Small Faces. Here Come The Nice: The Immediate Years 1967-1969. Charly Records.

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The Small Faces occupy a unique place in the rock canon. Together for only four years in the sixties they were eclipsed by The Kinks and The Who and failed to make much of a dent in the States. They were overshadowed by their subsequent incarnation as The Faces with Rod Stewart and Ronnie Lane replacing Steve Marriott (who of course had a brief taste of fame with Humble Pie). During those four years however they released a brace of singles which many would proclaim are the equal of Davies and Townshend. From the mod fuelled Watcha Gonnna Do About It, the druggy psychedelia of Here Come The Nice to the pastoral The Universal they were a top ten phenomena in the UK with many of the singles still staples on today’s day time radio. Despite the apparent progression from the pilled up R’n’B of the first singles to the likes of Itchycoo Park and Tin Soldier they failed to make the transition from a singles band to an album orientated group with only their 1968 release Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake standing the test of time (although some will argue that it was a brave but overall failed experiment). The deaths of Steve Marriott and Ronnie Lane add a tragic coda to the band’s story but their position in a rock family tree that includes The Faces, Humble Pie, The Who, The Stones and Slim Chance along with the sheer brilliance of their best songs have ensured that these days The Small faces are up there in the pantheon with an induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (in 2012) while they retain a fierce following which grows by the year.

It’s these devoted fans that this deluxe box set is aimed at. Curated and supervised by Kenney Jones and Ian McLagen it is a serious opportunity for the diehard Small Faces fan to go to heaven without dying first. It concentrates on their second phase after breaking free from hard man manger Don Arden and Decca Records when they signed to Immediate Records (slogan: Happy to Be a Part of the Industry of Human Happiness), the label set up by Stones’ manager Andrew Loog Oldham. Hindsight might allow us to see that this was not the marriage made in heaven it might have seemed at the time but the presumption is that at the time of these recordings Marriott, Lane, McLagen and Jones could have been forgiven for thinking that the world was their oyster. Freed from the managerial shenanigans of Arden and with Marriott and Lane on a song writing roll they toss out classic after classic while the studio sessions included here show their musical muscle grooving at times like Booker T and the MGs.

We said deluxe and we meant it. The set is limited to 3000 and comes with a 72 page hardback book a 64 page lyric booklet, posters, postcards, Gered Mankowitz art prints, Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake press kit and signed certificates from Jones and McLagen. And this is before we get to the music. There are three vinyl artefacts, a replica of a promo disc for their first Immediate album featuring excerpts from some of the songs and introductions by Tommy Vance along with two French released E.P.s. In addition there is a replica acetate of the never released Mystery single (subsequently retooled as Something I Want To Tell You).

Hidden within this very tantalising paraphernalia is the beating heart of the set. Four CD’s consisting of 75 cuts , 41 of them previously unreleased, which offer the opportunity to hear why The Small Faces mattered. Disc One gathers together mono versions of all the songs released on singles and E.Ps by Immediate within the band’s lifetime. While everyone will be familiar with the hits they constitute only seven of the 20 songs here. The remainder are a delight. While several appear on the first Immediate album hearing them coupled with their better known siblings allows the listener to piece together the band’s development. Little known gems such as Green Circles, Become Like You and I’m Only Dreaming have the chance to shine being released from B side obscurity. Discs two and three consist of studio cuts, alternate takes, backing tracks and overdub sessions and for the most part these will be of interest primarily to the most devout fan. Ranging from a 38 second snatch of Shades of Green to nine to a nine and a half minute jam (called a tracking session here) which ends with some ferocious Marriott howls and yelps these are not for casual listening but the alternate mixes of several songs (including Tim Hardin’s Red Balloon, Green Circles, Wham Bam Thank You Mam and Lazy Sunday Afternoon)are sure to set pulses racing. The fourth disc opens with several alternate mixes of complete songs and again the Small Faces’ completist will savour these with the Italian sung version of Green Circles tickling this reviewer’s fancy a great deal. There’s a song, (If You Think You’re) Groovy, credited to “The Lot,” in reality the Small Faces backing P.P. Arnold. Although it starts off with some pastoral acoustic guitar and flute it soon takes on the feel of her hit, Angel Of The Morning married to Tin Soldier, a minor triumph. The disc ends in fine style with five live songs recorded at Newcastle City Hall. These have been previously released, three of them on the posthumous album, The Autumn Stone but these versions allow the listener to hear the band more clearly despite the audience noise and demonstrate the raw power of Marriott’s voice along with the fact that they were a tight little band on stage. Their version of Every Little Bit Hurts just amazes.

Available only via Amazon and with a hefty price tag Here Come The Nice appears to be somewhat of a labour of love for the two remaining Small Faces and almost a mandatory purchase for the most rabid of fans.
full details of the box set including all content is available here

Celtic Connections – Fraser Anderson.

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Fraser Anderson appears to be a well kept secret. A Scottish songwriter who decamped to rural France several years ago he’s appearing with Wilson, Swarbrick, Gaughan & Ellis at Oran Mor on the 23rd January. His most recent album, Little Glass Box came out in 2012 and it’s a very fine, warm and woody wisp of an album. It’s perhaps lazy to describe it as sounding a little bit like John Martyn circa Grace and Danger but there are definite similarities in the vocal style. Anderson doesn’t have the mumble and stumble that Martyn occasionally employed and his voice definitely is not as gruff. However his sweetly strained falsetto does recall some of Martyn’s work. Add to this the always excellent Danny Thompson on bass (and he sounds great here) along with Max Middleton’s Rhodes piano and some flugelhorn from time to time and we have a musical landscape that Martyn also inhabited.

Perhaps too much comparison there so it’s important to say that Anderson is no mere copyist. He runs the gamut from pastoral folk to noirish jazz on the album while the title song is a curious hybrid of banjo frolics and tooting trumpet as he almost scats with a Scottish burr. Listening to this I was reminded of Paulo Nutini but without Nutini’s wearisome vocal mannerisms. The album opens strongly with Rag and Bones where Anderson’s guitar picking is enveloped by Thompson’s supple bass as the song unfolds at a sedate pace. Never Know recalls another lost soul, Nick Drake. It doesn’t sound like Drake per se but the mood and arrangement recall his melancholic style. It’s a restrained piece with some excellent interplay between guitar, keyboards and bass. Warhorse maintains this level of playing but slows the pace to a crawl, perfect late night listening here. This laid back midnight feel persists throughout for the most part although the aforementioned title song might be the time to get up and stretch for a moment or two. Anderson ends the album with an understated flourish. Run These Lines is a fragile and tender love song with bare accompaniment which shows that Anderson can captivate without the accoutrements which adorn the other songs. He backs this up with two unlisted songs that close the album. One is a showcase for his guitar playing and vocal acrobatics while the final piece is a minor beauty with wistful violin winding around his voice and guitar. I reckon if you’re heading to Oran Mor next Wednesday be sure to get there on time to catch him.

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Beth Nielsen Chapman. Uncovered

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Released in time for her appearance at Celtic Connections, Uncovered is pretty much the obverse of the usual covers record. With a healthy reputation for penning hits for others in addition to being a fine performer in her own right Beth Nielsen Chapman has delved into her bank balance (sorry, her notebooks) to deliver a selection of songs she has written but not recorded before, the majority of which were hits for the lucky recipients. To cap this she’s rounded up a host of luminaries to guest on most of the songs she’s chosen. The roster includes Duane Eddy, Vince Gill, Kim Carnes, Gretchen Peters, Suzi Boguss, Darrell Scott and our very own Phil Cunningham.

Given that many of these songs were written (perhaps) with an eye on the market I have to confess that several of them are not what would normally rock Blabber’n’Smoke but Chapman usually wins out even on her version of This Kiss, a hit for Faith Hill although Pray did test our endurance somewhat (despite it being one of the songs recorded in Scotland). However there are some cracking moments here with Sweet Love Shine (a co-write with Waylon Jennings and which features Jennings’ widow Jessie Colter and twang master Duane Eddy) featuring Chapman in sultry mode with Eddy adding his own eddies of subdued twang in the background. Strong Enough To Bend (written for Tanya Tucker) is a fine bluegrass romp while Meet Me Halfway wears its Bonnie Raitt origins proudly on its sleeve as Chapman, Bekka Bramlett and George Marinelli get down and dirty with guitar and organ mining a Southern groove.
Chapman excels herself on the tremendous rush that is One In a Million with guitars scrubbing away and a chorus that rings to the heavens before the countrified lament of Five Minutes offers an opportunity to hear what a fine singer she is as sleek pedal steel skirls around what is an almost perfect example of a strong female ultimatum to her man who done wrong. It might be bias but for us the standout song is the other one recorded in Scotland. Nothing I Can Do About It Now was written for Willie Nelson but Chapman, Phil Cunningham, Duncan Chisholm, John McCusker, James Mackintosh, Euan Burton, and Matheu Watson offer up a rollickingly good honky tonk cut with some excellent clamorous pedal steel and of course Cunningham’s accordion which adds a peculiar Scottish lilt to the Texicali feel.

Chapman appears at the opening Celtic Connections show at the Royal Concert Hall today before her own show on Saturday 18th January at the City Halls.

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Lincoln Durham. Exodus of The Deemed Unrighteous. Droog Records.

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Lincoln Durham‘s debut album The Shovel vs. The Howling Bones was unleashed at the beginning of 2012. I say unleashed as its rabid delivery of wailing cat scratched blues was at times awesome in its ferocity. Exodus Of The Deemed Unrighteous continues in this vein although it digs even deeper into murder, mayhem and dread as Durham scrapes, bangs and almost eviscerates his vintage guitars howling all the while. As on Shovel he also grabs just about anything to hand to pummel and clatter with credit given to a samsonite suitcase and plucked piano strings. Acoustic and electric guitar, cigar box guitar, lap steel, piano, fiddle and banjo are all down to Durham with Rick Richards handling drums on the majority of the songs (although he plays percussion by slapping his leg on one song). The production (by George Reiff) is crystal clear with the drums in particular pounding away, one element here that is reminiscent of Led Zeppelin. Durham’s vocals also recall Robert Plant in his heyday at times and although Zep were never as stripped down as this Durham delivers some killer riffs that they would have been proud of with Stupid Man featuring some fine acoustic picking sounding as if it could have been snatched from a demented rehearsal session for Led Zeppelin 3.

Durham plants his flag firmly with the opening song, Ballad Of a Prodigal Son. Biblical references, chain gang call and response and thunderous drums dominate until at the end slide guitar squalls for a few brief moments before evaporating into the ether. Rise In the River boogies like voodoo Creedence while Annie Departee opens with this line “This here’s a little story about a girl who can’t seem to quit killing men”. Durham’s lyrics are steeped in blues and gospel archetypes but he achieves an almost Cormac McCarthy moment in the opening lines of Beautifully Sewn. Violently Torn as he unveils the bloody results of incest.
“Screen door blowin’ in the wind that’s drying up the blood on the ol’ wood floor/Dead-man’s shadow still dancin’ from a 40-watt bulb swingin’ back and forth/Record is skippin’ in the middle of Son House singin’ ’bout an old death letter/Little Ellie Mae’s still cryin’ in the corner, sayin’ “daddy should’ve known much better”.
Keep On Allie affords the listener a brief respite from the musical mayhem as Durham dips into Steve Earle territory for an affectionate observation of a girl who might be a prostitute but who maintains a sense of hope for the future. Tenderly plucked guitar and slight piano mark the song out and show that Durham can deliver without the fire and brimstone. However he dives headlong back into hell with the final three songs and by the end the listener could be forgiven for feeling somewhat drained. Nevertheless it’s a sure bet that despite this repeat listenings will beckon.

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Dan Baker. Pistol In my Pocket. 75orlessrecords.

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From the opening line, “I’ve got a pistol in my pocket so don’t you fucking move and don’t you say a word,” you know that you’re not in for a smooth ride with Dan Baker. His delivery, a tortuous wail (that the unkind might call tuneless) adds to the sense of menace. In two minutes Baker paints a picture of a hold up in a liquor store with spare brush strokes. The remaining words are “put the money in the bag, get down on the floor” with the response “Don’t shoot, please don’t shoot.” Story over. With a delicate acoustic guitar intro before drums crash in and a piano takes up the threadbare melody the song hums with danger. A great start with more to follow.

Baker is from New England and Pistol In My Pocket is his third album. Recorded live in an old Masonic Temple converted into a recording studio the sound is harsh and vibrant giving his skeletal blues wails the sense of urgency that Tom Waits achieved on Mule Variations while Baker’s voice makes full use of the 60 foot vaulted ceiling reverb sounding like a man who is howling with the ghost of electricity. His band (Rob Flax, violin, Chris Enright, keyboards, Karl Grohmann, percussion and Alan Uhler, double bass) handle the frenetic workouts and the gentler numbers with equal aplomb while Baker’s guitar can scream or caress as required. Threw Me Down the Well recalls The Bad Seeds and The Violent Femmes in its dark procession describing the dark deed of the title while What I’m Looking For is a Waits like grotesquerie with some stompingly good guitar work. Baker and the band’s triumph however is the superb Down In the Canyon, a song that follows the topography of Calexico, Morricone and Hazlewood with a script from Cormac McCarthy. Beautifully paced, the excellent percussion, guitar, keyboards and violin coalesce into a shimmering whole that is breathtaking.

Aside from the full frontal attack Baker proves himself a dab hand at the more introspective songwriter model with the band switching into simpatico mode. Never Alone nods to the melody of The Battle Cry of Freedom as Baker declares his freedom from a straight jacketed home. Up On The Roof employs the studio’s echo to convey a sense of space as Baker, supported by piano and bass, sounds like the last person on earth looking down and asking for an Amen to his Hallelujah. One Of Them sounds like a disembodied John Prine while Coming Home is a majestic ballad that weaves together elements of John Murry’s wounded grandeur and Van Morrison’s early impressionistic portraits as the protagonist waits and waits. Fine stuff indeed.

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Threw Me Down The Well

Joe West and The Santa Fe Revue. Blood Red Velvet.

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Flying the flag for offbeat and eccentric Americana ( a mantle inherited from one of his heroes, Terry Allen), Joe West has released a stream of albums stained with a New Mexico patina buoyed up by his self deprecating sense of humour. Here he heads The Santa Fe Revue, a revolving collection of Santa Fe musicians and although it’s very much his album it offers space to several other vocalists and switches styles as it goes along. With recent moves into television and film soundtracks it’s no surprise that many of the songs here have a cinematic quality about them as the album wanders around in search of a theme. In fact at times I was reminded of Dan Hicks’ oddball imagined soundtrack, It Happened One Bite although the one style West doesn’t cover is western swing. Instead there’s some crunchy rock, spooky sci-fi (in a David Lynch fashion), spoken word and good old fashioned country rock and folk.
The straightforward songs are scattered throughout the album. It’s All Over opens with the wind behind it as the band breeze through a fine death song with some fine guitar and fiddle driving the song. The Blues is a throwback to power pop crunchiness while I Got It All (with vocals from Lori Ottino) is a fine and blowsy blues work out with gut bucket guitar. Paradise is a wonderful tale of a woman scrabbling to survive in a grim world, it’s passionate and brims with an anger and sorrow exemplified by the wheezing accordion. Don’t let Them Get You Down which follows is a banjo driven riposte urging pride in the face of adversity. West maintains this pugnacious attitude in the Celtic tinged biography of Hometown Shit Beer which while engaging is the one let down here.
All the above add up to an engaging listen but West adds some oddities to the mix with Pink Nun telling the tale of a, well, pink nun who wants to play in a band and travels looking for an answer. West delivers this in a weary fashion with laid back guitars and piano before he adds a chorus of Song Sung Blue to the mix. Weird? Frank’s Time Travel Experiment harks back to West’s album Time Travelling Transvestite but this time the delivery is more mechanic. Death in Santa Fe is a short fable of an encounter with Death but The Glory Days of Dona Dillenschneider is the epitome of West’s montage method. The eponymous Dona relates a sordid tale of guns and violence much in the style of true crime stories on TV with atmospheric musical background before the band launch into a cock eyed version of that old Mary Hopkins chestnut, Those Were The Days, which recalls Tom Waits’ Russian beaverings on Black Rider.
What to make of this melange? Best just to sit back and enjoy the album. West fans will love it while it’s well recommended for anyone sitting on the fence.

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Chuck Lemonds. The Rivers Call. Live In Trees Music.

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An American artist domiciled in Austria, Chuck Lemonds is a new name to Blabber’n’Smoke although The Rivers Call is apparently his ninth album. Originally from St. Louis, Missouri, Lemonds has an interesting back history, detailed on his website, which anticipates a dyed in the wool old time feel to his music but instead he inhabits a world where poetry and lyricism marry fluid and supple instrumentation with a light, airy, almost Joni Mitchell feel. Billowing bass lines, rippling acoustic guitars with occasional electric solos, heavenly harmonies and meandering melodies feature throughout as Lemonds’ laid back and unhurried vocals brush against the microphone.
It’s all very reminiscent of an earlier and more innocent age when songwriters were planting the first seeds of post psychedelic American music, examining folk, blues, gospel and country and coming up with a modern indigenous music. So the likes of Neil Young, Ritchie Havens, Tim Buckley and Tim Hardin are all in here along with a smattering of Van Morrison’s sunkissed California days and given the prominence of acoustic double bass (played with some excellence throughout the album by Peter Herbert, veteran of Woody Shaw, Art Farmer and Paul Simon sessions) there’s a fair bet that Lemonds has listened to the numerous recordings featuring the doyen of double bass, Danny Thompson).

The gospel feel is apparent immediately on the opener, Let’s Go Down Stream, a song co written with his late father that oozes the blue eyed soul feel of the early seventies with Mary Gaines taking the place of Claudia Lennear. There’s a Ronnie Lane jaunt to Bringing Mary K Home with mandolin galore while To Bee or Not To Bee (poor pun mind you) features an awesome bowed bass solo introduction that is woody and organic and sets up the bucolic nature of this paean to the humble bumble bee. The title song has some sly lap guitar from Arkadiy Yushin along with some booming bass work and again it recalls the rustic Ronnie Lane skipping down country byways. The Joni Mitchell influence is apparent in The Letter Home, an adaptation of two poets, John Weir and Petra Schaller as the bass burbles and percussion splashes as Lemonds sings a song of regret for lives lost needlessly. There’s some more southern slinking with Gottfried Gferer on National steel guitar on Put A Good Word In For Me, another song that recalls early seventies excursions into swamp blues and a very fine instrumental featuring Lemonds on guitar with just bass and piano that recalls Ry Coder’s film work before Lemonds wraps it up with his solo rendition of Patty Griffin’s Top of the World. Top of the World is a song that has amassed a weight of interpretation through its authors’ and The Dixie Chicks renditions. Here Lemonds lays it down straight with just the right amount of pathos with no need for any other instrumental embroidery. A stark classic to end a fine album.

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The Jamie Freeman Agreement. 100 Miles From Town. Union Music Store.

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Nudging the years end this album probably does itself a disservice as it hasn’t enough time to bed itself in the memory of all of those top ten compilers who are right now beavering away at their lists (present company included). A pity as it’s a strong contender for inclusion with some sublime moments especially for those who like melodic Americana laced with powerful guitar playing and handsome harmony singing.
Freeman (on lead vocals, acoustic and electric guitars, mandolin, drums, organ and piano and brother of Hobbit actor, Martin, trivia fans, ) and the Agreement (Abigail Downs, backing vocals, Jessica Spengler, bass guitar, Jonathan Hirsch, electric guitar, banjo and Dobro and Joe Ellis on drums) are a tight unit, well able to conjure up a muscular melody as on Scrabble From Afghanistan which drives along with a powerful beat as the guitars chime gloriously. It’s Your Lucky Day is another guitar driven corker , this time adding a jangled haze to the mix while the venerable B.J. Cole guests on pedal steel for the soaring Steel Away which is a contender for song of the year. Joyful in its delivery despite its subject matter of a woman wanting out of a relationship it captures the spirit of pioneers in country rock such as Gene Clark and latter exponents like The Jayhawks. Swirling organ, chunky guitar and Cole’s ethereal steel playing coalesce as if under a California sun while Freeman is joined by co writer, the very fine Brandy Zdan (of Twilight Hotel) on vocals with the pair of them in perfect harmony, a superb song. Alas Zdan’s appearance here is her sole contribution to the album but Freeman is well served on the other cuts by Rachel Davies who adds some tremendous harmony and backing vocals throughout the album. Steel Away might be sublime Americana music but for much of the album Freeman steers a course between America and his homeland. The opening song, The Knight is graced by the presence of Larkin Poe sisters, Megan and Rebecca Lovell on lap steel and mandolin but the lyrics and driving mandolin are evidence of the influence of Richard Thompson. Even stranger, Key of Me harks back to the mysticism and power chords of Pete Townshend back when he was trying to capture the “vibrations” of music on his ill fated Lifehouse project. Nevertheless Key Of Me is a powerful song with some fine gospel like wailing from Davies. Elsewhere Freeman utilises English folk song with Message From Limbo a simple acoustic guitar led rendition of a poem by Amy Tudor (who also wrote Scrabble From Afghanistan) but there is a return to Americana sounds with Hey Mama sounding like an old Gospel song although it addresses a modern issue while I’ll Never Be The Same Again has some rippling mandolin along with the guitar chimes. So far Freeman has managed to straddle the Anglo/American divide but towards the end he dives in headfirst with the rockabilly strut of Two Sugar Baby which features some fine picking from Richard Smith and harmonies from The Good Lovelies and it will set your brothel creepers a tappin’. Annie Ran Away winds up the album with a windswept Ghost Riders in the Sky type pitch, heavenly harmonies included. Finally, and perhaps inspired by Zdan’s dark musings with Twilight Hotel, Freeman offers a blood soaked tale in Hey Hey Indianna! which is American Gothic in delivery and explains the album art.

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Crazy Horse. At Crooked Lake

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Everyone reading this will know of Crazy Horse. Neil Young’s very own bone crunching band whom he wheels out when he needs to let his hair down. There’s no denying that they’ve been involved in some of Young’s most memorable moments and with their partnership going back over 40 years they are invariably caught up in Shakey’s story. Plucked from an LA band called the Rockets, Billy Talbot, Ralph Molina and Danny Whitton became Crazy Horse for Young’s Everyone Knows This Is Nowhere before adding Nils Lofgren and Jack Nitzsche to produce their own album, one of the finest debuts ever. And for most folk that’s the end of the Crazy Horse story apart from their regular gig with the man.
Lofgren and Nitzche went their separate ways and Whitton OD’d and was written into musical history via Young’s Tonight’s The Night. With Young zooming towards fame with Harvest Talbot and Molina scrabbled together a new line up releasing Loose, an album that soon cluttered up cut out bins in record stores with Robert Christgau calling it “the most disappointing follow-up in memory.” Undeterred the Horse again regrouped adding brothers Rick (vocals, rhythm guitar, banjo) and Michael Curtis (vocals, piano, organ, guitar and mandolin) and Greg Leroy (vocals, lead guitar, bottleneck guitar) and recording At Crooked Lake which was released on Epic Records in 1972 to general indifference. Normally they shoot horses past their best but this one was pardoned when Talbot, Molina and new guitarist Frank Sampedro were recruited by Young for his Zuma album. Rejuvenated they even produced a cracker of an album, Crazy Moon with Young playing guitar all over it. Again it sank like a stone but is well worth checking out.
Anyway, this is all a fairly long winded way to say that At Crooked Lake is being reissued by Retroworld allowing folk who want to delve into the Horse to avoid exorbitant prices for previous out of print copies. “Is it any good?” we ask. Well our answer is a qualified yes. Anyone looking for the Whitton/Nitzsche brilliance of the first album will be disappointed and there’s none of the pile driving thunder demanded of Young. In fact apart from the presence of the Talbot and Molina rhythm section it’s probably best to ignore the brand name and approach this as an opportunity to hear another unearthed example of early seventies west coast rock. With the majority of the songs written by either the Curtis brothers or Leroy ( all of whom faded into history although Rick Curtis dallied with the fledgling Fleetwood Mac LA version) there’s a definite sense of the pot pourri music of the time as they dip their toes into country rock, FM friendly rock boogie and CSNY like harmonies. It has to be said that if you crank this up it does transport the listener to the early seventies with the band coming across as a blend of Poco and Grin. The opener, Rock and Roll Band, nails their colours to the mast with fine harmonies and guitar duelling, the type of music the fictitious Stillwater played in Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous movie. It’s an invigorating start. Love Is Gone dapples acoustically with some fine acoustic slide while We Ride channels Steve Stills and Dave Crosby to a tee. There’s a couple of gurney country romps present with Outside Looking In sounding like a rough and ready Ringo Starr while 85 El Paso’s floats away on a boozy country vibe. Don’t Keep Me Burning unfortunately falls into generic boogie territory while Lady Soul is packed with clichés that don’t really hold sway these days. Don’t Look Back is a tub thumper of a song (although again the lyrics show their age) with some savage guitar licks but the overall beauty here is the simple acoustic ballad, Your Song which is graced by the pedal steel of Sneaky Pete Kleinow.
Overall a minor entry in the seventies soft rock canon but a welcome opportunity to grab a small piece of the Neil Young jigsaw for those inclined.

Stevie Agnew. Wreckin’ Yard.

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Dunfermline, a Scots town in Fife has a small claim to fame in rock circles with Nazareth and Big Country springing from its loins while Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull was born there. Stevie Agnew, son of Pete Agnew, bassist for Nazareth, now stakes his own claim to fame with this excellent collection of blue collar tinged tales that , like another son of Dunfermline, Andrew Carnegie, looks to the new world for inspiration. Agnew might have grown up with a bona fide seventies rock star dad but there’s no pretension or nepotism on show here as he eschews the hard rock path and instead explores the highways and byways of American songwriters with particular nods to Springsteen and Dylan while the likes of Steve Earle, John Mellencamp, Tom Russell and Johnny Dowds all seep in.
Although Wreckin’ Yard is his debut album Agnew has knocked around a bit playing for several years on the local circuit. The catalyst for the album was his meeting with producer, drummer and co-writer of the album, Chris Smith. Together they’ve forged as good an Americana album to come out of Scotland in the past few years that burns with a respect for the working man, be it a squaddie or muck encrusted labourer and marries this with some memorable and at times very commercial sounds.
Wrecking Yard opens (and closes in an extended version) the album, a very smooth and polished medium paced rocker with sweet guitar tones that recall Mark Knopfler it’s tailor made for radio as the tale of a cuckolded labourer whose wife has left him for his boss dreams of vengeance. It’s an impressive song but more impressive is Agnew and Smith’s decision not to clone this airbrushed radio rock with the remainder of the album more dependent on acoustic instruments allowing Agnew’s very fine husk of a voice space to tell their tales. Pretend That You Love Me Tonight is Dylanesque (circa Blood on The Tracks) as Agnew seeks solace from a hooker while All That I Can See pairs Agnew with singer Kirsten Adamson (daughter of the late Stuart) on a country jaunt with Adamson sounding for all the world like a young Dolly Parton while Agnew sounds much older than his years. With banjo, Dobro, pedal steel and harmonica creating a fine backdrop it’s hard to imagine that this song originated in the Kingdom of Fife. Winter Rain is a wordy and spare backed narrative that recalls Steve Earle with Adamson again adding some sweet vocal harmonies on a grim and cold tale of a widower consoling himself with booze as he recalls his wife’s dying days, taking her to hospital and then taking her home with “her hair falling out into her hands and poison in her bones” and waiting for her to die. It’s a spectacular song that captures the protagonist’s pain without falling into sentimentality and its delivery is just as spectacular with the chorus reaching out to the listener. Agnew has another duet on Paid My Dues (Loving You) later on with Beth Malcolm replacing Adamson and again it’s a wonderful tale as two young lovers recall what went wrong.
The Pugilist is another narrative, this time about a battered and bruised fighter reduced to vagrancy. Again it’s delivered well and is reminiscent with its Celtic tinge of Ron Kavana. The one caveat here is that the melody is very reminiscent of John Lennon’s Working Class Hero. Sub Prime however struts out on its own two feet with sleek Dobro and slide guitar driving this finger pointing song against the bankers along and Agnew continues to deliver the goods for the remainder of the album in much the same vein although he does deliver a mean and dirty blues stomp on the vicious Sixteen Years which you can imagine his dad’s band might have had some fun with. Mention should be made of the stark Heavy Duty. Dedicated to a soldier friend killed in Afghanistan it avoids finger pointing but does point out that “the old wage wars for the young to die in” and is a reminder of the situation where many young men might see a career in the forces as the way out of unemployment with little thought of the possible outcome.

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