Review: Jesse Winchester’s ‘A Reasonable Amount of Trouble’ an affirming epitaph

It’s no mere coincidence that the opening track on the final album from singer-songwriter Jesse Winchester, who died in April from bladder cancer, is a characteristically disarming song called “All That We Have Is Now.”

And it would be a disservice for anyone unfamiliar with Winchester’s exceedingly graceful and erudite body of work to think this was a latter-day awakening to the reality of mortality borne of his health issues in recent years, which also included a bout with esophageal cancer, from which he recovered.

“All That We Have Is Now” is framed as a too-short day in the park with a loved one, but it becomes the most elegantly concise, sweetly generous epitaph imaginable to a life well-lived:

My my look at the time fly
Sorry I really have to run
I just love being with you
The whole thing’s been such fun

Winchester also contributes guileless love songs (“Don’t Be Shy”), wry exhortations of his insistence on engaging with life (“Never Forget to Boogie”) and melancholy odes to the most civilized of partings (“Ghosts), all sung in that liquid and smokey honeysuckle voice revealing his upbringing in Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee.

Retracing his steps as a young music aficionado, he also folds in effortlessly reimagined versions of songs from the early days of rock and pop: The Cascades’ 1963 hit “Rhythm of the Rain,” the Dell-Vikings 1957 single “Whispering Bells” and the Clovers’ “Devil or Angel” from 1956.

His songs have been revered and recorded by scores of A-list rock, folk, country and pop acts, but rarely have his own versions ever been surpassed. That’s what makes another line from the album’s first song so appropriate:

I wanted more somehow
But all that we have is now
That’s it
All that we have is now

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