“The women of Winterbloom find the simpler joys of the holidays”
The Boston Globe by Scott Alarik
Read the full story with photos at:
http://www.boston.com/ae/music/articles/2009/12/18/the_women_of_winterbloom_find_the_simpler_joys_of_the_holidays/
Could your holiday traditions use a little rearranging? Move the office party until that accountant who thinks he’s Brad Pitt is on vacation, Facebook Grandpa’s fishing stories so he can enjoy them by himself, or find a carbon-neutral way to dispose of Aunt Emma’s fruitcake. Perhaps we could just put the whole thing off until July, when the weather’s better and we have some time to deal with it.
If thoughts like that disturb your holiday cheer, four decidedly 21st-century songwriters may have the balm. Winterbloom: Traditions Rearranged is a seasonal ensemble of rising folk stars Meg Hutchinson, Natalia Zukerman, Anne Heaton, and Antje Duvekot. Offering fresh takes on holiday standards, and original songs about the season’s modern pitfalls, they’re on a 12-city tour that visits Club Passim Sunday.
The tour has the quartet pondering what tradition means in the age of Twitter. The old rituals were designed for such a different time, when December was not only the darkest but the slowest time of year. In a wired-to-the-world society, it is often the most hectic, stressful time. Silent night indeed.
“We have so many devices now,’’ Hutchinson says. “We’re constantly checking our e-mail and social networks and blogs. That translates to family gatherings, too; everyone has their little gadgets they’re busy with. When we used to go to my grandmother’s house in the Vermont woods, there was this timeless feeling. We’d all be in the house for days, and what was special was just lying around the fire, picking through old magazines, finding some old book on the shelf. That downtime was so restoring, and brought us so close. I think we’re forgetting that.’’
For Winterbloom’s eight-song EP, Zukerman updated an old Jewish riddle song, in which women line up to be quizzed by a prospective husband. But in this version, the woman who knows the answers also knows a jerk when she sees one.
“I thought, yuck, I’m so sick of that Cinderella thing of lining women up and auditioning them for the role of wife,’’ Zukerman says. “So I wanted to find a way to share the fun of the riddles, without making young girls feel like they have to prove themselves to be loved.’’
Heaton sings a bluesy wish that we will be seen as we really are at family reunions, and not perpetually as the brats we were. Duvekot contributes a Christmas kiss-off song, for those moments when the wrong gift finally convinces you he’s the wrong guy (“When have you ever seen me wear a thong?’’).
Hutchinson wrote a song updating O. Henry’s holiday story “The Gift of the Magi,’’ about a poor man who sells his watch to buy his wife expensive combs, only to find that she’s sold her long hair to buy him a watch fob. But Hutchinson’s version ends uncertainly, reminding us that love needs steady attention more than dramatic gestures.
“When I took inventory of the relationship that inspired me to rework that story,’’ she says, “none of the beautiful things were physical gifts; they were just the feelings we had, the time we shared. I also wanted to capture that it’s never just a jolly holiday for me; it’s always bittersweet, a time I contemplate the things I love, which are magnified by the things that I miss.’’
This way of updating old traditions used to happen all the time. Much of our American holiday, from “Season’s Greetings’’ to Santa Claus, revamped older religious rituals, so that everybody felt included, regardless of faith or background. Maybe the trouble is not that we don’t honor old traditions, but that we don’t rearrange them to fit our lives today.
“I think it’s harder to fight for time in our lives, to not just get together as a family and start showing each other the latest app on our iPhones,’’ Zukerman says. “On the other hand, you can get Grandma on iChat now, which is great. But at some point, I hope we can turn the machines off and get back to people around the table, sharing a meal. It’s such an elemental thing – like harmony.’
