Artists

Listening to *In The Winter* is like walking into a big empty room in an old house. While you may be present in the here and now, the room surrounds you with a multitude of echoes. What makes *In The Winter* exceptional is the approach to the music. This is not another of those sound-alike singer/songwriter releases. Yates' arrangements are an intriguing blend of folk music and jazz ornamented with bits from the folkish end of both country music and rock and roll. *Take You Home* is like one of those prismatic plastic toys you turn ever so slightly in the sunlight to reveal two pictures on the same surface. The echoes are here, not as direct copies of anything but more like allusions to times past. *Cottonfields* and *The Golden Rocket* can both be heard at different points in this song. This prism unites folk and country allusions in part through the words of the song, in part through some interesting shifts in melody, and in part through the combination of very folky roots drumming and a strong country fiddle. This first song sets the tone for the remainder of *In The Winter*. *Wherever I Go* pulls the listener into the world of cool jazz and soulful blues. The mix here is rich, the sort of sound that backed up Roberta Flack thirty or so years ago. The lyrics and vocal style bring to the song a very Bill Withers feel. *Goodbye, My Lady* begins with a guitar intro reminiscent of several Led Zeppelin recordings, then shifts into Leonard Cohen mode. The lyrics give the illusion of traditional folk, but the images and the theme carry the richness and darkness of a Cohen classic. Yates sings the song soulfully coarse like Cohen does. The drawn out cello and mandolin played like bouzouki only serve to enhance the effect. To a lesser degree, *Wherever I go* also has a certain resemblance to some of Cohen's work. *Sunshine Sun* takes us back to some of the finer folk recordings by James Taylor in his early years. Over the light folk-rock instrumental, Yates has laid a poetic lyric that might have been written by Taylor himself or perhaps Cat Stevens. Again, there are the melodic shifts that give this music a quality all its own. *That's Enough for Now* is either heavily influenced by Bob Dylan's *The Times They Are A changing* or else is drawn from the same traditional roots. The song is striking in both its similarities to and its differences from the Dylan song. It is much to Raymond Yates' credit that he has not merely aped his influences but has built of them a solid foundation upon which his already impressive personal style is built. *In The Winter* includes wonderful performances by *Prairie Home Companion* favorites Pat Donohue and Peter Ostroushko, as well as Dean Magraw, Phil Heywood, Marc Anderson, Melissa Mathews, Pete Mathison, Jim Parker, Roady Tate, Alexis Vaubel, Leo Whitebird, and Dayna Jean Wolter.