Song Premiere: Cry Cry Cry, “Cathedrals”
Sometimes you just know when it’s time to go home.
And for Richard Shindell, Dar Williams, and Lucy Kaplansky, aka Cry Cry Cry, home is where their three voices live together, rising in a perfectly comfortable, warm, and intimate blend. Case in point: the trio’s brand-new cover of Jump Little Children’s emotion-filled 90s hit, “Cathedrals.”
With Dar Williams taking lead vocals, Cry Cry Cry creates a melancholy atmosphere of questioning, wandering, and longing, turning the occasionally overly earnest “Cathedrals” into a pensive contemplation on what the concept of “home” really means. It’s something these three musicians, no longer at the very beginning of their careers, are perhaps starting to consider.
Cry Cry Cry made folk music history when they first started experimenting with their voices together in 1998. After an eponymous debut and a single tour in 1999, they didn’t exactly disband but each member focused on his or her solo career. They’d reunite every once and awhile (mostly privately), bask in the magic of their harmonies, and then trundle off on their separate paths.
Last summer, that all changed. “We were called back into existence by Clearwater [The Clearwater Music Festival in Croton-on-Hudson, New York],” Richard Shindell says. “They floated the idea of a reunion and we thought, ‘if not now, then when?'”
That reunion show has led to a whole string of tour dates planned for this spring – check out the list below. Perhaps even more exciting than a tour, though, is the fact that they’re recording together for the first time in nearly 20 years. “I feel so lucky to get to be a part of this again,” Lucy Kaplansky says. Dar Williams agrees: “When you have a musical bond, it’s like siblings. You are always returning to that unspoken language and understanding. I love Richard’s and Lucy’s voices more than ever.”
“New music to come in 2018,” according to the trio’s management. Whether that means a full album, a newly recorded single released every now and again, or something else entirely is still to-be-determined. But, based on the sneak peek Shindell, Williams, and Kaplansky offer with “Cathedrals,” it’s going to be well worth the wait.
Cry Cry Cry: On Tour!
3/15: Englert Theater, Iowa City, IA
3/16: Pantages Theatre, Minneapolis, MN
3/17: Barrymore Theatre, Madison, WI
3/29: Town Hall, New York, NY
3/30: Paramount Theater, Rutland, VT
3/31: Calvin Theater, Northampton, MA
4/6: Keswick Theater, Glenside, PA
4/7: Jefferson Theater, Charlottesville, VA
4/8: Sixth & I, Washington, DC
4/13: Fremont Abbey Arts Center, Seattle, WA
4/14: Aladdin Theater, Portland, OR
4/15: Freight and Savage, Berkley, CA
