  ReviewKate
Wolf
The Wind Blows Wild
 The
San Francisco Bay Guardian
Microgrooves column
May 31, 1989
Review by Derk Richardson
Kate Wolf: Posthumous record shows what we lost.
Kate Wolf, The Wind Blows Wild (Kaleidoscope).
What we lost with the passing of Kate Wolf in late 1986 is brought home with
heartwrenching beauty on this first posthumous collection of previously-unreleased studio,
radio and concert recordings. Longtime accompanying guitarist Nina Gerber selected this
anthology of ten songs recorded between June 1979 and May 1986 (the last in Kate's
hospital room). Some arrangements are as simple as Kate's guitar and vocal, some feature
additional guitars, mandolin, harmonica, violin, piano, electric bass and double harmony
vocals. All turn on a voice that is as honest and intimate as a lover's whisper in the
night. Choosing a favorite track is impossible: How can you compare the simplicity of
"Old Jerome" with the seductive sweep of "Statues Made of Clay"? Or
lines like
And you wonder if you're wrong
and if dreamers don't belong
Listen to the ones who love you best
with the deathbed birthday tribute to Wavy Gravy that asks
Did you see him
he was there to wave to you
All those times
you've needed him before
You say this one shall lead you
he knows we all must go
The wind blows wild on the shore
Or Kate's "Rising of the Moon" with Utah Phillips' "Clearing in the
Forest"? Apologies for less than perfect technical quality are unnecessary. If you
need proof that every song, indeed every life, is a snowflake that belongs to the entire
world once it is born or that "Love has made a circle/ that holds us all
together," you need look no further than The Wind Blows Wild. |
