Tom Cochrane - No Stranger

Tom Cochrane - No Stranger

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daba_1 (2010-02-17)

Juno Award winner Tom Cochrane first caught the public's attention in the '80s when he was the lead singer of the popular Canadian rock group Red Rider. Other early members were guitarist Ken Greer, drummer Rob Baker, keyboardist Peter Boynton, and bassist Jeff Jones. The band recorded several well-received albums. By the next decade, Cochrane was taking the spotlight by turning to a prolific solo career that encompassed a heavy touring schedule that carried him across Canada and saw him find favor in the United States as well. He recorded a number of albums and had some big hits, such as "Life Is a Highway." All of the overnight success came from years of hard work that started in his childhood when he first began penning musical tunes.
Cochrane was born in 1953 in Lynn Lake, a mining town in Manitoba, Canada. His family moved to Ontario before he was of school age. It was there that he wrote his first song when he was only 11, and was the proud owner of his first guitar before he hit his teens. Once Cochrane was old enough to enter bars, he started landing jobs entertaining in them. In 1974, he signed a contact with Daffodil Records to record a debut album, Hang on to Your Resistance. The album didn't make even a tiny wave in the music world, probably for lack of promotion instead of quality. Cochrane didn't give up. He found gigs where he could, and worked day jobs like dishwasher, taxicab driver, and delivery man so he could eat and keep a roof over his head.
By 1980 Cochrane had earned plenty of experience and a spot as lead singer for a group known as Red Rider. That same year, the band released their debut album, Don't Fight It. The full-length offering sold better than hoped for, and brought in rave reviews and a gold hit single, "White Hot." Over the next few years, Red Rider recorded over half-a-dozen albums and pulled off several big hits, many written by Cochrane. There was serious trouble in the group by 1984, and things quickly fell apart. When the pieces were put back together, the band had a longer name, Tom Cochrane & Red Rider. In 1987, the group claimed a Juno Award for Group of the Year. Cochrane had grown a large enough fan base on his own by this point that his failed solo debut was re-released by Capitol Records. He went on to complete two more albums with Red Rider: Victory Day in 1988 and The Symphony Session in 1989.
In 1991, Cochrane once again stepped out on his own with the superb album Mad Mad World. Its success carried over from his homeland into the United States. In 1993, he switched to the EMI label for his next album, Ashes to Diamonds: A Collection. Through the '90s he completed other full-length offerings, such as Ragged Ass Road, Songs of a Circling Spirit, and X-Ray Sierra. Two compilations, Anthology and Trapeze: The Collection, arrived in 2002, followed by No Stranger in 2006.

daba_1 (2010-02-17)

No Stranger, Cochrane's 2006 foray into stripped-down rock & roll played in the garage, the bar, or the concert hall. He can claim all those spaces as his own.
As the first track, "The Party's Not Over," takes hold over a straight rock four/four backbeat and jangling, ringing, wide-open acoustic and electric guitars, Cochrane sings globally: "Jonah and Ali leave your boots at the door/You were brothers once, now leave your weapons on the floor/You don't need them anymore/As if God was on the side of anybody's war..." And then he brings it closer to home: "Take it all one day at a time/Everyone above ground is like a shiny new dime/'Don't go it alone you say it all the time/Watching your back as you're watching mine." He never shouts, never screams, it's all coming down to the simplest point and still feels like an anthem. "Glide" is more self-instruction gleaned from experience, with beautiful snaky guitars layered on top of the unplugged six-strings and rounded, warm power chords as a shuffling drum kit pushes it along at the right tempo. What he's up to is simple: transferring emotion, the emotion of living to the living. Nostalgia has no real place in Cochrane's songs; the past only matters in the grain of what's happening in the moment. It's all instructive. There is no escape, only travel. There is no hesitation, only the value of jumping right in with eyes wide open: check "While You Are Young." It's easy to see the appeal that Cochrane's tunes hold for country artists in the 21st century. He doesn't need to write country music per se, because his ownc transcends genres, and nowhere more so than on No Stranger. Many shades and shapes of life are here -- take the regret and amends offered in "White Horse," with its imagery and tight, clipped hook lines and open-door rock & roll chorus. He carries it further in "Didn't Mean," with a slippery bump-and-slip verse, distorted guitars and an unwound chorus; he inverts Dylan's "I Just Want to Be Friends with You" in wordplay, while singing from the other side of the mirror about life's hardships. Cochrane's in the soul of things here, from the country stroll of "Out of My Head" (look for someone in Nashville to cover this one without a doubt) through to the deep acknowledgement of commitment and gratitude that is "Northern Star"; a wily, laid-back rock tune with an edge (think of something from Springsteen's The Rising and you get it) , to his overdriven, feedback-laden reading of Norman Greenbaum's classic '60s hit "Spirit in the Sky" that's a grave, acid-drenched gospel tune. Cochrane's not only in the pocket on this one, but he rips it apart at the seams. No Stranger is a stellar moment in Cochrane's career, whether Yanks get it or not. That he keeps his wily lyrics in the rock & roll tradition only makes the music itself bigger, wider, deeper. If it had been released and promoted here, No Stranger would have been as highly regarded as some kind of comeback for a singer/songwriter who never went away; he does quite well in his own country and here in the U.S. in royalties. That he's chosen to record for people who get him up North is their gain and his; it's a loss for us south of that borderline., because No Stranger is Tom Cochrane's masterpiece -- thus far.

daba_1 (2010-02-17)

I suspect a Canuck. :P)