Christine Costanzo - Café Zoma, Madison, WI (September 13, 2003)

It was a rainy Saturday when I caught Christine Costanzo at a local café. Amidst the chatter and the roar of the espresso machine, Costanzo delivered an intimate performance armed with just her guitar, voice and a set of mostly original material culled from her EP and new album.

It was hard not to find a parallel between the dark skies and seemingly pervasive melancholy of her music. Starting with the opening strains of "New York Song," Costanzo laid bare a view of love propped up by, in her words, "loss and longing."

Her playing and singing have the starkness of Gillian Welch. Most of the songs featured hushed, gentle melodies but the pace picked up as the terrain became rougher. Costanzo has a beautiful voice that exudes a sense of weariness with a touch of hope. Considering the sparse instrumentation, it was her voice that really carried the songs. Sometimes she has a tender, pleading voice. This is exemplified in "Send Me Back to Ohio" which reminded me of "Oh, Bury Me Not." It's a somber story of a woman from California who meets the love of her life; he takes her to east to Ohio where they begin a family. Upon her husband's death, she finds herself once again in California mourning: "When I go, send me back to Ohio/Bury me where my first love lay."

At other times, her voice is an aching whisper as in "Lay Your Love Down" when she asks, "Do you think I'm afraid to lay my love down?" Costanzo's view on love is rather akin to Richard Thompson's. In "Appalachian Sky" she sings of "the landscape of my love for you" but it seems barren. In "Big Sky," the singer reaches out for her lover but is left with "a hand full of dreams and a/hand full of air." "Used To Be So Free" is more upbeat musically but the lyrics are a lament over days gone by.

Changing the scenery to add a hint of the political was the scornful "Reap What You Sow" in which a farmer loses his farm. Needless to say, he had no kind words for those who forced his hand. A cover of Steve Earle's "Ft. Worth Blues" late in the show was the only non-original. Costanzo ended her set with "All the Songs Unfinished," which also closes her new album Big Sky.

My only complaint was that she didn't try to engage the audience more. There were the obligatory "thank-you"s and pitches for her new album but she refused to tell us about the songs or herself. But I suppose this is part of her style. With an introspective streak a mile wide, she lets her music invite you into her world rather try to drag you into it.

(This was originally published at The Green Man Review back in 2003-08.)

Christine Costanzo, Christine Costanzo (EP), Big Sky

Originally from rural Ohio, Christine Costanzo moved to Madison, WI in 1994 and has been part of the folk scene for three years. Last year saw the release of her first recording while her debut album is fresh off of the presses.

Christine Costanzo is a 3-song EP featuring only her smooth, Joan Baez-like voice and acoustic guitar. The lead track, "Huck Finn," lazily moves along not unlike the river and carefree characters in its lyrics. A quietly picked guitar introduces "Lay Your Love Down." With her beautiful voice full of longing, Costanzo contemplates a lover and solemnly pleads: "don't you think it's time/we laid our love down?" The mood shifts once again for the last song, "Reap What You Sow." Musically, the song has a bluesy feel but the lyrics are of defiance. A farmer is forced to sell his farm and pours his contempt on the banker, presumably, who is buying the land: "But I'm gonna die a wealthy man/the knowledge in these hands/you'll never understand."

Costanzo's guitar playing is not slick but it doesn't need to be. It suits the songs fine and allows her highly expressive voice to shine.

For her first full-length album, Costanzo enlisted the help of various musicians to flesh out her sound. In addition to her guitar and voice, Big Sky features bass, fiddle, banjo, etc.

"Appalachian Sky" starts things off and it encapsulates what Costanzo's songs are all about. Musically, the lonely banjo of Doug Brown hovers in the background, leaving her voice and guitar in the fore. Lyrically, the first stanza says it all: "The landscape of my love for you/lay all along a county road/Winding through the Appalachian foothills and the sky." Her lyrics are steeped in bucolic imagery and chart a landscape of love that is littered with loss and resignation. She continues: "One day admit defeat, melt and take their/place in that sky."

"Nothing Left to Say" finds the narrator of "Lay Your Love Down" throwing up with white flag while the dolorous harmonica of Catfish Stephenson lingers in the background like a fading memory. Chris Wagoner's lilting fiddle weaves its way around the narrator's maudlin pleas in the beautiful "Send Me Back to Ohio." The metaphor of the sky returns in the title track. But instead of an Elysian Field for failed lovers, it is now the chasm between them: "I reached out my hand for you/I saw your eyes fading out of view/Left me with a hand full of air, the sky came between us."

Costanzo dons the protest singer hat and tackles racism on "Sylvia Plath" and "Minor Litterings." While they have catchy melodies, I like my political songs to have more fire and brimstone. I wished she had gotten a bit angrier, a bit more gritty. Still, the musicianship is solid with the understated percussion on the latter particularly effective.

Moving back to the personal realm, Costanzo laments days gone by in "Used To Be So Free." "Darling a north wind's blowing in/And the autumn's all around/Falling." A newly recorded version of "Huck Finn" featuring Wagoner's fiddle lifts the mood a little before leading to the album's closing tune, "All the Songs Unfinished." Costanzo is alone with her guitar again and she plucks out a lonesome melody. But she betrays it by curling her lips around a ray of hope at last: "Silent raindrops meeting still water/There, I know you and I rest/Complete."

Despite the added instruments, the album feels very warm and intimate. It's not a showcase for instrumental virtuosity but rather it's about abetting Costanzo's wonderfully emotive voice as it traverses a landscape that perhaps has a few peaks after all.

(This was originally published at The Green Man Review back in 2003-08.)

My First Ever CD Release Party!

Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2003 14:42:10 -0600 (GMT-06:00)
From: "christine costanzo" {chcostanzo@earthlink.net}
To: ********@yahoo.com
Subject: Christine Costanzo--CD release party

Hi ****,

I just wanted to invite you to my Cd release party this Sunday at Cafe Montmarte (7pm). John Hasbrouck will open up. I'll put you on the guest list.

And thanks again for the reviews--they were my first official ones so I really appreciated them.

Christine