Christine Lavin

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They laugh, they cry, they murmur among themselves, and they go home grinning, open, and vulnerable. Sometimes that's just what you need.

For over fifteen years Lavin's been a full-time folk musician, but her press pack dubs her a "full-service entertainer," acknowledging her penchant for material that veers into stand-up comedy and a more than occasional predilection to stop the show for some pyrotechnic baton-twirling. But her songs tie everything together. Each is packed with enough visual and emotional detail to float the average miniseries. Lavin's latest live CD, The Subway Series, recorded on the campus of Fordham University, features selections that span her career and reflect her wide-eyed amazement about the sweet, unremarkable moments of life. She sings about the guy behind the deli counter in her Upper West Side New York City neighborhood, about seeing a puppy on the subway tracks, about the things we do to please the ones we love. When she delves deeper, she does so, once again, by illuminating the minutiae that surround the issue, rather than the issue itself. Everything Lavin performs is sung in a delightful, tripping, casually accurate voice, and supported with deft and classy guitar work. She's an utter and total pro.