LIKE HONEY ON A MAGIC CARPET
THE MUSIC OF SERAH
Reviewed by John Clark
Several years ago, I was browsing music CDs in my favorite genre (New Age),
when the artwork on one particular album caught my eye. The woman on the
cover of Senegal Moon was striking. While that isn’t the best reason to
purchase a new CD, it caused me to examine the rest of the album carefully.
The thumbnail photos of Africa and the supporting musicians only added to
its attraction, so I bought it.
It took about thirty seconds of listening to “Papaya Moon,” and I was
hooked. The rest of the songs were equally entrancing, creating a smooth and
energizing musical portrait of Africa as well as other places a soul can go
when feelings are strong. Another cut, “Papillon,” is the most beautiful
song ever done about butterflies. Over the next several weeks, I listened to
the CD over and over, never tiring of the melodies or the lyrics.
I found Serah’s website (www.serah.com)
and signed her guestbook. In short order, she replied, thanking me for my
note regarding the beauty of her music. Our correspondence has continued,
adding a special something when listening to her music.
Serah has eight CDs to her credit. If I had to choose a favorite, it would
be a tossup between Senegal Moon and Out Of the Wind, although each of her
albums has a distinct attraction.
Senegal Moon (1997) shows the influence from the time she and her children
lived and worked in Kenya among people whose lives and expectations were
incredibly different from hers. Serah helped find homes for an amazing
number of orphaned children. Subsequent interviews make it clear that the
experience not only affected her spiritual outlook but also that playing and
singing with the people who lived there made her a richer and better
musician. Many of her songs include noted musicians and singers from Africa,
as well as Pakistan and Native America.
It isn’t easy to categorize Serah’s music, nor can I compare her voice and
style to anyone else; that’s part of her attraction. Every CD has a
different musical flavor. Her just- released Rainbow Reign, a private label
reissue of her earliest work, has a sound somewhere between country and
folk.
Flight of the Stork (1988) had its birth in Africa but didn’t come to
fruition until several years later when Serah was living in France and saw
the same storks she had seen on the shore of Lake Nakuru, readying for their
winter flight back to Africa. She sat down and composed a musical narration
of that journey. If you close your eyes during the title track, you can
easily visualize the flight beginning, then segueing into “Above the
Shadow,” which has a ghostly sweetness that is maintained through “Riding.”
When you reach “Forever the Wild Mare,” you can feel the energy increase,
almost as though you were one of the storks spotting northern Africa after a
long night flying across the Mediterranean. “Conch Shell” pulls you back to
the ethereal sense of the album, but “White Rose” flirts with a new energy
before cutting loose with a nice beat. The final three songs, “Beauty: Song
for Africa,” “Falcon,” and an instrumental rendition of the opening “Flight
of the Stork,” provide a nice slowing, almost as if watching the musical
equivalent of a setting sun on the African plain.
Out of the Wind (1994) has a special place in my musical world because I was
listening to it when we first looked at our new house in Hartland. This is
her most wistful album and the most satisfying one to sing along with. There
is a great bit of lyric in “Orion” that stands out: “I can’t face Orion
without you. You’ve ruined my solitude. I Look in the mirror of Love and I
wonder. Who is this one I never knew.” Yup, I’ve been there.
No sooner does Serah pull you into that melancholy introspection, than she
takes you soaring with “Faerie Tales,” which encourages you to ponder: What
do the angels do with their prayers? This is a really bouncy tune. The title
song “Out of the Wind” is one of those songs that has a richness you can
sink into that erases whatever loose obsessions happen to be annoying your
spirit, and it sounds equally great whether played softly or cranked up as
you fly down the road. “Everlasting Song” is in complete contrast. It is one
of those melodies that can create time warps and take your mind and spirit
back to moments of broken love. “Stoic” has a disarming sweetness that tends
to make you forget that it’s really a song about conflict. “North Again”
always reminds me of standing under the stars on a perfectly still winter
night with everything so clear and bright that you keep wanting to reach up
and catch one. “Comforter’s Song” is another one that has the potential to
spirit you off to another time you left a bit prematurely, and then “Big
Seas” comes along and rights your spiritual ship again. The last
song, "Secret of the Star,” takes you back inside your head. If you like
albums that have the power to take you to other times and places, Out of the
Wind is a perfect candidate.
Wing of Mercy (2000) also has some powerful songs on it and has more of the
wonderful world musicians that give the background lyrics and tempos their
richness. “Streetlight” is another song that can open portals to other
times, while “Starmaker,” which follows, is a toe-tapping sing-along with a
great chorus. “Tristan’s Lullabye” has a world music sound to it
and allows Serah a chance to demonstrate that she can easily take her
singing from soft and nostalgic to powerful and intense. That energy carries
over into “The Second Dispatch” before Serah softens again with “Legend.”
“Mission” is an interesting portent of her latest album A Thousand Candles
(2004), layering different beats and melodies upon one another to weave a
musical tapestry. “Emergence “is a powerful song that returns to a theme Serah used in an earlier song on
Senegal Moon, “Joan of Arc.” The title
track “Wing of Mercy” has a spiritual flavor, and Serah ends the
album with a dandy rendition of “I’m Not in Love.”
Late Harvest (2003) starts with a really bouncy love song, “I Think I Know,”
followed by that classic “Stand By Me.” “Psalm Song,” which follows, has a hymnlike quality and leads into another classic, “Sailing,” which may even
be better than Christopher Cross’s version. “Joined at the Wing” is a high-
energy love song that makes you want to grab someone and hit the dance
floor, and you might as well stay out there and slow dance through “Pieces
of Dreams,” which has a languid quality. After adding another classic,
"Crazy Love," to the mix, Serah launches into "Catching Fireflies," which
can easily take you back to any of a hundred summer nights when you were a
child, and your imagination was king. “Dolce” is an eerie song about laments
that carries you to yet another classic, “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?”
I like the mix of original and old favorites on this album, which runs just
under an hour in length.
In addition to these albums, Serah has done a Christmas album called Love of
Christmas (1990) that contains nine original compositions as well as the
traditional English carol “Sweet Was the Song.” It is an excellent addition
to any holiday music collection.
Serah’s latest release, A Thousand Candles, took me by surprise. After I
finished listening to it for the first time, I shook my head and wondered
what was going on. However, knowing how much I enjoyed all her other albums,
I played it again and still shook my head. It was only after listening to it
for a third time that it grabbed me, and I realized the subtle difference.
This album uses a new blend of rhythms that often seem at odds with each
other when you first listen to them. Once you give your ears a chance to
understand where Serah went with these songs, I expect you will enjoy them
as much as the rest of her work. I admire artists who aren’t afraid to break
new ground.
As each album has featured a subtle shift in her music, so has the artwork
on them. Serah looks like a completely different woman on each cover,
something that greatly intrigues me. In addition, all of the albums contain
a booklet with the lyrics as well as original artwork and numerous
photographs of the artists involved in its production. I learned in the
course of chatting electronically with Serah that she spent parts of her
teen years in Blue Hill, where her grandparents had a house.
I encourage you to visit her website and sample some of the songs. You can
listen to twenty-three of the songs from albums mentioned in this review. If
you like them, sign her guestbook, for that kind of feedback is a large
part of what keeps artists doing what they do best—filling our spirits with
good things.
