TimesArgus.com - We Are Vermont

He's the man

Colin McCaffrey leads this year's Tammie Awards

Musician and producer Colin McCaffrey, pictured with a guitar in his home studio in East Montpelier, has been named The Times Argus' non-classical Artist of the Year. JEB WALLACE-BRODEUR/TIMES ARGUS

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For 2009 we reviewed more than two dozen fine Vermont-made albums. Not all made the cut here, but in general, we find the quality of the music produced in our state to be superior. As in the past we'll divide the non-classical/non-jazz albums up into several categories: Best Instrumental Album, Best Rock Album, Best Country Album, Best Traditional Album, Best Singer/Songwriter Album, Best Song, and Artist of the Year.



Best Instrumental Album

For several years Montpelier pianist Cody Michaels has been releasing CDs of piano music, all his own compositions. His latest, "Winter Suite," is a very soothing aural take on this time of year. It is meditative, interesting and flawlessly executed. This is the type of album you place on the stereo when you want to take a break from the day's travails, when you need to cleanse the mind of worry and just relax.



Best Rock Album

We award this to Mike & The Ravens' "No Place for Pretty." There are a lot of old guys out there trying to resurrect their high school mojos by attempting to play rock 'n' roll. But this band, each eligible for Social Security, really does rock.

"No Place for Pretty" is a hard-rocking, no-frills CD that clocks in at 35 minutes. Beyond lead singer Mike Brassard's raw vocal delivery is a 10-song offering of material that will not jar your intellect, or weigh you down with deep thoughts. If one didn't know this quintet was a bunch of oldsters, they'd think these guys were punks just out of the 'hood. This is hard-rocking music with a 1950s-1960s sensibility. Put it on the CD player, roll up the rug and boogie away the night.



Best Country Album

This year, as in 2008, we award the Stone Cold Roosters for their second album "Anywhere West."

This sextet has successfully melded Western swing, country, honky-tonk, and blues into a very listenable, danceable and sometimes comical album. The band, led by East Montpelier's Colin McCaffrey, works these several musical elements easily into its 14-song set.

Sophomore efforts often fall flat because there is not enough juice to sustain another after the initial effort. Not so in this instance. If "Out of the Woods," which won the award last year, was really good, "Anywhere West" is even better. From the opening cut, the tongue in cheek "It's All Coming Back to Me Now," a George Jones-style got-drunk-and-screwed-up theme, to the final 14th track, "Scattered," the Roosters give us 52 minutes of well-crafted songs played by top Vermont professionals.

This is a band consisting of superb musicians who write great material.



Best Traditional Album

We're going to give this award to two albums, "Mayfly" and "Remembering" with Cabot's Katie Trautz performing on both albums. On "Mayfly" Trautz is joined by Julia Wayne. These albums, both reviewed this year, show the new face of old time music. Trautz, either solo or in duet, is a superb fiddler, singer and songwriter. The music on these recordings spans the gamut from the songs of Ola Belle Reed and the traditional Irish song "The Parting Glass" (Mayfly) to shape-note songs "Bound for Canaan" and "Dying Californian" (Remembering). Here we have pure singing, many songs of the shape-note or gospel tradition and superb instrumental playing. For her work on these recordings and her work in bringing traditional music to more people through her Summit School of Traditional Music, Trautz wins this year's award.



Best Singer-Songwriter Album

Who should be the winner of this category has stymied this reviewer for a while. In the end it came down to three albums and each is worthy of the award. So we'll split it and they can each claim their share. We really like Karen McFeeters' "Here and Now," Myra Flynn's "Crooked Measures" and Bow Thayer's "Shooting Arrows at the Moon."

McFeeters has a lovely voice and writes songs about home and hearth, children and family. The album is nicely paced and moves between folk and light pop. This is an album for the post-Gen X crowd, easy to listen to and thoughtful in tone.

Flynn's music has a more of the "pop" attitude. Her music is stylish, intelligent, and yet fun. The songs are about love and relationship but she delivers them with a wry sense of humor and a bit of tongue-in-cheek. Flynn sounds like she grew up listening to the girl bands of the Motown era and then took that style to a higher level.

Bow Thayer has previously released albums with country rock bands supporting his music. On his latest release, singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Kristina Stykos produced and recorded Thayer in a very intimate acoustic setting. She added her guitar, mandolin and voice to the mix while fiddler Patrick Ross contributes backing to this really nice set of songs. Thayer's voice is raspy, it's country but it's likeable and in this setting we really get to hear what he has to say.



Best Song

Several songs by our talented writers might have made the cut for this category but in the end it came down to the title track from McFeeters' "Here and Now."

This lovely ballad perfectly captures what seems to be happening in our world – one of too much activity and too much multi-tasking. The '60s Eastern philosopher Ram Dass writes about being in the present, being in the now, as do others and McFeeters' lyric captures this concept well. She writes: "A billion stars in the sky, a hundred things on my mind/ too busy making plans to notice the place where I am/ I know, I know … it would be nice to be here and now …"



Artist of the Year

As I listened to the many albums we received and read the liner notes, one thing became very clear: On many of the albums, from McFeeters to Flynn to The Stone Cold Roosters, and several albums that are not mentioned in this year's Tammies, the work of East Montpelier's McCaffrey keeps coming up. As a producer, producer/performer, recording engineer, band member, multi-instrumentalist, back up vocalist or lead singer, McCaffrey has been involved this year, and for several years back, in the work of many Vermont artists.

If we believe in the six degrees of separation concept then McCaffrey's artistry has touched every musician in the state.

McCaffrey is not a musician/producer who seeks the limelight. While he's produced several fine solo albums, he seems most at home in a supporting role, which is why, at times, his work is transparent. This is all the more reason to give him this award. His contributions have become the underpinning for many artists helping them achieve their goal of releasing a really good album.