A to Z Album and Gig Reviews
In his previous Birmingham band incarnation as Rachel's Basement (whose excellent Quit Your Low Down Ways is included here as a hidden bonus track), Rachel found himself courted by any number of labels looking to get themselves their own Ocean Colour Scene. After all, the bands were regular gigging acquaintances and Rachel's warble didn't sound a million miles away from that of his mate Simon Fowler. However, labels being what they are, dithering took hold and when OCS began to show signs of losing a little lustre interest cooled. Rachel retrenched, disbanded and reconstructed himself as a singer-songwriter plying the acoustic circuit. A further clutch of demos and a series of London dates earned him sufficient good notices to prompt this own label solo album debut, stripping the sound back to the simple voice and guitar format.
The strangled treble of Meet Met At The Bridge and Need To Be Somebody ensure the Fowler comparisons won't die away yet awhile, but Letter To A Soldier, the yearningly wonderful Ragged Smile and The Sound of The Silence now give access to such influences as Loudon Wainwright, Dylan, early Donovan, McGuinn, and maybe even Ralph McTell, though perky domestic love song Saturday Morning, Sunday Night suggests he may also possess a Harry Nilsson album. Like all folkies, he's not averse to incorporating a few unacknowledged borrowings into the work, the Desiderata lines of Child Of The Universe or the 'keep on moving, keep a searching' phrases of Hawaiian lilting Mamma Cha Cha (a wink to ex Specials guitarist Roddy Radiation apparently) for example. But at least he nicks them to good effect. Aided and abetted by Goldfrapp drummer Rowan Oliver and Damned pianist Joe Atkinson, musically he exhibits a decent diversity within the limits of instrumentation, dropping in ska ripples, African flavours, and, on Free My Mind, psychedelia chops, and his gentle melodies are often truly beguiling. Thematically, fame, failure, rejection and ambition provide the building blocks of songs that flag up a never surrender self-belief though it has to be said that in the cold light of the lyric sheet lines like 'need to go somewhere soft where you can bathe the goose' are quite frankly barking.
Mike Davies
The California trio of Steve Goodfield (drums), Senon Williams (bass) and vocalist/pianist/guitarist/producer Jim Putnam finally get round to following up And the Surrounding Mountains with much of the same shimmeringly melancholic alt-country post rock psychedelia with its hints of Pink Floyd, Neil Young, the Velvets and the druggier moments of The Beatles. Dark, ruminative, dreamy soundscapes roll across the 13 tracks here, sometimes fragile like We're Not Sleeping and Faces of the Damned, sometimes gathering in sonic power as the song builds on tracks like Papillon, the carousel waltzing To Remember (with its Perfect Day borrowings), and the Brian Wilson echoing Dark Road Window.
There's not a huge degree of variation across the album, the overall effect veering on a somewhat of a trace-like drone. But, taken individually numbers such as the Neil Young like Breathing Again with its slow rush of reverb guitars, the sunny day neurosis Government Land and the nervy pulsing brooding noir and whistle of the oddly titled Like an Ant Floating In Milk that calls to mind a deranged cousin of Jellyfish, all enfold you in the cumulative cold beauty of their poetic meditations on regret and loss.
Mike Davies, February 2006
Not siblings, but the California trio of Steve Goodfield (drums), Senon Gaius Williams (bass) and vocalist/pianist/guitarist/producer Jim Putnam have a definite blood kinship when it comes to crafting simple melancholic alt-country melodies that hum with a mix of sadness and hope.
This, their third album, preceding a small UK tour supporting the reunited Breeders, still bears traces of the Neil Young and Beatles influences identified on their 1995 debut EP, but these days songs such as This Xmas Eve, Rock of the Lake, The Wake of all That's Past and Mountains would undoubtedly also draw comparisons to the post-rock country genre that serves as home to the likes of Will Oldham, the Pernice Brothers, and Sparklehorse. They could do with a little more variation on the musical moods, but otherwise this minimalist intimacy makes for an impressive landscape.
Mike Davies
David Kidman
Tim Radford - Home From Home (Fallen Angle Music)
This is a really lovely release that unfortunately is likely to be overlooked (even by enthusiasts of traditional folk music), simply by virtue of its being issued on a Canadian label and by dint of the fact that its protagonist is probably not a particularly well known name even in present-day UK folk circles. Pity, for Tim's a fine and extremely characterful singer, whose purposeful approach and sturdy timbre reminds me sometimes of Rob Malaney (of Lancashire trio Th' Antique Roadshow). And Tim has a winning choice of material too, as well as being able to call on some quality musician and singer friends to judiciously and imaginatively round out the sound on some of the tracks on Home From Home. Tim hails originally from Hampshire, on the edge of the New Forest; he discovered traditional singing in the late 60s, and soon immersed himself in local Hampshire and Dorset song collections (of George Gardiner and The Hammond Brothers respectively). In the early-mid-70s, in company with other resident singers from Southampton's famed Foc's'le Folk Music Club, Tim recorded some songs from these collections for the Forest Tracks label (these albums have just been re-released on CD, and will be reviewed here in due course). In 1973, Tim had moved to Oxfordshire, where he met Chris & John Leslie, and dancing became more of a focus, notably with the Adderbury Morris Men; his involvement with teaching morris took him to the US, and he subsequently moved to Massachusetts in 1996. Latterly, however, singing has taken hold again, and Tim now performs both solo and with the band Beggar's Description. Tim describes Home From Home as "an expression of where my life has been and where it is now, its songs reflecting many of the places and people I've been fortunate to encounter over time. A love of these stories in song ... is my major motivation." Effectively Tim's dream solo project, this CD has finally been realised thanks to Ian Robb of the Canadian harmony group Finest Kind (whose latest CD Silks And Spices I'd reviewed enthusiastically here last year), hence its appearance on Ian's label. Tim gives us 17 tracks here, of which all but four derive from traditional sources. Some, like The Brokendown Gentleman, The Spotted Cow and the chorus song Come, Come My Friends, are here represented in versions largely taken from those in the aforementioned collections, a couple (Love In June, The Bird In The Bush) were collected by Bob Copper in Hampshire, whereas others (The Rolling Of The Stones, George Collins and The Month Of January) are an entirely plausible amalgam of disparate sources. The setting for the West Midlands broadside Washing Day comes from the Adderbury dance tradition, while Fair Maid Of Australia comes from the repertoire of Norfolk's Harry Cox. The ballad The Three Ravens was gleaned from Northamptonshire singer George Deacon, and Tim's version is blessed with a haunting 17th-century-style accompaniment on octave mandolin by James Stephens. James also adds his mandolin to Ian's concertina and some rustic sousaphone and cornet from Quebec brass musician Brian Sanderson on Tim's spicy version of John Barleycorn. The four non-traditional songs here are all really powerful choices: there's New Year (from the pen of Tim's son's godmother Jehanne Mehta), Si Kahn's anthem Here Is My Home, a wonderful early Chris Leslie composition Winter Man (accompanied by Chris himself on fiddle), and Rick Keeling's affectionate "portrait of a community" that is Lymington Round & Round. So, Home From Home is one of those releases that manages to be at once timeless and strongly redolent of specific time and place; each song is supremely evocative, and especially so in Tim's performances and imaginative yet simple arrangements.
David Kidman
Radiotones - Bound To Ride (Scratch Records)
Scotlands self-styled alternative blues terrorists return with their third album of work hard, play hard, no nonsense urban songs. They have gone electric and added drums but the classic Radiotones sound is still there. Every track has the utmost effort put into it and the hard work is well rewarded in Bound To Ride.
The album opens with the brooding 'Troubled Mind' which, I'm sure, will become a live favourite for years to come. There are only two tracks that are not written by the band and the first is a stunning version of the Frankie Miller song, 'One More Heartache'. The other is 'Hot Muscle Jazz' and this has, quite simply, Radiotones written all over it.
It could be said that the Radiotones only have two speeds, fast and VERY FAST but they do it so well. 'Bring My Baby Back' and 'Devil Got My Woman' are cases in point. Both are played at breakneck speed with the former already a live favourite and excellent choice for a single and neither losing any quality because of the tempo.
The title track is a classic blues them in the style of Robert Johnson as is 'Good Friend Blues' which has some of the best guitar work that Dave Arcari has produced. 'Journeytime Is Over' is another that has already made it into the live set with its catchy hook and it is followed almost seamlessly by the only disappointing track 'You Oughta Know'. This is just not up to the high standards that the band has previously set.
There are a couple of re-workings (addition of drums etc) of old songs here in the shape of 'She's Gone' and 'Close To The Edge'. Both are concert favourites but the new versions have achieved different results. 'She's Gone' hasn't improved but then, there wasn't much to improve on in the first place but the addition of skins on 'Close To The Edge' has given it a more frenetic, fervent quality.
The last two tracks (actually the third last and final tracks) are 'Small World' and 'Another Chance'. The former has a driven beat much akin to Taj Mahal and the latter rounds off the album perfectly, albeit with a quirky beat, in classic Radiotones style with the National guitar firmly to the fore.
Radiotones are improving with age and long may it continue.
www.radiotones.com
www.thebuzzgroup.co.uk
David Blue
Scottish blues from Perth's finest. The opening track Don't Stop sets the scene with frontman Dave Arcari growling out the vocals with wailing harmonica, pounding bass and acoustic slide backing him. Arcari's vocal style takes a bit of getting used to but by the end of the album he won me over. Close To The Edge is a Celtic-tinged rockabilly sing-a-long and he's Gone is another that sounds like it will be a live favourite.
Slide guitar is also provided by Mr Arcari and he is complimented by Jim Harcus on harmonica and Adrian Paterson on bass. Wherever I Go is a good example of all three in full flow. Muddy Waters' Can't Be Satisfied is one of only four songs on the album not written by the band themselves. Cool It provides Harcus with a showcase for the harmonica and he comes up with some of the best playing on the album ably backed by Paterson. Arcari is back with National guitar for the first of two Willie Johnson songs Going To See The King and quickly follows it up with the other one, Nobody's Fault But Mine. The guitar work on both tracks shows how good Arcari can be.
Three more self-penned offerings follow, No More Mr Nice Guy, One Side Blind and Day Job. The first two are blues through and through whilst the last of the three goes back to the rockabilly style. The album finishes with a nine minute version of Robert Johnson's Preachin Blues' with trademark guitar licks and Arcari's twist on the vocal all done in the best possible taste. The Radiotones certainly don't hide their lights under a bushel and I'm sure that we'll be hearing more from this trio in the future, maybe even with the addition of a drummer.
www.thebuzzgroup.co.uk
www.radiotones.com
David Blue
Joel Rafael Band - Woodbye: Songs of Woody Guthrie (And Tales Worth Telling) Volume 2 (Appleseed)
Singer and songwriter Joel Rafael has at last managed to get to pay tribute to one of his formative inspirations, Woody Guthrie. First by releasing an album (Woodeye) on Jackson Browne's Inside Recordings label back in 2003. I never even got to hear about that one, let alone hear it, but if it's as good as the sequel, Woodyboye, it'll be worth seeking out. Woodeye contained twelve of Guthrie's compositions, both familiar and rare, but Woodyboye goes a stage further in incorporating, alongside five complete original Guthrie songs, four songs (out of literally thousands) which Guthrie didn't get to publish which now have tunes by Joel Rafael himself, then one further unpublished song with a tune by Billy Bragg (inevitably perhaps, it's Way Down Yonder In The Minor Key) and one Joel Rafael original very much in the spirit of Guthrie which could almost pass for authentic Woody (Sierra Blanca Massacre). Joel calls upon a few illustrious guests to flesh out the backings of his small band (just a trio), including Van Dyke Parks (who plays piano or accordion on several tracks) and Matt Cartsonis (on occasional banjo or mandolin). In addition, Joel's fellow-Guthriephiles Jackson Browne and Jimmy LaFave trade verses on Stepstone, the Burns Sisters contribute to the gospel-inflected Heaven My Home and Jennifer Warnes sings and arranges the extra vocal parts on Love Thyself. The musical settings are for the most part admirably simple and unaffected, though I also really liked the slightly fuller string arrangement (by Joel's daughter Jamaica) on Your Sandal String. OK, I could've done without the "nature noises" on Way Down Yonder…, and maybe Joel should've avoided doing a retread of the extremely well-trodden This Train (do we really need another? - there's not much new can be said about it, surely?), otherwise Joel really hasn't put a foot wrong in his delightful, affectionate and accurate evocation of the essence of Guthrie - the writer, songsmith and balladeer, the man and the legend.
David Kidman
There's a history to Another World, Gerry (Stealer's Wheel) Rafferty's first studio album since 1994's Over My Head. In 2000 Rafferty decided to bypass the industry Label schtick and sell his CD via the internet on his own Icon label. Having been a fan of the excellent Mr Rafferty since the 70s, it was from there, after whispers on the grapevine and some serious searching, that I found and purchased it. But I can't think that many did - so a rethink, a new running order for the tracks, a deal with prestigious German label Hypertension and a relaunch in March 2003.
Gerry Rafferty is one of this country's most masterful songwriters and the album has been recorded and produced with equal care and attention. It was at least a couple of years in the making - in Barbados, Scotland, France, Italy and London - and produced by Rafferty himself, with guest musicians including guitarists Mark Knopfler, Bryn Haworth and Julian Littman, and bass players Mo Foster and Pino Palladino. Like a sculptor Rafferty crafts his songs in the studio - bringing in musicians to add rich layers of colour to the tracks as he creates them.
It's a smooth collection with hidden depths and secrets. Lyrics reflect his interest in poetry, arts and things spiritual. (Rafferty collects Icons and he comments tellingly on his website "For me, Icons are representations and reminders of the unseen".) More obviously there's that immediately recognisably 'Gerry Rafferty' voice - and there's a contemporary dance feel this time with keyboards and organ (Kenny Craddock), a touch of saxophone, programmed percussion and (at times) bass. I'm sad that he's dropped the rootsy, cajun-influenced foot-tapper La Fenetre from the 2000 release and replaced it with the less memorable Keep It To Yourself. Opening and closing the album are spoken words from 13th century Sufi poet Rumi. And there's a hidden track Goodnight Mrs Grinch (sp.?)
The stand-out song (and forthcoming single) is the rocking All Souls with guitar work from Mark Knopfler and (uncredited in the liner notes) slide guitar by Bryn Haworth. The wonderful, soulful, 70's written (Egan/Rafferty) You Put Something Better Inside of Me is a joy to hear again and although there is nothing quite as outstanding as Baker Street or Stuck In The Middle With You, the album is a mature collection from an artist still very much in his prime.
Sue Cavendish
Gerry Rafferty more than merits his place in the 'hall of fame' of UK popular musicans. The former Humblebum (in which he appeared alongside a certain Mr Billy Connolly) founded seminal 70s rockers Stealers Wheel (Stuck In The Middle) and then released two of the best songs of that, or perhaps any, decade. The sax on Baker Street makes it one of the most recognisable pieces ever and Get It Right Next Time isn't far behind. So he has more than earned the right to be a little self-indulgent on Another World, in fact the surprise is that he isn't more so. The Land Of The Chosen Few is certainly a little eccentric but it's not unintelligble. The danger with 'real' musicians making a bit of a comeback is they try to show just how radical they can be, it rarely works. By and large Rafferty sticks to what he knows best and does brilliantly. But he is writing from the vantage point of 'done it and seen it' and it gives the album a confidence. With nobody to please Sweet Surrender for instance isn't an old-style Rafferty reheat, it's fresh and alive without being mutton dressed as lamb. Being comfortable with his music allows Rafferty to explore the full possibilities of Metanoia in a way that he wouldn't have been able to do 30 years ago. The album draws themes from a variety of genres. Alongside folk/rock sit jazz and even world music. Another World isn't an immediate impact album, more the work of a man who has spent his adult life making music, knows what he likes and how to deliver it.
Michael Mee
If you like the live sound of Tom Pacheco, John Prine or Tom Russell there's a good chance you'll love these 12 road tested & refined regulars from Rafkin's live set. Stripped back to just voice & acoustic guitar, the deceptively simple & casually accomplished songs have space to breathe & hint at jazz, ragtime, blues, country rock & folk rather than beating you about the ears with full band arrangements.
Rafkin's nimble & sweet toned finger picking is much in evidence. The arrangements make original and subtle yet powerful settings for the endearing mid-pitch, time burred voice with a some nasal tones & vibrato reminiscent (in a good way!) of a young Billy Joel.
Many of the characters in the songs could have stepped straight out of Norman Rockwell painting to look you in the eye & deliver their monologues, dreams, life stories & wry observations of everyday life. The album could be an object lesson in the craft of the understated American singer-songwriter.
Of course, none of this is more than would be expected from a mature player who features on work by Tim Buckley, Arlo Guthrie & The Everly Brothers to pick just a few names from Bob Rafkin's astonishing CV.
James Hibbins, October 2006
www.acoustiCity.co.uk
Subtitled "traditional Irish music on concertina", but such a relatively bald, bland tag belies the richness of invention and marvellous playing to be found therein. Actually, now that I come to think of it, there haven't been terribly many decent concertina records of specifically Irish repertoire (Mary MacNamara comes to mind as one of the latest), so this new release would be welcomed for its relative rarity value in any case. But the quality is so utterly excellent that it deserves the widest possible currency outside the squeezebox specialist market. Michael O'Reilly (to use his anglicised name for convenience) has recently been acclaimed as the driving force behind the band Providence, who have released two extremely fine albums so far. But copious thanks must go to those "confused souls" (Michael's own words!) who suggested he produce a solo effort, for this is simply one of the most consistently listenable concertina-based albums I've had the pleasure of encountering.
The focus is fairly and squarely on Mícheál's superbly musical, articulate, fluid, confident and infectiously animated playing (nervous? – no way!), but the sensitive and understated accompaniments from guitarist Eoghan O'Brien (formerly of Déanta), Michael Rooney (harp) and Frank McGann (bodhrán) are absolutely masterly in their own right. Having said that, Mícheál's matchless solo interpretation of Lone Shanakyle (An Páistin Fionn) is a highlight of the album for me, with its inspirationally wild feel and rhythmic flexibility lending the tune a fresh poignancy. The faster selections are taken at a speed that's invariably very sensible, letting the contours of the tune carry the message, and although there are always plenty of notes being played you never get to feel that the tunes are being rushed through their paces; this must be largely down to Mícheál's innovative approach to parallel fingering and his perennially subtle but highly inventive ornamentation. There's so much going on in Mícheál's playing, it's truly breathtaking (in a relaxed kind of way), and this extraordinarily fine release will undoubtedly repay ample repeated listenings for many years to come.
And by the way, Mícheál's insert notes purvey that ideal combination of model informativeness as regards the sources of the tunes and an enthusiastic and witty advocacy of the music. This release is a total delight throughout its 48 minutes.
www.providence-trad.com/morconcertina
www.copperplatedistribution.com
David Kidman
Ladies and gentlemen, will you please be upstanding for the first great album of 2008. Of Irish-Nordic extraction, Rainbird cut his teeth playing the London clubs, the coffee houses of LA and San Francisco and any number of dispiriting venues on tours across the UK, Ireland and Canada. Recorded with Bob Lanois (brother of Daniel), his debut release, the four track Dust EP, picked up BBC radio play but failed to generate much interest. Undaunted, Rainbird bid London farewell and returned to Toronto to work on a full length album. Recruiting musicians that, among others, included legendary bassist Tony Levin, percussionist and tabla player Pete Lockett and drummer Paul Brennan, he set to work crafting the material that now appears here, two songs recurring from the EP, two reworked from the Instinct Overides EP sold during the early tours, with six previously unavailable numbers.
Often evocative of Bruce Cockburn in his warm folk-tinged soaring vocals and the textured arrangements of the songs, but also with atmospheric hints of Peter Gabriel and Daniel Lanois, the album's imbued with a burnished spirituality, sensuous physical images, a sense of those wide open Canadian spaces and a deep, soulful yearning.
There's two non-originals. Waiting For A Miracle is Rainbird's new seven minute setting of Cohen's lyrics, the chiming guitars conjuring an atmosphere that can best be described as the musical equivalent of the aurora borealis. The second is a dark, plangent guitar and percussive rumbling treatment of the traditional She Moved Through The Fair, a heady brew given deeper intoxication courtesy of Lori Anna Reid's harmony duet. Her voice figures too on Burn, a song of swirling sexual desire with lyrics by Sharon Lewis.
Everything else is pure Rainbird, opening with the magnificent, widescreen chiming soulful folk rock of Circling taking supplicant's wings to the heavens with its vivid images of beads of sweat on exposed skin before moving on through the tumbling melodies and aching chorus of the spine-shivering Stand In Beauties Way and the Eastern-shaded musical palette of Wings & Weapons with its mantra rhythms, throaty guitar and tabla.
Completing the picture with tenderly bruised swaying ballad Opium Mouth, the shimmering night sky patterns and lullabying crescendos of When We Arrive, a bluesily, muscular folk rock Altogether Elsewhere and the climactic, open heart and welcome hands minor key anthemics of Come In, this persuasively claims its place in the debut albums hall of fame and fully deserves to earn Rainbird the international acclaim that is his due.
Mike Davies January 2008
Rainbow Chasers - Some Colours Fly (Talking Elephant)
Back to Hutchings the Enabler and Talent-spotter for this latest offering, on which the remarkable sexagenarian has surrounded himself with fresh talent for his new band venture.
Clearly his three chosen young musicians have had the desired effect of reinvigorating Ashley in the group context (many had remarked on the tired-sounding nature of much of the latter-day output of the final Albion Band lineups), indeed possibly given him a further new lease of life. Certainly Some Colours Fly is a rather fine disc, heaps better than I'd expected, which communicates a tangible excitement on a neat range of material which almost incidentally provides the perfect link to the contemporary-folk-inspired strand of the Albion days.
Let's forget the needless gimmick of titling the album in lower case and concentrate on the music, shall we? Good. Who are these bright-eyed and bushy-tailed newcomers then? Ruth Angell (violin, guitar, vocals) and Jo Hamilton (viola, guitar, keyboard, vocals), both graduates of the Birmingham Conservatoire (though since then Jo was involved with the final Albion Band tour and Ruth has worked with Jim Moray) and Mark Hutchinson (guitars, mandolin, keyboards, vocals), who's currently playing within that "so much more than a ceilidh band" Tickled Pink. There I can't resist immediate reference to one of the true Albion pinnacles, the classy (and classic) Albion Heart lineup with both Chris While and Julie Matthews – and hell, as others have already remarked, there's a marked similarity and ready-made sound comparison on several of the tracks (notably Brambles On A Hill, Knitting Song, Those Broad Shoulders and About Dawn). Ashley's mature vocals and important bass underlay impart an air of authority to the record which I'm not for a moment suggesting wouldn't otherwise be there - but his contribution is vital nonetheless, anyone can recognise that. He's also taken a compositional hand in almost all of the album's twelve tracks, and yes they bear the Hutchings stamp of assurance in spades.
But let's not underestimate the virtues of the young musicians as co-composers, for Ashley has evidently brought out the best in them - new songs like The First Europeans and When I Jumped Ship stand more than favourable comparison with the best of the Albion Band material, and there aren't really any tracks that I could call "Hutchings-in-disposable-mode" on this disc (though I'm not playing New Blue Stockings or Under Surveillance as much as the rest of the tracks). At the risk of underselling Mark's vocal abilities (which I don't intend), both lasses have enviably fine voices, with contrasting timbres and individual qualities that make them clearly ones to watch. There's a mesmerising quality to songs like Ghosts In The Rain that hits the mark right away for me. The instrumental complement allows for some really sensitive arrangements, particularly of the stringed variety - and Given Time is even blessed with an arrangement by Robert Kirby (so fittingly, for a song dedicated to the memory of Nick Drake, to whose LPs he'd so memorably contributed).
Two little (non-musical) complaints regarding the actual package though - wot, no track listing on the back box cover? And having the lyrics in the booklet would've been nice…
David Kidman
Rainer - The Farm (Glitterhouse)
On Nov 12, 1997, German born, Chicago raised roots-blues guitarist Rainer Ptacek died of brain cancer. It had been thought that the tumour was in remission and he'd worked hard to overcome his problems, teaching himself to play again and making some of the best music of his career. But earlier that year it had returned and it was clear there wasn't long left. To help ease the pain and take his mind off things, his friend Howe Gelb (who had organised the tribute album * featuring Robert Plant, Emmy Lou Harris and PJ Harvey) persuaded him to relearn his guitar again and return to the studios. Over a couple of weeks he spent four days recordings before it became impossible for him to make sense of what he was doing. These tracks are the result.
You'd expect it to be morose, downbeat stuff but while reflective melancholy is present and things like Where We Are's meditation on mortality and Hard To Remember takes on a fierce poignancy, there's no woe is me here. Rather there's a joy in life and the simple fact of playing his slide guitar, obviously so on the various instrumentals they laid down in that short time. Let's Pretend To Be Happy he sings on the final track. Death or not, there's no pretending here.
Mike Davies
This review first appeared on www.roots-and-branches.com
[Ed: * The rather wonderful The Inner Flame (Atlantic 1997)]
Rainer - Alpaca Lips, The Texas Tapes, Worried Spirits (Glitterhouse)
'Alpaca Lips': to get things in order, this was the follow-up to the hauntingly beautiful 'Nocturnes'. It's Rainer stripped down to the bare essentials and it sounds great. That voice, with just a touch of 'Time Out of Mind' Dylan in it, confident slide on his beloved National, a little bit of bass. All the songs written by Rainer apart from Greg Brown's 'One Wrong Turn', his pal Howe Gelb's 'All Done In' and Stevie Wonder's 'Pastime Paradise' which is as much an experience as a song. 'Rude World' is here and 'Rudy With a Flashlight', Evan Dando covers it on 'The Inner Flame' (produced by Robert Plant and Howe Gelb) tribute. I could go through this album track by track but it's such an emotional experience to listen to Rainer, he really demands all your attention, much in the same way as Ramsay Midwood, rough-hewn, chugging along relentlessly, that voice, the stinging National, the slight middle Eastern influence and the songs, yes, the songs.
One thing about Rainer's albums is that you can put it on and forget about it because you don't get crap tracks, it's all from the heart. Be careful, you'll get drawn in and want all the CDs! Featuring two out of three from ZZ Top and produced by Billy Gibbons, 'The Texas Tapes' is Rainer Ptacek all wired up and ready to rock; oh yeah, and does he rock. This is an album that really has some 'snap' about it and Rainer in 'full on', volumed up to '11' on the Marshall/Richter scale. The collaboration breeds a heady mix that has elements of ZZ, Rainer and Chuck Prophet. Listen to 'One Man Crusade' and melt, it's monumental in the world of rock. If guitar blues/rock is your poison then this is right up your street, that nagging, riff-laden slide is ideal over the ZZ rhythm section; yet in a moment he can be playing the most sophisticated instrumental, like 'Merciful God'. On the opening track, 'Power of Delight', two bars in and Rainer says 'oh yeah', like he's recognised what's going on, it's like a lightbulb in your head and you immediately know he's one of those musicians whose pleasure it is to take you on a musical journey, he wants you along with him because he feels sure you would love the experience - Hendrix was the same. Just take the brakes off your brain and boogie with '(Making the) Trains (Run on Time)', chug along with Rainer and ZZ Top, can't be bad. Nothing spare here. Finally, in this trio of Rainer albums - don't worry there's more to come - 'Worried Spirits', recorded in the Arizona Desert in 1992, made in two days, just Rainer and his trusted National. He had the strength to believe in his own material and no wonder, it is THAT good. When he covers other songwriters then he chooses his material carefully, Greg Brown is represented here again with his 'Poor Backslider', Roosevelt Sykes' 'New World', 'Long Way To the Top of the World' is unknown and in the public domain, 'Life is Fine' and 'Waves of Sorrow' are adapted from Langston Hughes poems.
The word 'genius' always seems to be bandied around the 'musos' circle far too often, but I'll ask you something - find me something better. Most of all you get the feeling that you want to know the man who made such beautiful music and since he's passed on you'll have to wait a while. In the meantime all three albums are 'must haves'.
cj holley, Get Rhythm magazine
Rainer - Live At The Performance Centre (Glitterhouse)
Ah! the deceptive simplicity of it all. One man, his National steel guitar and the blues played live. Rainer imparted throughout his musical life how much more can be brought to the blues; that feeling of raw danger and vulnerability; that 'twang', using every colour in the musical palette to build layers of strum and slide. Seldom has one white man immersed himself in the dark and dirty depths of the blues and made it his own personal statement. He's 'sitting on a powder keg, lighting up cigarette'. Sparks fly. No classic blues covers here, all freshly pressed to make a fashion statement, this is seminal and essential.
'Live At The Performance Centre' can be appreciated on several levels. There's the technical fluency of his playing, the mesmerising originality of his songs, the deeply moving fact that this was a musician in his prime in remission from the cancer which killed him soon after, and, for those lovers of the 'live' recording, the intimate moment captured with all its dynamic power in infinity.
His own songs and those of J.B Lenoir, Billie Holiday, George Harrison, Greg Brown and Willie Nelson are performed here, individually interpreted, using those looped riffs of his which haunt the listener.
Although we weren't privileged to be at The Performance Centre in Tucson in 1997, this 75 minute/20 song album will take us there. The spirit of Rainer lives on. Spine-tingling and wonderful. Buy it.
Sue Cavendish
Rainer Ptácèk - Haunting Blues
It is with gratitude to Glitterhouse, who are reissuing his back catalogue and three previously unreleased albums, that I write this for those who will learn of his music for the first time. He has long been a secret, but mention the name 'Rainer' to an obsessive lover of original contemporary blues or National Steel guitars and there will be an awed silence.
Rainer was loved and revered. Rainer died aged 46 of an inoperable brain tumour on November 12, 1997 in Tucson, Arizona. He released four albums during his lifetime: Barefoot Rock (first released by Making Waves), Worried Spirits, Texas Tapes (originally available on Demon) and Nocturnes (Glitterhouse). His musician friends, including Howe Gelb, Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, Emmylou Harris and Jonathan Richman, released a benefit album of his songs, The Inner Flame (Atlantic), recorded whilst his illness was in remission and he was able to participate. As an all-star testament to their friend it is exceptional and as a tribute to his songwriting it is unique. All are treasures in my collection. The wonderful news is that three previously unreleased albums of Rainer's work will be available in 2000, the first of which, Alpaca Lips, is out now.
Rainer was influential in that way that quiet, special people with music in their bones so often are. His blues are as raw and intense as you can hack it. Listening to his repertoire is as personal an experience as you can have with another's music without living it. With no pretensions, he sculpts his songs with steel as keen as a new blade. It's so hauntingly distinctive that vibrations linger on in a nerve-tingling after-shock. That National Steel guitar soars up as hot, dry desert rockers, then plunges into the dark, screaming places of the soul. Scary. It's blues beyond 'colour' and Rainer's voice, weary with a certain mumbled hesitancy, is idiosyncratic and perfect for his songs.
Searching for information about Rainer's life has not been easy. Of Czech origin, Rainer was born in Berlin, brought up in Chicago, moved to Tucson, Arizona where he lived modestly, working in a store repairing guitars. He was happily married to his wife Patti, had three children. One can't talk of Rainer without mention of his good friend Howe Gelb who first met him in the '70s. The Giant Sandworms were formed in Tucson, Arizona in 1980 by Gelb, with Rainer, Billy Sed on drums and Dave Seger on bass, but moved to New York, where Gelb later disbanded the project in 1984. Returning to Arizona, he formed the Band of Blacky Ranchette and eventually Giant Sand. Rainer collaborated with him on many occasions up until his death. Gelb assembled the benefit album The Inner Flame, which was co-produced by Robert Plant who had noticed him playing years earlier in a London pub and invited him to record on Fate Of Nations and later write with him.
Of Rainer's own recordings, the earliest are on Barefoot Rock, Rainer And Das Combo; Rainer is accompanied by Nick Augustine on bass and Ralph Gilmore on drums on tracks 1-3, recorded in 1992. Tracks 4-14 were recorded in 1985 with Augustine on bass, Will Clipman on drums and produced by Howe Gelb. This is rough-rocking band blues with tracks as diverse as the opening Mellow Down Easy (Willie Dixon), Around and Around (J.B. Lenoir), The Last Fair Deal (Robert Johnson). Rainer's funky blues groove on his The Unseen Enemy previews what was to come in his later work. It's moodily unsettling and sparse. In Around and Around and That's How Things Get Done, his National Steel guitar is at its most vibrant; meanwhile all through the album the chugging rhythm section punches it forward.
Worried Spirits was produced in 1992. Rainer, eyes down and alone on the album cover, with National Steel guitar and wide blue-sky desert backdrop, are all the sleeve notes needed. As a primer of delta blues, original and old, this album has it all. Just one man and his guitar and songs of lean beauty, "... Spare, sad and at the end of his tether, this album showcases someone who has really got under the skin of the blues." (Matt Snow, Q)
The Texas Tapes, Rainer And Das Combo, was recorded prior to Worried Spirits and features a certain two-thirds-bearded boogie combo from the Lone Star State. It was released in 1993. The opening "Oh Yeah!" and mighty-force slide work, with that unmistakable ZZ vibe, take you through nine tracks, followed by three solo pared-down, deep-delta blues numbers, including Big Joe Williams' Another Man.
Nocturnes, 1995, was recorded without overdubs with a portable DAT-machine during seven days in 1994 in the abandoned Sonoran Desert's San Pedro Chapel (fittingly also the place for his memorial service). Rainer recorded alone with just his battered 1933 National Steel guitar, Dobro and tape loops. Thirty hours of material was edited down to six instrumental tracks of ambient and haunting purity. Ode To N2O, is given a 12-minute trance/dance remix by The Grid!
Alpaca Lips: Rainer was working on this material before his first seizure in early '96. Musicians John Convertino and Joey Burns (both of Calexico) join him on a cover of Stevie Wonder's Pastime Paradise, but the rest of the album is just Rainer and his Dobro. Included are his own rendering of songs which appear on The Inner Flame. Unseen Enemy, previously included on Barefoot with Das Combo, is also given the solo treatment. The final track, ll Done In, tears you apart. "His skillful playing and intimate singing make for a set of evocative, emotional desert-baked blues."
The other posthumous releases are Live At The Performance Center. "An intense live concert. Just a battered, battle-scarred National Steel metal-bodied six string guitar, a tin of stones, and his haunted, intense vocals. That's all you need." And finally, The Farm, "the very last recordings done days before his death. There is something in there that allows us all a glimpse of the brink. And with no better guide than Rainer the pathfinder. Chilling and sweet". (His friend Howe Gelb of Giant Sand.)
As Rainer's albums are re-released and reviewers discover his work or look at it with the perspective of time, much more will be written. As one who was captured by his music without having met him, it is with no apologies I look to Howe Gelb for a last word, "Him being gone is not good." That's how it is.
www.giantsand.com
www.glitterhouse.com
Sue Cavendish
Me an' Bonnie go back a long way. We first met back in '71 and we've been tight ever since. It's been an odd relationship, she's hooked up with all kinda other folks over the years, whilst I took solace in her regular communications via the nearest record store. And yet by and by it's been a cool relationship, there have been moments when what she was doing didn't quite hit the spot and for a while after she hit the big time with Nick Of Time it seemed like she might have selected the easy life in the middle of the road. Thankfully on her last couple of albums songs like Hear Me Lord and God Was In The Water have demonstrated that she's still got her musical curiosity and the fire to ignite it. Her one great constant is her bottleneck playing which is simply superb,surely on a par with her one time mentor Lowell George.
This new album makes clear the long strange trip that Raitt has taken over the past three and a half decades. Her debut album was recorded in an off season summer camp on a four track machine to capture the spontaneous nature of the performance. Her guests on that occasion were blues veterans (and now legends) Junior Wells and A.C. Reed. For this new live album and DVD package Bonnie set up camp at Donald Trump's Taj Mahal in Atlantic City, New Jersey (and let's take a moment to contemplate the grand conceit of building a hotel and casino complex in New Jersey and calling it not just the Taj Mahal which would have been pretty risible, but Trump Taj Mahal! I wonder if the Don knows how trump translates in Brit schoolboy slang!). There's a lot more than four tracks in use this time as the DVD comes in pristine 5.1 surround sound and the guests come not just from roots respectability but the top of the tree. Welcome Norah Jones, Ben Harper, Alison Krauss and Keb'Mo'.
The final thing you need to know is that the package represents the commercial release of a VH1 TV special from their Decades Rock Live (which accounts for the dreadful logo ridden packaging that blights this release). Sadly the decades in question are largely ignored as the performance is more new Bonnie than old flame. That's no complaint, the band is hot with Jon Cleary's New Orleans flavoured keyboards, a fabulous rhythm section of bassist Hutch Hutchinson and one time Beach Boy Ricky Fataar and guitarist George Marinelli offering both bombproof support to and a fine foil for Raitt's assured vocals and guitar work. And what a voice she has; it's possibly a dodgy comparison to make given the lady's well documented past indulgences but it really is like the best of single malts matured to perfection in the finest of woods whilst her guitar playing as previously noted is exquisite. Up against Harper, Keb'Mo' and the excellent Marinelli she more than holds her own with simple grace and buckets of soul.
Indeed whilst the guests are not redundant, it's Raitt that holds both eye and interest, the main impression I get being that Jones, Krauss et al are here to praise and enjoy rather than hoping to make any mark of their own.
And if this praise seems a bit lavish (can you be too lavish for Trump's Taj Mahal!!) let me just say that I really thought that the combination of an old hero, a great old folk blueser from Cambridge Mass. that hung out with Junior Wells and covered Sippie Wallace tunes, playing the up market gambling den supper club for A TV special was going to be breaking point for me an' Bonnie. Instead I'm happy to tell that we' seem to have a few good years ahead of us yet.
Steve Morris December 2006
www.roots-and-branches.com
WCR1350am
The Beat
Bonnie Raitt - Souls Alike (Capitol)
These things are all subjective but for me Bonnie Raitt nailed the love song once and for all with I Can't Make You Love Me, anything you need to feel is right there in that song.
But even great words and music need something almost indefinable to make the magic and that is Bonnie Raitt's real talent. Like a master sculptor with a piece of marble, she takes the formless and chips away until she creates something beautiful, something only she could initially see.
Acknowledged as one of the finest singers of country blues now, with Souls Alike, she has added jazz and soul to the long list of things she does very well.
But it's her willingness and even eagerness to seek out new challenges that keeps her music fresh after 18 albums. Indeed the Souls Alike of the title must refer to the partnership of Raitt, her band and the songwriters whose work she has taken, cossetted, nurtured and brought to fruition.
You'd half expect that after 18 albums - 9 of which have won Grammys - and a host of star collaborations, a creeping reliance of going with whatever works would develop. However, while the core of the album is pure Bonnie Raitt she has woven new treasures around her talent.
So, while I Will Not Be Broken is, on the surface, trademark Raitt, soulful and enchanting, dig a little deeper and you find that the spirit of adventure burns bright, the flames of that spirit are fanned by God Was In the Water, which has a deep, dark groove sweeping everything along. But, with these two opening tracks Raitt was merely getting into her stride for the steamy, heavy sensuality of Love On One Condition (only the one?) and Trinkets.
As anyone who's heard Bonnie Raitt before will know, an equal partner to the blues singer is the musician who can take a love song and rip your heart out through the speakers, that moment on Souls Alike arrives with So Close. Any doubts that Bonnie Raitt is not pushing ahead on Souls Alike, are shattered by Crooked Crown and Deep Water, the angular funk of both songs play nicely with the narrative lyrics, the one igniting the other.
And although Bonnie Raitt is forever pushing and probing, she hasn't completely forgotten the building blocks that brought her to this lofty position and such an experienced performer knows the value of a certain amount of continuity. The aptly-titled I Don't Want Anything To Change could slip easily between the covers of any of her previous 18 albums and nestle there quite happily.
It should come as no surprise that Bonnie Raitt has come up with an energetic and fresh album, nor should it be a shock that she can fit comfortably into whichever genre she chooses, the truly great singers always can and do.
However, at the heart of Souls Alike is the same thing that has always been the driving force, the almost immeasurable singing talent of Bonnie Raitt.
Michael Mee
Susheela Raman - Love Trap (Narada)
Steve Henderson
Still best known maybe for his excellent axe-work on Lucinda Williams' Car Wheels On A Gravel Road album and his playing on records by Greg Brown, Bo's a brilliant and imaginative solo artist in his own right. Although he proved beyond a shadow of doubt on his last album Stranger Blues that he's much more than a session guitarist and "hired gun", he takes all that into another dimension with Fragile, his first album of new original songs (all self-penned or else co-written) in ten years. Now if ever any album title was a misnomer! for it's a strong set by any standards, one that bears testament to Bo's personal journey. Bo's Mid-West-based support crew includes drummer Steve Hayes, bassist Jon Penner, and keyboardist Ricky Peterson, who all do him proud. Rising star Pieta Brown repays Bo's loyalty by co-producing the album as well as co-writing six of the tracks, and its signature sound bears a glistening slowburning bluesiness that ideally couches Bo's moody, smoky, restless vocal. A bit Knopfleresque at times perhaps, it's one of those records that's consistently good but with no specific highs and lows, which makes it hard to say much about it other than it's well worth your time. The nine new songs are complemented by two brief instrumental sketches (Away and In The Woods). My personal preferences lie with the more atmospheric cuts like Dreamland, Burn It Down, Can't Sleep and the coolly droning title track, but as I said its artistic consistency is its strength.
David Kidman May 2008
No stranger to the blues, Mr Ramsey! Robert Franklin "Bo" Ramsey's much in demand as a session guitarist and "hired gun" for touring bands, also contributing significantly to albums by Lucinda Williams, Kate Campbell, Pete Seeger and Iris DeMent and latterly in a fruitful long-term collaborative partnership with Greg Brown. Stranger Blues, however, shows him to be a vibrant solo performer in his own right who's more than capable of delivering a whole album full of vital personal takes on even the most well-worn of blues material alongside inspired arrangements on choices of less often heard pieces. Although Bo takes his inspiration from a variety of classic blues sources and templates, and is as likely to be heard purveying downhome dirty funk-blues as moody swamp-blues (the title track), Willie Dixon crawl (Crazy Mixed-up World) and John Lee Hooker stride (Hate To See You Go), he also turns in some extremely tasty slowburners which here prove album highlights: a lazy-glistening Sitting On Top Of The World, Muddy Waters' Little Geneva, and the world-weary closer When The Sun Never Goes Down (a fine adaptation of a traditional lyric). And Bo's gently shuffling take on Freight Train is both supremely deft and wholly delightful. In more uptempo mode, Bo still delivers the goods tho', and how - getting restless on Jesse Mae Hemphill's Jump, Baby, Jump and Chester Burnett's No Place To Go for instance. Along with Bo, featured support comes from Greg Brown, Ricky Peterson, Pieta Brown and Alex Ramsey - what a team, complementing Bo's musical vision perfectly. This is a robust and uncompromising collection, and well worth both the long wait and your investment.
David Kidman March 2007
Jon Randall - Walking Among The Living (Epic)
If Jon Randall's legacy to music were to be only one song, then the gift of Whiskey Lullaby is quite something to leave behind. Most notably performed by Alison Krauss (who guests here on Southern Comfort) and Brad Paisley, Whiskey Lullaby wasn't just deservedly song of the year, it has queered the pitch for country love songs for some time.
But Walking Among The Living shows that Randall is more than a one-trick pony. It may well feature Whiskey Lullaby (would you leave it out?) however it also contains a whole lot more.
Born into a family where his policeman father played in a bluegrass band and mum played the Dobro, Randall got his first guitar aged six and began writing songs from then on.
Quite naturally he was drawn to Nashville and became the only 'unknown' to play in Emmylou Harris's band The Nash Ramblers, on the 1992 album The Ryman. A series of frustrating studio experiences made him a reluctant recording artist, preferring to become a session singer and guitarist.
His reticence is made all the more difficult to understand when you listen To Walking Among The Liuving. Who better to get the most out of the songs than the man who wrote them?
Like Jimmy Webb and Glen Campbell, Randall shows the difference between an artist moulding and tailoring a song into a performance, and the author setting it out as it was conceived. The songs are more basic and simple, and the contrast shows the development process of a song from pen to, hopefully, CMA award.
It's impossible to avoid being captivated by Randall's songs and, reluctant a performer he may be, Walking Among the Living shows him to be far more than simply a country singer and songwriter. In fact the early part of the album has far more in common with James Taylor than anyone else, there's a relaxed intelligence about In the Country and North Carolina Moon. It's not until the aptly titled Austin that there is anything definitively country.
But Walking Among The Living shows the art and appeal of a songwriter bringing his own songs to fruition, it's not glitzy and the songs are not 'arranged', here they are presented almost as written and it's a joy.
But the last word has to go to Whiskey Lullaby, if there is a better opening than 'She put him out like the burning end of a midnight cigarette', then answers on a postcard please.
Michael Mee
[ED: This album has a little piece of spyware which Sony/BMG have sneakily inserted on 52 of their recent 2005 US releases. If you have this album as a US Import, don't play it on your computer)
Random - Toadstone (WildGoose Studios)
"Electric ceilidh music with guts" quoth the back cover... so, if by "electric" we mean a backbeat from bass and drums, and by "guts" we mean a growling trombone rasping its way through a small forest of melodeons, then that's wot ya got mate! But Random have more intelligence than that bland generalisation implies - even if it's not always obviously being used for the benefit of the non-dancing listener. And lest that sound like a back-handed compliment, what I mean is that Random seem to decide on a sound and stick to it without bothering much to change its basic envelope. And that uniformity doesn't always profitably last the course of a whole CD. But there are still positive elements in Random's favour - notably the spirited box playing, courtesy of the twin-melodeon front-line of Saul Rose and Paul Nye, whose joyous weaving harmony and counterpoint is pretty amazing when allowed free rein. Set against the squeezers, there's the guitar of Ian Woledge (which doesn't seem to be terribly audible I'm afraid) and the aforementioned three "raspers and thumpers" all plying their merry trade quite infectiously thankyou, on a sequence of tracks that happily mix traditional tunes with ones composed by the likes of Nigel Eaton and Tim Van Eyken, in the by now approved manner. Tracks like Rose Of Liseaux, though, bring in the aspect of Random that I'm less happy with as a mere listener (as opposed to a ceilidh-goer): the jarring harmonica interjections on several of the tracks, which don't seem to belong to the arrangement of the dance (and sometimes appear to have been drafted in from a Dylan song!). And "fun" gimmicks like the scratchy repro-wax-cylinder on Waiting For A Partner pall on repetition, I find. All in all, in spite of the great joy that Random evidently derive from their music-making, I do get the feeling that something's lost in the transition to CD and that Random are at their best live, as 55+ minutes of their music (which includes a "hidden" reverb-dub-style mix track, to hear which you have to fast-forward, or else sit through, four minutes of silence), however entertaining, can all too easily wear a bit thin on the ears after four or five tracks executed with broadly similar method. The pair of waltzes at track 6, where the two melodeons take centre stage for solo playing, come at an appropriate moment in the scheme of things and thus provide a delectable album highlight.
www.randombandagnesfountain.com
www.wildgoose.co.uk
David Kidman
This release is a kindof followup to an earlier WildGoose release Return Journey (which was at the time billed as a Dave Arthur album but actually featured the same three musicians: on 8 More Miles, we get Dave on banjo, guitar and, on some of the "band" tracks, melodeon; Pete Cooper on fiddle; and Chris Moreton on guitar and a touch of mandolin). Like Return Journey, it presents an English (though I hasten to add not "Anglicised"!) take on good ol' string-band music, with authentic versions (culled from both sides of the pond!) of tunes and songs that crossed the Atlantic and became old-time staples. These include some classic balladry and songs (yes, even including some that "everyone and their dog has recorded!") as well as some suitably vigorous dance tunes. The latter include not only the joyful swing of The New Rigged Ship/Green Willis and the proud strut of Fred Pidgeon's No. 1/Jenny Lind Polka, but also the transatlantic twist to Northumbrian piper Tom Clough's Nancy. Over the range of tunes presented, each of the three musicians displays an amazing degree of stylistic versatility, one you wouldn't necessarily expect to find in performers in this field. With the songs, the highlight for many listeners will be Dave's totally solo outing at the heart of the CD - an absolutely compelling 8½-minute rendition of Willie's Ghost that never for a moment palls. But the RotS treatment of various other songs also gives rise to many more delights: there's a spirited Sail Away Ladies as a finale, for instance, and Chris turns in a fine rendition of the Bill Monroe classic Footmarks In The Snow, while I also liked the deliciously relaxed pace of The Light Dragoon (here, such a change from the flippant "tongue-tripping excuse to show off" that the song normally gets saddled with), with a lyrical fiddle line in counterpoint - pity about that rather swift fade on the appended reel, though... Perhaps Pete's interpretation of The Lakes Of Pontchartrain won't quite silence those who say they never want to hear another version of that over-travelled tale of uncertain origin, but it's still a respectable reading that comes near the top of the list of available recordings. Finally, the presentation is exemplary, with Dave's incredible degree of knowledge and depth of understanding on full display in his supremely informative insert notes, which tell you everything you need to know about the pieces and their sources - and much more besides (at least three of the selections are blessed with around a whole page's worth of mini-essay, and believe me, you won't want to skip a word of it!). And even within a product crammed full of excellence (for here am I leaving the best observation till last!), the CD has a splendid feel of immediacy, of the three musicians right there in the room performing for you, communicating so very well the music in which they clearly believe 150-percent.
David Kidman, July 2006
Rattle The Boards is a foursome formed by ace young box player Benny McCarthy (of that remarkable Irish supergroup Danú) and local Tipperary musicians Pat Ryan (fiddle, mandolin, banjo) and John Nugent (guitar), along with vocalist John T. Egan, expressly to play music for dancing (and for fun, to be sure!). Rattle The Boards have been playing together since 1992, yet there's been a gap of a whole decade since their debut CD – probably due as much to Benny's own touring commitments with Danú as their involvement in artist Des Dillon's popular TV show Teac A Bloc. This new CD is an unashamed attempt to get the listener dancing ("reviving the days of parish platform dancing") with a series of totally unpretentious and gimmick-free performances of familiar Irish traditional tunes (with a couple of songs thrown in for good measure). The lads are clearly having great fun making this record, as much fun as you'll have listening to it – for it includes thoroughly infectious renditions of old favourites like Off To California, The Mason's Apron and Irish Washerwoman as well as a generously whirling set of polkas, a splendidly chucklesome set of two hornpipes and a glorious showband-meets-ceili-band take on the quickstep Whistling Rufus which is also given an unexpected kind of lift by Decky O'Dwyer's swaggering Dixieland trumpet. RTB also invite a few more guests along to the party: Benny's Danú colleague Donnchadh Gough brings his bodhrán onstage for the majority of the album, and there are spiritful contributions from Paul Ryan and the aforementioned Des Dillon (harmonica), while Jon Kenny sings his party-piece St. Patrick Was A Gentleman (a quirky Cork stage-Irish song) with all due abandon. And a moment of thoughtful repose is provided by the delectable air The Autumn Sky (written by Quebec fiddle maestro André Brunet). But for the rest of the disc's 39 minutes, that grin remains firmly planted on your visage; so shake away those cobwebs, step it out Mary and rattle those boards indeed! (Available from Copperplate Distribution.)
David Kidman July 2008
Those coming to the third album by the London-based four-piece led by brothers Nev and Mark Bradford expecting to find more of the Blue Nile, Aztec Camera and folk echoes of the previous releases are in for a surprise. A pleasant one though, to be sure.
The big music, widescreen canvas is still there, but these days they're painting it with cranked up swirly psychedelic rock that more recalls a cocktail of The Doors, Nick Cave, Echo and the Bunnymen and, often, The Dream Syndicate.
They parade their new colours from the opening track, the surgingly black veined Five Miles Cursed where the guitars circle the skies like brooding eagles surveying a desert landscape and Nev sounds like Scott Walker fronting the Bad Seeds. It's an immediate shock to the system but once you've recovered your breath, you'll find it's already embedded itself in your mind and you're lusting to hear more.
Described by the band as "a true-life birth to death tale of a luckless hedonist who rejoices in all things fictional at the expense of living his own life", as you might imagine, it's steeped into dark lyrical colours to match the music's gathering clouds.
The foreboding themed Days To Come billows with Doors reference points while the title track with its swellingly melodic chorus couches Nev's Pete Atkinish intonation and the songs folky bedrock within guitar work that recalls both Steve Wynn and Quicksilver Messenger Service's John Cipollina.
There's more vintage Scott Walker touchstones to This Is A Wave and A Little Joy (where they conjure his interpretations of Brel) while the five minute Roulette Sun unfolds like a Pink Floyd epic written in the heat of Death Valley with images of bleached out skies and long dead highs. Elsewhere the majestic Great Strange Dream utilises Bunnymen-esque phased guitars while Nev's voice reaches out to grab the shards of a fragmenting universe, Sound Of The End pulls it back to a slower, melancholic psychedelic blues rock ballad and the album builds to Cut Out's tumultuous climax of death, catharsis and rebirth. Quite frankly, awesome.
www.raytheband.com
www.myspace.com/raytheband
Mike Davies May 2008
A swift follow up to 2005's Deep Blue Happy finds brothers Nev and Mark Bradford both consolidating their melodic melancholic 80s pop and reaching out across new musical landscapes. There's even a couple of numbers where they pitch straight in on the vocals rather than laying down lengthy instrumental intros.
There's a swirly folk darkness to the opening Here Is The Night that suggests Nick Cave fronting Aztec Camera, a mood sustained on Mountain Song and Greatest Race For The Sun where Nev takes on an almost Neil Diamond timbre as his brother's liquid guitar paints a tapestry of sound upon which to stitch the words.
As before, this is big, music but never bombastic, the guitars etching lush cinematic backdrops that bring light to contrast with the often darkly downcast lyrics of numbers such as the enigmatic Fall On Your Dagger, the sorrowed war-weary Dead Eyed Angels and Gold Magnolia's dankly bucolic portrait of a six month old girl's grave.
But while broken eyes, broken hearts, and the death of summer may vein the songs, there's a spark of light and hope here too. Mountain Song finds Bradford thawing in the warmth of love while Highlight talks of bright eyes flickering 'the highlight of this day' and the closing languidly burnished Silence Returns (where Nev sports his Pete Atkin voice) finds peace in silence and 'the beginning of something new'.
I'm not sure it's going to suddenly open the doors to a flood of commercial success, but anyone who treasures The Blue Nile will find life incomplete until it's nestling in their collection.
Mike Davies, July 2006
Founded by songwriter brothers Nev and Mark Bradford, this London four piece cite the likes of Love, John Martyn, and Elliot Smith among prime influences, though they're perhaps more accurately identified with the melodic chiming bucolic 80s pop of Aztec Camera and Pale Fountains. And it may be fanciful imagination, but I keep thinking November's Rain is about to launch in the chorus of Rhinestone Cowboy.
Releasing it as winter begins to bite seems a bit self-defeating given its lazy summery charms but then, having been recorded back in 2003 and then delayed by variously missing master tapes and label hassles, I guess they just wanted to finally get it out there so they can release the already recorded follow up, Daylight In The Darkroom, in early 2006..
Perhaps it's gentle warmth will serve to bring a glow to dark, cold nights as the drift along their lazily languid alt-countrified way through such numbers as Blood & Gold, Hall of Mirrors (which takes you up on the roof the Brill Building), Wherever You Go and Music Dies. Sometimes the guitars take on dark, surf or desert shades, twang resonating through the moody Half Dreaming (where Nev's voice sounds like a cross between Pete Atkin, Al Stewart, Jeff Buckley and Nick Drake), the wet neon lit streets of Wallpaper and Loving Today.
There is a tendency to repeat the same formula, most of the tracks opening with lengthy instrumental passages before the vocals glide in, but that's rather like complaining of having all your slices of toast served with caviar. Just savour the cinematic expanse of the shimmering classic melodies, the aching melancholia of the lyrics and the rich brown and velveteen crooning vocals that make this a late winning bid for the albums of the year list.
Mike Davies
James Raynard - Strange Histories (Unearthed)
So who's this James Raynard then? Well he's a folk singer based in Sheffield, and his debut CD, which has been produced by Jim Moray, appears on the new folk imprint of the cool indie record label One Little Indian. That information might for some signal a degree of caution in approaching James, since Jim Moray's own debut was greeted with some distinctly hostile press (I found it a bit of a curate's egg too); however, such doubters need have no such worries, for James brings us an altogether more orthodox view of folk music.
James's singing, in particular his approach to phrasing and rhythm, is it must be said heavily influenced by his hero Martin Carthy - no bad thing, sure, and he's not exactly a slavish imitator, but it's very noticeable nonetheless on some of the songs on the album. For instance, hearing James's rendition of the obscure Child ballad The Loathsome Worm And The Mackerel Of The Sea, I was surprised when I checked back to find it's one that Mr Carthy himself hasn't tackled! Leaving aside that obvious influence then, what James also possesses in his singing is a confidence that might only a few years back have been unusual in someone so young but which is now becoming the norm in the new wave of revival singers (many of whom like James are steeped in folklore degrees and suchlike and clearly appreciate the rich legacy of traditional sources).
His is an attractive baritone, and he sings in a refreshingly direct and uncomplicated style which heard to best advantage perhaps on the long-breathed lines of such songs as We Be Soldiers Three, but his considered rendition of The Grand Conversation On Napoleon has much to say in its mere four-minute span (providing an interesting contrast with - if unfortunately not serious competition for - Barry Dransfield's recent epic reading on his Unruly album). James also turns in a simple yet appealing "Anglicisation" of Jock O' Hazeldean, though this suffers a bit from a somewhat leaden piano accompaniment; closing the CD, that song follows on well from James's version of The Outlandish Knight, which - unlike many one hears - really does compel you to listen through to the end. Here, James's undistracting guitar accompaniment has a sparse demeanour (rather like a lute-song?) which seems to reverberate in and reflect the antiquity of the ballad.
That brings me to remark that James is also a more than reasonable guitar player and fiddler, with an approach to rhythm that owes much to his experience of accompanying dance. The weightier items on the menu are tempered with a sprinkling of pieces drawn from what one might term the "early music" repertoire - for instance, a multi-voice catch (Yonder He Goes), two songs set to Playford tunes (Begone Dull Care, Cuckolds All Of A Row) - and, towards the end of the CD, an attractive little tune (The Cat With The Cream) written by James himself and inspired by the musicianship of gifted (and criminally underappreciated) fiddle player Gina LeFaux.
Strange Histories is a definite harbinger of greater things to come for James, but, dare I say it, first he needs to shake off the over-obvious Carthyisms and develop his own voice if he's to succeed in the folk arena he so clearly intends to espouse.
David Kidman
Chris Rea - The Blue Jukebox (Navybeck)
Having lost much of the MOR audience who gave him such hits as Stainsby Girls, The Road To Hell and Let's Dance when he released his post cancer treatment Delta blues double album Dancing Down The Stony Road, Rea's remained true to his rediscovered roots. Last year saw the jazzy Blue Street last and now he continues the mood. letting his slide guitar and gravelly voice loose over another world weary jazzy blues collection of self-penned numbers. Occasionally reminiscent of Tom Waits and Mark Knopfler, this is what he should have been doing all along instead of wasting his time recording things like Driving Home For Christmas, throwing away his money producing and starring in vanity project movies and making an arse of himself for the camera with Michael Winner. If you're still locked into the image of Rea performing On The Beach, then lend an ear to the jazz soaked duskiness of Steel River Blues, the barrelhousing sax wailing blues boogie The Beat Goes On, the early hours whisky soaked Paint My Jukebox Blue and throbbing shuffle of Speed and grab an earful of revelation.
Mike Davies
This accomplished Midlands-based duo deserve wider recognition for their work, which with the release of this CD will hopefully be faster in coming. However, unless you've frequented the festivals further south, you're unlikely yet to have encountered Ann and Dave, although you may well have heard at a quality singaround the occasional song penned by either of them, for over the past few years they've written some fine ones. Ann (née Mathews) and Dave Reader teamed up after meeting at the Banbury Festival in 2001; prior to that, Ann (originally of Priory Hard, Southampton) and Dave (formerly of the celebrated West Midlands group The Laners) were both beavering away writing and performing their own songs. Now a permanent (and happily married) team, their individual writing and performing styles both contrast with and complement each other. Each is an interesting solo singer, yet their voices harmonise together uncannily well too (although their choice of harmonies is often strikingly imaginative and may sometimes sound more tentative than it in fact is). A significant proportion of this CD is acappella, but the value and effect of their skilled yet unfussy accompaniments (guitar and mandola), when used, should not be underestimated. All 21 of the songs here are self-penned (nine apiece and three jointly), and the idiom is predominantly folk-traditional rather than contemporary. Ann and Dave both clearly have a strong feel for folk tradition and many of their songs feel genuinely traditional (however that may be interpreted). Although each writer covers a broad spectrum of subject-matter and styling you could say that generally speaking Ann writes potently of folk traditions, customs, the seasons, nature and suchlike, whereas Dave deals in magic and mystery, gently humorous fable and cutting commentaries (in the latter category, Walsall – which uses the form of a street-seller's cry to reflect on so-called "progress" – and the cryptically-titled Muesli are especially persuasive). A couple of tongue-in-cheek bluesy meditations and a pastiche shanty form the exceptions to the above rule. The opening round Join Us In The Dance is a celebration of midsummer, whereas Ann's Keep The Dark Away is an exhortation to the spirit of the Hallowe'en time of autumn and Take A Little Drop To Keep The Winter Out is a delightful (and self-recommending!) piece of advice. Banbury Town is another of those catchy little broadside-style pieces you feel you've known for ages (and just a bit reminiscent of Graeme Miles' Yarm Fair too). There are no less than three songs about scarecrows (an unhealthy obsession? Nah! they just make for good songs!); these range from the eerie, haunting title-song to Scare-D-Crow, which is described as "a true story told to Dave by a crow", and the briefer Another Scarecrow Song which patters along more wistfully. The CD's highlight for me, though, is the enigmatic Lullaby, which considers the notion of being able to choose one's dreams; this song, together with Lonewolf in particular, reminded me strongly of the beautiful writing of Anne Lister. But Ann and Dave both have the knack of writing straightforwardly well-constructed songs couched in simple folk imagery (no tricky rhythms or complex metaphorical statements), and they're the more powerful for all that. Two of the jointly-penned songs (Scarecrow and Witches), representing the earliest (indeed, the very first) and the most recent of their writing collaborations respectively, serve to demonstrate their consistency of vision over time. Performance-wise, there are occasional instances of slightly insecure vocal intonation, but these don't get in the way of appreciating the high standard of the songwriting, and indeed (as with Ann's earlier solo CD Stolen Kisses) I'm left feeling really puzzled as to why many of these songs aren't more widely known within the folk corpus. Do try to hear this one, you'll not regret it.
www.sabrinaflu.co.uk/adrweb/index.htm
David Kidman July 2008
Though Eddi's new album is being marketed as a followup to her acclaimed disc of Songs Of Robert Burns, this time only three of its 14 tracks are actually Burns settings. But even so, on the third of those, Lezzie Lindsay, it's only the chorus that was actually written by Burns; the verses are Eddi's own, co-written with Boo Hewerdine (and they're a considerable improvement on the dreadful "Ronald MacDonald" text we normally hear!). As for the two "real" Burns songs here, Aye Waukin-O and Ye Banks And Braes, these are nicely done, and prove worthy companions to the earlier disc. Throughout, Peacetime benefits from some attractive, sympathetic and involving musical arrangements courtesy of John McCusker and various permutations of his "usual suspects" (Messrs McGoldrick, Carr, Cutting, Vernal, Mackintosh et al.). Peacetime's a unified set that echoes the sentiments and sensibilities of the Burns songs, reflecting Eddi's own life-journey, her peace within herself and the finding of faith and hope amidst all the heartaches of the contemporary world. This emotional climate is represented by a clutch of fine songs including Johnny Dillon's The Afton, the title track and Muddy Water (both by Boo), Safe As Houses (co-written with Boo) and two beautifully simple compositions by John Douglas. Eddi also turns in thoughtful settings of the traditional Baron's Heir and Mary And The Soldier, while her fun version of The Calton Weaver (Nancy Whisky) forms the album's bonus track. The mood of comfort and promise is well conveyed by Eddi's assuredly passionate singing and the sensitive backdrops, my only reservation concerning the brass-choir on The Shepherd's Song (the effect of which I find slightly mawkish, in contrast to the gorgeous string arrangement she brings to Declan O'Rourke's Galileo later on the disc).
David Kidman January 2007
Those who bought the Thirteen Cities album will recognise the title track (or to give its full wack, $87 And A Guilty Conscience That Gets Worse The Longer I Go) as one of the highlights. And here it is again, as the lead track on a mini-album of previously unreleased material recorded at the same sessions. Well, save for Kid From Belmont St. Ends Up On Colfax Ave, Denver, Co, which is pretty much a jazzy late neon night instrumental take on The Kid From Belmont St while $87 A Week With A Girl Named Bonnie Sparks is an instrumental variation on,,, well, you get the idea. .
So, with The Gits have been included on a Hurricane Katrina benefit compilation, there's essentially just four new numbers for the money. The good news is that Song For James Welch and the jogging The Water Song are classic Willie Vlautin's melancholic loser storysongs and Wilson Dunlap a parched voice memoir of a small town cranky wife abuser that unfolds into a pleading love song.
Annoyingly, the talking blues Moving Back Home #1, an autobiographical tale of Vlautin's first girlfriend and first heartbreak, cuts the story short just as it gets to the wallowing in drunken misery bit. Maybe #2 continues the story. Good then, but really just for the completists.
www.richmondfontaine.com
www.myspace.com/richmondfontaine
Mike Davies October 2007
Having concluded their trilogy with 2005's The Fitzgerald, Willy Valutin and the boys return for their seventh album, relocating from Oregon to record amid the desert landscapes of Tucson, Arizona, producing a conceptual set of thirteen songs, each set in a different city and following the aimless, lost drifting of the various characters involved.
After the last album's stripped back minimalism, it's a change to hear the band, augmented by Howe Gelb and assorted Calexicos, with a fuller sound and more diverse instrumentation and arrangements that variously embrace horns, mandolins, glockenspiels and accordions. There's a more upbeat musical mood to several of the numbers too; the scuffle along cantina country of Moving Back Home #2, the slow swaggering alt-country drawling beat that kicks along Capsized and the spacey rock sensibility underpinning Four Walls.
But all share the same atmosphere of dry deserts and star-flecked night skies, a perfect setting for Valutin's noirish storytelling and haunting and haunted songs such as I Fell Into Painting Houses In Phoenix, Arizona, A Ghost I Became, $87 and a Guilty Conscience That Gets Worse The Loner I Go or the short, spoken St Ides, Parked Cars And Other People's Homes about blue collar men lost in rusted dreams, bent with rueful regrets, forever reaching out to connections they can't make, consumed by anger and resentments eating away at their soul.
Pushed to pin down standouts, they'd likely have to be the early hours shivers of The Kid From Belmont Street where an old man tries to stop the kid not to make the same mistakes, the closing piano and trumpet call for salvation of Lost In This World and The Disappearance of Ray Norton, a spoken narrative childhood memoir about a man whose racist attitudes to Mexicans cost him friends and family. But everything here pretty much qualifies as a work of genius.
www.myspace.com/richmondfontaineMike Davies February 2007
David Kidman
Eddi Reader - Simple Soul (Rough Trade Records)
This is possibly Eddi's best work to date, certainly some of her best songs. She and her collaborators, notably Boo Hewerdine who co-wrote nine of the eleven tracks, have further mined the 'down-home' acoustic seam at which they're experts. Homely or not (it was recorded in Roy Dodds' flat), the results are sophisticated, bright, melodic and probably timeless (the great benefit of real-time acoustic recording). There's more than one classic Reader here.
Her vocals are pure quality, her interpretations masterly. The input of Hewerdine, along with Teddy Borowieki on keyboards and veteran Reader kershuffler, Dodds, is quintessential. Eddi has always attracted the best of talent. Today she has a squad big enough for Europe. But at its spine are these three men: Hewerdine, a sophisticated pop brain with an acoustic guitar cooking on low level; Borowieki, a keyboard Puck commissioned to girdle the earth; and Dodds, the shaker king. Its a very focused album with one coat and many colours.
The overture is 'Wolves', a lovely song. Its memorable and a good example of Reader and Hewerdine skating like Torvill and Dean across the folk-pop ice. Yeah, well.
'Lucky Penny', another keeper, another affirmation of the human spirit. Its what Eddi does best. It's there on the title track, aided (as all over the place) by Borowieki's soundscapes. Theres some great guitar from Adam Kirk on 'Adam', another fine track; and an excellent love song, 'I Felt A Soul Move Through Me'. Top grade stuff and I bet it works in all conditions.
You can tell the songs are good, you could produce them a thousand ways. None would probably last as long as this though. Is there anything that doesn't work for me? Yes, the booklet. It's got magic picture lyrics and the look of a Dulux summer collection. But I'll tell you what, you should buy it.
www.roughtraderecords.com
www.eddireader.com
David Hughes
There've been changes a-plenty in the Real Time camp since their debut release (a live album) a mere two years ago, but I'm pleased to report that these changes don't work to the detriment of the sound or to the group identity. Happily, Real Time's core members - Judy Dinning and Kenny Speirs - remain. But there's now a new fiddler, another exceptionally talented young player (they sure can pick 'em!), the award-winning Iain Anderson (he replaces Joe Wright, who's decamped to the latest John Wright Band), whose lyrical style has just the right measure of grace and virtuosity. Also, master keyboardist (and studio wizard) Tommy Roseburgh joins the roster as a virtually-fulltime member, to fill out the already fulsome band sound a little further - and very tastefully he manages it too. Without wishing to generalise, it's probably fair to say that the group's performing style and general musical direction can now arguably be termed more truly Celtic than hitherto, for whereas previously the emphasis had been mostly on the juxtaposing of Judy's own compositions with those of other contemporary writers, the latest album intersperses the latter with straightforwardly traditional material (four songs, a slow air and a vigorous set of reels). As far as the group sound is concerned, the current mix of primarily Scottish and Northumbrian musicianship proves alert and positive, while producing an appealing and accessible overall sound. Real Time still manage to cover a wide spectrum of songs by contemporary writers, songs that by and large well suit Judy's style of delivery and her innate aptitude for honest expressiveness; these include Lal Waterson's Make You Stay, Enda Kenny's Angel Of The North, Joni Mitchell's Carey, Isaac Guillory's poignant Ship In The Window, and the timeless Fairport classic Crazy Man Michael (here given a stirringly dramatic new arrangement). Real Time have also taken advantage (in the nicest possible sense!) of the chance to augment their sound even further, albeit selectively, with multi-instrumentalist Brian McNeill, percussionist Steve Lawrence, bassist Neil Harland and accordionist Gary Forrest - inordinately fine musicians every one of them, who prove fully in tune with the band themselves. One thing hasn't changed for Real Time though - they're still under-using Kenny's talents, for though he's a lovely singer his vocal contribution's again reduced to occasional harmonies on a mere handful of tracks on this new album. But whatever, Hell And High Water certainly proves that Real Time are still serious contenders on the scene and they've settled perfectly into their revised musical direction.
David Kidman
Since their formation only at the start of 2002, this trio has been gaining a grand reputation for its live appearances on the folk scene, at both festivals and clubs. Of course they had a head start - a lineup two of whose members are already well-loved musicians and singers (Kenny Speirs, ex-John Wright Band singer and guitarist, and Judy Dinning, formerly with Jez Lowe's Bad Pennies and Lucky Bags). But with the third member (for many, the unknown quantity) being an amazingly talented young fiddle/mandolin player, Joe Wright, it's clear this band could do no wrong - and so this album proves. With a repertoire that moves effortlessly between songs (mostly contemporary, a handful of traditional) and tunes played with an easygoing instrumental virtuosity, it sure is a winning combination. The buoyant effervescence and total involvement of the trio's live performances translates pretty strongly to CD on this, their first recorded offering, so the decision to issue a live set rather than a studio-recorded CD has evidently paid off in that respect, although I admit I tend to find the incidentals of live recordings (applause, intros, etc) less satisfying for repeated listening. Opening with a Judy Dinning composition (Maybe, one of seven examples on the CD - and I hadn't realised Judy was such a prolific, and fine, songwriter) proves a good gambit, setting the scene admirably, with its vital, driving guitar and fiddle and soaring vocal line and providing a sensible contrast with the next track, Best Kept Secret, another of Judy's. Kenny then takes lead vocal for a cover of Richard Thompson's When I Get To The Border (which had also graced his first solo album Border Song) before Joe steps into the spotlight for a pair of traditional tunes (Snow On The Hills and The Swallowtail Reel), which demonstrate the poetic fluidity, natural verve and unassuming maturity (already!) of his playing - whether at slow or fast tempo. And so the album proceeds, as does the band's live set, every selection a highlight in its own way. I've already said that Judy's own songs are particularly impressive, songs about relationships, the acquiring and the parting, that are deceptively simple but embody a uniquely wistful passion - and I'm sure we're destined to hear more. Finally, I must mention Real Time's sensible cover of Lal Waterson's Fine Horseman - not an easy song to bring off, but Judy does a great job. OK, so I'd like to hear more of Kenny's singing, but that's probably the only perceivable imbalance in Real Time's act as represented by this CD.
David Kidman
Fronted by brothers Cody and Willy Braun, the Texans have been swaggering through their roadhouse country-rockers for over a decade, but it may just be the time for them to find overnight success with this set of hook friendly, head down the highway guitarslingers that hit home like Steve Earle on a full chamber.
Opening as the intend to continue with the rolling wheels of Ragged As The Road, they fire off further tequila laced chords and rebel rhythms on Love In Her Eyes, the punchy anti-war/pro-troops American Blood, Passing Through, Wandering Eye and One False Move. Curiously, A Guy Like Me even sounds like a country-rock reincarnation of Iggy's The Passenger while the closing title track brings some Guns n Roses guitar fire to the party.
They don't have to toss around grenades to make explosions though. The moody, organ-growled one night stand come on You Don't Have To Stay Forever, mid-tempo steel keening How Was California and the scraped fiddle burnished Mirage all crank up an equal power that calls to mind long forgotten and late lamented 80s rebel country rock outfit The Unforgiven.
With God Forsaken Town, a Robert Earl Keen co-write that addresses those displaced by Katrina and the looting that followed, providing yet another high spot, it's high time Willy Braun and his boys became as synonymous with Texas as a cold Bud. They certainly have the same kick.
www.recklesskelly.com
www.myspace.com/recklesskelly
Mike Davies July 2008
For Wicked Twisted Road, the renowned Texas quintet have once again teamed up with crack producer Ray Kennedy, cementing the healthy working relationship they'd established while working on their previous album Under The Table And Above The Sun. Compared to that earlier offering, though, this new CD starts out deceptively lazily, with both the title track and Dogtown seeming content to mosey along at a leisurely small-town pace with an attractively lightly-scored backing. Only when the band decide to hit the trail for a pub crawl (Seven Nights In Ireland) does a fuller band sound and greater attack assume more importance; thereafter they certainly go all out to prove they'll easily go the whole distance, with the jangly electric country-rock of A Lot To Ask and Broken Heart, the Steve-Earle-brand of bitter bad-girl honky-tonk on the standout cut Nobody Haunts Me Like You, and the strange transformation from Burritos to blistering Southern rock and back again during the course of Motel Cowboy Show (this one named, no doubt, in tribute to Pinto Bennett's band the Motel Cowboys whom Reckless Kelly acknowledge as a big influence). There's a punchy Springsteen-like guts and drive about Reckless Kelly at their most potent, as even a cursory listen through the melodic bravado of (say) These Tears will straightway bring to your notice. And when Reckless Kelly choose to rock on and out, as on the wailing Stones strut of Wretched Again or, even better, the extended Sixgun, there's no stopping the motor, even at a roadblock (apparently one of the band's earlier releases includes a 16-minute version of Zep's Whole Lotta Love... hmm, now that I just gotta hear!). No lack of dynamism or muscular energy here - just a tingling, almost visceral pleasure to be gained from the band's loud and commanding inventiveness. Oh, and the disc also contains a bonus item - a ten-minute video made during the recording of the album.
David Kidman
David Kidman
www.petermulvey.com
www.krisdelmhorst.com
www.jeffreyfoucault.com
David Kidman
Long feted as Canada's finest bluesman, Paul formed his groundbreaking band The Sidemen in 1990, and he and the band toured hard for upwards of ten years before releasing the landmark Rattlebag album in 2001. Rattlebag, described as a masterpiece of "hard blues for modern times", marked the start of Paul's serious attempt to rework blues traditions with an emphasis on poetic forms and techniques, combining the mystery of the blues and its landscape with the powerful spell cast by its poetry. Villanelle, Paul's 2004 followup album, cut with Colin Linden, was also well received in the blues community, while over the past few years Paul's music has also been increasingly in demand for use in film soundtracks and commercials, such is its moody, atmosphere-laden power.
The impetus for the release of Revue, Paul's first retrospective collection, was the featuring of its lead track, I'm A Criminal, on a Coca-cola TV commercial, but Revue is emphatically not a series of ad-tracks cobbled together to make a fast buck, but instead it's a seriously fine compilation that gives a good idea of just why Paul's picked up award nominations galore for his daring, highly expressive and deeply committed approach to the blues tradition. Revue boasts 18 tracks and a playing-time of over an hour; it draws first and foremost from those two aforementioned widely acclaimed albums (four each from Rattlebag and Villanelle, as far as I can ascertain), and rounds out the picture by including, alongside three magnificent cuts Paul recorded with Paul Neufeld's Rhythm & Truth Brass Band, a handful of items from Paul's other albums with the Sidemen including two recently unearthed, previously unreleased recordings (You Know It Ain't Right and Sidemen Boogie), which close the disc in blistering, pounding, stormalong style. There's also Paul's excellent cover of Train Of Love, which originally appeared on the Johnny Cash tribute album Johnny's Blues, and his finely idiomatic arrangement of Son House's Am I Right Or Wrong.
Through all the cuts, though, it's Paul's extraordinary vision that convinces - it's a uniquely image-driven take on the blues, whether lowdown and dirty (Smokehouse, Big Not Small) or downhome pre-war acoustic (Villanelle, Winter Birds) or rough-house R&B, and always casts a potent spell. And Paul's vocal work fully complements that vision at all times, whether gruff and growling (almost like Tom Waits), or conspiratorial, or mellow and reasoned (Hook's In The Water comes on like a distorted electric Chris Smither!). Paul's take on his blues heritage is inspired, intensely individual and in the end really rather special, and every single song takes you on a highly imaginative journey through the landscape of the blues.
www.paulreddick.ca
www.northernblues.com
David Kidman October 2007
Jon's probably best known (at any rate in folkier circles) as erstwhile member of that dynamic young Borders outfit Tarras, who turned heads not so many years back by scooping several major awards. Tarras made just two well-regarded albums before disbanding barely three years ago, shortly after which Jon took time out to explore the discipline of solo songwriting, drawing additionally on musical influences well outside the folk ambit. Teaming up with multi-instrumentalist and arranger Patrick Durkan, Jon recorded May Be Some Time, his debut solo album, which distils his many influences and inspirations in a multi-faceted set of original songs which, while untethered to any particular genre, are nevertheless characterised by a lively intelligence and a satisfying emotional depth. Although Jon's personal songwriting style resembles that of John Martyn or even Nick Drake in its shifting, restless gait, Jon's musical reference points move out beyond those to embrace John Coltrane and Pink Floyd, and even composers Steve Reich and Michael Nyman (the opening to Lost is one obvious passage that betrays their Minimalist inspiration) and Edgard Varèse (the percussion work on Demons). Jon's approach to rhythm is interesting too, with shifting time-signatures that sometimes add to the emotional unease, yet strangely you do sense that he's always in control (Patrick's unerringly precise percussion contributions are a significant factor here, I feel). Jon's singing has an element of cool detachment that can seem reminiscent of Robert Wyatt (check out the opener I'm Still Young) or Becker/Fagen aka Steely Dan (on Am I Fool). Then again, Jon's guitar playing, while not especially demonstrative (and it doesn't need to be in this context), is very accomplished, and carries echoes (but that's all!) of artistes as diverse as George Harrison, Roy Harper, Jimmy Page and John Renbourn. All told, it's not at all easy to put across in words the appeal of the music on this CD, for although the often static nature of the vocal lines can give the impression of a state of mind (and a music) that's largely ethereal, the busier backings provide a tension that enables the seemingly imperfect picture to be completed. Relatively unusual instrumental colourings and groupings (small brass ensemble or string quartet) are utilised with real imagination, and as I said above the percussion interlacings are particularly notable; Jon has also enlisted Peter Tickell (Kathryn's brother), former Tarras colleagues Rob Armstrong and Theo Clapp, pianist Ian Thorn, and some excellent session musicians including Roger Illingworth (sax). Jon has a real feel for texture, and his intuitive compositional skill and musicality is strongly evident in each of the album's dozen contrasted tracks. I did find, however, that some of the songs took a few plays to make their mark (I freely admit to having to put the CD aside for some weeks between listens, and the second set of plays was to reap considerably greater rewards). And so the CD title's really very much prescient - in that although it "may be some time" before you get the full measure of Jon's talent, it really is worth persisting.
David Kidman, July 2006
The Red Flags is a duo project that's based around the talented Wiltshire-based country-blues singer-songwriter Keith Mouland. He's been around the alt-country scene for a few years now, even occasionally getting together with other musicians in that genre, whereas his recent solo album Astro Country did the biz and garnered some real good reviews. Now, with bassist K.C. (Harry) O'Shea in tow, Keith proves again that less is more with this