"Stick Together" by Luke Concannon and Darius Christian

Today is the release day of the new Luke Concannon single "Stick Together": in fact his latest collaboration with Darius Christian.

As ever, Luke's care for others transcends the normal motives of songwriting, though with this one, a love for the planet & her nature is melded to that for her peoples: in his own words, "I was listening to the big oaks outside our Yurt home in Guilford Vermont early one spring morning, when I heard the song coming through ‘we've got one hundred years and then fires' I was thinking about how the trees might want to call us to change course to avert climate change and to live a good life. I opened a gig with it that week, and people straight away began singing the chorus"

As with all idiosyncratic writer/performers who have found & established a creative identity they feel comfortable inhabiting, I do find myself saying much the same things each time I review Luke's work: but they are truths & worthy ones and I'd prefer that he stick with them rather than depart from them to give me new angles.

One is that dialectic of Luke's wherein, as he says, his songs have sufficient simplicity that people sing along on their first hearing: his message is paramount and he's great at articulating this. The balance is the underlying complexity of the playing (and I'm sure Darius helps explore new subtle avenues to keep pushing his music forwards). You can sing Luke Concannon songs easily enough but singing them exactly like him let alone playing precisely what he plays is actually far from feasible. We're talking unexpected structure, unorthodox tempi, more complex chords than you probably think… but yet retaining accessibility. 

Obviously I bought into Luke, his music and beliefs long ago: I thoroughly endorse what he's singing here (although buying into all his lifestyle choices isn't for me: you won't catch me in a yurt myself anytime soon). It's a pity that he needs to say stuff like "We can take it so much higher, if we just stick together and stay together" when the power of community seems so obvious as does our own need to connect emotionally. Against this, he's saying this in the context of living in a nation wherein so many people seem to think it might be made "great again" via the media of bullying, intolerance and breaking communities up. To return directly to Luke "we are living in a time of great chaos and need more than ever to come together across difference to care for each other, and figure out what kind of world we wanna grow for our children."

The good news is that once again, the song seems potentially commercial enough to reach as wide an audience as it deserves: though of course preaching to the already converted (me, and I trust you) isn't what is required. The message needs to enter the ears and hearts of the currently flint-hearted and those intoxicated by the allure of hatred. That asks a lot of a song, but you can't fault Luke and Darius for effort. The good news is that an album by the pair is on the way: so watch this space for that.

"Stick Together" is, as Luke's work always is, positive and optimistic (he always scores higher in that regard than I often manage myself) and while far from shirking the "hard dark stuff" (he is an idealist, not a fantasist) the chorus accentuates the sense of joy to which his message can essentially be distilled down into. 

At 2000 today, Luke & Darius are launching "Stick Together" on Zoom: Luke's mentor Alastair McIntosh and wife Stephanie Hollenberg will be there too and together "will be singing/in dialogue with us about where music might really come from, and how we rise to the challenge of the times we live in": you can register to  join via this link:

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/XPlvnFUdT5enXt1mHct4Wg#/registration