Crossing the Water

When a folksinger is described as being "particularly drawn to music that carries the social history of ordinary people in North America," that's not usually a good sign; too often, it means you can expect songs that put message before music, leaving both diminished. Not so in the case of Eve Goldberg, who is as likely to sing a jazzy retro-pop tune about the joys of staying in bed on Sunday morning or a weepy country song about chains around the heart as she is a heavy-handed social commentary. She's fully capable of the latter, of course, as her clunky a cappella rendition of Linda Allen's "Rosie the Riveter" makes clear, but for the most part she sticks with material that is both lighter and more emotionally complex, such as the paradoxically bouncy and melancholy "It Rains Everywhere I Go," the Appalachian-flavored "Down to Tennessee" (complete with some very nice fretless banjo work by Chris Coole), and the bittersweet farewell song "You Don't Need to Miss Me." And don't forget the rhythmically complex blues of "Going Back to Boston." Good stuff.