Music

Brooke Miller live at The Woodnest

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Michael Greenfield is a true “patron of the arts”.

A renowned luthier, a fine musician in his own right, and open heartedly is on a quest to share his love of music with those who care to join him. In this, Mr. Greenfield organizes an intimate series of concerts annually (usually 3 or 4) that take place right here in Montreal in his workshop that he poetically calls “the Woodnest”.

With no aspirations of becoming a concert promoter, Michael keeps his events simple: 100% of the proceeds go to the Artists. With only 60 seats available, his Workshop Series of concerts at the Woodnest are intimate and dynamic, and allow a rare view not normally allowed in larger venues. As these concerts take place in his atelier, no food or beverage is present, allowing the evening’s focus to be but on the talent on the stage, and conversation shared between his guests, before and after the show.

This past Saturday, was host to one of these events, and a great artist.

Brooke Miller returned to the Woodnest, and thrilled a full house to a long overdue Montreal visit and over 2 hours of musical revelrie.

Hailing from Prince Edward Island on Canada’s east coast, Brooke Miller‘s talent as a singer-songwriter and guitarist have been showcased across North America, Japan, and Europe. With her smoky vocals and impeccable fingerstyle guitar work, Brooke’s first recording Lending An Hourglass was released in 2003. After being signed by Sony Music Publishing in New York, Brooke released her gorgeous second cd, You Can See Everything, in 2007.

Brooke cites “Rickie Lee Jones, The Police, Bruce Cockburn, Tom Waits and Bonnie Raitt” as her influences. She was the winner of the 2007 Colleen Peterson Songwriting Award, and is recognized as one of Canada’s strongest writers of acoustic music.

In 2010, Brooke released “Shake It Off” on the CandyRat label and 2011 saw the launch of Brooke’s new self-titled “Brooke Miller” CD/LP distributed by Universal Music Group. She also recorded “Familiar” in 2011; a guitar-and-voice solo acoustic album for the German label Stockfisch Records.

In 2016, Brooke plans to record an EP of new material and will be touring Canada and Europe.

Her show here showcased her combined guitar and vocal laden abilities, and she thrilled her audience with the anecdotal story ridden interludes, that did more than just describe origins and meanings behind her works, but provided a little insight into the humor and spirit of this Canadian songbird.

The evening was complemented by multiple stage appearances by Brooke’s “6-string partner-in rhyme”, Mr. Don Ross, a guitar virtuoso in his own right, who was there to support Brooke as her right hand man in this evening of tonal revelrie. Layering chord swells and melodies (and the odd solo) to Brooke’s song list, Don proved that less is indeed more, and it is not the number of notes that are played to make a song, it is the right notes being played at the right time.

This is what makes a Brooke Miller show spectacular. Knowing her repertoire, she is able to reproduce live what she records, whether as a solo act, or with accompaniment. As a songwriter, a storyteller, and as a guitarist, she is unique in all 3 of these disciplines; as the audience of 60 was happily witness to.

This intimate setting that Brooke Miller played to (past and present, she is a repeat artist at Greenfield’s) downplays the larger-than-life portrayals of untouchable artists, and makes them more real. It personifies them. This workshop series has the sound quality of a recording studio, great ambient lighting, and a transfixed audience that are there for the Artist. They are there for the Music.

To hear Brooke sing “Two Soldiers” or what should be a Via Rail anthem “Country from a Dome Car”, is an experience in itself. To see and hear it mirrored by her fluent chord changes compounded with the voiced alternate tunings of her “Greenfield” guitars only leads to the knowledge of the talent on the stage mere feet away from you.

Rich and full, the mingling of voice and strings, provided 2 sets of music that have to be experienced live to appreciate the honesty. The same honesty that is apparent in the joy that Michael, Brooke, and Don all exert in their talk of music, in their playing of music, in their sharing of music, but all in all, in their love of music.

This is a pearl of an oyster of shows; the golden egg in the nest of a tree.

Brooke Miller at the Woodnest. Courtesy of Michael Greenfield’s love of music.

Chords and the truth, it doesn’t get any better than that.

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