONGS ABOUT LOSS DON'T ALWAYS MAKE YOU FEEL BAD

These are not the lyrics you find in an ordinary song:

“I’ve been walking closer to death
Sometimes I feel the frosty breath.”

Seeing them on this page, you won’t be able to imagine the warm-toned music that accompanies them: a beautiful voice, a lively guitar, a haunting flute.

This song is my current favorite on a new CD where every melody resonates with me. The singer/songwriter is Laura Sandage, a Davis resident, who made the CD for Yolo Hospice with funding from the City of Davis.

I hope that everyone involved in this project—many contributed their time and skills for free—feels proud of what they created: a musical tribute to life. It will be useful to people who are dying or grieving, but it can also stir the spirit of anyone who loves good music and fine words.

Like Yolo Hospice itself, this CD is paradoxically more about living than dying. It’s about taking the life you have left, whether it’s 40 years or six months, and making the most of it.

I feel particularly connected to this music because, like Laura Sandage, I serve as a “patient volunteer” for Yolo Hospice. The first track on the CD, “Comfort,” describes the role of a patient volunteer with such precision and eloquence that the next time someone asks me why I do this work, I can sing my answer.

“I see you ‘cause I choose to
You show me another way to live
Just being here with you.”

The title of the CD, as carefully chosen as everything else, is “In Equal Measure: Songs for the Tender Witness.” The songs, all but two written by Sandage, were selected by Yolo Hospice personnel who knew it was important to choose upbeat melodies and a combination of messages.

I know from experience that hospice workers tend to laugh, smile and hug a lot. Several songs on this album make me feel like doing all those things. The exuberance of the last track, “Dance,” makes me want to get up in a crowd and boogie.

One song is harder for me to listen to. Dedicated to the memory of a Davis mom, Sandage’s friend who lived 11 years beyond her diagnosis of cancer, it expresses a mother’s longing to see her children grow up.

Sandage explains, “I awoke one morning having dreamed a line of a song, but I didn’t know what the song as a whole was about. I had only these words: ‘Will you give me time to wash all their faces?’ It was like having one clue to a mystery.”

Sandage got up quickly and wrote, and from that fragment created “Will you give me time?” one of the most poignant maternal appeals I’ve ever listened to. It’s worth shedding a tear or two to hear it.

“When things come in my dreams, I take them seriously,” Sandage says. She tries to write down words immediately, just like I do. Occasionally, music comes to her and she’ll get up and make a recording of “some snippet of something,” before it slips from memory.

Which comes first, the words or the music?

“It depends,” she says. “I’m word-led for the most part. Sometimes I write words only and I have no music in my head, or maybe I have a bit of rhythm but no melody. Sometimes something comes that’s just musical sounds and I don’t know what words go with it, but that’s less often. Sometimes they both come: boom, already there.”

And the rhymes?

“Sometimes they come easily, and sometimes you’re there with the rhyming dictionary making lists of possible words.”

Training is also part of the story. Sandage played the piano and cello as a child, began voice lessons at 15, and majored in voice performance at the University of the Pacific Conservatory. She took up the guitar when she found one in a garage sale in 2001. She began song writing in 2003, around the time she became a Yolo Hospice volunteer, and describes her production at that time as “volcanic.”

My current favorite song comes from that period.

It includes the lines,

“This life that I’m living fills with thanksgiving
With every step I take closer to death.”

I know you can’t dance to the music, twirl around like Tinkerbell, and suddenly look at death without fear. But, as many people have written before me, the prospect of death confers on us--if not wisdom or fearlessness--at least the perspective to recognize that life is precious. New babies are one way to get that perspective; death is another.

This CD celebrates that truth.

If you’d like a copy of “In Equal Measure”, you can buy it at Armadillo Music or, better yet, make a contribution to Yolo Hospice (1909 Galileo Court, Davis, 95618). If you request a copy, Yolo Hospice will send it to you as a “thank you” gift. If you like the music as much as I do, you’ll end up getting a second copy to give to someone else.

LAURA SANDAGE: Bloom (available through www.laurasandage.com)

I have a very difficult time picking my “favorite” things. I don’t have a favorite food, or color, or place to go on vacation. So when my daughter asked me to name my favorite song on Laura Sandage’s new CD, “Bloom,” it didn’t surprise me that I could not come up with an answer. However, if you sat me down under a bright light and forced me to choose my favorite album by a contemporary songwriter, there’s a very good chance it would be “Bloom.”

This album is gorgeous, both musically and visually. Every song brings new delights to the ear, the arrangements are rich and clean, the audio production is superb. Even the packaging is enchanting, with lyrics (I always appreciate lyric sheets) and exquisite photographs sharing a beautifully-designed booklet.

All 14 songs on the album were written by Laura. Three were co-written with Davis neighbor and longtime Bay Area musical guru, Ray Frank. Ray and Katie Henry add their voices to Laura’s on several cuts, previewing the work of their new trio, MudLark. Priscilla Hawkins contributes a fine cello line on four songs, and a raft of other fine musicians and vocalists visit as well. Though all the songs have the earmarks of Laura’s strong lyricism and fine musical sense, they exhibit a wide and satisfying breadth of style, from silly (“Crushed”) to stirring (“Do You Want Peace?”) to somber (“Marlboro Man”) to sensual (“February is Green”).

All but three of the songs on this album were written in 2004, and one in 2005, which suggests that Laura’s songwriting star is still in the ascendant. But don’t wait for the next one to come along—“Bloom” is stellar, and you can enjoy it right now.

Oh Laura, you know how to bring it! My life is one more time too busy with a stressful job, an over-taxed schedule, and (again) the responsibility for younger kids. Thank you for the beautiful & quiet reminder that most of these acculturated pressures have too much voice in my life. I went away last evening with a sense of renewal, and with the assurance that my soul needs the sort of nurturing your music provided. Thanks ever so much!
--Lee

You were fabulous tonight. I can't tell you how much I enjoyed myself and how touched I was by your music. I'd like to have (Broken Places) recorded to play for a couple of clients. It just
says it all. Lovely, lovely, lovely. Thanks again,
--Jill

I hope that you are still basking in the glory of your fabulous show. let me say that not only are you a keen lyricist and arranger, and an amazing vocalist, but you have tremendous and infectious stage presence
--Stacy

...through the real-ness of the songs themselves and the true heart with which you offered them, some real connection/communication happened, which was a truly joyful thing...
--Cheryl

"Laura's lyrics make me stop and think, her tunes make me want to sing along on every song, and her voice is simply lovely. So why do I always want to pull on her three-foot-long braid?"

"Listening is a rich, enlivening experience, and you won't be able to resist singing. This is wonderful music! I've been playing it repeatedly, singing the songs throughout my day, and annoying friends with, "Oh, you just have to hear..."! I want to buy a copy for just about everyone I know. Some of the songs are fun and playful, some move me to tears, some inspire me and remind me of important lessons. All of them are heartfelt and resonate with the truth of common human experience."