"Daniel Boling is a sensitive man. Many of his songs are like little books as he is one of the rare few who can write a song with a worthy plot. Through well-done arrangements with clever instrumentals and thought-provoking lyrics with warm vocal renditions, his latest CD, HE DREAMS, will touch you in ways that will make you grateful. His remarkably committed gifts continue to bless and inspire us."
FOLK ON THE PLATTER By Brent Jeffries
SOUND WAVES - Georgian Bay Folk Society
Volume 35, Issue 3 - April 13, 2010 (Page 4)
C. Daniel Boling - He Dreams - 2009 Perfectly Stable Music
If you enjoy the finer things in life…such as… insightful subtle songs crafted about everyday people, doing everyday things, while trying to survive in a world full of everyday opportunities, then this is a disc for you. The fourth release from Daniel Boling is a triumph.
Recorded in his own "Perfectly Stable Music Studio" in New Mexico; this disc has an almost live, "off the floor" feel to it. Assisted by some of his friends, including the incomparable Jack Williams on second guitar on "Here" and the up-and-coming songwriter Meredith Wilder on "Tell Me You Love Me So", he gives a heartfelt performance. Thirteen songs, Thirteen stories, Thirteen examples of art imitating life. His tales are drawn from his life; the lives of his family and friends; and sometimes they just come from perfect strangers; acquaintances met on the road while touring coast-to-coast with a guitar, a songbook and a smile.
Boling has spent the last ten years entertaining at festivals and song-writing contests, with an articulate finger-picking style and a crisp tenor voice. He sings about homelessness on "He Dreams"; waiting and worrying on "Till I’m Finished Being Scared" and a widow’s love featured in song with Suzanne Shelton on cello on "Katie’s Garden". Track five on the disc entitled "Jesse" is a poignant piece of music, garnering first place in 2007 at the Woody Guthrie Folk Festival Songwriter Contest. The track features Daniel on guitar and banjo. This eulogy celebration by a ghost could very well be the artist's testimony to a lifelong passion of performing.
As a storyteller Boling eloquently explains the best and worst traits of his father in "An Awful Lot Like Me" and he gives thanks and praise to the friends he has made on the road as a troubadour on "Every Journey". Still on the Hill, who have performed at Summerfolk say that this is "one of those great, rare CD’s that will remain on the top of our stack for years to come… wonderful songs about things that really matter" and Steve Gillette calls it "great work… very strong songwriting, vocals and exquisite guitar playing".
There is a wonderful story of a couple who tenderly remember that they promised to "love, honor, and take the blame" for each other in "Tell Me You Love Me So (Much You Could Die) and an equally tender story of a Viet Nam veteran anguishing and regretting over his departed youth in "I Took the King’s Coin".
Visit the website www.DanielBoling.com
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In its nearly 40-year history, the Kerrville Folk Festival has become an 18-day celebration of song writing. Many of the festival’s fans say the magic doesn't take place on stage. Away from the lights of the main stage and the bustling campgrounds is Chapel Hill.
"It’s a really special place to folks. We do services and weddings and all kinds of things up there," festival producer Dalis Allen said.
Daniel Boling is from New Mexico. He comes to Chapel Hill to play and to be amazed. "They know they're going to hear a bunch of good songs there that they aren't going to hear on the main stage," Boling said. The singers could be a main stage performer or an artist's first time playing in public. Anyone can sign up and play a song.
David Broyles is from Oklahoma. He normally plays with a band called Dr. Pants, but Chapel Hill allows him and others to do their own thing. "You can get 15 different people who have 15 totally different ways of expressing themselves just with a guitar and their voice," he said. Artist after artist and song after song, the music stretches through the afternoon.
"The spirit of Kerrville has remained consistent for however many years it's been," Boling said. For Boling, it has been 39 years. He said he tries to come back every year. "My children were largely raised here. My daughter, who is with me now, is going to turn 24 in August. She came here the first time when my wife was eight months pregnant with her," he said. That kind of fan dedication has earned Kerrville its reputation. "This festival is about songwriters, whether they're known or unknown. Everybody wants to hear that song and it's really special," Boling said.
The festival creates an atmosphere where fans can become participants. The scenery makes for a summer camp-like environment focused on the love of song. "You just come out here and do what you do and that's a reward in itself," Broyles said.
Guitarist C. Daniel Boling of Albuquerque is a thinking person's singer/songwriter. He crafts songs that carry thoughtful messages and intriguing stories that are part of America's long folk music tradition. Boling sings convincingly and earnestly. His new CD contains 13 songs that are uniformly irresistible.
The title song is one man's somber reflection of a life that may hold little consolation except dreaming of his youth. One particular verse encapsulates that depressing sentiment: "Back in the '60s the world was all promise / Whatever he wished could be his / Now he's in his sixties - that promise lies broken / This pile of nothing is all that there is."
"I Took the King's Coin" is a similar view from the perspective of a man who looks back on his life. As a young man he had gone off to fight in the Vietnam War. He returned, and begins living a nomadic life: "But sooner or later this life on the road / Claims a toll greater than I thought I owed..."
The cut "Katie's Garden" evokes a sadness that verges on tears. That's because Katie is no longer alive and the singer musters the emotional strength to tend to her green chiles and tomato plants. The song concludes with these two lines, "But Katie lives inside me / Helping make her garden mine." Suzanne Shelton's cello adds gravity.
Perhaps the most cheerful song on the album is Boling's duet with Meredith Wilder on "Tell Me You Love Me So." It's about the need of a married couple to continue through life to tell each other what the title declares.
The song "A Million Little Things" is funny in its quirkiness. The singer relates how a woman wants what she wants, and her demands are condensed in these two lines of the song: "If you'd just change a million little things / You'd be the perfect guy for me."
A round stamp on the cover of Boling's CD says that he was the first-place songwriter at the 2007 Woody Guthrie Folk Festival. Boling is a good reason for local folks to pay more attention to who's in their backyard.
C. Daniel Boling is an Albuquerque singer-songwriter with a special gift. Boling's story-songs -- of remembering family, of coming of age, of loving life -- are honest without being sappy and his style comes straight out of the honored American folksinging tradition.
Part of Boling's gift is felt in the warmth of his voice, the directness of his lyrics and the simplicity of the melodies.
Take, for example, the opening selection, which is the title cut. Here is an excerpt: "I see we've all made our way back again where our spirits are made new. We gather here to share this time from all life's many walks... to share the music, to share our songs, to sit alone and talk."
Two songs that speak to the working man and woman are the thoughtful "Who I Am" and the kicky "Mid-Week Blues." Here's a line from the blues: "Some day I'd like to not show up and never even call. Stay at home and lie in bed and not get up at all."
"Who I Am" advises that we shold not let our jobs define us: "This is the job that feeds my family. But it's not who I am, just what I do."
Boling has received some recognition, he was a finalist in the singer-songwriter category of the South Florida Folk Festival. Boling deserves recognition in his hometown so you can say, "I knew him when...".
The Old International is unquestionably a modern, very American folk album, owing more of its sound to the protest tunes of the 1960s than the traditional ballads that fill Renaissance fairs. While borrowing from the acoustic tradition of the modern folk classicist, C.Daniel Boling picks out a songwriting ground of his own, based less in societal observation than self-help.
It's not especially uncovered ground, advocating self-control, appreciation of others and forgiveness over anger. These insights are nonetheless valid, but the strength of their expression comes from finding a new, true way of sharing them. The echoing, somewhat haunting "Shay," about a rare afternoon treat for a boy ostracized by Down's syndrome, is a far more layered and powerful picture of acceptance than the preachy "From Your Side." Boling does well when he can mix his earnest therapies with a dose of humor. "Mama's Words" acknowledges the tensions of familial relationships along with Mama's immeasurable value, and "What Might Be In It" offers a lesson in overconsumption safely hidden in a plate of wry buffet observations.
Unfortunately, Boling sometimes succumbs to the urge to tell, not show, and delivers a few heavy-handed morality tales. "I Dreamed I was Dead" offers a rather predictable and self-loathing look at life from an angry half of a partnership, and the title song -- an otherwise effective history of an old car -- kills the message it tries to carry by spelling it out in an unneeded chorus.
The songs may be sometimes unapproachable, but Boling himself never is. He has a pleasant but limited voice, high and a bit rough around the edges, and clearly not "trained." Without forcing himself beyond his range, he carries the emotional weight of even his weaker songs through a storyteller's vocal quirks. His choked, resolved attitude turns "Flight 93" from a simplistic bit of storytelling to a real tearjerker, and his defiant self-defense in "It Can Be This Way Always" enables the song's protagonist to seem more human and less antagonistic.
The Old International offers a mixed bag of songs, and most listeners will pick and choose their favorites. But Boling has a real treat, the smooth, jazzy "Upbeat" waiting in an extremely hidden track at the end of the album. It covers approximately the same territory seen in the earlier songs, condemning anger and encouraging self-improvement, but does so with a sly self-knowledge and a devilish flair that give the message a much sharper sting. It's a strange wake-up call after a mostly relaxed album, and makes Boling's previous choice of tone seem peculiar.
Hopefully Boling will explore his rowdier nature more in upcoming albums. In the meantime, those looking for a calm moment in their day could do worse than get behind The Old International.
...Award-winning songwriter C. Daniel Boling of New Mexico by way of Kentucky entertained in fine troubadour style accompanying himself on guitar and six-string banjo—tuned like a guitar. Daniel’s interesting originals, including TV Commercial Dream Song and Out Of The Gene Pool Darwin Award, balanced with the perennial Shady Grove and Lisbeth Cotton’s guitar dazzler Freight Train...