Canter Bridge

My good friend Kelly Liebengood ran off to Costa Rica shortly after recording this 2003 album. Then, when he had done all the damage he could in that Central American nation, he fled to Scotland, where he is presently jousting at becoming a biblical scholar, to the general consternation of an otherwise splendid old University that lies next to the world’s most famous golf courses.

It is difficult to say with certainty how the world might have been different had Mr. Liebengood continued to devote himself to recording music rather than, say, missionary pursuits in Latin America or a high-fallutin’ academic career across the pond. There are moments in these thirteen tracks that are so raw one is reminded of a train running off the rails and burying an unsuspecting village in its load of cabbage or, say, malt.

Yet for the most part, Liebengood’s Dylan-esque approach to his tunes comes off rather well. True, Liebengood’s gifts are more on the side of authenticity than splendor. And he does benefit from the ornamentation provided by the inimitable Jill Koch.

But, when listening to this indie production for about the forty-third time, I have to bite my lip and confess that it makes for some jolly good listening. Good grief, that’s hard for me to say.

The bulk of what Kelly Liebengood knows he learned in a locker room, a San Jose State football locker room to be precise. There is something of that venue in his music. It’s raw (and not always like cabbage), straight-forward, masculine, unadorned. As a matter of fact, Dylan returns to mind once more in the description of it.

Liebengood has a knack for turning even an ancient hymn into something you’d smile and listen to rather attentively if it were played in a bar or a coffee house. There is kind of knowing innocence to his expression, even a deep awareness of grace and how it sustains one when nothing else can or will.

By the time you get halfway through the album, you feel like you know the singer. Now in my case I actually do, but one senses that this quality of Liebengood’s art is more about the genuiness of his craft than the historical circumstances that have made us colleagues and friends.

‘My Soul Finds Rest’ (in God alone …), for example, got me thinking about a book I hope to write: ‘My soul finds rest in God alone: a theology for executives’. Having watched Liebs follow and lead, I have to credit him for the generative quality that haunts several of his pieces.

‘Truth be told, I don’t know where you can get this CD or even if you can. But if you can, you should.

You might find yourself wishing that the man had recorded another one or two. He might have saved Scotland some trouble and nourished our souls right here. Back home. This day.