(from
Amazon.com review by E. Field)
Vesper: Saigon Grill with a Kid
I've not heard Vesper in years. Her voice and this song is one of the most markedly changed sounds, of the collection (...and she was good before, trust me, very-very good.)
This is tasting a dark food, from a ghost story that is wonderful, familiar, and oddly haunted with spices. This girl knows the hills and shadows of our common counties.
I hear this, and I'm thinking: Shirelles `Soldier Boy,' but only, it's not Vietnam, it's the Civil War.
It's deeper, calling not from the rafters (where the organ drifts down,) but coming straight at you. Vesper's like that.
Some singers do these fluttering aerial displays like barn swallows.
Vesper flies slowly at eye level, she glides in dark lovely notes with owls and ravens. I can smell the woods and the water when she sings, she has a very honest, full, and gutsy sound.
She is folklore.
God I love her singing.
There is a song by Josh Ritter `Girl in the War,' I'm in love with, that this could be a companion piece to, and I swear to Bela Fleck, I'm hearing temple bells (big deep ones,) under it all in the end.
This is the fourth siren from `O Brother Where Art Thou.'
-Her voice will cradle you.
released May 3, 2006
Words and Music by Ben Stamper.
Originally appeared on the compilation Other Songs and Dances, Vol. 1.