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Jay Aymar - Halfway Home (Independent) Summer 2010
Jay Aymar first came to the public's attention in 1993 when he answered a CBC Radio casting call for new artists across Ontario. His songs were selected for a five-song demo. Since then he's written and recorded four more albums and performed live at venues across the country. Ian Tyson recorded his song from this disc, My Cherry Coloured Rose, about hockey broadcasting icon Don Cherry's late wife on his disc Yellowstone and Other Love Stories.
He frequently gets compared to John Prine or Lyle Lovett for his "homemade" songs, but this critic also hears a little of Leonard Cohen in his soft, low-key delivery. The songs on this disc cover a wide range, from light-hearted fare like Apple Pickin' to more serious subjects like Darwin and religion in All I Know, dead hobos and street people in Crow, dead soldiers and rooming houses on Carry Me Back Home and survival of the fittest on Easy Street.
Chris Hess does a fine production and engineering job, keeping things simple and transparent to show off the songs in their best light without burying them under ostentatious decoration. There are very attractive backing harmonies on some of these numbers, too, especially those provided by Jadea Kelly. A good disc for singers to swipe some new songs from and yet another nice effort from Jay Aymar.
- By Barry Hammond, Penguin Eggs. Summer 2010
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