Manhattan Mercury
BRUCE HUTCHINSON
ARTS CRITIC
Singer offers wit, variety
Ann Zimmerman gave a delightful and joyful concert Friday at the Manhattan Arts Center in a benefit for Habitat for Humanity. The singer/songwriter, who plays both piano and acoustic guitar, performed both covers and original songs from her two albums "Canned Goods" and "Love and Weather."
It would be easy to categorize Zimmerman as a folk singer, but the folk genre is much bigger than it seems. Traditional Celtic, bluegrass, acoustic, rural, contemporary, activist and Americana are all recognizable forms of folk. Zimmerman's songs fall mainly in the rural and Americana categories with a little bit of blues to spice things up.
Her songs rise from the land, describing the earth, wind, rain, and grass. They are spiritual but not religious, animating a world that in our hectic lives we forget lives and breaths. An invigorating breeze, her music whispers the simple pleasures of what is at heart a simple place.
Zimmerman covered a wide flange of non-original songs, some well known, others more obscure. Two of her best are American classics: "Home on the Range" and ^Buddy Can You Spare A Dime." Her rendition of the Depression era lament captured the forgotten pain of a past era. Less known covers included homages to down home food like, "Canned Goods" and "Home Grown Tomatoes." "My Home in the Sky" and "The Feet of a Dancer? " both displayed an inspirational attitude that niceIy complemented her selection of songs.
Zimmerman also showed a fine sense of humor in her music. She performed an ode to her family roots with "The Plumber Is the Man Who Saves us All" based on the old folk song, "The Farmer Is the Man Who Feeds us All." She also showed her commitment to the nitty gritty aspects of environmentalism with "The Compost Song," wonderfully illustrating the final fate we all share.
Zimmerman was at her best performing original work. Her biggest strength rests in her songwriting, specifically in her lyrics. Her blues numbers, like "Absolute Zero" and "Rolling Home I-70 Blues," display a feisty whimsicality, finding emotional truth in overlooked signs of home and clever turns of phrase. Her more folk oriented tunes, like "Rise Up and Ride," display a simple emotional power, greater than the sum of their parts.
The emotional strength and truth of Zimmerman's songs mask the sometimes simplistic quality of her musical compositions. The songs rarely display musical complexity, but in a way this complements her straightforward approach. Zimmerman loves audience participation, often teaching her listeners refrains so they can sing along. Her musical style allows the audience to keep up with the music. Zimmerman's music lacks the dazzle that many concert goers look for these days. Instead she provides a refreshingly cheerful and uplifting show that transcends style for something more important: honesty.