Boston-based folk duo Crowes Pasture had been making music together long before they stepped onto a stage, just not in the literal sense. Attorneys Monique Byrne and Andy Rogovin met, married and had two children, never once weaving their silky vocals (she’s a soprano, he’s a tenor) into a fine mesh, let alone contemplating a career—or even side-hustle—in music. But, as Rogovin explained at a 2018 concert at the public library in Walpole, Mass., that changed seven or eight years into their marriage. One night, while he sang Donovan’s “Catch the Wind” to their kids as they drifted off to sleep, Monique entered the room and joined in, “singing this nice, soft little harmony…we tiptoed out of the room very quietly, looked at each other, and we said: ‘Hey!’” (For more, see this insightful Hometown Weekly article.)
In the years since that night, they’ve released a few EPs and, as of yesterday, four albums. Don’t Blink is a masterful journey through contemporary folk, with strummed guitars, plucked banjo and their luscious vocals, which intertwine, harmonize and float free. It’s mellow, but not too much so.
The title track, which leads off the album, delves into the first flush of love and the fear that sometimes comes with it. Is it fleeting? Will it last? A lovely cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “If I Should Fall Behind” follows. The original version hails from Springsteen’s 1992 Lucky Town album, of course, where it serves as an ode of allegiance to another. To my ears, however, the song didn’t really find its voice until the 1999 reunion tour with the E Street Band, when each member of the group sang a few lines. In that context, the love and commitment spoken of in the lyrics are romantic—especially in the final verse—and yet expansive, about the connections that essentially underpin human existence. While Byrne and Rogovin hone in, as one might expect, on the more traditional reading of love, the lyrics turn into a conversation between the two. It’s genteel and beautiful.
The heartfelt “Caregiver” treads into a territory many of us have visited a time or two, though I’m sure here it was inspired by the brave souls who cared for the ill during the first waves of the pandemic. Who will care for the caregiver? The uptempo “Get While the Getting’s Good” features the duo’s wondrous vocal blend and some deft lyrics. “Agree On,” meanwhile, digs into the “us vs. them” divide that separates Americans. Bridging that partisan gulf requires more than finger-pointing, unfortunately, or asserting the obvious (“Gotta find something we can all agree on”). The sweet “Diamonds” mines a lover’s soul, while the gentle “You at Every Age” celebrates a child as they were, are and will one day be. Speaking of that panoramic view of time, “The Night We Met” finds Monique returning to a fateful encounter in hopes of changing what happened—though she knows she can’t.
The fiddle-driven “Barranco” conjures the long-ago journey of Byrne’s parents from Peru to the United States—he came first in 1963, if I understand the lyrics correctly, and she followed the next year. It’s a remarkable song that speaks to both the émigré experience and the power of love, and how that love lingers on in the afterlife. The album comes to a close with the politically themed “Take Back the Red, White and Blue,” which—as one might surmise from its title—celebrates what the American flag stands for: “Red, white and blue/for me and for you/and all who yearn to be free.”
All in all, Don’t Blink is a stirring set of songs. I played it for my wife Diane while we were out and about earlier today, and she agreed. She found their vocals beautiful, especially Byrne’s, and was especially touched by “If I Should Fall Behind” and “Barranco.”
The track list:
The Old Grey Cat 