Shape shifter

Bruce Cockburn stays true to his muse

by Banning Eyre

Canada's Bruce Cockburn has created 24 albums of original songs in 27 years. He's spanned romantic folk, jazz fusion, punk, reggae, and country, not to mention forging a few guitar-driven sounds of his own. He's rhapsodized about love, memory, history, and the "tatters" of his Christian faith; he's raged about global political injustices. With that range, it's no surprise that his commercial success has ebbed and flowed. He's never hit the big time like Canadian contemporaries Joni Mitchell and Neil Young, but for those who've been listening, he has certainly matched their stamina and consistency. His latest offering, The Charity of Night, his first Rykodisc release, finds him still grappling and growing, with all his complexities intact.

"I never knew what you all wanted/So I gave you everything," he sings in "Pacing the Cage," an affecting guitar and vocal piece from the new album. Over the phone from Toronto he muses, "I guess I have been a bit of a chameleon," when asked about that line. "There are a lot of people who think I'm this or that. I suppose I'm scolding myself for having pandered to them to some degree." The song talks about the traps we build for ourselves. But, convincing as it is, Cockburn's chameleon nature is what seems to keep him remarkably free.

For a guy who always writes lyrics first and then fits melodies and rhythms around them, Cockburn devotes enormous attention to the sound and texture of his music. For this album, he taps the slide-and-moan acoustic bass of Rob Wasserman, the crisp backing vocal team of Patty Larkin and Jonatha Brooke, and the vibes of fellow Berklee alumnus Gary Burton. He says when these songs were coming together, he heard vibes. "So when it came time to get a vibes player, we called the best one."

Burton was thrilled to be asked. "Every now and then," he says over the phone from San Francisco, "I get a call from someone outside the jazz field to do a project, and they've turned out to be some of the most interesting musical things I've done." Burton says he likes to break out of the jazz format and work with musicians who arrange spontaneously in the studio. He plays on six of the 11 songs, taking elegant solos on the slow, bluesy "Birmingham Shadows" and Cockburn's travelogue from Mozambique, "The Coming Rains" -- for me, the album's standout track. Burton also displays his trademark ability to get inside another artist's phrasing on the vibes-and-guitar duet with Cockburn, "Mistress of Storms."

"I was impressed with how much I liked the songs," Burton admits. "Like many jazz musicians, I often ignore lyrics. But this time I got really focused on them."

Cockburn knows how that goes. "When I was at Berklee in the '60s," he explains, "we had a little rehearsal band that played in somebody's basement every weekend. And we would consume huge quantities of this and that and play frenetically on Saturday afternoon. One time I took in a poem and we all read the poem and thought about it and then played. And it made a difference. I'd never even written a song then. But that simple act just focused everyone."

These days, Cockburn, with his narratives and his vivid imagery, is a consummate lyricist. Much has been made of the darkness and light that flicker through his songs, and much of this album takes place in near darkness. The title song, with its spoken verse and sung chorus, connects suggestive vignettes spaced over 20 years with a hymnlike chorus that talks about reconciling yourself to troubling memories. The opening scene describes a young man picked up on the road by a smarmy old guy who tries to come onto him. The kid gets away with the aid of a revolver he's got in his pocket. Cockburn doesn't want to say more about the incident, "because I don't want anyone to get arrested." The joke is an evasion, of course; he adds, "I'm sorry not to be more specific, but I just think it's better if people put their own story on things."

Being suggestive and enigmatic is often what Cockburn does best. When he's hammering home an issue, as in his anti-landmine tract "Mines of Mozambique," the message can be hard to take over repeated listenings. "I feel I have a certain obligation to put the sort of notoriety that I have to good use." And God bless him for it. But this album has far more to offer than explosive rhetoric. As a singer, songwriter, and bang-up guitarist, Cockburn remains at the top of all his many forms.

Bruce Cockburn plays the Berklee Performance Center next Friday, April 11. Call 91-2000.