Annie Keating Wows Jalopy Crowd With “Hard Frost” Release Show

With her newest album, Hard Frost, due out on June 1, Brooklyn’s own Annie Keating played a release show at Jalopy Theatre on May 18. Joining Keating and her acoustic guitar on the stage were bassist Cat Popper, drummer Steve Williams, and Teddy Kumpel on electric guitar. Kumpel, also a Brooklynite, produced the album at two local studios: Teddy’s House of Fun and Atomic Sound.

Hard Frost Album Cover

The lively, well-received show included the following songs from Hard Frost:

“Looking for Trouble”: Keating kicked off her set with the kick-ass tune in which she doesn’t find trouble but, happily, it finds her “in the nick of time.”

”Lies and Dynamite”: This stunning rocker, co-written with Lynne Hanson, includes the refrain “Love don’t get out alive,” which serves as something of an overarching theme for the album.

“Keepsakes and Heartaches”: Keating once told Brooklyn Roads that, “John Prine inspired me more than any other songwriter or artist” — and his influence is most apparent in this ballad. It’s a bittersweet postmortem of a marriage and the difficulties of letting go of the past, with images of a “faded love letter,” “two chairs on the lawn” and other “stuff” that remains in the wake of the breakup.

Sound Checking with Drummer Steve Williams/ photo by Griffon Sgroi Jacobs / courtesy of the artist

“Lovesick Blues”: This is not the Hank Williams classic, but a swamp-rocking tale of someone “so tired of being stuck on you” yet unable to let go. Keating told the crowd she was determined to “steer clear of the low-hanging fruit” of words that rhyme with blue/you. Thus, she effortlessly and seamlessly weaves words such as stew, hairdo, hullabaloo and Kathmandu into the lyrics.

Annie Keating With Teddy Kumpel / photo by Griffon Sgroi Jacobs / courtesy of the artist

“Witness”: This sweet love/friendship song can stand proudly alongside the likes of “You’ve Got a Friend” and ”Bridge Over Troubled Water.” A stream of helping-hand scenarios concludes with “I’ll be your witness; you’re not alone, that much I promise.”

Keating also performed “Marigold” and “Kindred Spirit” from her most recent album, Bristol County Tides, noting how grateful she was to play them live, given that the album was recorded during the COVID lockdown in 2020. She also reached further back in her repertoire for “Belmont,” “On the Road by Ten,” “Water Tower View” and one of her many Brooklyn-inspired tunes, “Coney Island.”

Not surprisingly, Keating closed with a John Prine song, “Angel From Montgomery,” accompanied on vocals by Emma Orme of the Brooklyn duo Sam & Emma, who opened for her that evening.