Music Review: Grayson Capps -‘Heartbreak, Misery, and Death’

Standards

Grayson Capp’s new release, Heartbreak, Misery and Death, is the singer/songwriter’s foray into producing an album of standards. Standards is a rather vague term North Americans use for referring to anything from Gershwin to traditional folk songs from the United Kingdom. 

Basically, it means a song you’re likely to hear played whenever a group of musicians get together and they’re searching for tunes they’re all familiar with. Of course this also means the pool of standards available is always expanding as more music is released and created. They can vary by locale. Songs often heard in Northern Ontario will probably be somewhat different from those heard in the US South.

With Capps living and recording in the American South you’d expect any collection of standards he’d release to be centred on that region. However, Capps has always shown himself to be someone not willing to slot into easy definitions, and this album is no exception.

Sure there are songs, “St. James Hospital” and “Copper Kettle”, whose roots are deeply embedded in the mythology of the Southern US, but also others from climates far removed from that locale. “Barbara Allen”, “Early Morning Rain”, and “Hallelujah” are not from the South let alone the US.

While “Barbara Allen” has history in Tennessee, it is a traditional folk song from the UK that came over with the poor Scottish and Irish immigrants who settled in the Appalachians and was integrated into the new world. The writers of the other two, Gordon Lightfoot and Leonard Cohen respectively, are probably just entering the canon of standards.

While both have had their songs covered countless times, their recent deaths (Cohen in 2016 and Lightfoot in 2023) have elevated their music from covers to fine memories. With his choice of the above two pieces, (and the whole album actually) Capps has set himself the unenviable challenge of singing songs people will have very definite opinions on how they should and should not sound.

Singing standards is a tricky balancing act of being respectful of the original while not making a slavish copy of either it or somebody else’s cover. On Heartbreak, Misery and Death Capps is sensitive to a song’s original recording, without sacrificing his own character and abilities. 

Capp’s expressive and charismatic voice is ideal for all the tunes on this album. He doesn’t over embellish anything, he just serves as an expressive vehicle for each song. Listeners might be tempted to compare his versions of songs with others. However, they should think of this album as an opportunity to hear them anew all over again.

With Heartbreak, Misery, and Death Grayson Capps has made familiar songs new again, and songs you may not have heard before familiar. This album is a joy and a pleasure.