Rose Cousins and Edie Carey in Portland

Alright, I have been shamefully absent here, and all I can say in my defense is that I just bought a house and that was somewhat time-consuming. BUT, I did have a chance to discover a great new singer-songwriter last Thursday at Portland's Mississippi Studios. Her name is Rose Cousins, she's from Halifax, Nova Scotia, and she shared a bill with headliner/longtime favorite of mine, Edie Carey (probably one of the most frequently promoted Shining City artists, up there with Tracy Grammer, Myshkin and maybe Jeffrey Foucault.). Rachael Sage played a set in between.

Now Edie had been telling me about Rose for years, but I had never managed to hear her. She is the real deal in the singer-songwriter category. She really blew me away (and this does not happen often), and the friend I brought fell in love with her, too. She has a voice that you could listen to forever, and she has the folk-pop songwriting things nailed. Honest vulnerable lyrics and catchy choruses. And, the best dry sense of humor. One, in fact, extremely similar to Edie's (and I have always said she makes me laugh more than most people in the world). They were on stage together a good amount of the time, and the harmonies and banter were priceless; they absolutely nailed both.

And, at the end of the night, they did a cover of the 80s hit "Broken Wings" by Mister Mister. You know, Take these broken wings, and learn to fly again, learn to live so free... They had everyone belting it out. And admit it, there's nothing more fun than singing cheesy 80s songs at the top of your lungs, or hearing your favorite artists make the song sound way better than it ever was before.

I would highly recommend that anyone reading this go order Rose's most recent album, If You Were For Me, right now (also available on iTunes). It's won a slew of Canadian music awards and is just gorgeous. Plus, I am fond of the cover art.

Rose and Edie are currently touring the southwest (CA, AZ, NM), and you really owe it to yourself to see them together. I'm sure it'll happen again in other parts of both their countries, if you miss them this time. After this tour, Rose will be at Club Passim in Cambridge MA on May 2 and Edie heads to the Midwest (and is pretty much on tour all summer and at all times).

I promise to try to post more often here, and am probably prone to writing mostly about female singer-songwriters, but if you miss me, you can visit my personal blog or my business web site. See sidebar.