CD Reviews
'Mistaken' a melting pot of good music
By Chuck Ginsberg
spotlight@seacoastonline.com
Absolutely Marvelous Records (2002)
"Mistaken" is Ted Sink's first CD after a lifetime mingling with music of all shapes and sizes. He has misspent a significant chunk of that time content to play a supporting role in various bands. Still waters run deep, the old saw goes, and Sink was all the while quietly absorbing good music and secretly writing songs that never made it past the figurative concert stage of his living room.
"Mistaken's" 12 many splendored cuts reflect that love of music, whether it be Latin jazz, blues, country, pop, gospel or the big-band sound of Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett. A childhood isn't completely wasted when you grow up with the big-band sound. We may have missed one but if you have a favorite musical genre, it's probably there. (No rappers need apply.)
Sometimes the humor is broad, sometimes black, and heartache outweighs heaven when it comes to romantic love, but each cut shares two characteristics: Sink is attentive to the nuances of melody and his lyrics are thoughtful, traits alien to much of today's Top 40; the music, too, is never overpowered, always given equal billing with the vocals.
Sink is lead vocalist on the album and shares harmony vocal chores with well-known local musicians Carri Coltane ("wonderful"), Andy Happel (everyone's favorite engineer also plays violin and cello) and Portsmouth gospel queen Lesley Preece Decato. Coltrane was perfect from the start, Sink marvels, hitting the mark from the very first time she sang a note of his songs.
We were co-opted from the first two cuts, the smooth and jazzy "Talk to Me" and the bluesy "Just Another Jim." We parted company with the songwriter on the antecedents of the pithy and anguished "Midnight Angel," which made us think immediately of America's "Horse with No Name."
Sink sees no connection and, by the way, is not an America fan and hates the song. OK, it's the "Horse" with a country kick, but it was in our top three on the album (there are no clunkers).
"Believer" is a softer, country-style love song, and a brief departure from heartache. He is a breathless voyeur in the first flush of infatuation. The twang harkens this ole Virginia boy back to real country, not today's corrupted pap in tight Levis. (Faith Hill, take note.)
The title cut is a breathy, lament of love gone wrong, of a mismatch of the heart, oblivious to him, obvious to everyone else. The harmonies and vocals are gorgeous and wrenching, but the story is told in melody as well as lyrics. Another favorite.
"Replaceable" mines the same story line, but in the Tony Bennett vocal stylist ball park. Part of what makes this album special is its ability to switch gears from song to song. Break out the kindling, dim the lights and chill the fruit of the vine. You old romantic, you.
Fresh from a trip to the dismaying Disney World atmosphere of Cleveland's schlocky Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame, Sink penned the softly rockin' and blackly humorous "Elvis' Underpants" on the plane. The line "You built a great shrine to the King's BVDs" sums it up for the "glass and steel menagerie" on the lake.
Country gospel is next on the menu. "Gospel" is fundamentalist heaven from the prayer meeting, although we missed the earthy urgency we used to hear on similar songs, way back when, on "Connie B. Gay's Town and Country Time" radio show from Uline Arena in Washington, D.C. T.
Texas Tyler's "Deck of Cards," for example, really grabs your Adam's apple and squeezes the life out of it.
"Thin Air" brings back the heartache, and, perhaps a clue to Sink's problem. True love is more than fantasy, more than the "prince and princess ... dancing." "Thin Air" is love in a pop vein not country twang.
We must confess that Sink had to set the context for us for "Already Dead." The shrink, after examining the narrator's head, tells him he is already dead. More black humor as he vainly seeks absolution and rebirth, citing the cases of Lazarus and Jesus. Pay attention to the lyrics, the pop melody is secondary.
"Broken Promises" is the wreckage of another romance gone wrong and the detritus it leaves behind. It is a blast from the past, a song stylist's delight, if he or she has the talent and the touch. The great dance beat might swing your romance into the right lane. Listen closely to the growl in the background. Sink's canine is an uncredited harmonizer, and, we understand, also won the recording session attendance award. Nice bass.
"Run to You" has a definite gospel flavor and Sink's female harmonizers shine here. We love this song and the feeling emanating from it. This is the real thing.
Ted Sink's back-up role changed several years ago when he began studying with another fine local musician, Kent Allyn, bassist on "Mistaken." Returning from a trip armed with two new songs, Sink showed them to Allyn, who liked them and encouraged him. The recording project, two years in the making, gained impetus.
Sink's father was a professional musician and father of 12, which explains why he became a chemist to make a living. Sink Sr.
discouraged his brood from musicianship because he disliked the lifestyle, but Ted has never fallen far from the tree. A writer in real life, he is also currently guitarist and bassist with Baseline, a local quintet.
Liking the results of his first commercial effort, Ted Sink is already at work on material for a second release. If you like good music, pick up "Mistaken" at your local music outlet.
And, if "Mistaken" is any indication of what Ted Sink has kept bottled up inside for decades, we look forward to more.
"Mistaken" is available at Bull Moose Music and Gary's Guitars in Portsmouth.
You may have to ask for help since it fits in no specific category neatly.
CD REVIEW
Ted Sink's 'Superette' is top shelf
By Chuck Ginsberg
spotlight@seacoastonline.comSuperette is a neat Valentines Day antidote to the Pajama-gram negligee you self-servingly gifted to the significant other. Slip it into the Humvee’s CD player on that airport run for the flight to Hawaii. (Chocolates and roses just don’t cut it anymore. Besides, one’s fattening and the other soon fades.)
Ted Sink’s second release in two years is a collection of 11 meaty originals with Sink on lead and back-up vocals and nylon and acoustic guitar. His love for the pedal steel sound (i.e., country) and Neil Young are prominent but the music is tasty, never cloying and eminently listenable, multiple times. The lyrics, however, are the star, 180 degrees from triteness.
Sink has something to say and he does it well. Rereading the lyrics in the liner notes, even after the music has stopped, is an exercise we indulged in several times with the stereo turned low.
Topics include relationships, mostly rocky, but always deeply felt, with self, lovers, fantasized lovers, fellow humans, religion and "the bitter teardrops of war," life and death. There is one exception. "Another Heartache Country Song" is just that, a nimble, playful spoof of the generic heartache country song.
Sink’s song titles are often harbingers of the text to follow. Titles like "Suspicion," "One Last Time," "Bitter Teardrops, "Twilight Zone," "I’m Not Your Fool," the ironic "Sweet Dreams," "Pointless Conversation," "Love Is a Liar," and "When You Go." In retrospect, they become even more telling.
After roughly a quarter of a century, off and on in various amateur bands, Sink seems to have written the music for two albums in two years. Actually, the music was accumulating all along.
Asked to explain his creative surge, Sink described playing his music for some California friends. The woman cried, and had him play for her professional musician husband. That was the catalyst.
"Over the years I had accumulated notebooks full of lyrics, which I had never done anything with." Back home, he recalls, guitar teacher Kent Allyn suggested he "go for it."
"Once I started it was like I couldn’t stop." Six months into the recording process, "I found myself coming up with new material almost on a weekly basis. I was cranking out a different song almost every week. I’ve got enough stuff for another album."
Sink is abetted by a raft of local stalwarts: co-producer and engineer Andy Happel (violin, cello, back-up vocals); Allyn (bass, keyboards, and dobro); Carri Coltrane and Lucia Nazzaro (back-up vocals); Allyn and Robbie Coffin (lead guitars); Wayne Brewer (pedal steel guitar); Rick Paige, Ron Bouffard, and Jim Rioux (percussion); and Sink’s 13-year-old nephew Ben Sink (trombone).
With all that rockiness, and the tendency to look at the underbelly of relationships, why is "Superette" a candidate for a Valentine’s Day gift? Because it’s real, a loaf of life whose slices resonate with those who’ve been there. Warning: you’d better be serious; shallow doesn’t live here anymore. And a final note, serious and thoughtful are NOT code words for depressing.
The official release date for "Superette" is Friday, Feb. 18, 2005. To celebrate, Sink and a studio band of six (Happel, Allyn, Coltrane, Rioux, Bruce Derr, and brother Tim Sink) will sweeten Portsmouth’s performing ozone with songs from "Superette" and Ted Sink’s earlier release ("Mistaken") at the Blue Mermaid, 8 p.m. until the material runs out, or the fingers flag, whichever comes first
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