reviews · 07/18/2018

I’m sure I’m on record, probably in triplicate, as having maintained that what I think of as “sing-speaking” works well for a certain kind of singer…and particularly well when that singer is delivering saga songs. By “sing-speaking” I mean sounding a pitch on a word with minimal or no effort to sustain the note. Jerry Bell uses the technique. His title track on his new CD “Idaho Ed” is helped out by it as is his “Devil’s Rope.” But Bell’s spoken delivery on the poems remains the highpoint of