Description
Joy Deep as Sorrow is the eighth studio album by the American singer and songwriter Bob Bennett, Kickstarter-funded and independently released in December 2012. The album was produced by Roy Salmond of Salmond & Mulder fame. Featuring a cover of “Birth of a Song”, a song written by Steve Bell and originally recorded on his 2011 album, Kindness. “You Went Ahead” was written by Bennett as a tribute to a friend, the late singer and songwriter Roby Duke.
In a perfect world, any time the names James Taylor and Joni Mitchell would be mentioned, the name Bob Bennett wouldn’t be far behind. Bennett is that kind of unique creative soul – a creator of music that is indelibly his own, bearing the mark of his particular sense of melody, the musical fingerprint of his solid guitar playing, the wisdom and poetry of his words and – perhaps most of all – the warm and inviting tone of his voice. Starting his musical journey at the end of the seventies, through the eighties, and less-prolific in the following decades (when the music business got more interested in demographics than artistic integrity), Bennett re-emerges in the digital age as if he’s never been away, sounding better than ever.
Last year Bob gave us the uniquely nostalgic Jesus Music Again, a re-interpreting of classic songs from the prime days of the Jesus Movement. As fine as that album was, it seemed to be more of a novelty than a new artistic statement. Not so with Joy Deep As Sorrow – as fine an album as any Bennett has ever created, and one that has not a moment of nostalgia, padding, or record-rust in its nearly forty-six minutes.
Bob Bennett, like Sara Groves and Michael Kelly Blanchard (to name a pair of contemporaries), weaves with each song a tapestry of our deep longings and momentary joys. Of course, not all is serious and lofty on Joy Deep As Sorrow. The title track is an appropriately lighthearted admission:
“I want good to come after me
Half as relentlessly as trouble does… like a curse
I want health to protect me
Invade me and infect me like disease does …but in reverse.”Hey, we relate, Bob – we relate.
Bennett offers a balanced mix of the serious and the comic – which is, after all, pretty much what we’re given to work with in this life. In «Faithful», Bob sings,
“Empty vigil in ink black night
I awaken to the same refrain
I make no claim to second sight
just the blind following the blind again,”and balances it with «Playing the Part of Me» – a jazzy, pseudo-narcissistic tap-dance of a song with winking lyrics like,
“…after all these years
To be honored by my peers
For my modest tour-de-force
It’s a total surprise, of course.”For good measure, there’s even a Bob Bennett blues in the form of «Panhandled at the Western Wall», the true story of some shady ‘fund-raising’ in the Holy Land.
Of course, there’s track after track of melodic, signature Bob Bennett music on Joy Deep As Sorrow. «You Went Ahead» is a moving tribute to Jesus Music icons Roby Duke and Tom Howard and the recently deceased Phil Kristianson:
“You went ahead
It does not seem fair
I’m still here …and you are there
I’m one of many in this long line
Of those who love you and are left behind
Sadness, for now, is all I can see
So I cry for you, but, my good friend, it’s mostly for me.”The album’s penultimate track, «God My Shepherd», is essentially Psalm 23 beautifully paraphrased and set to music.
And what music! Produced by Roy Salmond, who also played a multitude of instruments (and all with some very tasty chops), the sound is rich and vibrant, with the sonic feel of some of the early Phil Keaggy recordings. Bill (Billy) Batstone played upright and fretless bass, adding depth and richness to the proceedings, while Janaya Salmond played tasteful drums. Of course, Bennett played guitars, sang, and wrote all the songs but two – one which was co-written and the other a stunning cover of Steve Bell’s «Birth of a Song».
Even the packaging – with a booklet (yay!) – has class. This is music for grown-ups. It’s about life. Totally recommended. [Bert Saraco, The Phantom Tollbooth, 30 January 2013]
A treatise on humanity’s long-standing efforts to throw off the shackles and evade the self-tyranny of the human condition in an attempt to be more like God, Joy Deep As Sorrow is the latest from the ever-perceptive, singer/songwriter, Bob Bennett. Bennett has spent most of his illustrious career writing about the point where man’s fallibility and God’s divinity intersect, often, by telling stories that direct a magnifying glass at his own life as an imperfect follower of Christ. JDAS begins with the title cut, sporting a folk melody with a walking blues feel, as the songwriter, using contrasting images, questions why things in life that bring sorrow seem to invade our souls much more readily than the deep joy of God. This cut contains one of my favorite lines ever from Mr. Bennett as he posits, “I want to step into a pile of good and leave it on my shoe.”
The record continues to mine this theme to some extent, interspersing songs that read as prayers of gratitude and devotion («Birth of a Song», written by Steve Bell, «Two or More», «God is My Shepherd» and «God is a Moveable Feast») with more contemplative meditations («Faithful», «Playing the Part of Me», «Strange Joy», «Broken Beauty») encouraging listeners to look at their struggles as an opportunity to refine, as well as be recipients of God’s transforming Grace. The lovely «You Went Ahead» is Bennett’s tribute to his friend, Roby Duke, which he composed for, then sang at Duke’s memorial service. The cut features some lovely vibe-like keyboard accents that contrast with producer, Roy Salmond’s, atmospheric guitar work. The song is a poignant reminder that death is a much greater struggle for those who are left behind to grieve than those now seated at the right hand of The Father. «Panhandled at the Western Wall» is a simultaneously amusing and disturbing, true story of a time that Bennett traveled to the Holy Land and found himself at the intersection of the sacred and the seamy, being asked for money as he worshiped at the Western Wall.
JDAS, for all it’s lyrical meat, is just as depth filled in its musicality, as Bennett continues to refine his appealing amalgam of pop melodies – «Faithful» and «God Is My Shepherd» have the type of recognizable, stirring melodicism that never leave the brain -, folk form, jazz expressionism and, even, a little blues flavor for good measure. Roy Salmond is, as Bennett calls him, “The fifth Beatle” on the project as he marries intuitively spare yet multi-hued production with peerless chops on a myriad of instruments. Bennett has already released two of the faith based medium’s greatest albums, IMHO, with 1982’s Matters of the Heart and Songs from Bright Avenue which followed 10 years later. That Joy Deep As Sorrow is every bit their equal, coming almost 35 years into his ministry, is a testament to Bennett’s gift as well as his staying power. [Shawn McLaughlin, Christian Musician Magazine, January/February 2013 (Vol. 18, Iss. 1)]
> Apple Music (https://music.apple.com/us/album/joy-deep-as-sorrow/589876865)
CD tracklist:
01. Joy Deep as Sorrow – 4:45
02. Birth of a Song – 4:47
03. Faithful – 4:04
04. Playing the Part of Me – 2:49
05. Two or More – 4:43
06. Strange Joy – 4:26
07. Broken Beauty – 4:04
08. You Went Ahead – 3:59
09. Panhandled at the Western Wall – 4:32
10. God My Shepherd – 3:39
11. A Moveable Feast – 4:06
The November/December 2012 issue of Christian Musician Magazine featured a cover story on Bob Bennett.
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