For her second album Scottish singer songwriter Martha L. Healy returned to Nashville where her first album Better Days was recorded. Three years on from that release and it’s evident that Ms. Healy has moved on from the primarily country influences heard on that album as Keep The Flame Alight is a much more personal and introspective collection of songs although there still dashes of country sass as on the excellent Woman With No Shame and the swampy Livin’ Someone Else’s Dream. Some of this progress was evident on her EP, To Be Free, where Healy paid tribute to Hank Williams and Patsy Cline but also showed on her song Too Much Time that she was developing her writing chops as we compared her to the likes of Mary Chapin Carpenter and Gretchen Peters at the time.
Much of Keep The Flame Alight maintains this direction as Healy digs into her own conflicts and also delivers some powerful songs which address the fickleness of human relationships. With excellent support from a cast of Nashville players the songs flow beautifully whether it be the metronomic percussion, delicate piano and fiddle on the title song or the slight Celtic influences on Unmade Bed and Mickey. Meanwhile Healy sings wonderfully, clear as a bell with Wendy Newcomer adding fine harmonies.
The album opens with the haunting melody of No Place Like Home with Healy expressing the sense of homesickness she experienced in Nashville, the place of her dreams perhaps but also miles away from her familiar haunts and her family. There’s a fine sense of longing in her voice as she sings of the rainy days and warm fires she misses as the band offer some comfort with a sweet fiddle solo over a muted blend of twangy guitar and accordion. The title song finds Healy in an almost existential dilemma as she worries about the march of time, counting the lines on her face in the mirror and fearful of the darkness which she fears could envelope her. The chorus is a strong declaration that she can fight this and welcome each day as a new beginning and this ultimately uplifting song is bolstered by the magnificent playing on show which is polished to a sheen with Rory Hoffman’s piano playing of particular note.
Elsewhere Healy shows that she has a firm grasp on storytelling with Fall In Love Again narrated by a woman still longing for an old paramour. Woman With No Shame meanwhile portrays the doubts of a woman who is looking for love but who ends up in a series of one night stands and Livin’ Someone Else’s Dream is basically the diary of a bored housewife. All of these are delivered with an unashamed American sounding backing with Dobro leading the way through Woman With No Shame while Livin’ Someone Else’s Dream visits a southern swampy morass. Unmade Bed is another story song but here there’s a fine Celtic lilt to the song as Healy inhabits the mind of a woman who has a fling with a childhood sweetheart. The Celtic folk influence is heard again on the mantra of We Will Be Okay which seems bound to be an audience sing-along when played live. Healy closes the album with a fine homily on Don’t Give Up which revisits some of the themes of the title song, strength in the face of adversity and again it’s delivered with a wonderfully played combination of piano, accordion and fiddle over pitter pattering percussion as she sings with true conviction.
On Keep The Flame Alive Healy has delivered a mature and immersive set of songs superbly played by her Nashville cats. One misses the exuberance of some of her earlier songs perhaps but as a statement it’s a defiant one proclaiming that she has moved on.
It’s always a cause for celebration when a new Richard Thompson album comes out. An artist who has rarely put a foot wrong over a 50 year career, he’s one of those touchstones (a bit like Nick Lowe or Loudon Wainwright) who constantly remind one of what great song writing is all about. 13 Rivers follows on from the two volumes of Acoustic Classics, which found Thompson revisiting his back catalogue, and the Jeff Tweedy produced Still which stands up as perhaps his best album over the past decade and a half.
Best known for his associations with Hiss Golden Messenger and freak folk band Megafaun Phil Cook has also spent time as the musical director for The Blind Boys of Alabama and worked with Mavis Staples. It’s the latter names who spring to mind as one spins People Are My Drug which is steeped in gospel music and New Orleans rhythms, the impressive array of female singers who whoop, holler and testify with a soulful abandon giving the disc its signature sound.
Sam Misner and Megan Smith were both actors before joining forces musically after meeting at a Shakespeare Festival. Having released four albums notable for the pair’s harmony singing here they return somewhat to their thespian roots explaining this collection of covers by saying, “Every actor’s job is to interpret someone else’s words…For us, approaching covers is about capturing the essence of the song…”
Nicky Murray made a bit of a splash when he released his debut album on Martin Stephenson’s label back in 2014 before going on to be one of the standout acts at the following year’s Wickerman Festival. A singer/songwriter who reminds one of the glory days of singer/songwriting he leans towards the more bucolic and experimental end of the spectrum. Murray is blessed with a tremendous voice in addition to his writing skills and when he was staying in Glasgow a few years back he used to turn up at open mic nights and you could guarantee that there would be gasps from the audience as soon as he started to sing.
Amy Helm’s second album opens with a blast of guitar sounding like a foghorn announcing the arrival of what is quite a special album. That foghorn guitar belongs to the opening title song which is a masterful slice of soulful funk, the rhythm section metronomic and sly while guitars fizz and burn beneath her impassioned vocals. The song was written for Helm by Hiss Golden Messenger’s Mike Taylor and Josh Kaufman and it’s a perfect introduction to an album that is yet another addition to the grand canon of releases which celebrate the soul of American roots music.
It’s been a while since Warren McIntyre and The Starry Skies released their well-respected debut album, Ask The Animals. Six years in fact. Now they’re back with McIntyre dropping his prefix to the band name although he remains the driving force behind the band’s pulsating mix of driving power pop and folkier material all filtered through an Americana sensibility. Be Kind is an upbeat album and McIntyre is on record as saying that, “One thing there is not enough of is people being kind to each other, it’s really clichéd but it’s nice to be nice. I decided I wanted to be more straightforward lyrically and send a simple message about spending the rest of my time on this planet being as kind as I can as much as I can.” Well he just about does that here although some of the songs on the album do wander into darker territory.
There were sold out signs tonight for Joshua Hedley’s only Scottish date on his first full UK tour since his album, Mr. Jukebox was released a few months back. Hedley is a Nashville musician who has been a mainstay of the local music joints for many years, holding down a residence at Robert’s Western World while his fiddle playing has earned him many studio session slots and live gigs, touring with several name acts. Although he had dabbled in writing it wasn’t until he gave up some hard drinking that his creative muse began to flow leading to a contract with Jack White’s Third Man Records for his debut album which is a grand update of the smooth and sophisticated sounds of mid sixties Nashville.
After about four years of relentless gigging the length and breadth of Scotland, Anton & The Colts finally unleash their debut album and a fine beast it turns out to be. The band, based around front man and chief writer Anton O’Donnell and the mercurial would be glimmer twin, Roscoe Wilson (with a fine rhythm section in John Dunlop on bass and Dillon Haldane, drums), are one of those who sound more American than many American bands do. However there’s a boastful swagger to their gait which owes more than a little to the raunch of the Stones and the jollity of The Faces, in particular, Ronnie Lane’s contributions to the band such as on Ooh La La.
Mention the blues and most folk think of that 12 bar moan of misery which arose from the cotton fields of the south and became louder and prouder as its practitioners moved to cities such as Chicago. It’s a rich and rewarding seam of music to follow but it’s not all doom and gloom and woke up this morning despair. Much of the music played back then was not an echo of the daily injustices rained down but a joyous celebration of life played in juke joints where drink and dancing were the order of the day. Georgia born singer and guitarist Brook Williams kind of sums this up on the opening song here which is called Bright Side Of The Blues, a jaunty number which recalls the sunnier side of Van Morrison in a toe tapping fashion with a fine loose-limbed approach. It’s a fine introduction to Lucky Star, an album recorded in Glasgow with local musicians, Kevin McGuire and Stuart Brown on bass and drums respectively while Newcastle’s Phil Richardson adds piano.