Author: Michael Witthaus

International guitar duo performs in Concord

The best guitar duos carry on a conversation with their instruments, but Nicola Cipriani and Brad Myrick engage in musical mind-melding, two sonic serpents swirling into a rope of notes. The Italian-born Cipriani and Concord native Myrick recall the similarly synchronistic Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd, of the ’70s rock band Television.

Those two, though, had amplifiers. not to mention lyrics and a rhythm section. Cipriani and Myrick speak strictly through their fretboards — and they’re unplugged. On stage, they sit in angled chairs to play, with eyes moving fluidly between each other and an eavesdropping audience.

They also compose this way, a practice firmed up on the 2020 album Reflections. Released in the spring of that year, this fine effort disappeared in the pandemic’s fog. A canceled world tour was another costly problem, and even worse was the lockdown’s impact on their creative process.

“We tried to compose from a distance,” Myrick recalled in a recent joint interview with Cipriani. “For the kind of music that we do, it ended up being impossible…. We need to be in the room together, have the interplay, the visual connection. We just found that it wasn’t working out, so basically we were on pause for almost three years.”

Finally, the two have new a new album, Silver Lining, and are back on tour. They spoke during a pause on a Southern run that wrapped up in Asheville. It resumes with a show at Bank of NH Stage on March 5, and another the next day at UNH’s Paul Creative Arts Center. In April they’re in Italy, and they hope to book a few South American dates later in the year.

The cover of the new album is a monochrome Noemi Trazzi photo of Myrick and Cipriani facing each other in a terminal. This theme is explored in the opening track, “Ritrovarsi.” The Italian word translates to “find again,” and for Cipriani, the joyous, playful track has “a double meaning … to find ourselves again as artists and composers, and find each other.”

“Like reunite,” Myrick added.

With all the talk of Covid silver linings in the world of music like extra time to reflect and write, there weren’t many for the duo. That’s reflected on the new album. With titles like “Ode To Solitude” and “Remember To Breathe,” many of its songs came from “the experience that we had all been through,” Myrick said. “There was a lot of darkness in there, some tension, some melancholy.”

The seemingly ironic title was chosen, Myrick explained, because “we found that there was still so much good that we were able to pull out, even in this really challenging time — for me particularly.” That said, Silver Lining isn’t intentionally a pandemic album. “A lot of artists made those,” Cipriani said, while allowing that “it was a perfect photography of where we were at the time, actually.”

A suite in three stages, “Dragonfly Ritual” is one of the record’s celebratory moments. “I think that speaks to silver linings,” said Myrick, who wrote it as he watched the regal insects mating from his back window. “They’re attached as they’re flying, then they detach. I think they’re the only animal that does that; it’s this really incredible kind of ritual.”

Though a tonic, quiet contemplation doesn’t compare to the feeling Cipriani and Myrick had walking on stage and leaving with a standing ovation a few weeks ago at Coastal Carolina University, where they once recorded a live album.

“It was rewarding and it was inspiring,” Myrick said. “It is just totally propelling us forward. For me at least, and Nicola can tell me if this is true for him, it’s confirming that this is exactly what I should be doing artistically right now.”

“It is a huge privilege, what we are able to do…. I never get the sensation that I’m doing a kind of a normal job,” Cipriani agreed. “When we go to places like the university, and get the chance to meet a lot of people, especially young students that are really passionate and searching for their own artistic way, it’s so inspiring.”

One big benefit of live performance is it gives their instrumental music a narrative.

“We get to tell the stories and share the ideas behind it, so we can give people a little bit more information before they listen,” Myrick said. “Here’s what we were feeling, this is what sparked the idea; now maybe you have an idea in your head, and you can take it into a place, follow on the journey, and make it your own with us.”

Nicola Cipriani and Brad Myrick
When: Sunday, March 5, 6:30 p.m.
Where: Bank of NH Stage, 44 S Main St., Concord
Tickets: $23.75 at ccanh.com
Also Monday, March 6, 8 p.m., Paul Creative Arts Center (Verrette Recital Hall), 30 Academic Way, Durham

Featured photo: Nicola Cipriani & Brad Myrick. Courtesy photo.

Teddy Thompson plays solo in Manchester

At the end of a benefit show in New Jersey last month, Richard Thompson invited his son Teddy onstage to perform with him. The elder Thompson is folk music royalty, while Teddy Thompson is a singer-songwriter who over two decades has dipped his toes in many musical ponds including country, pop and, on his 2020 LP Heartbreaker Please, Muscle Shoals soul.

The song they led off with that night, however, wasn’t one of those genres. Instead, they covered Eddie Cochran’s “Cut Across Shorty,” a rousing rave-up from rock ’n’ roll’s early days.

This suited Teddy Thompson perfectly. When he was twelve and his friends were hooked on MTV fare like Madonna, he was time traveling. “1955 to 1959 … that’s all I listened to,” he said by phone recently. “I thought, this is my first taste of what music is, and if it’s this good, I can’t wait to hear more. It turns out actually that’s as good as it got … everything I’ve heard since then has been a sort of slight letdown.”

He eventually learned to embrace artists of his own era like Culture Club and Crowded House. This was a reflection of what his mother, Linda Thompson, termed a “catholic” music taste that ran in his family. “It doesn’t matter where it comes from,” he said. “If you like it, you like it.”

For his own material, which he’ll perform solo at an upcoming show in Manchester, Thompson remains committed to just one thing, which in his telling is, well, everything.

“When it comes down to it, I’m really mostly enamored and focused on the song itself, hopefully something that is a strong suit,” he said. “I write the songs with just me and the guitar and then, depending on the album, sometimes it leans one way or the other.”

On Thompson’s latest project he collaborated with Jenni Muldaur, another child of a famous musician, to cover classic country duet partners. Three songs each from Porter Wagoner and Dolly Parton, George Jones and Tammy Wynette, and Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn, they recorded it mostly to pass time during the pandemic, then put it out online. “We sort of half-ass released it,” he said.

“Our mutual friend David Mansfield, who is a real autodidactic and renaissance man, really put the whole thing together,” Thomson continued. “By the time we finished it, we sort of realized, ‘Oh, this should be a record.’ So we’re in the process now of getting a deal together to put it out … hopefully next year.”

Thompson’s worked with a lot of musicians over the years, both as musician and producer. His production began with his mother’s 2002 return Fashionably Late. Since then he’s helmed Shelby Lynne and Allison Moorer’s haunting Not Dark Yet, three LPs from Dori Freeman, and Roseanne Reid’s 2019 Trails.

When asked what draws him behind the console, Thompson is a bit self-deprecating.

“I think it’s a little bit to do with not being very disciplined in my own writing and direction,” he said. “I’m not somebody who’s terribly focused and ambitious and has a real long-term view of what my career should be, when my next album should come out, all that stuff. So I think I’ve turned to collaborations in between things. When I don’t feel like I’m ready to make another record of my own, it’s a musical project to do in the meantime.”

This logic didn’t apply on 2014’s Family, a record Thompson conceived, produced and played on. He was joined by his mother and father, a once-acclaimed musical duo who divorced when he was young, his sister Kami, nephew Zak Hobbs, half-brother Jack Thompson, and a few other relations. The New York Times wrote brilliantly about the often fraught effort.

“Even if you’re not a musician, you can just imagine trying to do any kind of project with your entire family; there’s gonna be difficult moments,” he said. “There were a lot of emotions involved, mostly just for me. Because it was my idea, I was in charge, it was all on my head … it was pathetic in a way, as it really was enjoyable once it all came together.”

Heartbreaker Please was a breakup album, and Thompson thinks the best songs come from pain in relationships.

“That’s just what we feel the most and it’s the subject that everybody’s drawn to,” he said. “I guess some people are writing songs about other things but it’s tough for me to do anything really heartfelt when it’s not about the heart, if you see what I mean. I tend to write more songs about me and my woes, but it never seems boring or old to me … it’s endlessly interesting and fascinating and moving.”

Teddy Thompson
When: Saturday, Feb. 25, 8 p.m.
Where: Rex Theatre, 23 Amherst St., Manchester
Tickets: $29 at palacetheatre.org

Featured photo: Teddy Thompson. Courtesy photo.

Hard work and tenacity define Jordan Quinn

Settling behind an electric keyboard to play covers for the dinner crowd at Fratello’s in Manchester on a frigid Saturday night, Jordan Quinn is logging a few more of the 10,000 hours that Malcolm Gladwell wrote about in his book Outliers. Since mid-2021 the 23-year-old singer has done more than 300 gigs, and her calendar remains packed.

Most sets are like this one, with lots of soulful ballads — Whitney Houston is a favorite. She’ll make multiple tables look up and take notice when she hits the key change on her rendition of “I Will Always Love You.” Quinn also can make a song all her own. Her take on Al Green’s playful “Let’s Stay Together” is reinvented as a plaintive plea to a distancing lover.

Occasionally, like during a recent set with her band at Hennessy’s in Boston, Quinn will dip into a growing catalog of originals that started with the easygoing “Dream World” about a year ago. Her latest, “Can We Become Friends,” shows Quinn’s growing maturity as a songwriter. It’s a response to the war in Ukraine, but addresses problems closer to home.

Inspired by Michael Jackson’s “Earth Song,” it’s boosted by an angelic choir that’s almost entirely Quinn. “I was supposed to have a few buddies in the studio to do the choir part and everyone canceled on me,” she said in a phone interview. “So it’s actually 13 tracks of just my voice, with the exception of one, which is my bass player.”

Quinn released the video for the song early, spurred by a recent shooting outside a Manchester nightclub; the victim was a casual friend of hers. “To just see that some random person was able to take his life so easily, it just really affected me,” she said. “This needs to be done, the whole violence thing … life is precious.”

The title cut of her debut album in progress is about striving to become and belong. Quinn wrote “Somebody” while in Los Angeles preparing to meet with a potential manager.

“I’ve had a lot of hard times with self-confidence, figuring out the path that I want to be on,” she explained. “This was a reminder to myself that everything will work out — you’re where you’re supposed to be, things will get better. Then I was like, why not share this message with other people? Because I know I’m definitely not the only person that feels this way.”

Quinn penned a lot of songs on that West Coast trip. She found being in a place where so many performers are looking for a foothold very inspiring.

“I definitely liked being out there and seeing all the talent and everything; it motivated me to just push,” she said. “All these people are trying to be somebody … it doesn’t need to be the entire world, where everyone knows your name. Just one little thing to make a difference.”

Born in Manchester, Quinn relocated to Connecticut with her mother while in fourth grade. “This whole time, my dad still lived in New Hampshire,” she said. “I would do the trip twice a month to see him on the weekends.” After high school, she went to South Carolina for a year, then returned to move in with him and enroll in the theater program at UNH.

Her father encouraged his daughter’s creative urges, taking steps to help her find her way.

“My dad is the sole reason that it all happened,” she said. “He knew [local musician] Chad LaMarsh and kind of took it upon himself to see what would happen if he introduced us…. I’ve been on this path ever since.”

She eschews many modern artists, calling her singing range similar to Ariana Grande’s, but adding that she’s not a fan of her music. “I used her vocals as influence for mine,” Quinn said, but “instrumentally, I’m really into rock like Queen, and then Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston. I try to incorporate their styles along with everyday pop.”

She’s sung “Somebody to Love” with tribute act Queen Flash on a few occasions, and will open for them later this year.

For now Quinn stays on her Gladwell path, night after night. “My goal is to continue to find myself,” she said. “Testing my abilities … seeing how far I can go. I don’t really have any career goals [beyond] improving who I am as an artist, and really seeing what I’m capable of.”

Jordan Quinn
Next show: Saturday, Feb. 18, 6 p.m.
Where: Homestead Restaurant & Tavern, 641 Daniel Webster Hwy., Merrimack
Full calendar: facebook.com/jordan.quinn.7106

Featured photo: Jordan Quinn. Courtesy photo.