California Feetwarmers. Silver Seas.

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It was the Bonzo Dog Band who, back in the sixties, declared, “Jazz, delicious hot, disgusting cold” on their deliriously loopy trad jazz instrumental of the same name. Supreme satirists as they were they had nailed it on the head as they took the mickey out of bands such as The New Vaudeville Band and The Temperance Seven both of whom had hit the charts but were regarded as novelty acts. We mention this as the California Feetwarmers are probably the best opportunity you’ll ever get these days to hear the sort of music that the Bonzos’ were championing in their early days, a vaudevillian extravaganza that summons up images of Keystone cops, spats, flappers and gangsters, speakeasies and ragtime, black and white Hollywood, Hawaiian luaus or a Dixieland New Orleans soundtrack waiting for a Woody Allen movie.

A seven piece band who are now based in LA The Feetwarmers boast sousaphone, trumpet, clarinet and trombone over a guitar, banjo and drums backbone creating a vibrant and exhilarating  rollercoaster ride of a listen. A syncopated time capsule of sorts Silver Seas features a mix of originals and tunes from the likes of the New Orleans Rhythm Kings (from 1925) and Scott Joplin (1903) with a fine sense of variety. The majority of the numbers are supremely skittish romps but there are some stately moments (as on Dixie Waltz) while there’s a hint of Western swing on Betty Brown, one of the few songs with vocals the other being the sublime The Breeze That Brought Me Home, wonderfully gilded with steel guitar from guest Andy Bean. Wooden Nickel allows the banjo and guitar some space away from the horns on a tune that is more mountain stream than bordello.  Overall the band’s playing is simply mesmerising, their sense of dynamics, the parps and oompahs perfectly aligned with the jazzy guitar, banjo burps and rattletrap percussion. It’s hard not to think of cinematic references while listening to this. UK listeners will have a trove of memories, gleaned from TV and movies ranging from cartoons to serious directors such as Sergio Leone (and one is reminded of his Once Upon A Time In America), that these tunes could have easily sprung from.

So the album’s a winner but apparently these guys are fabulous live with Tom Jones, the Welsh Elvis apparently falling under their spell recently when he chanced upon them. Good news is they’re currently touring the UK  and will have advance copies of the album for sale at the gigs. All dates here including a show at Glasgow’s CCA this Sunday

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Here’s some video from their Celtic Connections appearance in 2015.

 

 

Starship Nicola. Got Me Singing The Blues EP launch show. Nice & Sleazy, Glasgow. Friday 3rd June.

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Blabber’n’Smoke wrote about this Glasgow based collective’s EP here and we popped along to the launch show last Friday for what turned out to be a short but invigorating shot of harmonic roots music.  The band, AJ Meadows from Memphis, Tennessee, backed by Harry & The Hendersons and ably assisted by two fiddles (eight players in all) filled the stage as they delivered all three songs from the EP along with a couple of other songs (mea culpa but I didn’t catch the titles) and a final (and excellent) cover of The Band’s The Weight.

While Meadows on lead vocals and acoustic guitar was the focal point for the night the group as a whole were mighty impressive especially around the vocal harmonies. While the brisk and breezy Glasgow Summer showcased the collective voices it was on Ella where they really excelled. Here the lead vocals were swapped around over a plaintive fiddle while harmonies and counterpoints rang out until the song coalesced into its collective voice towards the end. It was an astounding performance and my notes simply state here that it was like hearing an unknown CS&N song. Wildwood Flower/Across Rivers was a refreshing blast of good old-fashioned country rock, the Appalachian clarity of Wildwood Flower flowing easily into the crowd pleasing folkiness of the second half of the song. It was a short but very sweet set and their version of The Weight, aside from allowing further opportunity to show off their vocal prowess had the audience singing along.

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Apparently, this was only the second time this collective have played live, the last event almost a year ago. It would be somewhat criminal if they leave it so long before returning.

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Unfortunately we arrived too late for the opening act, Megan Airlie but we did catch Olifant Collective, an entertaining crew who offered up a fine mix of Ska and Mariachi tinged songs with a hint of Klezmer in the mix.

 

Robert Coyne & Jaki Liebezeit. I Still Have This Dream. Meyer Records

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I must admit I was intrigued by this record well before listening to it. The combination of Robert Coyne (son of the late Kevin) and the legendary Jaki Liebezeit (pioneering drummer with Can) was promising enough but weirdly I was drawn to the illustration on the back of the cover. It’s a painting by Wendy Coyne called “Dogs of Bookmongers” and attempting to delve into it made me really long for this album to have been on vinyl simply for the reason the picture would have been bigger.

As it happens the painting has no bearing on the music contained on the album, it just simply improves the package. Fortunately the music itself is well worth delving into if one can delve into an album of simple lyrics, almost Zen like in their sparseness, backed by wonderful but spare instrumentation. The robotic (yet warm) percussion of Liebezeit and Coyne’s acoustic guitar underpin the songs although there are occasional keyboards from Coyne and cello (from Aglaja Camphausen), the latter adding a nice woody vibe. The minimalist approach reminded me several times of Young Marble Giants with Alison Statton’s cool vocals replaced by Coyne’s gentle voice.

Despite the bare boned instrumentation Coyne and Liebezeit manage to weave layers within the songs, the guitar mesmerising at times as on In The Rehearsal Room where Coyne’s nimble picking throws flurries of notes in the listener’s direction. There’s a bucolic feel to much of the album especially when cello is featured while harmonies on two of the songs (by Camphausen and Wendy Coyne) flesh out the sound. Lyrically the songs are opaque, often very brief (I Still Have This Dream has two lines, “I Still Have This Dream/That you’ll know what I mean”) although Another layer Of Mud does stretch to five verses. Coyne, who wrote all the songs, says of them, “it’s just me talking to myself”.  So there’s a song about a Cockney Mystic who may be delusional, a frustrated dreamer, a disillusioned pub rocker along with odd snippets such as on Soothing Sounds, a rippling summery song which advises a listener to lie down, relax and listen only for their bags to be rifled and robbed.

All in all the album is a fine late night listen, the spare rhythms something of a balm. The one exception is the 11-minute Thank You (I’ve Got The Idea) where Coyne adds bass guitar and keyboards to Leibezeit’s insistent beat summoning up a less frantic vision of Kraftwerk’s Autobahn coloured with English pastoral prog rock.  Coyne’s deadpan vocals deliver a sly joke here as he sings, “Thank you I’ve got the idea…Please don’t take it from the top, Thank you, I’m pleading with you to stop” as Liebezeit motors on.

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Regarding the painting mentioned above it was commissioned by a bookshop in London and there’s a video of its making which allows you to see it in all its intricacies.

 

The Danberrys. Give & Receive.

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Seems a long time since we heard from The Danberrys, almost three years to the day actually when Blabber’n’Smoke reviewed their second self titled album which was nominated in the Best Americana Album category in 2013’s Independent Music Awards. On this follow-up, married couple Ben DeBerry and Dorothy Daniel add another ten songs that run the gamut from bluegrassy hoedowns and crystal clear folk songs to rhythmic recollections of the past with some dark undertones.

As on the last album they’re ably assisted by Ethan Ballinger (mandolin, guitar, keyboards and cigar box) and Christian Sedelmayer (fiddle) while bass is provided by Sam Grisman and Kyle Tuttle offers occasional banjo.  An impressive combo they play wonderfully with a gossamer like touch on some of the songs but they’re also able to dig in and plough a fertile rootsy loam.

The album starts well with the combined vocals of DeBerry and Daniel over a solitary guitar on Receive, their voices recalling country duets from the past with a slight devotional touch. Gentle backing from fiddle and mandolin then adds to the sense of voices from the past. Lady Belle allows full rein to Daniel’s voice on a song which ripples with a shivering delight as the band expertly deliver a subtle Celtic folk sound that nods to artists such as Sandy Denny and Shelagh McDonald. Let Me Ride is in a similar vein although there’s more of a skip in its step here along with a fine chorus, the ensemble playing quite superb. DeBerry steps up to the mic for the rousing bluegrass knockabout of Long Song which allows Ballinger, Tuttle and Sedelmeyer space to solo and spar with each other but thereafter the album grows somewhat darker and deeper.

Don’t Drink The Water is a menacing percussive piece with a chain gang drive, sinewy guitar and hand claps recalling slave memories. Sedelmayer’s fierce fiddle interludes add to the menace here while Daniel’s voice is powerful and emotive. Similarly Life Worth Living harks to the past with only a percussive beat backing the vocals on a song which brings to mind Rhiannon Giddens’ excavation of plantation songs, the reek of the old South strong here. The album ends with a powerful trio of songs. All The Way Up is a magnificently dynamic song, the band ebbing and flowing wonderfully behind Daniel’s impassioned vocal. Get Back Home offers DeBerry the opportunity to show that can create a mood as well as his other half, his vocals here as comfortable as a back porch settee on a song that rings as clear as a mountain stream with heavenly harmonies and some gorgeous playing from the band. We’ll Be Done closes the album on a strong note as Daniel is reflective, singing of rebirth over a gently tinkling backdrop which slowly swells into an ethereal chorus as the band play a lengthy outro.  Wonderful stuff.

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Starship Nicola. Got Me Singin’ The Blues EP. Holy Smokes Records

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Starship Nicola is a collaborative effort involving Glasgow band Harry & The Hendersons and AJ Meadows of whom Blabber’n’Smoke knows little other than that he seems to come from Mississippi. Today sees the release of their EP, Got Me Singin’ The Blues, a bit of a misnomer as there’s nothing here that could be classified as blues in the accepted sense. The title actually comes from the refrain repeated towards the end of Ella, a song that, for sake of convenience, we’ll term as “freak folk”, that odd genre that gathered together some of the oddities from late 60’s and early 70’s folk rock and a sprinkling of psychedelic dust, Devendra Barnhart probably the best-known exponent. In any case it’s an excellent song, a gentle ripple of guitar and floating violin welcome a wispy vocal which in turn is supplanted by a deeper voice. The song weaves away with some fine harmonies joining in before the refrain eventually appears with disparate vocals adding a sense of tension. It’s a bit like David Crosby singing with The Incredible String Band if you can imagine such a thing. Add to that that it seems to be a celebration of Ella Fitzgerald’s work and the sense of discombobulation is complete.

Glasgow Summer is a much more straightforward affair, a sun kissed acoustic ramble with a skip in its step and a sting in its tail. There’s a hint of bossa nova here, some steely and then melting guitar breaks with a fine fiddle addition towards the end.

They open with a nod to old Americana with Wildwood Flower/Across Rivers, the first part of the song  a delicate rendition of the old chestnut that’s been recorded by artists from The Carter Family and Johnny Cash to Dylan. The guitar playing here is excellent, capturing that old time Carter Family sound before the band up the tempo for the conclusion, a brisk folk rock version of a Marty Robbins type ballad including an acappella and handclapped devotional interlude.

Starship Nicola have a launch gig for the EP in Glasgow’s Nice’N’Sleazy today, support from The Olifant Collective, details here.

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Daniel Meade and The Flying Mules. Let Me Off At The Bottom album release show. The Rum Shack, Glasgow, Saturday 29th May.

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Lady Luck’s been smiling on Glaswegian Daniel Meade, either that or several years of hard graft is paying off as his song writing skills and musicianship are making waves well beyond his hometown. Following rave reviews for his independently released and Nashville recorded album, Keep Right Away, at the beginning of 2015 and support slots with artists such as Sturgill Simpson, Pokey LaFarge, Diana Jones and Old Crow Medicine Show Meade was signed to the well respected UK label At The Helm Records (joining an illustrious roster that includes Brent Best, John Moreland, Austin Lucas and Good Luck Mountain) earlier this year. The first fruit of this union, Let Me Off At The Bottom was released last week with some very positive press reviews in the run up to the day and the weekend saw Meade and his band The Flying Mules launch the album in fine style in Glasgow’s South Side.

Let Me Off At The Bottom is Meade’s third official release and the first to feature the band. Recorded in Glasgow (with mixing done by Morgan Jahnig in Tennessee) it’s a fine capture of the raucous hillbilly rock’n’roll and honky tonk country that Meade and The Mules (Lloyd Reid – guitar, Mark Ferrie – double bass, Thomas Sutherland – drums) excel in. Meade’s songs drink from the well of Hank Williams and Jerry Lee Lewis (among others) and The Mules (who have notched up several hundred gigs over the past two years) are a well oiled music machine (not in the sense of well drunk). Their recent stint at The Kilkenny Roots festival in Ireland (five gigs in four days) is a contender for the festival highlight.

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Anyway, a capacity crowd turned up for the album launch. A good number were aware of the band but the audience was swelled by the show’s inclusion in Glasgow’s South Side Fringe Festival. This allowed the opportunity to see several folk, who before the band came on ask what sort of music they played,  pretty soon get up and join the party. And a party is what is was, the band in great form, the music infectious and impossible not to sit still for. There’s a great deal of nuance in Meade’s songs but live it’s much more primal as they cram sixty years of folk, blues, country and rock’n’roll into the set. With a batch of songs from the new album and some favourites from his back catalogue Mead and the band certainly ripped the joint.

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The band ripped into the opening trio of songs, Back To Hell, Not My Heart Again and There’s a Headstone Where Her Heart Used To Be creating an instant buzz before Meade sang the plaintive He Should Have Been Mine, a switch in mood but one which had the audience captivated. As far as I recall this was the only ballad of the night, the remainder being full blown rockabilly rock although the occasional country lope hove into view. With no  piano to hand Meade stuck to guitar for the night, showing some fine picking skills on Lock Up Your Daughters, a song which also included fine breaks from guitarist Lloyd Reid and bassist Mark Ferrie. Please Louise is a definite crowd pleaser, the bawdy lyrics going down a bomb, the girls at the front checking that it wasn’t their big behind Meade was singing about. If It’s Not Your Fault (I Guess It’s Mine) showed off the band dynamics starting off as a skifflish railroad beat before picking up steam. By the end there were dancers at the front and the back of the crowd (more space there to jitterbug I presume) and there was a definite (and justifiable) swagger about the band as they launched into Long Gone Wrong, a song that just about sums them up with its Sun Records rhythm and harmonies along with Meade’s lyrics that nail the travelling musician’s life. The set ended they offered one more song, a fine rendition of Sonny Terry’s Hooray, Hooray, a fine end to the night.

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There was an opening set for the evening from Sorbet, a guitar/bass/drum trio who ventured into the avant-garde as they responded to a backdrop of films which included the first two parts of Jean Cocteau’s Le Sang d’un Poète. They were followed by guitar/drums duo The Rivers who describe themselves as “country grunge”.  An exciting pair with jangled guitar and frantic percussion there was a Buzzcocks like rush to a song that I think was called your Love Is On My Side while their new single, Nine Miles High is worth checking out.

Terry Lee Hale. Bound, Chained, Fettered. Glitterhouse Records

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Texan born, long domiciled in France, Terry lee Hale is a survivor. Throughout four decades of changing fashions and tastes he’s continued to deliver thoughtful and sometimes meaty deliberations on the plight of man. Like his long time associate, Chris Eckman of The Walkabouts, Hale found that Europe was a more fertile territory for his lean tales and dark folk blues than his native land, his albums in the main released via German labels. His last album, The Long Draw, a thought provoking mix of Dylan like rambles and punchy roots rock was one of our favourites of 2013.

Intriguingly, for Bound, Chained, Fettered, Hale sought out the services of a producer, arranger and guitarist who he had long admired and who is, coincidentally,  a Blabber’n’Smoke favourite, Antonio Gramentieri of Sacri Cuori,  Dan Stuart and Hugo Race fame. Hale ventured to North Italy to record the album with Gramentieri in the producer’s chair, the pair recording live for the most part, Hale on acoustic six and 12 string, Dobro and harmonica with Gramentieri providing bass, electric guitar and lap steel. Unlike The Long Draw it’s an uncluttered reflective album, no raging against the political machine here. Instead Hale seems to be musing on life, relationships, aging and death. Gramentieri weaves his magic through the songs, as a player yes, but more importantly in his assemblage of some of his local cohorts (Christian Ravaglioli, keyboards, Franco Neddei, synth and mellotron, Diego Sapignoli, percussion and Franceso Valtieri, sax) whose spare contributions add a fine light and shade to the songs. Gramentieri has a light touch, the arrangements always at the service of the song and Hale is front and centre throughout, his voice up close; rarely has he sounded better.

Aside from The Lowdown, a raunchy blues number that wanders finely into Tom Waits territory with Gramentieri scowling via his guitar parts as Hale wails on harp and a baritone sax parps, the album is a quiet affair. The opening title song finds Hale sounding like Bill Callahan as he recites his words over a distant guitar grumble and dusty Dobro delivering a back porch Don Juan like philosophy. Acorns belies its gentle, almost breezy, delivery with its cryptic words, a broken love affair, a faltering memory clinging to fleetingly recalled events while the following instrumental, Flowers For Claudia, a brief one minute interlude, does seem somewhat elegiac. Age and memory seem to crop up again on Can’t Get Back (Just Like That), Hale’s guitar given just a dusting of guitar, organ and percussion allowing the lyrics to stand tall although the meanings remain vague.  Scientific Rendezvous is more structured with Gramentieri’s guitars and lap steel somewhat menacing as Hale recalls The Walkabouts’ spookier European moments on a song that is again something of an enigma. Here he could be singing about cloning or artificial insemination but the song’s mention of daddies and mommies does seem to relate to birth while the opposite end of the life cycle is the subject of the following song, Signed Blue Angel. Here he has adapted words written by an eight year old grandchild of an old friend on a death. While this might seem cloying it’s surprisingly fresh and direct, a child’s reference to angels and butterflies given a sincere reading and set within an almost Appalachian melody with gliding lap steel and a hint of cowboy balladry. It’s offset by the following stark threnody of Jawbone, an arching summary of the cycle of life and death and dust to dust. An elemental song given some heft from Gramentieri’s atmospheric guitar stylings and Franco Neddei’s muted synth playing it’s spine tingling as Hale balefully repeats the title towards the end. The album ends with another low down blues number, the slow burn of Reminiscent. More full blooded than The Lowdown, Hale picks forcefully, Gramentieri the gut in the bucket as the song slouches along like a grim reaper looking for his target.

Bound, Chained, Fettered is an excellent listen. Its slow groove, Hale’s fine vocals and words and Gramentieiri’s sonic additions all adding up to a chilling and absorbing adventure. It’s available now and Terry Lee Hale is currently touring on the continent, dates here.

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Daniel Romano. Mosey. New West Records.

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Mosey, an American equivalent perhaps of the French flaneur, a leisurely amble drinking in the atmosphere of the surroundings. God knows where Daniel Romano’s been wandering of late but his latest adventure, which casts aside any lingering memories of his Nudie suited George Jones fan era certainly lives up to his definition of the genre he has invented. He explained his vision of Mosey in a recent interview as, “It means a lot of things, I guess. Mostly, just keeping away from any kind of boys’ club that I don’t want to be part of, that I might get lumped into just from ignorance. Sometimes you have to set your own ground in order not to be buried in something that doesn’t represent you. But people feel they have to put you in a category.”

Fair enough, it would be a brave man who would lump this record into one category (the irony of this being an Americana based blog is not missed), but it’s folk who know Romano through his excellent reboots of classic country and countrypolitan sounds who will be reading this. In addition, despite Mosey being a singularly Daniel Romano album, it comes trailing clouds of influences, his moseying apparently allowing him time to wallow in various genres and styles all the while indulging in some grand nostalgia.

Recorded in mono with Romano playing all instruments (aside from piano, strings and horns) the album is a kaleidoscopic whirl of sounds. A mixed metaphor perhaps but aside from the retro music here there’s a fine cinematic feel to many of the songs with Romano stirring up visions of spaghetti westerns and swinging London and there’s a definite Bollywood touch to the opening number Valerie Leon. Leon, a Hammer horror starlet, Bond girl and (in the UK) famous for gloriously dated TV ads for Hi Karate aftershave, is an odd totem to hang a song on (and she’s missing from the video) but the mash up of Bollywood and Italian sixties pop (a la Sacri Cuori on Delone with a touch of Morricone added) on top of a supremely melodic hook laden pop song is sublime. Throughout the album Romano hits on those sixties mavericks who had the knack of producing hits that were just a touch, well, kinky. Lee Hazlewood and Serge Gainsbourg come to mind, Toulouse, a wonderfully pun filled number recalls Hazlewood’s duets with Nancy Sinatra (with Rachel McAdams in the Nancy role) while Calexico’s update of Hazlewood is recalled on the widescreen horn driven vista of Sorrow (For Leonard and William), the title perhaps a joke, Leonard and William perhaps Nimoy and Shatner? Meanwhile Mr. E Me is a brassy pop revision of The Stones’ Sympathy For The Devil.

The album is a musical maze with twists and turns. The heyday of American pop psychedelia as filtered through the Brill building is captured on the astonishing brio of Maybe Remember Me and The Monkees like grandiosity of Hunger Is A Dream You Die In, a grand canyon of a song. Another figure from the sixties looms large on (Gone Is) All But A Quarry of Stone but in Romano’s skewed wormhole of time here he recalls Dylan revisiting his roots with a song that could have come from Time Out of Mind with a fantastic ersatz Garth Hudson organ solo. Meanwhile the slow blues burn of I Had To Hide Your Poem In A Song is like a fourth formers attempt at a Dylan song, portentous perhaps but delivered with some fury.

As on his last album, If I’ve Only One Time Askin’, Romano adds musical interludes after several of the songs, brief snippets of Mosey music (I suppose) that support the soundtrack aspect of the album with Tarantino like flashes of twanged guitar and exotic choruses. It all adds up to an intoxicating whole, an album to wander into and attempt to wander out of. Tellingly Romano seems to reference the author of the gnomic novel The Magus on his song The Collector, an earlier John Fowles book from the sixties. Here a butterfly collector incarcerates the girl of his dreams and Romano cloaks the song in a cocoon of gilded sixties menace recalling the work of John Barry and his glacial keyboard sound.
Mosey is an audacious and invigorating album, Romano blasting through preconceptions, digging into the past and blowing it up into an HD reality. He starts a European tour today with a show in Glasgow this Friday at The Classic Grand. Dates here

 

 

Murder Murder. From The Stillhouse.

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Oh well, another category to file beside rock and pop and insurgent country doo-wop (and if you have any of the latter please let us know). This time it’s Bloodgrass, defined by Northern Ontario band Murder Murder as bluegrass +outlaw country +murder ballads. A six piece shit kicking acoustic set up Murder Murder certainly flail along at quite a pace, the bass and drums propelling their guitars, fiddle, mandolin, Dobro and banjo with some abandon, indeed the occasional break from their breakneck numbers here are welcome respite, a chance to catch some breath.

The songs are frontier tales, bloody revenge, double crossed lovers, death dealing bootleggers and hellfire preaching all included. Written by the band the songs are graphic, with none of the coyness that was sometimes used in the good old trad days. On Half Hitch Knot the brother of a woman beat up by her man hogties him singing, “You’re a polite cocksucker with your hands tied up, like a barnyard pig just about to get stuck” while Bridge County’s bootlegger metes out punishment to a rival, “I found him standin’ by the old ash woods, I cut that fucker down right where he stood”.  Sung with some panache, indeed relish, the vocals are rousing while the band is like a well oiled machine, the instruments meshing splendidly, the songs packed with dynamic shifts in tempo that add to the drama.

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They do rein it in on a couple of numbers. When The Lord Calls Your Name preaches repentance for a life of sin, the melody similar to that of A Satisfied Mind while Bridge County flows slowly, the vocals dramatic, the fiddles scraping over a steady drumbeat, the tension building as the song culminates in a bloody battle with the law. There’s one cover, a poignant choice given recent news, as the band deliver Guy Clark’s The Last Gunfighter Ballad, the tempo upped somewhat from the original but lyrically it fits right in with the band’s own writing skills. Indeed, they even throw in a lusty shanty of sorts about gay pirates on Duck Cove, of course, it ends in murder and mayhem.

There’s a rabble-rousing element to the album, like Old Crow Medicine Show or even Dropkick Murphys music these songs should take to the stage like a duck to water. You can see if that’s the case as Murder Murder are currently on their first tour of the UK. All dates are here and include Edinburgh at Stramash on 28th May and Glasgow’s McChuill’s on the 29th.

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David Starr. Love and Sabotage.

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The unassuming, almost professorial, chap staring at you from the cover of this album doesn’t give a hint of the sparkling old school country tinged melodic rock he’s packaged within the cardboard. Starr, from Colorado, has a hefty pedigree under his belt with five previous albums and a lengthy list of acts he’s supported or played with, several of whom turn up here including Richie Furay, John Oates and Steve Cropper. The album ranges from classic guitar driven freeway friendly songs to fiddle and mandolin rich ballads, suffice to say if the likes of Poco, Steve Stills, JD Souther, Andrew Gold and even Fleetwood Mac (circa Rumours) floats your boat then you should lend your ears to the 15 songs on offer here.

The title song opens the proceedings, a radio friendly riff of a song sparked with soaring guitar breaks and some snarly lap steel that keeps it grounded, there’s a muscular heft in the rhythm section and keyboards. It’s classic FM fodder, the Eagles and even Boston recalled as Starr sings with confidence. Secrets, a co-write with John Oates (who provides harmonies), is another song that, had it been released back in the days, could now be a staple of retro radio. It’s supremely melodic in the Fleetwood Mac manner with a winning guitar break and an excellent middle eight featuring some fabulous harmonies. Starr turns in several other songs in a similar vein, the aching Called It Love, a Jackson Browne like drama with Steve Cropper adding some sinuous guitar lines and Our Mistakes which glistens with some Byrds like guitar flourishes.

The album is finely balanced with a brace of introspective numbers and some rootsy ramblings. Long Ride Home is a cosmic cowboy lament, an intricate lace of slide and electric guitar with mandolin and accordion it’s a valedictory to life on the road and beautifully delivered. What Do You Recall is a stripped down piece, piano and fiddle and voice only as Starr peers into a memory of a love, a song that is painfully wonderful, like a love song to a dementia sufferer if that’s not supposing too much. Memory also features on the slinky and slick night-time blues of Afraid as Starr revisits his past while The Beautiful Music Of You (featuring Furay on harmonies again) is a simple love song with a hint of sadness provided by mournful viola.

The rootsiness shines through on the Dobro and accordion driven Acadian rhythms of You Will Come To Know and the jaunty harmonica led skip of No Time Like The Present. However the crowning glory here is Starr’s rendition of Tumbleweed, a song written by Canadian Tia McGraff. With a grumbling and growling guitar underpinning some sweet mandolin and fiddle playing along with some very sweet harmonies (courtesy of Tania Hancheroff) Starr here recalls the luminous sound of Emmylou Harris on Wrecking Ball.

Love and Sabotage is an excellent album and the good news is that Starr is currently touring the UK although he’s performing solo. However, on the strength of this he seems well worth seeing. He appears in Glasgow as part of the Southside Fringe on Thursday his other dates are here.

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