Tony Dekker/Great Lake Swimmers — Song Sung Blue

Song Sung Blue

Weewerk/Outside

Phil Villeneuve (CHARTattack)

01/08/2009 2:57pm

Song Sung Blue is a multiple award-winning documentary about a Milwaukee couple who spend their entire lives paying tribute to Neil Diamond, live, in music. This EP is the soundtrack to the film and features a wonderfully warm instrumental collection of songs (with the exception of the title track and 57 seconds of hoo-ing on "Awake") from the Great Lake Swimmers' Tony Dekker. The songs are short and mostly feature simple guitar and banjo strumming and plucking with some minor piano touches. Dekker's only vocal performance with lyrics is his cover of Diamond's country hit "Song Sung Blue," which the Swimmer translates perfectly into a bluegrass lullaby. But the EP as a whole is obviously used to create moods within the film and, while it's sweet, it's too short and void of any context if the listener hasn't seen the movie. It's a valuable little bauble for GLS fans, but otherwise it's pretty useless.