(Warner Bros. BS 2862), released in late 1975, and the new "Dancer with Bruised Knees" are also unique, almost -contra- The Musical Paradox dictory, and haunting. The musical paradox is more striking of Kate & Anna McGarrigle on the first LP, which sounds at once cloistered and adventurous. Although they are in their thirties, the Canadian sisters (born and raised in Quebec) sing Back before the blues were blue. McGarrigle'sThe Work Songcontinues for the most part in girlish sopranos as if When the good old songs were new, to haunt. Its dreamy nostalgia for the gathered around the family piano on a Songs that may no longer please us "songs that my daddy taught me" and wintry evening twenty years ago. Yet the Bout the darkies, about Jesus, clear-sighted criticism of those songs' homey feel of the vocals is belied by the Mississippi minstrels, tainted origins in racism and slavery wide-ranging eclecticism of the material. color of molasses, ("You worked so hard you died standing A ditty delivered in French jostles a Ba- Strummin' on their banjos up") remain a unique and almost -con- hamian gospel number. Anna's songs to entertain their massas. tradictory combination, forged with draw mainly on country- and folk -music Some said garbage, others said art, deep feeling and great wit. Shortly after idioms, while Kate's tend toward blues You couldn't call it soul, Muldaur recorded a song by Kate's sister and jazz. And both women recall the you had to call it heart. * Anna (the elder by a year) for her second tunefulness of classic American song- Four years after its appearance on Maria album, the two were offered a contract of writers such as Stephen Foster, George Muldaur'sfirstsoloalbum,Kate their own. "Kate & Anna McGarrigle" Gershwin, and Hoagy Carmichael. The singers sound young and innocent, out their melodies sound old and experi- enced, steeped in the history and geogra- phy of our continent. Thematically as well, the McGarrigles unite opposites. "Dancer with Bruised Knees" points out the polarity by follow- ing ane traditional French song,Blanche Comme la Neige,with another,Perrine Etait Servante.The first is decorous and demure: a young maiden feigns death to preserve her virginity and is reunited with her father. The second is a ribald, uptempo tune about illicit love. Gener- ally speaking, Anna's songs are meta- phorical and romantic. One verse of her Heart Like a Wheel isso mawkish that even Linda Ronstadt omitted it on her 1974 album of the same name. (Ron- stadt's version remains the most widely known of the McGarrigles' songs.) Anna sings that even death is better than an untrue lover with such seeming naiveté

Kate & Anna McGarrigle: Dancer with Bruised Knees. Joe Boyd, producer. Warner Bros. BS 3014, $6.98. Tape: ireM5 3014,4*. M83014, $7.97. *The Work Song1973 by Kate McGarrigle, Garden Court Music Corp. Used by permission

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