Billy Marlowe. Show Me The Steps

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It seems somewhat fitting that in the wake of last year’s rediscovery of the likes of Sixto Rodriguez and Bill Faye that Blabber’n’Smoke was sent this album of songs recorded (and only briefly released) in the eighties by an unknown musician. Were Billy Marlowe still on this earth it’s a fair bet that there would be a demand to see and hear him play these songs and catch up on the acclaim that’s been missing for so long. Unfortunately, unlike Rodriguez, Marlowe is gone, dead at the age of 53 after what appears to have been a troubled life although his sister’s description of him as an eternal optimist seems apt given the life affirming sentiments contained in these astonishing songs.
Having left home in the sixties Marlowe lived an itinerant lifestyle eventually going to Canada to escape the Vietnam draft. However on returning to the States he was jailed for two years. In 1983 he pitched up in response to a small ad in the Village Voice placed by Steve Satterwhite who was looking for an artist to test run his new recording studio and over the space of a year this album was built, released briefly on vinyl it soon disappeared.
With a sound that recalls a soulful Dylan or a metropolitan Butch Hancock Marlowe recorded these songs with a select few NY musicians (who have gone on to work with numerous artists including Dylan, Rod Stewart, Leonard Cohen). They provide some superb backing with inspirational fiddle licks and gliding steel guitar decorating the songs. In addition a freshly arrived in New York Shawn Colvin sings on several of the cuts. At the heart of it all however is Marlowe himself. It’s as if having struggled for years he has been let off the leash and grasps the opportunity wholeheartedly. His songs are bittersweet poems and he delivers them in a voice that can resemble Dylan’s at times although he carries a truckload of emotion compared with Dylan. In addition several of the songs are so sure of themselves, so perfectly formed that it’s hard to believe that they emanate from a man who had spent most of his life stumbling from one obstacle to another. Born Again (take that, Dylan fans) is a major work, a song that is almost perfect with a stately arrangement as Marlowe sings of being “ragged, tattered and torn, wishin’ I was born again.” There are several other songs that approach this summit. Mama Was Right tugs at the heartstrings as the violin soars into the blue. You Got My Heart is a simply sung simple love song that should be ringing out from radio stations galore. Finally the vibrant and driving Salvation Railroad is four minutes of soar away bliss where the steel guitar shimmers, Marlowe sings with a magnificent wearied abandon and the female voices flutter around him.
All in all an astoundingly good album that’s been unfairly buried for so long and which captures a lost innocence that was buried under so many wasted lives in the seventies and eighties. Read more about Marlowe including a fine testimony from his sister here

Melissa Ruth & The Likely Stories.

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We were intrigued when a few months back an email popped in from Melissa Ruth inviting us to listen to her brand of what she called “doo-wop twang.” Intrigued enough to enquire more and eventually track down a copy of her album Ain’t No Whiskey and glad we are of that. Ain’t No Whiskey sees Canadian Ruth, now living in Eugene, Oregon, setting up stall with her husband Johnny Leal and brother in law, Jimmy Leal in tow (on lead, slide and bass guitar and drums respectively) as she plays a fine set of songs that were kick-started by her purchase of a 1958 Guild Freshman guitar and some time spent delving through old jazz and blues albums. The trio play with a great sense of intimacy and a simplicity that affords Ruth’s writing and her sultry voice plenty of space to impress. Johnny Leal’s spare playing complements Ruth’s choppy rhythm guitar whether they are laying down some late night vibes or channelling the Tennessee Three (on Dusty Boxcar) and the end result is somewhat akin to early Cowboy Junkies colliding with Mary Gauthier.
While she sings superbly Ruth also writes a mean song with the title piece standing out as a blues lament from a woman who can’t find solace in the bottle. This sad state of affairs continues in No One Said Nothin ‘Bout Dancin, a lazy drink laced waltz that woozily meanders along with a similar feeling to that old chestnut Tennessee Waltz. Willing To Fall completes a triumvirate of drink fuelled misery and lost love with Ruth’s voice melting while Leals’ guitar waxes lyrically.
It’s not all downbeat however as Dusty Boxcar jaunts along in an autobiographical vein while Write Me A Love Song breezes along at a pell mell rate. However they are at their best when investigating the downbeat side of life and Cinco De Mayo is a fine impressionistic account of a young man’s longing for a Mexican girl who may or might not be unattainable. Wonderful stuff although we remain somewhat nonplussed by the lack of doo-wop.

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Birds Of Chicago

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J.T. Nero’s (AKA Jeremy Lyndsay) 2011 release, Mountains/Forests made it into our top ten of 2011 albums with its honeyed capturing of a sun dappled laid back soulful past. Blabber’n’Smoke compared it to early seventies Laurel canyon songsters with a touch of Van Morrison around the time of Tupelo Honey thrown in for good measure. Po’ Girl singer, Allison Russell featured heavily on Mountains/Forests harmonising beautifully with Nero and the vocals were indeed the highpoint of the album. Now Nero and Russell have taken the plunge and come up as a fully fledged pairing under the moniker Birds Of Chicago and huddled within their nest are the majority of musicians (garnered from Po’ Girl and Nero’s band The Clouds) who contributed to the very fine musical backdrop of Mountains/Forests. In essence (aside from the change of name) Birds Of Chicago is Mountains/Forests part two and apart from Russell writing two songs and taking lead vocals on several of the offerings there’s little to distinguish between them, indeed both stand as fine examples of fine song writing and singing.
Having said that there’s a broader palette at play here with some forays into Louisiana territory and a more rustic feel to some of the songs that at times recalls the late Ronnie Lane’s freewheeling celebration of travelling folk best captured on Cannonball where Nero sounds uncannily like Lane. The burbling bass line of Russell’s Sans Souci does recall vintage van Morrison but overall the sound is less reliant on past times as they stamp their own personality on some superb songs.
Trampoline kicks off the album in fine style with both singers swapping verses as the band kick up a funky dust and the vocals coalesce in the chorus. Russell’s Before She Goes is an eulogy for a departed one and introduces the Humboldt crows, perhaps the eponymous birds of Chicago who watch and wait. The crows reappear on the song Humboldt Crows which again appears to be an eulogy this time for Chicago itself. Nero does wax poetically in his writing with the best example, lyrically and performance wise to be heard in the amazing Moonglow Tapeworm that is part savvy street poetry, part surrealism. However the best is saved to last with the closing The Wide Sea where both singers unite with Nero’s cracked delivery perfectly balanced by Russell’s purity as the band surges with the unstoppable strength of a tide coming in.
Nero and Russell will be touring in the UK in April although as far as we can see there are no Scottish dates as yet.
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And some video here of some of the songs.

Birds Of Chicago | Audiotree.

Vanessa Peters. Stephanie Fagan

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Ms. Peters is a new name to Blabber’n’Smoke although she did get a fair amount of press around this time last year when she released The Christmas We Hoped For, a collection of Christmas songs as you might have guessed. A Texan and would be novelist she fell into the music scene when she took a gap year in Italy and stayed there teaming up with an Italian band, Ice Cream On Mondays. They split a few years back and Peters returned to Texas and recorded the Christmas album. One Kickstarter campaign later she has The Burn the Truth The Lies to offer us. With a very pleasing voice Peters delivers some jaunty sounding folky songs that disguise a sometimes bitter, careworn world. She’s at her best on No Decision where she condenses a sense of alienation and allies it with a wonderful band performance that shimmers like wet city streets reflecting neon.

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In contrast to the cerebral notions of Peters Stephanie Fagan initially appears to be a bit of a good time cowgirl going by the album cover. However, and as the man said you can’t judge a book by the cover. Fagan, from South Carolina, doesn’t let a whoop or a holler escape her lips here and actually shares some territory with Peters, singing songs about lost loves and regret on Heart Thief. She has a whispery and smoky voice and the first few songs are delivered with an airy acoustic guitar and mandolin to the fore giving the album the sense and feel of early Joni Mitchell. At times Fagan dips into a bluesy mood such as on Blow with its lonesome midnight trumpet but she does best on the songs that could have come from a cowgirl, however reserved. Prodigal is a Dobro driven gospel plow while You Are The Devil allows a clattering banjo to drive it along. A very promising effort.

Wealthy Orphans. Throwing Glory

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Blabber’n’Smoke first came across Rick Beerhorst just over a year ago when his album A Little piece of Pie cast a warm glow on some late winter nights. “Quirky,” we said at the time while admiring the literate vocal delivery and the naive art rock Sturm und Drang. At the time Beerhorst said that a band, Wealthy Orphans, grew out of that recording and one year later they’ve delivered their first baby. While it’s still essentially Beerhorst’s offspring the concentration of just four musicians (as opposed to the long list that populated Pie) allows for a more unified and uniform sound. Beerhorst (who writes all of the songs, sings and plays guitar and Victrola horn) is keen to note that the end result is a collaborative arrangement with his fellow band members (Michael Schaeffer, accordion, melodica, Adam Thompson, bass guitar, vibraphone, percussion and DJ Viernes, drums, percussion).
A painter and printmaker as well as a community activist one gets the sense that Beerhorst has a fair degree of knowledge regarding theatre and in particular cabaret as several of Throwing Glory’s songs have a theatrical bent to them with a whiff of Brecht and Weill as well as contemporary artists such as The Tiger Lillies. The accordion affords a European feel and together with Beerhorst’s laid back vocal delivery it’s reminiscent at times of The Colorblind James Experience although Wealthy Orphans keep the polka element to a minimum. Broken Dreams and The Young Become The Old both swing and sway like a flea-bitten orchestra pit band from the Wiemar Republic while Dangerous Places is delivered as if it were by Nick Cave backed by a gypsy accordion band and is particularly impressive.
Elsewhere Wealthy Orphans maintain Beerhorst’s love of New York art rock antecedents with Baby Who Have You Been With coming across like a European son of Talking Heads while Looking For My Muse is Antony & The Johnsons without the falsetto. A lovely song Looking For My Muse benefits from the fine playing of the band with some very sympathetic accordion and vibraphone and while they play well throughout the album they reach an apogee on Never Pass This Way Again where the plucking, picking and squeezing paints a wonderful backdrop that swells to a climax of Penguin Cafe Orchestra proportions. In the midst of this Beerhorst delivers his finest lyrics that recount a litany of failures and decay, an understated gem of a song.

Angie Palmer. Old Sticks To Scare a Bird.

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Lancashire’s Angie Palmer is one of the best kept UK singer/songwriter secrets. Despite the likes of Bob Harris championing her and a slew of fine releases she steadfastly remains just slightly under the radar. A pity really as she’s one of our most literate songwriters and capable of delivering songs that wouldn’t be out of place in Joni Mitchell’s oeuvre.
For her latest album, Old sticks To Scare a Bird Palmer continues to offer some sublime Mitchell type sojourns with Postcard From Paris a lilting slice of reportage detailing a Paris morning while William Of The Desert is a desiccated dream poem that recalls Sandy Denny with some wonderful playing from her band. The album is sequenced as if it was a two sided vinyl affair with side two dedicated to Palmer’s delicate musings while the first half allows her to let her hair down and rock out a little. In reality this just means that the majority of the songs on side one are a little fuller, more fleshed out with instrumentation and strings. She does rock out on Dirty Little Secret which is a funky little blues rocker with guitarist Billy Buckley letting rip. Truth be told and despite it being a fine performance in its own right its almost akin to finding your parents making out on the sofa. You might admire their panache but it does upset the equilibrium. Little By Little is another up-tempo number but it flows much more smoothly with sparkling mandolin from Richard Curren and a driving rhythm that harks back to Mitchell’s Hejira. Time Of Thunder closes the first half and it’s a more successful amalgamation of the fire and earth that make up the album as Curran’s violin and Buckley’s guitar gimble and gyre like the venerable Fairport Convention back when Richard Thompson was a member. The rhythm section drive the song along as Palmer wallows again in the Denny stream. The most successful song on side one is Raising Hurricanes where Palmer tells a witchy tale of revenge that marries the traditional narrative of English folk song with a slinky Dobro driven southern states feel.
Side two starts off with the straightforward Song Of Drowning Sailors, a traditional sounding folk tale. Aside from the aforementioned Postcard From Paris and William Of the Desert Palmer offers two sides of the story of a failed love in the two part Haunted By A Stranger, his tale is wintry while hers is brighter and optimistic. She closes with the wonderful Fresco which is breathtaking in its delivery with a tender guitar solo, almost like a singing saw, casting light on a perfectly sung oblique love song. The ghost of Sandy Denny and the spirit of Joni Mitchell hover around this but ultimately Palmer owns this sublime song as she sings gloriously throughout it. Tender, affecting and passionate this is an almost perfect song which deserves to be heard by one and all.

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Craig Hughes. Hard Times Volume 1

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Writing on the (assured) presumption that all those who frequent Blabber’n’Smokeland have a copy of Jim Dead’s tremendous Ten Fires to hand we direct you to the fiery guitar therein, much of it provided by local blues colossus, Craig Hughes. Much like his fellow blues traveller, Dave Arcari, (a guy who looks like he’s possessed by the devil while delivering his blues damnations), Hughes puts his all into a performance commanding the stage, growling for all he’s worth while turning out some awesome picking be it electric or acoustic. Fortunately he’s a dab hand at conjuring up this magic in the studio as well as he has demonstrated on the Jim Dead album, his recent forays as part of the uber heavy Dog Howl Moon or solo as on this, his latest EP.
His debut album, Pissed Off, Bitter and Willing to Share was considered by a Canadian publication to be the best UK blues album of 2009 while his shared platter with yet another local bluesman, Sleepy Eyes Nelson won plaudits galore. Now he unleashes Hard Times, Volume 1, a six song EP that runs the gamut from acoustic blues to rockabilly mayhem.
Promises, Promises sees Hughes running down the blues as he slides away on acoustic and growls his resolutions to give up drinking, fighting and lovin’. Straightforward and excellent and a fine opener. He Loved Her and Sent Her To Hell stomps along with drum assistance from Ally Tennick as Hughes delivers a cautionary tale that wouldn’t go amiss on a Nick Cave album. Hard Times Every Day is less pugnacious although as a diatribe against the recession it follows in the grand tradition of songs like Buddy, Can You Spare A Dime as Hughes captures a sense of futility and failure singing “It’s hard to keep your chin up when you’re face down in the dirt.” Tapes For My Walkman lightens the mood on a banjo driven send up of a guy sticking to obsolete technology (apart from the needle for his stereo, still a must folks). The slide guitar returns for Left To Crawl as Hughes displays his songwriting and playing skills to great effect as he whizzes around the fretboard with a fair degree of wizardry while his words capture a poignant memory of a relationship that foundered and as the woman goes on to have a family the protagonist draws into himself. This is a great song and it recalls the likes of Richard Thompson’s early solo work. For the finale Hughes puffs up his chest and goes into Cramps mode with Cave Full Of Woman Bones. Fuzz guitar fuzzes and drums stomp on this caveman rocker that good old Lux would have loved.
So, six songs, all crackers. Hughes acknowledges the modern world and as such he’s offered the disc for download on a pay what you will basis on his Bandcamp site. However if you care to have a real life artefact in your mitts then it’s yours for the measly sum of £4, the price of a pint almost. Whatever way you get it I’m sure you’ll dig it.

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Charlie Lankester And The Mojo Killers, Song In A Minor Key (Midmoor Music)

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A few days ago we had no idea who Charlie Lankester was then, serendipitously, Glasgow Bluesmeister Dave Arcari alerted his Facebook fans that he was supporting the said Lankester and then this album plopped into sight. Strange days indeed compelling us to follow this particular Mojo magic. A quick search revealed that Lankester is an Australian who dropped out of medical school to follow his muse back in the seventies. Failing to hit the big time down under he busked around Europe eventually ending up in London where he trained as an osteopath and played the local circuits as a piano for hire. Last year he gathered some of his compadres on the circuit (Derek Mandel and Mark Hawkins ,guitars, Dave Cuthbert, bass, Daniel Howard, drums, Paul Silver saxophone, Gavin Broom, trumpet and Nick Mills, trombone ) and together they strode forward under the moniker of The Mojo Killers for what is his debut solo album. So far so good but as they were finishing off the album Lankester was diagnosed with a liver cancer, a blow which might have felled lesser men. Several months later however he’s well enough to tour in support of the eventual album release.
His particular Mojo must be working.
Mojo is the operative word here. With its magical and mystical hoodoo voodoo blues roots it’s as good a way to describe the music here. Lankester draws deep from the well of the masters of the genre. Tom Waits, Muddy Waters, Ben Sidran, Dr. John and dare I say it Richard Hawley. All of these and others are picked up and thrown into a gumbo stew that hubbles and bubbles with an intoxicating come on.
They kick off with Greed, a dramatic Tijuana flexed workout that sounds as if Jacques Brel came from Mexico, the trumpet is the sleazy underbelly of Mexico, think of Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil, monochrome and bad. Drink My Blues Away slinks along with an early Tom Waits vibe while Brixton Road recalls Waits’ latter work. The Spinning Of The Wheel is the masterstroke here. The horns amplify a grim tale of street life, almost like a Scorsese movie as the guitars squeal and bend and Lankester turns the old Blood Sweat and Tears song upside down. The clattering and skeletal blues of In My Time Of Time Of Dying is another highlight while the title song pins the Hawley connection. A pining love song beautifully dramatised by a bluesy trumpet it swaggers and sways in a magnificent woozy fashion.
Suffice to say that this is a cracking slice of modern rythym’n’blues, the grooves crackle and burn and the band are superb. Coupled with Arcari their gig at the O2 ABC Glasgow it looks like it should be a blinder. It’s on Sunday 9th December, be there or be square, it’s the only Scottish date, the others are on the
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Alexander Wolfe. Skeletons

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Second album from London based singer/songwriter Alexander Wolfe finds him delving deeper into the influences apparent on his fine debut, Morning Brings A Flood. Again Wolfe plays most of the instruments himself and recorded the album over a weekend while strings and horns, courtesy of the “Wolfettes” were added later. Wolfe describes the genesis of the album as arising from a period of insomnia with brief episodes of sleep disturbed by disturbing dreams resulting in the blood and bone themes that recur throughout the songs. With an admitted interest in psychotherapy Wolfe believes this was his subconscious mind foretelling him of the imminent breakup of the relationship he was in allowing us to consider the album as a Freudian equivalent of Blood On The Tracks perhaps. However while Dylan veiled his songs in allusion and smoke and mirrors and Freud sucked his thumb in his cerebral womb dreaming up sexual metaphors Wolfe addresses his loss directly when he sings in the title song “she whispers softly that “I don’t need anyone”” and on Fangs “you took your love away, too soon.” However rather than begin a case study here it might be more useful to address the question of “what does it sound like?” The answer to that is a measured, “excellent.”
The basic skeleton of the songs, Wolfe’s voice and guitar or piano, adheres to a template laid down in the late sixties and early seventies. Confessional songs, best listened to alone, perhaps in a bedsit. Cosseted and comforted by the ambient additions and the sensitive string arrangements Wolfe ventures into territory previously explored by the likes of Roy Harper on the delicate yet disturbing In Broad Daylight while Mayflowers ventures further as Wolfe evokes the vocal excursions of Tim Buckley, Scott Walker and John Martyn over a discordant scraping of strings. There’s a stroke of genius here as this challenging listen segues into the pulsating drive of Horses, a song whose title recalls The Doors and Patti Smith and while it doesn’t sound at all like either of them is the album’s one stab at a grand rock feel. A psychodrama indeed it swells and crashes immaculately. Milk Teeth sums up the album with Wolfe’s voice to the fore sounding like an extra wounded Mark Eitzel while the backing plucks at the heartstrings but the album is somewhat let down by the closing songs. A cover of Neil Young’s Don’t Let It bring You Down is a bit of a turbulent sore thumb, elsewhere it would be fine but here it does stick out. The closing Separated By A Smile has wistful and mysterious lyrics delivered in a smoky film noire style but the musical trappings including a muted trumpet take this conceit a step too far.

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Drew Nelson. Tilt-A-Whirl

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Currently touring the UK to promote this, his Red House Records debut, Michigan based Drew Nelson makes a bold bid to be considered in the same league as the likes of Springsteen, Mellencamp and Earle. Bold indeed and some might think farfetched but several of the songs on Tilt-A-Whirl come very close to the standard one expects from that triumvirate of blue-collar rockers while Nelson has form with his 2005 song, Wal-Mart V2.0 a magnificent Dylanesque clattering rant against the conglomerations changing the American landscape.
Flying the flag for the working class (singing “welcome to the world of the working poor” on Promised Land) and capturing life like stories (Danny and Maria’s soapbox romance) Nelson muscles into view with a rousing rock based sound but the spirits of Springsteen and Mellencamp hover too close for comfort here leading one to think that what we have is a mere copyist. Unfair however as from here on in Nelson delivers a set of perfectly pitched songs that might doff their hats to Bruce and John et al but resolutely stake their claim to walk along side them. The bluster of the opening songs is replaced by some superb and delicate playing with sweet guitar breaks, atmospheric keyboards and sweet pedal steel and Dobro. Dust is an almost perfect song with all the parts combining to create a fantastic whole. Nelson rails against the bankers who can destroy lives with a stroke of a pen over a superb backdrop. St. Jude is an historical supplication to the patron saint of fools, the last resort for those forced up against the wall and the reverential treatment here is sublime. This cracked forlornness is repeated on 5th Of September and What She Does with slightly swelling organ and fine harmonies from Jen Sygit caressing the songs and Nelson’s vocals. Some of the songs have a jauntiness about them with Hallelujah Morning the most optimistic song here and Here To There skipping above its string arrangement while Nelson waxes poetic.
This is a fine album which wears its heart on its sleeve and sets Nelson up to be considered as a force to be reckoned with. As mentioned, he’s in the UK right now so catch him if you can.

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Fri 16: Rothesay, Argyll Arms
Sat 17: Abington, The Abington Hotel
Sun 18: Kirton in Lindsey, Diamond Jubilee Town Hall
Tue 20: Bury St Edmunds, Private House Concert
Wed 21: Hempstead, The Bluebell Inn
Thu 22: Scunthorpe, The Plowright Theatre
Fri 23: Livepool, Leaf
Sat 24: Kendal, Brewery Arts Centre
Sun 25: Exeter, Phoenix Arts Centre
Tue 27: Battle, The Senlac Inn
Wed 28: Kelvedon, Private House Concert
Thu 29: Dedham, The Sun Inn
Fri 30: Launceston, No.8 Café
Sat Dec 1: London, The Borderline