Sam Outlaw. Angeleno. Six Shooter Records

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It’s worse than buses. You wait ages for a Young Turk who’s going to set Country Music to rights and then a host of them turn up. Today’s ride is courtesy of the fabulously named Sam Outlaw (and, yes, it is his name, or at least his late mother’s maiden name) and while he’s not Outlaw Country he fits in well with his peers who are kicking the current trend of Bro Country into the ditch.

As the title promises, Outlaw mines a Southern California lode that leads from Merle Haggard (RIP) to Dwight Yoakam and Dave Alvin with a slight detour into seventies country rock as parleyed by Linda Ronstadt and the Eagles; ‘SoCal Country, he calls it. He hit pay dirt at some point as the album is produced by the legendary Ry Cooder (along with his son Joachim who drums in Outlaw’s band). Whether it’s Cooder’s influence or not there’s a pleasing mariachi touch to a couple of the songs but in the main Outlaw delivers a very solid set that should be riding the radio waves.

From the gorgeous Mexican sweep of the opening song Who Do You think You Are to the closing rockabilly of Hole In My Heart Outlaw hits all the buttons. He’s sweetly melodic on Love Her For A While with its curling pedal steel, a honky tonk romancer on It Might Kill Me and downright forlorn on the delicate seventies styled Old Fashioned. Throughout his voice is relaxed and warm, the band supple and supportive, the playing superb with Cooder’s guitar contributions a highlight.

There are 12 songs here and they are all deserving of attention as Outlaw effortlessly traverses the landscape. Keep It Interesting is country rock of the highest order, the title song is a sublime string laden Chicano love song, guitars rippling and horns parping with style. Country Love Song is introspective, the guitar sound here excellent, as Outlaw yearns for a lost love and Ghost Town adds a darker hue with its organ suffused drive. Diving into his roots Outlaw offers the honky tonk stonker that is I’m Not Jealous and tops this with his excellent addition to the canon of grand country song titles on Jesus Take The Wheel (And Drive Me To The Bar), a song that sounds just like its title and sure to be a favourite at gigs. Finally, Outlaw stakes a claim as an outstanding songwriter on the moving suppliant prayer of Keep A Close Eye On Me, his words, his voice and the empathetic (and gorgeous) playing catapulting the song into a should be standard.

Angeleno is a great album and highly recommended. It was released here back in January but if it whets your whistle then the good news is that the man is playing Glasgow next week on the 14th April at The Fallen Angels Club at The Admiral Bar.

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Cale Tyson. Careless Soul. Clubhouse Records

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Cale Tyson hit the boards running with his mini albums, Cheater’s Wine and High On Lonesome two years ago. They catapulted him into the forefront of the young pretenders, a disparate group of young country artists who hark back to the glory days of country while infusing it with a new energy. Tyson had the lonesome blues of Hank Williams down to a tee while his energy and enthusiasm was as infectious as Gram Parsons’ had been. Careless Soul is his first full length album and, while it builds on the music contained on the two previous discs, it’s a significant step forward for his exploration of Country music, expanding the vista and boldly moving out of what many would have thought would be his comfort zone.

While the album has its fair share of heartbreakers, still stained by the ghost of Williams, Tyson adds his version of Tin Pan Alley country, all zipping strings and brash melodies, and, as the title alludes to, he incorporates some country soul into the songs with a horn section and electric piano prominent on several of the numbers. His decision to record the album at the famed Muscle Shoals studios offers a chicken or egg situation here. Did he go there to sound soulful or did the ghosts in the studio machine haunt him? Who knows? What we do know is that the album is a magnificent effort which is tied together by Tyson’s flowing vocals, heart worn and warm, and his words which plough a familiar field but throw up new earth.

The album opens with the arrogant strut of Staying Kind, peppered with brash horns and tinkling keyboards, Tyson as laconic as Sal Valentino in his delivery. One could imagine this would be a killer as a guest slot on the Bobbie Gentry TV show back in the sixties, psychedelic camera work zooming in on the short and taut guitar solo. This golden era when showbiz recognised quality music is revisited on the pizzicato strings and guitar which decorate the pop croon of the title track. Popcorn and candy Elvis with a hint of the exotic Acapulco on the Spanish guitar dominate here, Tyson carries off the pastiche with some brio. Pain In My heart equally draws on an old template, almost doo-wop in its delivery, teardrops from the guitar solo, one can imagine teen-age girls swooning to this back in the days, Tyson brylcreamed up and winking at the camera.

The soul side sweeps in with a vengeance on the horn infused Somebody Save Me, a wonderful concoction of churchlike organ, female backing choir and sinuous pedal steel, Tyson testifying wonderfully as he seeks salvation from his murderous urges with a fervour similar to Solomon Burke. Similarly Dark Dark marries pedal steel and organ on a doleful journey into the heart of darkness, his voice echoed by the female chorus on a real teardropper.

It’s not all doom and gloom and croon here however. Tyson kicks ass on several of the songs. Railroad Blues is a souped up belter, the steel guitar rolling on the tracks over a helter skelter rhythm section. High Lonesome Hill is a vivid reimagining of Hank Williams’ ramblings given a noirish makeover, a low moaning slink with an intense feel, a kaleidoscopic giddiness in its rhythm as Tyson just stops short from a yodel as guitars flail and wail. Best of all however is the tremendous Easy which is a somewhat lecherous odyssey of a musician’s opportunities. Here Tyson manages to inhabit the cosmic cowboy persona of Gram Parsons, awed by the lights of Las Vegas and the glam therein while the band are spot on here sounding so much like Gram’s band and Emmylou Harris’ Hot Band, the guitar whizzing like James Burton, the rest as tight as the proverbial duck.

It’s maybe not the album we expected from Mr. Tyson but it’s a bold adventure and after several listenings we conclude that it’s actually quite brilliant. It’s out this Friday on Clubhouse Records and Tyson is touring the UK this month, dates here

 

 

 

Dean Owens (with Dave Coleman). Cotton Snow. Single Release, Drumfire Records.

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With the best reviews of his career so far tucked in his pocket (for his acclaimed 2015 album Into The Sea), Dean Owens saw out last year on a roll and entered the new Year with a bang, supporting Patty Griffin at Celtic Connections. When Blabber’n’Smoke interviewed Owens for AmericanaUK he spoke of his plans for 2016 including a proposed project that reunites him with Neilson Hubbard and Joshua Britt, two thirds of the crew behind the magisterial American Civil War album, The Orphan Brigade (which we reviewed here ). That album was inspired by the history infused into an old plantation building in Franklin, Tennessee and it’s to the Civil War and Franklin that Owens pays attention on this single release which will be available from April 15th.

On a visit last year to the site of the battle of Franklin, one of the bloodiest of the war, Owens was taken by an image mentioned by a participant, Captain Tod Carter. The artillery laying waste to the cotton gins and cotton fields scattered the plant which fell like snow on the soldiers, Cotton Snow. The following day Owens was in Dave Coleman’s (of Nashville band The Coal Men) home studio in Nashville, tinkering around with this idea when Coleman suggesting recording a take on it. Couple of hours later there’s a rough mix, Coleman a one band on drums, tape loops, bass, guitars and pedal steel, Owens with the words down pat. Some transatlantic polishing later and here’s the end result.

It’s a great song and a great recording. Cotton Snow plays to Owens’ ability to invest a song with drama and emotion, to paint a picture with his words. The place names resonate, Chattanooga and Shiloh, previous battles for the progenitor who sees the soldiers, whether clad in grey or blue, inside all the same colour. The surreal image of the cotton snow is amplified by the musical setting, Coleman stirring a twang filled guitar soup that recalls the mystical Americana of Lee Hazlewood. And while Owens doesn’t have the gruff gravitas of Hazlewood here he sings wonderfully, close miked, a slight drawl and a fine giddy up exclamation escaping his lips just before the first guitar solo.  It’s a class act.

Anyway, you can listen to the song below and pre-order it here.

 

 

 

Peter Bruntnell. Nos Da Comrade. Domestico Records

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Ten albums in and Peter Bruntnell remains something of a buried treasure, or, according to this excellent article in The Guardian, a “cult hero”. To paraphrase Jane Austen it’s a truth universally acknowledged that Bruntnell’s 1999 album, Normal For Bridgewater is a high water mark for UK Americana music and on Nos Da Comrade, 16 years later, he’s still on fire, delivering punchy power pop and sun dappled songs that invigorate the listener.

The album title pays homage to his Welsh roots (Nos Da Comrade Welsh for Good Night Comrade) and he opens the album with a nod to the plight of fellow Celts as he tears into Donald Trump’s attempts to bully  Scots fishermen on the misleadingly upbeat Mr. Sunshine. The infectious and sunny melody camouflages the lyrical attack on the avaricious pseudo politician although there is some anger unleashed on the short blistering guitar solo (and do check out the video for this one!).

Recorded at Bruntnell’s home with a basic trio set up;  Bruntnell on guitars and vocals, Peter Noone, bass and Mick Clews, drums (and some later overdubs from James Walbourne and Dave Little adding more guitar along with Peter Linane’s string machine and pump organ ) the album offers several more sumptuous guitar jangled melodies throughout. Rain Stars opens with a Big Star like guitar flourish and a propulsive drum beat before an acoustic guitar starts to bristle beneath the electric strum. String machine and harmony vocals add a slight portentous air to the middle eight, appropriate perhaps as Bruntnell describes this song as “an unlucky man feels picked-on by the universe, toyed with by mad gods like a character from some Greek myth.” The song dips and soars wonderfully, the guitars bright and transcendent. Fishing The Flood Plain is another melodious spangled song which culminates in a tremendous chime of guitars while Plain Peak Operational Condition pumps into action like a new wave killer, all Lowe and Costello, bristling with angst and impatience. Towards the end of the album there’s another fine wallow in jangled guitars on the sublime Long Way Down From A Cloud.

It’s not all sunshine however. Dance Of The Dead opens with a plaintive Bruntnell singing over a slight guitar backing before a delicate piano led melody arises that eventually blooms into a funereal waltz macabre. Where The Snakes Hang Out is a dead eyed observation of shadowy goings on, the guitars much grimmer here. And speaking of guitars there’s the magnum opus of the album, the eight plus minutes of Yuri Gargarin, a song that imagines the mind of a child wishing to emulate the first man in space. Here Bruntnell’s voice is subservient to the liquid guitar meanderings, the band ponderous, an insistent slow beat initially until halfway through the guitar becomes more urgent, flailing around over electric keyboard. It’s a song bound to excite comparisons with Neil Young and Crazy Horse which is, of course, no bad thing.

The album’s rounded out with some winsome, delicate songs. End Of The World is a tip toed acoustic guitar braced exploration of solipsism and is graced by some fine slide guitar towards the end. Caroline, which closes the album, is tender in the extreme as Bruntnell inhales and exhales the essence of English love songs. Like Paul Weller’s English Rose it encapsulates love, longing and regret in a simple although beautiful melody.

 

 

Paul Tasker. Cold Weather Music. Yellow Room Records

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It’s been a while in the making but here’s the debut solo album from Doghouse Roses‘ Paul Tasker and it’s been well worth the wait. Tasker, most folks reading this will know, is a guitarist of some renown. Originally an acolyte of the work of Bert Jansch his guitar playing is a joy to hear (and see) while he’s also a dab hand on banjo and mandolin. Doghouse Roses, the band he shares with Iona MacDonald are currently emerging from a near five year hiatus, a new album recorded for release later this year and tour dates coming up in April but prior to these the fruits of his labour over the past two years are now unveiled.

Blabber’n’Smoke recently spoke to Tasker about the album with him revealing that this release is his third attempt at the album. Recordings in 2010 and again in 2012 fell short of what he was looking for and it wasn’t until last year that he hunkered down in an analogue studio in Glasgow and the pieces all fitted. With Tasker on guitar and banjo the album also features guitar from Dejan Lapanja along with pedal steel & Weissborn guitar from Thomas Marsden. Luigi Pasquini handles percussion while Jo Shaw and Corran McArthur play flute and cello respectively. The collective appearing in various combinations throughout the album.

All instrumental, the album works on several levels. At its simplest it’s a wonderful and contemplative set of music, perfect to listen to while relaxing, a guitar and banjo led example of Brian Eno’s theory of ambient music and indeed there’s a whiff of Eno’s cosmic astronaut cowboys (as on Deep Blue Day) on the opening number here, Husker’s Theme, with pedal steel suitably evocative. Flute adds a “Northern Skies” touch a la Nick Drake to the wistful Sky Train while Blooms In The Autumn could well have been plucked from a John Renbourne medieval rhapsody. The album may be called Cold Weather Music but it begs to be listened to in front of a roaring fire with a suitable libation to hand, the coals crackling echoing the occasional snap and slither you can hear of Tasker’s fretboard work.

A deeper listening reveals the musicianship on display here. Tasker’s guitar playing is at times breathtaking. The whorls and winds of Gorlitzer are hypnotic, his fingers dancing on the strings, while Ne’er Day alternates flurries of melody and sharp chording. He uses banjo to add a layer of patina on some songs evoking bygone times. Valve Oil  huffs and puffs laying down a backdrop for some nimble slide guitar work and InE sounds as if it was originally recorded on an American civil war battlefield, a threnody for the fallen. Of course here one thinks of pictures and in particular moving ones and one is inevitably reminded of soundtrack albums, in particular the work of Ry Cooder and also Nick Cave and Warren Ellis. The McGuffin here is that Tasker has written several of the songs with a soundtrack in mind, his comrade, James Morrison, had asked him if he had any music suitable for a screenplay he is developing, a western with some Celtic leanings. Much of the record then was inspired by a road trip they took to the Highlands and the accompanying booklet is composed of photographs taken by Morrison around Scotland, each tied to one of the tunes. The movie is yet to be made but in the meantime the album is here and it’s one to savour, to wallow in and allow it to conjure up your own visions in your head. It’s simply beautiful.

Available on CD and vinyl (a lovely package) here. Doghouse Roses are playing several dates in April, details here