Renowned singer-songwriter and activist Bruce Cockburn indicated a decade ago in his memoirs, Rumours of Glory, that he felt creatively spent but that disposition has certainly changed. Sure, his prolific rate has slowed with just three albums since, and this latest, O Sun O Moon, the 35th album for the 77-year-old Cockburn, is his first vocal album since 2017’s Bone on Bone. With an artistic voice that’s been as resonant and socially important for over five decades now, it would be more surprising to see him stay silent. This doesn’t compare to Cockburn’s searing politically charged albums in the ’80s. He’s understandably much more mellow now yet he cannot ignore more of what’s gone down in the past six years, addressing climate change in “To Keep the World We Know” and political diverseness in “Orders.” Yet, in that song, his major message is unity which sets aside forgiveness, love, and spiritual connections as the common themes.
Cockburn continues to assemble an elite supporting group of musicians, led by longtime collaborator Colin Linden, who produced it and plays guitar throughout. Linden’s wife, Janice Powers, plays keys, Gary Craig shares drum duties with Chris Brown, while bassist Viktor Krauss, accordionist Jeff Taylor, violinist Jenny Scheinman, and multi-instrumentalist Jim Hoke. The guest vocalists are an equally impressive group – Shawn Colvin, Buddy Miller, Allison Russell, Sarah Jarosz, and Ann and Regina McCrary of The McCrary Sisters. Configurations vary with each track.
Cockburn has the knack of expressing his current state succinctly in the opening “On a Roll” – “Time takes its toll/But in my soul/I’m on a roll.” The snappy, infectious shuffle features Cockburn and Linden on stinging resonator guitars while Colvin and the two McCrarys accent the choruses. The tempo slows for the provocative “Orders” with its reference “Our orders said to love them all’ as Hoke and Taylor paint beautiful textures with clarinet, saxophones, accordion, and dulceola, blending well with Cockburn’s own acoustic fingerpicked guitar. “Push Comes to Shove” is a deceptively simple song, both lyrically and musically, about love where Cockburn expresses the kind of warmth that evokes his classics such as “Coldest Night of the Year.” Scheinman’s violin solo adds a classy touch. “Colin Went Down to the Water” brings an inexplicable kind of spirituality, buoyed by the “choir” of Buddy Miller, Allison Russell, and Linden.
The country waltz “Into the Now” contemplates mortality, musically imbued with Jarosz’s mandolin and Taylor’s accordion. Cockburn is clearly expressing his ‘sense of wonder’ and some of his rhyming couplets are ingenious such as this one – “The moon weighs one hundredth of our island earth/Baby weighs a ton on the eve of its birth.” Unexpected instrumental choices are a major strength of this effort, none better than the combination of Craig’s glockenspiel and Scheinman’s layered violins on “Us All.” We’re transported back to those special kinds of rhythms that marked Cockburn gems such as “Wondering Where the Lions Are” in “To Keep the World We Know” as Cockburn plays dulcimer, with Jarosz on mandolin and co-writing indigenous Canadian artist Susan Aglukark singing in Inuktitut.
“King of the Bolero” is a haunting, half-spoken, half-sung noir tune with Hoke’s woodwinds and Taylor’s accordion weaving flamenco motifs around Cockburn’s resonator. “When the Spirit Walks in the Room” is the epitome of his spiritually connected theme (“You’re a thread upon the loom/When the spirit walks in the room”), rendered here just as a trio with Scheinman and Powers. The bluesy instrumental “Haiku” leads into the title track, another spiritual ode, half-sung, half spoken that to this writer, somehow evoked late fellow Canadian Leonard Cohen although the chorus, boosted by the McCrarys, is trademark Cockburn. The closing “When You Arrive” is a country blues that in its unconventional way celebrates the “semi-alive” as all the background vocalists listed gather for perhaps one last proverbial sendoff.
Let’s hope it’s not the last one for Cockburn who seems to be revitalized as he approaches 80. In the meantime, we can celebrate one of our most important artists of the past five, now almost six decades.
