The Iron Horse, star of many a Western and a staple of American frontier culture, forging ever westward leaving in its wake communities enriched or split asunder. In cinema able to be the source of ribald humour as in Blazing Saddles or a carriage for depression era desperation as portrayed in Preston Sturges’ wonderful Sullivan’s Travels. Kerouac rode the rails, a brakeman for a time and Jimmie Rodgers was the singing brakeman. The Grateful Dead tooted along with Casey Jones, a far remove from the kiddie TV series starring Alan Hale, a series that was still being shown in the UK well into the late sixties. Did Billy Bragg watch this as a toddler? That we don’t know but Bragg certainly has the railroad bug, his love of Woody Guthrie, Leadbelly and Lonnie Donegan setting the points for this railroad Odyssey on which he is accompanied by his celebrated fellow hobo, Joe Henry.
Bragg and Henry, both keen to explore the tradition of railroad songs decided the best course for them was to hop on a train, guitars (and recording equipment) in tow and see where it took them. In this case they embarked in Chicago for a 2,728 mile ride to Los Angeles, a 65 hour long trip stopping at St. Louis, Fort Worth, San Antonio, Alpine, El Paso and Tucson. At the stops they hopped off, set up and sang, on platforms, waiting rooms and concourses, then hopped back on. A great idea and one that is faithfully captured here, ambient sounds and all. Bragg and Henry both sound great and they work well together, in harmony or in support of one another, even Bragg’s yodelling on Waiting For A Train passes muster. The 13 songs, all plucked from an Americana railroad gazetteer (if such a thing can be said to exist) roam from pining ballads to raucous skiffle like numbers, from the familiar to the obscure. Rock Island Line and Midnight Special rub shoulders with Railroad Bill and Waiting For A Train. There are songs a century old and newer ones such as Gordon Lightfoot’s Early Morning Rain, the latter the last song recorded as the disembarked in LA at 4:30 am with the dawn chorus heard chittering in the background.
Not a polished album but all the better for that with the recordings clear as a bell, audio verite if you like and a fine salute to those pioneers in song and ultimately the spike drivers and others who built these iron roads.
The website has an interactive map that discusses the songs recorded at each station along the way.
Husband and wife team Rob and Sarah Skinner have an enviable reputation to trade on, feted by country and blues audiences with awards for their albums and Sarah’s saxophone playing. Their bluesy side was to the fore on their last release, the warts and all Live At The Blue Lamp but on Behind The Wheel they seem to have settled on a more bucolic, almost folksy approach.
They kick off with the rousing title track which offers Sarah opportunity to display her Dixieland like soprano sax on a song which woozily wanders along at a fair clop as they sing about the joys of life on the road. A fine opener the one complaint here is that it fades out far too soon, just as Sarah is letting loose on the sax. It’s one of two up tempo numbers here, the remainder a collection of contemplative songs that are complemented by Rob’s guitar skills as ripples of strings float throughout, at times gilded by the floating sax solos, a style used to best effect on the dreamy Home Sweet Home. The Other Half is a boudoir piece, the couple swapping verses in an intimate fashion but Eleanor Joan is very much a showcase for Rob, his psychedelic guitar buzzing away behind his acoustic picking as he sings this render song, Sarah’s voice closely harmonising. The Inspiration is a stark piece, piercing harmonica and stinging guitar reflecting a hopelessness that’s contained within the lyrics despite the allowance that the experiences might become, as the title says, an inspiration.
A pity then that the mood that’s built up so far is somewhat spoiled by the horn driven Bad Apple, a song that probably works well live and is surely an opportunity for Sarah to wig out (as she does here) but in comparison to the other songs it doesn’t really carry any heft. Hurrah then for the almost medieval Thoughts Of the Past which is an ode to the past glories of a woman who’s life is now counted by the glasses of wine she can get hold of. Daybreak and a reprise of Eleanor Joan close the album, the former a lengthy narrative that switches courses as it twists and turns in its capture of various predawn happenstances before launching into an extended display of guitar dexterity and saxophony.
Sadly Blabber’n’Smoke is not familiar with Tim Easton’s previous output so we weren’t sure what to expect from this release. The title apparently is a nod to Easton’s wish to “prod a fork in the somewhat predictable Americana format,” whether he succeeds is essentially down to the listener but over the eight songs here he certainly offers a tasty selection of various dishes. What became clear from our research prior to writing this review is that Easton has a wealth of experience behind him. Aside from an impressive back catalogue on various labels he spent seven years way back in the nineties busking around Europe, taking advantage of the fall of the USSR to visit countries which were no longer blocked by the iron curtain. He recently completed a project to play 100 songs in 100 days, the fruits of which can be found on YouTube and he’s an entertaining (and engaging writer) with his blog well worth reading while he his account of watching the Rolling Stones’ gig in Cuba this year is excellent, his experience of present day Cuba given more space than the concert. All told he seems like a real nice guy.
Happily, American Fork does not dispel this notion. While Easton easily inhabits several skins here, the opening song Right Before Your Eyes a slinky rock’n’soul gumbo with Little Feat roots that eases one into the album, he lays out a manifesto of sorts on the excellent follow up, Killing Time. A cool country styled call to arms with Easton proclaiming, “I say Rock & Roll can still change the world, so don’t let your life be wasted on you. Don’t hang there like a broken door. Find out what you’re living for. There has to be something more than just killing time,” the song paves the way for what is to follow as he asks is there more to life than “Just to get up and go to work and eat your American Pie with your American Fork?” It’s a wonderful song, Easton vocally reminiscent of Nick Lowe while the female harmonies summon up Leonard Cohen’s oeuvre while the guitars are as creamy as a Nashville cat.
Having set out his manifesto Easton gleefully swings into blues territory on Elmore James, a rousing salute to old-fashioned “fun and games songs” and their seductive effect before Gatekeeper’s sinister flick knife slide guitar glissandos hover into view. Burning Star is a burnished night time revelry beautifully played and arranged with Easton’s voice acrobatic and intense. The bouncy power pop of Alaskan Bars Part 1 again recalls Nick Lowe when he was hefting bass with Cooder and Hiatt in the ill-fated Little Village although it’s more akin with that trio’s work on Hiatt’s Bring The Family album. Easton tones it down for the remaining songs. Now Vs. Now a slowly swelling capture of memories, dreams and wishes, the organ washes offering the song a Band like majesty while the closing On My Way is a pared back offering to his daughter, its gentle shuffle replete with keening pedal steel.
Last we heard from Betse Ellis, the firecracker fiddle player of The Wilders, was on her fine solo album High Moon Order (which we reviewed here ), an album that portrayed her very fine skills in the world of traditional American music while dipping its toes into more contemporary waters as on her cover of The Clash’s Straight To Hell. On River Still Rise she’s teamed up with banjo player Clarke Wyatt for an entertaining journey of sorts through traditional and old time songs and tunes, their band name and the album title deliberately recalling the exploring duo of Lewis & Clark as the duo carry out their own explorations.
With Ellis on fiddle, viola and vocals and Wyatt on banjos and cello they provide a conduit to the past, the music here (aside from three originals) plucked from a canon that includes the Child Ballads, Charlie Poole, Clarence Ashley and the still with us centenarian Violet Hensley. These old songs and tunes are rearranged by Ellis and Wyatt with brio, there’s a vitality and a sense of fun that prevents the album from becoming a history lesson although part of the enjoyment here is in actually reading the history of the songs and to this end there are extensive notes on the selections available here . While the pair can easily let loose on songs such as Diamond Joe, Take A Drink On Me and the rollicking Rolling River (with Betse’s vocals whoopin’ away) elsewhere there’s an elegiac grandeur, a reverential nod to those pioneers who created such great music in such hard times. This is probably most evident on the pair of tunes associated with Ms. Hensley, Jericho and Fill My Way With Love, the former almost a chamber piece, delicate and awe inspiring.
There are pieces which will be familiar to folk such as Fair and Tender Ladies, Requiem For Little Sadie and the John Hartford inspired The Quail Is A Pretty Bird, others much more obscure but each and all a delight. With occasional support on upright bass and guitar from the band Brushy Creek Betse & Clarke sail through the album with aplomb, keeping tradition alive. Overall the album is an essential purchase for anyone interested in old time mountain (and river) music.
River Still Rise is available now and Betse & Clarke are currently on tour in Ireland, dates here.
Not a new release but one that was new to Blabber’n’Smoke when we encountered Les Johnson at a house gig a few weeks ago (which you can read about here). We were very impressed by Johnson on the night, his baritone vocals and seam of dark humour impressive and both are present and correct on the 12 songs contained on 15 Hands, his debut album. Equally impressive are the settings for his songs, in the main delivered by The Shiverin’ Sheiks, a glorious time capsule of reverbed rockabilly, Cash like boom chicka boom and shimmering Tin Pan Alley melodrama with a hint of Joe Meek weirdness. Johnson croons and slowly burns his way through his set of songs with an easy authority equally at ease with the unabashed romanticism of Break Your Heart, a real tear jerker that sits up there with the best of Richard Hawley, the soul stirring country gospel of Beckon Me To The Light and the Celtic lilt of Sweet Promises.
For a man who says he never wrote a song until he was 46 Johnson certainly has a way with words, his more straightforward lyrics packed with arresting couplets such as the chorus on the stumblebum lament Small Time Big where he sings “Oh My Lord you made me your son, I got a god but you’re not the one. No, money is the one I want, ‘cos I ain’t got none, yet.” The aching ballad Someone Who Cares rivals Kris Kristofferson with its descriptions of a troubled man as Johnson sings, “And you can walk wide and slipslide but you still ain’t able to move. With the evil and deeds done to you, you got nothin to lose.” This version of Kristofferson of course would be overweight in a soiled gold lame suit searching for the searchlight in a seedy Vegas nightclub. Elsewhere Johnson’s dark humour is evident as on the title song’s tale of a cowboy’s love of his horse which may go beyond the platonic, at the very least he advises, “Don’t fuck with my baby, she’s fifteen hands.” The Morning After (The Night It All Came Down) is a homoerotic vision of comradeship in the face of adversity while Silver Suit complete with cheesy organ trimmings is an over the top obituary, Elvis in his cups, that celebrates a fallen idol whose showbiz career goes to pot when a man catches fire at the front of his house.
At his best Johnson reminds one of the garish karaoke weirdness of Dean Stockwell channelling Roy Orbison in Blue Velvet but we need to mention the most Scottish song contained here, the wonderful duet with Katie McArthur that is Dear Marvin. Here Johnson and McArthur inhabit George Jones and Tammy Wynette as played by Rab C Nesbitt and his wife Mary Doll, she singing “I’m gonna brain you Marvin” as she lists his defects, he, a Govan Zen master, accepting his fate.
A grand album then and if you’re quick off the mark you can catch Les Johnson tonight as he is appearing at Glasgow’s Broadcast, information here.
Glaswegian Martha L Healy recorded her fine debut album Better Days in Nashville and is soon heading back over there for an extended stay in anticipation of album No. 2. In the meantime she has brought a little bit of Nashville over to Glasgow in the form of this four song EP which was recorded “on a cold January weekend” at La Chunky Studios with producer Johnny Smillie. The EP, two original songs and two covers, features Healy in fine voice, gutsy and with just the right amount of high and lonesome yearning, accompanied by Rebecca Brown on fiddle, Sean Thompson, banjo and David O’Neill on double bass with backing vocals from Paul Healy.
The acoustic set up (and excellent playing) allows Healy’s voice to shine, tackling the Patsy Cline standard Walkin’ After Midnight excellently, her bluesy inflections mirrored well by Brown’s fine fiddle. Likewise on Hank Williams’ I Saw The Light where she and the band sound as if they’re veterans of The Grand Ole Opry, Healy in effervescent Gospel mode over the string band jubilations. Of her own songs, Too Much Time (co-written with Paul Healy) is a reflective piece that recalls the likes of Gretchen Peters or Mary Chapin Carpenter with the band creating a sumptuous and sweetly flowing backdrop. Speaking of Gretchen Peters we know that Healy was a participant in the recent song writing workshops held by the award-winning songstress recently in Edinburgh. Hearing a song like Too Much Time one wonders why as Ms. Healy here manages to encapsulate an artist’s dilemma wonderfully, melody and hooks and all. Joking aside the EP’s title song, To Be Free, does portray Healy as an excellent writer and performer with the song able to stand tall alongside creations from Dolly Parton and Loretta Lynn. Here the band head into Appalachian Carter Family territory as Healy rails devotional and defiant, her voice as vibrant as her Nashville heroines, a staggeringly good song.
As we said earlier Ms. Healy is heading back to Nashville for a while but there’s a chance to catch her in concert this Thursday at the EP launch at Glasgow’s Glad Cafe. On this form it’s sure to be a great night. Tickets here
Two years back Tildon Krautz came into my life via an intricate, delightful and slightly mysterious package that contained their second album (which I reviewed here ). Recently a similar package arrived, another homemade delight with drawings that recall Edwards Lear and Gorey and within, Tildon Krautz No. 3 AKA A Love (although a delicate scribble on the sleeve records that main man Greg Weiss wanted to call the album Nonszalancki, a Polish word that roughly translates as flippant or nonchalant). Flippant they may be (see the brief song they call Extracts which is basically singer Gabi Swiatkowska and Weiss singing karaoke style over an MOR arrangement of Dolly Parton’s I Will Always Love You which bizarrely pops up halfway through the album), but at heart they deliver yet again a wonderfully spare and left field take on old time roots music with hints of chanson and music hall thrown in.
While initially a listener might think that there’s a naiveté abound here, simple songs with catchy choruses, closer listening reveals a smart wit within the words while the playing is deceptively simple, a ramshackle tumble that takes talent to sound this good. This is evident from the opening Benny Song, a delightful ditty that tiptoes along with a mandolin carrying the main tune as Weiss and Swiatkowska squabble wonderfully like Sonny & Cher sitting on an Appalachian back porch. This back porch picking continues on the fine Life Apart and on Weiss’ excellent Fish, a song that brings to mind John Sebastian in a sunny mood while Disney Song plinks and plunks along as the pair sing surreally about a cat and a discombobulated mouse.
With Marco Hertz and Noel Migliasso on hand on various stringed instruments along with Jim Rowe adding drums on occasion there’s a bit more heft to several of the songs. Disco Song won’t be worrying the Bee Gees but its up tempo banjo beat drives yet another squabbling couples song, Weiss and Swiatkowska sounding quite impassioned here. La Chanson Grave adds a string section for a sombre showcase from Swiatkowska, her fluttering voice sounding vulnerable against the woody timbre of the cello and viola. Weiss delves into darker areas on Longer Than 29, a pensive song that recalls the work of poet Robert Frost and the mournful meanderings of Will Oldham, a trick he repeats and surpasses on the closing song Letter To Dango. A brooding missive that opens with a portentous swell of strings it’s an existentialist folk song that finally lands on the side of human kindness.
Not your everyday cup of tea perhaps but Tildon Krautz are simply sublime and deserve wider hearing.
If you’re familiar with Glasgow’s local music scene then chances are that the name Steve Grozier is not new to you. Since his return to the city last year after a spell abroad he’s been a regular at pub and club gigs while also appearing at various festivals and at prestige venues such as King Tuts and Edinburgh’s Voodoo Rooms. Normally a solo act and described by one reviewer as a player of “drifting, haunting, charming, bluesy folk” Grozier has opted for a band approach for this four song debut EP and is ably supported here by up and coming Glasgow Americana band Anton & The Colts who drape his songs in a warm Laurel Canyon vibe.
Drink Before Dawn opens the EP, lush strummed guitars driving the beat as Grozier’s effortless vocals evoke carefree times driving through the night with friends and eking it out at the last road stop. With guitarist Roscoe Wilson turning out some fine acoustic lead lines the song is more Gene Clark than the Eagles, a fine melancholia offsetting the freewheeling lifestyle Grozier is recalling. Porcelain Hearts is chunkier, a wee bit of Stray Gators in the syrupy rhythm here, the band on top form actually with the guitar curling excellently around swampy byways as Grozier almost croons a delicate love song couched in mystery.
Take My Leave is raw in comparison to its predecessors, the acoustic guitar big and bold, closely miked, Grozier’s voice velvet in comparison as he revisits streets and a home that knows his name, passing broken down arcades searching for memories. Ringing Of The Bells returns to the carefree strum of the opening song, the band freewheeling in fine style with a neat country rock lope that is ramshackle in the best Big Pink sense.
Overall the EP is a fine introduction to Grozier’s world, a world that benefits from the very fine accoutrements of The Colts particularly on Porcelain Hearts. A recent live session on Pulse Radio saw him play several of the songs solo and he’s more than able to carry them off armed just with his guitar, the band here are the icing on the cake. The good news is that there will be a launch party for the EP at Glasgow’s Hug and Pint on September 1st with The Colts playing with the man, the ticket price including a copy of the EP. Should be a fine night.
Back in 2014 Blabber’n’Smoke enthused about Cahalen Morrison‘s offshoot album under the guise of Country Hammer . Morrison is best known as one half of Morrison & West, prime purveyors of bare boned roots music but Country Hammer saw him head into honky tonk dance music, joyous and tear stained, rooted in Hank Williams with a touch of The Band, Morrison aided and abetted by chums Jim Miller and Ethan Lawton. Now Country Hammer has evolved into Western Century, essentially the same trio but with a more democratic spread across the writing and with Miller and Lawton more in evidence on their respective lead vocals. Morrison, Miller and Lawton deliver here a tremendous album that is cooked in a delicious stew brewed from Waylon Jennings grit filled barnstormers, tear filled ballads and some of that old cosmic cowboy music from the seventies with several of the songs reminding us of The New Riders Of The Purple Sage and The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.
The trio swap various guitars and share drum duties with bass supplied by Dan Lowinger along with stellar pedal steel throughout from Rusty Blake and fiddle from Rosie Newton on nine of the twelve songs. A versatile bunch they can tackle with ease outlaw honky tonk on What Will They Say About Us Now, Big Pink romps like Knocking ‘Em Down, tear and beer stained ballads on Sadder Day or the gliding country rock of The Long Game. Newton’s fiddle and Blake’s pedal steel dart and dash over the steady beat with occasional twanged solos while the three vocalists add more variety to what is an already varied set. There’s a cornucopia of delights to be found here with repeated listening throwing up new favourites each time. A casual airing might find the light and breezy tones of Philosophers And Fools and In My Cups a balm on a summer day and Sadder Days just right for those who like to be reminded of George Jones’ like lachrymose broodings. Anyone hankering after The Band will love Rock Salt and The Long Game, the spirit of Levon Helm surely residing therein. Closer attention pays dividends however as lyrically all three writers excel, at times deconstructing or updating the familiar tropes of country music. Philosophers And Fools is a break up song that challenges Sturgill Simpson’s metaphysical leanings and is surely the first country song to mention Tinder. The truck driving intro to What Will They Say About Us Now leads into a song about a mid life crisis while the halting and slightly off kilter love song Off The Shelf is wonderfully sung by Lawton not to a woman but to his first hit of booze in the morning.
Weight Of The World is, quite simply, a delight. Country rock heaven for anyone into Gram or The Band or even The Dead back in their Workingman days along with more recent stalwarts such as Sturgill Simpson or Ryan Adams.
The Westies, a Chicago based outfit fronted by husband and wife Michael McDermott and Heather Horton are named after an Irish affiliated New York gang of the ’60s and 70’s whose home turf was Hell’s Kitchen. Their debut album, released last year was a powerful package of bruised and gritty urban tales which recalled the likes of Springsteen and Willie Niles. Six On The Out very much continues in this vein with McDermott saying, “I was focused on the story, a second instalment. What happens next to these characters?” What happens next is more tales of urban struggle, the outsider trying to fit in, damaged characters with traumatic pasts, physically and emotionally wounded, McDermott gives voice to them all with a grim authority that is partly drawn from his own back story.
As in a Peckinpah movie there is violence galore here but it’s delivered with panache, the blood and guts offered an artistic out, in this case the craftsmanship and, at times, the sheer beauty of the lyrics and music. For the most part there’s a muscular drive to the songs which vary from pained country styled ballads to blue collar rock, Horton’s fiddle as much to the fore as guest Will Kimbrough’s guitar. The opener If I Had A Gun is a fine scene setter, the protagonist just released from jail straight back into the scene’s that sent him there in the first place. A sinister piece with lashes of guitar over a slow beat as McDermott huskily narrates it’s dramatic and somewhat unnerving and he repeats this on several other songs on the album with the closing song Sirens a raw tale of childhood violence, drugs and jail and car wrecks, as dark as the darkest hardboiled American authors.
While the lyrical content is not much lighter the band offer up the Irish influenced The Gang’s All Here, head into Bruce territory on the driving Santa Fe and retell the tale of Billy The Kid on Henry McCarty (the Kid’s real name). Horton gets to sing lead on Like You Used To Do, a wonderful broken down country waltz, her voice so evocative as she sings about a relationship shattered by her man’s drinking, her voice echoed by a hurting guitar solo. Is it fair to ask that McDermott and Horton consider doing more of this as an album of hurt Heather Horton songs could be a winner.
In the meantime it’s McDermott who has released a solo album, Willow Springs. Apparently it’s his tenth effort after being signed to a major label back in the early nineties. His bio is refreshingly honest in that, alongside the initial hype of the times, he screwed up, succumbing to booze and drugs, eventually kind of limping along until he achieved sobriety. A couple of years clean now and with a wife and baby daughter egging him on he is on a roll with two albums from The Westies (along with his wife Heather Horton) under his belt and now this solo album. In fact many of the names on The Westies’ album reappear including Horton, Will Kimbrough and Lex Price and the difference between the albums is at times paper thin. McDermott still reminds one of Springsteen although in this case it’s the Springsteen who reminded folk of Dylan way back in the seventies. Lyrically the albums do differ, Willow Springs still contains its fair share of stories but they’re more opaque than the blood spattered city street tales of Six On The Out and one gets the sense that the romantic losers and redeemed rebels sung about here are McDermott’s way of making sense of his own journey.
While Getaway Car and Half Empty Kinda Guy press the pedal on the E Street highway a little too enthusiastically the opening title song points the finger at Dylan as McDermott fires out the alliterative lyrics with machine gun rapidity as he travels down his own desolation row. The venom at the beginning of the song is eventually supplanted by a sense of hope and the album follows suit almost with its closing songs portraying a man more comfortable in his own skin and able to manage his emotions. In between there is confusion on the brisk These Last few Days, a rebel without a cause on Getaway Car and on the haunting Soldiers Of The Same War casualties build up as folk try to run from their past.
They say before you can get up you have to hit bottom and on Butterfly McDermott paints a grim picture of addiction before seeing a light at the end of the tunnel on Half Empty Kind Of Guy and trepidatiously allowing himself to feel again on One Minus One. On the self mocking Folksinger McDermott is in control and able to poke some fun at the thought of him and Bono sitting on top of their millions and there’s a genuine sense of joy and relief in the sweet and soulful Let A Little Light In, a song that recalls Danny and The Champs country soul with its backing horn section. In the notes for the album McDermott says that in his turbulent years he also had to endure the death of his father and Shadow In The Window is an affectionate tribute to the man who raised him. Switching generations Willie Rain is a delightful ditty dedicated to his daughter (which opens with her saying “I love you daddy”) and it’s delivered with a jaunty country lope. McDermott closes the album with the grand sweep of What Dreams May Come, a powerful and emotive song of hope and dreams that again centres on his father but which also looks to the future. Sung and played with a dignified restraint the song avoids mawkishness and is a fine closing statement on what is a very fine album.
