The Random iTunes Fairy must have felt bad for last week’s post calling Ron Sexsmith a “no-hit wonder.” She has brought him back for an encore performance just eight days later.
Today’s track is from the 2008 album Exit Strategy of the Soul. It’s one of Sexsmith’s more sonically interesting albums, adding horns to most tracks and getting a little more experimental in its production. That doesn’t apply to today’s selection, though, which is a pretty straightforward ballad.
‘Here Comes My Baby’ was written by Cat Stevens in the late 60s and first released as a cover by a band called The Tremeloes in January of 1967. Their version landed on both the U.K. and U.S. charts.
According to an uncited (and therefore quite dubious) tidbit on The Tremeloes’ Wikipedia page, the band was signed by their label (Decca) over another English band, The Beatles, who were deemed a bit too far away in Liverpool.
Canadian singer-songwriter Ron Sexsmith straddles the line between ‘Folk Rock Derivative’ and ‘Pure Pop’ in my musical genome. He got his start as a folk singer before expanding his sound over a dozen or so albums to include pop and jazz influences.
He never has delved into country, though, so he won’t be the first artist on my list to make a clean sweep. And while he has made use of increasingly varied instrumentation, his weapon of choice is the acoustic guitar, not the piano.
One of the nice touches on Ron Sexsmith’s Exit Strategy of the Soul was the addition of a Cuban jazz horn ensemble.
This might seem incongruous with Sexsmith’s usual style — he’s not exactly Buena Vista Social Club material — but it works surprisingly well.
These horn parts didn’t inform the writing of the album but were added to the recorded tracks later to flesh out the sound. Sometimes, when you have a classic three-minute pop singer-songwriter like Sexsmith, it takes just a dash of flavor to really elevate the material.
In 2008, Ron Sexsmith released Exit Strategy of the Soul, probably his most lovely album to date, sonically. The record opens with an instrumental track called ‘Spiritude,’ a beautiful piece on piano and strings that really sets the mood for the sublime set to come. The similar closing track, ‘Dawn Anna,’ is even prettier.
In between is Sexsmith’s most spiritual group of songs. Tracks such as ‘This Is How I Know,’ in which Sexsmith sings “out of nothing came the miracle that loved us into being” sent me searching to see if this guy is a Christian rocker in disguise. But I found an interview in which he says he’s spiritual but not religious, and feels that organized religion often does more harm than good. I can live with that.
Meet Me In Montauk 