Joan Baez. Whistle Down The Wind. Proper Records

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joan-baez-coverWhat can one say about Joan Baez that hasn’t already been said? An icon of the folk and protest movement of the sixties, she moved into the seventies on a roll charting with The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down and releasing what was perhaps her most accomplished album, Diamonds & Rust, while reuniting with her old buddy Bob on The Rolling Thunder tour. Since then she’s continued to record and continued to be an activist, garnering awards and accolades across the globe. Her last release, Day After Tomorrow, from 2008, showed that she still had her finger on the musical pulse produced as it was by Steve Earle and featuring songs written by Tom Waits, Elvis Costello and Earle himself.

Ten years later and Baez is bowing out (at the age of 77) with what she says will be her final album (accompanied by a lengthy farewell tour). Whistle Down The Wind, if it is her final release, sees her leaving on a definite high note as it is an incredibly accomplished piece of work. Baez’s once piercing soprano voice is now a finely burnished thing of beauty, still recognisably her but a little bit weathered and worn and perfectly suited for some of the songs here. In addition, producer Joe Henry captures Baez and her players with astonishing clarity and warmth while the musicians are truly inspired with some of the playing and arrangements just breathtaking.

In the current political climate it would be easy for Ms. Baez to return to her roots and turn in a collection of protest songs, it would certainly be understandable. Instead, the album is a mature and reflective document with Baez still denouncing war and injustice while acknowledging that it’s time to pass the baton on. Her handpicked songs do include some which address issues directly but elsewhere there’s a valedictory feel.

The sense of a long life and one lived well is evident in the two songs here written by Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan. Whistle Down The Wind maintains the hobo feel of Waits’ original while smoothing it out as the band play in slow waltz time with a wheezy organ and lonesome singing saw adding a fine patina. Last Leaf is given a stately old time delivery with Greg Leisz playing an antique Weissenborn and one wonders if Baez chose to sing this song just because it includes the lyrics, “I’ve been here since Eisenhower and I’ve outlived even he.” There are more reflections in the dappled version of Josh Ritter’s Be Of Good Heart and Mary Chapin Carpenter’s The Things That We are Made Of while her cover of Anthony & The Johnson’s Another World (with just Baez and her guitar with percussion from her son Gabriel) is a powerful performance.

More directly, Baez sings producer Joe Henry’s Civil War, a song which spans the ages and acknowledges those at home as well as those on the front while Eliza Gilkyson’s The Great Correction harks back to the grand tradition of the likes of Phil Ochs. Another Ritter song, Silver Blade, finds Baez visiting old time ballads as she sings of a maiden ravaged and taking her revenge, a nod perhaps to the current clime of #metoo and the closing song, I Wish All The Wars Were All Over, is another folk ballad with Celtic roots, which, aside from its excellent delivery, is a fitting farewell from this champion of the oppressed and downtrodden.

We can’t ignore the one song here which stabs to the heart and which nails Baez to her sixties civil rights roots while acting as a bit of a slap to the present POTUS. The President Sang Amazing Grace, written by Zoe Mulford, is a straightforward account of the shooting by a white supremacist of nine people in a church in Charleston and of Obama’s moving eulogy thereafter. Baez sings as if in a church, the band swelling behind her with an incredibly moving arrangement, the only pity here being that she still has to sing of events such as this fifty years after she first started to.

Whistle Down The Wind, aside from the legend, is a powerful and moving album, as topical as today’s weather and it bodes well for the singer’s farewell tour. Do give it a listen.

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Blabber’n’Smoke Signals : Guy Littell, Keegan McInroe, Rebecca Loebe & Findlay Napier

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Guy Littell. One Of Those Fine Days

one-of-those-fine-daysWe first encountered Italian Guy Littell back on 2014 with his laid back release, Whipping The Devil Back. One Of Those Fine Days is a thrashier affair with more guitars (including a guest slot from Kevin Salem) than its predecessor giving the album a ragged jangled sound, at times recalling Rich Hopkins’ work. Littell’s fragile voice sometimes strains over the music but on songs such as his teenage reverie, New Records & Clothes, No More Nights and Song From A Dream (which features some fine guitar rumbles) he’s well able to put over his version of American rock informed by the likes of Steve Wynn and Neil Young. A couple of stripped back numbers recall the starker moments in Whipping The Devil with Better For Me a fine lonesome love song.  Don’t Hide starts with just Littell and his acoustic guitar before the band chug in briefly then depart leaving Littell and guitar alone again. It’s a grand song with some of Neil Young’s early poignancy in its veins. Meanwhile, Kevin Salem adds some very sweet guitar to the closing song, Old Soul. Website

Keegan McInroe A Good Old Fashioned Protest

a3328870291_16Texan Keegan McInroe has had enough and he lets us know on his aptly titled album with nine songs delivered the way Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger and even Bob Dylan used to do it. Talking blues, gritty political protest and even some humour rub shoulders here as McInroe takes the world to task. He goes us back to the trenches of 1914 with a splendid narrative on the famous Christmas truce on Christmas 1914 while Bombing For Peace points out its evident contradiction with as much fervour and profanity as The Fugs, indeed the spoken word Nietzsche Wore Boots could have been ranted by Ed Sanders back in the days. Big Old River casts a cold eye on the current state of affairs accompanied by a gritty and gloomy organ groove and, presumably with a view to irony, McInroe uses a Kristofferson melody to cast his story of a young Egyptian radicalised on The Ballad Of Timmy Johnson’s Living Brother as a Western ballad.  The opening Talking Talking Head Blues is a superb stab at the media prophesising catastrophe and setting up bogeymen while feeding us with celebrity trivia and there’s a very brief return to this format on the one minute long Bastards & Bitches. McInroe does end the album on a defiant note with the upbeat anthem, Keegan’s Beautiful Dream, his very own We Shall Overcome. Old fashioned but incredibly topical the album is a tremendous listen and you can get it on a pay what you like basis from his website.

Rebecca Loebe & Findlay Napier. Filthy Jokes

a1311702386_16Hot on the heels of his Glasgow album Findlay Napier has teamed up with American songwriter Rebecca Loebe for this six song EP, released to coincide with their current UK tour. They met at a song writing retreat back in 2016 and just clicked and it shows here. All the songs are co-written and both take a turn on lead vocals while their harmonies are spot on. Four of the songs seem to concern romance whether failed or hopeful.  Napier offers some Glasgow based locations on the rueful Bad Medicine while Option To Buy, a delightfully woozy ramble, has him reluctant to tie the knot. Loebe meanwhile gives us the achingly beautiful Kilimanjaro which is somewhat opaque but to this listener seems like a settled couple having their youthful aspirations realised via their daughter’s use of Photoshop. Filthy Jokes is another attention grabber as Loebe sings of her wonder at a relative (or friend), a bit of a slob it seems whose sole talent was for telling filthy jokes (including that one about the aristocrats), finally getting hitched. An excellent strum-along it has brilliant ending with Ms. Loebe almost chuckling before a banjo plinks the song out. The EP is topped and tailed with two versions of a New Year song, Joy To The World, I Guess, the pair wrote with Loebe singing the opening version and Napier the latter. A bit late right now but this is a song to flag up once the festive season comes around again (and surely that’s the mark of a great festive song).  Loebe’s version is lightly sparkling, a Prosecco dappled version with the guitars bright and the harmonies sweet while Napier’s is more desolate with a true wintry feel. Both end in a brief rendition of Auld Lang Syne and both are wonderful in their own ways.  It’s definitely a temptation to see this pair on their brief dates this week on the basis of this EP. Meanwhile it’s available free (or for the price of a coffee) here.

Dean Owens. Southern Wind. At The Helm Records

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sw-front-coverLaunched at a fabulous live gig at the tail end of Celtic Connections and officially released last week, Southern Wind is the latest instalment in Dean Owens steady rise towards the top echelons of Scots musicians. As with 2015’s Into The Sea, Owens offers up a robust and perfectly formed album, the songs memorable and excellently played, the mix of punchy rock numbers and more introspective ballads over the course of its length finely balanced. And again, as on Into The Sea, Owens delves into his memories and his family for several of the songs while elsewhere he celebrates the joy of rock’n’roll and, significantly, mines the rich seam of Southern music from the States.

Recorded in the same Nashville studio as Into The Sea with the same team on board (Neilson Hubbard, producer and percussion plus bass, piano and “various bits & pieces, Will Kimbrough, guitars banjo, mandolin and Evan Hutchings, drums along with Dean Marold on bass) there’s one change from Owens’ usual habits in that several of the songs are co-written with Kimbrough and, as Owens recently told Blabber’n’Smoke, “I’d said to Neilson Hubbard, the producer, “I really want to make a swampy sounding record,” and that’s what he does really well. He’s from Mississippi and Will’s from Alabama as is Evan so they have that sound in their veins.” It’s recognisably a Dean Owens album but that Mississippi mud can’t help but seep into several of the numbers here.

The album opens with Owens’ clarion call to some musical heroes including Ronnie Lane, Ian McLagen, B. B. King and The Waterboys on The Last Song.  Given a delirious folk stomp and sounding like The Faces playing a particularly raucous pub gig it’s a delicious opener and acts almost as a bridge from the last album to the present one. There’s a further reflection of the previous album on Madeira Street, written (as was Evergreen) for Owens’ late sister, another example of how he can vividly cast his memories into song and, going further back, he finally offers his mother her own song, a counterpoint to his salute to his dad on Man From Leith, with Mother, a song co-written with Danny Wilson (from Danny & The Champs) and given a lilting, almost calypso beat along with an early sixties teen crooner charm, a rare ray of light in an album that at times is densely populated with loss and regret. Famous Last Words for example is a love song about the end of love while When The Whisky’s Not Enough is a fine addition to the canon of songs about being in your cups but still feeling pain, a real downer, it’s enlivened with zinging slide work from Kimbrough. Bad News is a slow burner with creeping organ and ominous guitars as Owens warns a woman not to go back to an abusive husband.

Owens has written songs inspired by his friends before but probably none as successful as Elvis Was My Brother where he takes on the words from a friend’s letter which explained that his transient childhood only had one true touchstone which was the Memphis Flash. Here, Owens and the band really excel, the song a wonderfully upbeat slice of rootsy pop with curling guitars and a rhythmic groove which recalls the splendid John Hiatt album, Bring The Family.  Owens was in Amarillo when he heard the news that Muhammad Ali had died. A hero of his since boyhood, he wrote Louisville Lip that night hunkered in his hotel room. The barest song here, just guitar and a mournful trumpet,  it pulls together Owens’ memories of watching Ali on the telly as a kid, an experience which led him to pulling on the gloves in his teens. Sentimental but the sentiment is heartfelt,  here Owens avoids any schmaltz with the song quite tugging actually.

Finally, there’s the Southern issue. The album is replete with swampy keyboards and Kimbrough’s snakelike guitar but Owens really dives into the Kudzu ridden culture on three songs here. Love Prevails, which closes the album, is loosely aligned with Rodney Crowell’s memoir, Chinaberry Sidewalks, as Owens summons up a Waltons’ in reverse, a family who fight and squabble but who are held together by their common bond – a universal theme perhaps but dignified by Kimbrough’s guitar licks and the mournful organ – the end result almost hymnal. His deepest delve into the South finds Owens accompanied by the powerful voice of Kira Small whose magnificent wailing elevates two songs here. The title song opens in a portentous manner with Owens evoking nature over interweaving guitars before thunderous tribal drums approach and Kimbrough unleashes his evil guitar sound. The song thrashes on with the guitar like a twister destroying all in its path until Owens, Small (and The Worry Dolls who were passing by) indulge in an orgy of shamanistic wailing. No Way Round It is prefaced by a very brief snatch of slide guitar and moaning (recalling Ry Cooder’s work in Performance) before its strident riff gets into its stride, pulsing like a heart about to burst as it progresses from a banjo driven skip to full throated guitar solo with Owens a lone soul wailing against nature’s barriers aided and abetted by Small’s magnificent voice which plays a similar role to that of Merry Clayton on The Stones’ Gimme Shelter. It’s an absolute belter of a song with Kimbrough’s guitar solo frenzied and outrageous while the dynamics of the song, the shifts from the banjo motif to squalls of sound are just superb. And, having seen Owens play this live with his Whisky Hearts band, we can confirm that it’s just as thrilling if not more so in a live setting.

Southern Wind finds Owens still proud of his roots in Leith but becoming more adventurous in his exploration of American music. That he can tie both ends of this transatlantic bridge with such confidence and, at times, swagger, is testament to his skill and to his ongoing relationship with his extremely talented American friends. We do look forward to the next instalment.

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Matthews Southern Comfort. Like A Radio.

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matthewssoutherncomfort_likearadio_300px72dpiThe name certainly transports us back to 1970 when Matthews Southern Comfort hit the number one spot in the charts with their cover of Joni Mitchell’s Woodstock, perhaps the first record featuring pedal steel that Blabber’n’Smoke bought. A rare moment in the spotlight for singer/songwriter Iain Matthews, Woodstock is merely the tip of the iceberg when it comes to his illustrious career. A founder member of Fairport Convention, he released three albums under the Southern Comfort band name before going solo and releasing a magnificent series of solo albums commencing with If You Saw Thro’ My Eyes including a collaboration with Mike Nesmith on Valley Hi. Alongside this he was a member of Plainsong who released one of the best “forgotten” albums of the seventies, In Search Of Amelia Earhart, (do search it out) but as time progressed changing fashions and record label shenanigans led to him take more of a back seat in the industry. Moving to The Netherlands in the early noughties Matthews has been involved in various reincarnations of his past bands over the past decade and this album finds him working with guitar wizard B.J. Baartmans along with Bart de Win on keyboards and guitarist Eric Devries.

It’s a mellow affair, the band affecting a late night vibe for the most part aside from the clumsy opener, The Thought Police, a diatribe against the sort of Big Brother situation we are in these days but lyrically kind of stuck in an early seventies agit rock rant, Edgar Broughton could probably punk it up well but here it kind of sticks out. The title song follows and it’s more successful although it still cleaves to an earlier age, its jazz cool and slight LA funk reminding one of Ben Sidran while de Win’s piano playing adds a touch of class. While there are some asides to folk and jangled pop scattered throughout the disc Like A Radio sets the template for much of the album. It’s well played and thoughtful music with Matthews in fine voice but several of the songs fail to quicken the pulse.

There’s some fine stuff here mind you. Bits & Pieces is an excellent band performance,  Been Down So Long (a nod to Richard Farina) tackles oppression from a historical viewpoint and manages to raise some sparks while Phoenix Rising benefits from Baartman’s sinewy guitar lines while Matthews’ vocals recapture some of his seventies recordings. He actually revisits the original Matthews Southern Comfort albums with a new version of Darcy Farrow (recorded on Second Spring) which is delivered with a sparse arrangement allowing his voice to shine while Carole King’s To Love is given a sparkling new arrangement with Baartman throwing out some slinky guitar solos. Our review copy has three bonus songs with James Taylor’s Something In The Way She Moves (again recorded on Second Spring) just sublime, Matthews’ voice as clear and unsullied as all those years ago while the band play it beautifully.

It’s nice to hear Mr. Matthews again and while the album doesn’t break new ground it’s a grand late night listen and a fine opportunity for folk to catch up with him.

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Yellow Feather. And Gold

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yellow-feather-and-goldThe first thing folk might notice about this band (and this album) is the name, Casey Kristofferson, nestled in the band line up. Yes, she’s the daughter of Kris and Rita and she’s one third of this unassuming trio from North Carolina. She sings and writes several of the songs along with Hunter Begley who also sings and plays guitar while lap steel player Charlie Willis completes the band. It’s Begley who is at the helm, his voice the lead on many of the songs and he takes the trio down some dusty roads, his tired and weary take on life’s hiccups somewhat splendid while the overall sound is laid back with a winning lack of polish. Willis’ lap steel gives the album a sweet curl, sounding almost like Leon McAuliffe (of The Texas Playboys) while a slew of guest players (especially fiddler Lindsay Pruett and pianist Matthew Rowland) allow them to gently rock out on a couple of the songs with the rhythm section of Herschel VanDyke and Robert Parks unobtrusively pushing the songs along.

If You Ain’t Cheatin’ opens the album on a high note although it’s a very low key song opening with the lines, “It was a shitty little shack but it was where they did their stuff,” as Begley sings about an engaged girl caught romping with another man. With lyrics which could have come from Mary Gauthier and a fine old fiddle driven country stumble pace it gives notice that the following 40 minutes might be extremely gratifying. There’s more downbeat wallowing in Sarah Accidentally, a mesmerising mix of hypnotic guitar (courtesy of Brian Wright) and some deadpan rhythm as Begley leads the band down a Richmond Fontaine byway while Pirate’s Love Song is a dreamlike evocation of what is possibly a fantasy love life. Blood And Bones ups the tempo as a true blooded country song but its finely nuanced sloppy jauntiness carries a tale of loss and emptiness.

There’s a fine mix throughout the album with Swallow You Down and Key Of C both resembling the slack rock’n’roll of The Felice Brothers while Couch Farm romps along finely with an Appalachian air as Begley sings about the daily drudge of working in a furniture chain store. Lucille, a fine and mildly rollicking bar room ballad recalls the laid back excellence of The Deslondes.  Kristofferson, who in the main sings harmony, steps up to the mic for Fences, a song written by another country scion, Amy Nelson (who is in a band, Folk Uke, with Cathie Guthrie, yip, Arlo’s kid) and it’s given a mild Western swing treatment while her song, Dirty Feet, featuring Aaron Lee Tasjan on guitar, is a bit of an anomaly here as it glides more into a singer/songwriter introspective direction. The closing Lost All Direction meanwhile finds the band dipping into a swampy jangled puddle; guitars and a banjo (there’s none listed in the credits but it sure sounds like one) along with a wheezy harmonica congeal perfectly into a fitting farewell to an extremely fine album.

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Malojian. Let Your Weirdness Carry You Home

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a1294981180_16OK, this album’s been kicking around since last October but it’s only recently that Blabber’n’Smoke acquired a copy and one listen propelled it straight to the top of the reviews bundle. Malojian is essentially Irishman Stevie Scullion and Let Your Weirdness Carry You Home is his fourth long player. It finds him moving on from the melodic folk based songs of his early albums to a full blown psychedelic fuzziness souped up with a fine dose of power pop. There are healthy nods to Beatles whimsy, Donovan dippiness and Jeff Lynne’s grasp of pop with Scullion wrapping them all up into a very attractive package.

A couple of the songs hark back to his earlier style, the pastoral Hanging On The Glow is ethereal, lifted by a gently swelling string section while the hipster baiting Beard Song, played on piano, opens as if Scullion is inhabiting the soul of Harry Nilsson before an excellent trumpet solo from Linley Hamilton raises itself above the bar room playing. There’s also an excellent instrumental break in the form of Broken Light Company (Theme) in the middle of the album with its delicious old time waltz feel recalling Neil Innes’ Book of Records theme while the seagulls squawking towards the end remind one that much of this album was recorded in a lighthouse.

The meat of the album however is when Scullion starts rooting around in his Strawberry Fields allotment. Opening song, Some New Bones is a lysergic balm, an almost Eastern drone throbs throughout the song while disembodied voices whisper and guitars flow backwards. A New Armageddon seems to float over the excellent percussion (from Joey Waronker) with its keyboard melody eventually overtaken by crashing guitars and a swooning cello, it creates a mood which is then elevated by the energetic surge which is Battery, driven by a Kraut rock drum beat and riffing cellos it’s magnificently  hazy. However Scullion tops this with the extremely trippy Ambulance Song, a real peek into the psychedelic toy box of 1960’s dandified Carnaby Street pop. It transports one back to patchouli scented days with its perfect amalgamation of dappled guitars playing what seems to be an Eastern scale, baroque strings and a closing berserk harmonica solo, a real nugget of a song and that’s not to mention its creepy lyrics. The title song closes the album and it’s a slight return to the opening only more urgent and twice as long. The drumming here is like Ringo’s on Strawberry Fields Forever while strings and fuzz guitar buzz and drone becoming more demented as the song progresses with Scullion breathily intoning the title.

In a way this album deserves to be considered anew despite it coming from last year as it will be perfect for the forthcoming better days, its psychedelic sunshine sounds just perfect for some balmy weather. Whatever, it’s a magnificent listen.

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Hannah Read. Way Out I’ll Wander. Hudson Records

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packshot-sqOur friend in Edinburgh, David Ferguson, writes about the wonderful new album from Hannah Read…

Hannah Read is an Edinburgh-born singer, songwriter and fiddler (with links also to the remote Scottish Isle of Eigg), who is now resident in Brooklyn, New York. Hannah is much in demand as a collaborator on both sides of the Atlantic and was part of the highly successful Songs Of Separation project, which won Album Of The Year at last year’s BBC Radio Folk Awards.

For her first full-length album, Way Out I’ll Wander, Hannah Read has delivered a beautifully-crafted set of songs which deal elegantly, eloquently and honestly with universal themes of home, love and loss. Hannah’s pure and clear vocals (transatlantic, with pleasing traces of her Scots accent) are to the fore, while subtle washes of strings, woodwind and yearning lap steel guitar add richness to the intimate song arrangements.

Highlights from this very fine album include Moorland Bare (an evocative Robert Louis Stevenson poem set to Hannah’s hauntingly beautiful melody); the simply stunning Alexander (a poignant and reverential tribute to an elderly war veteran); Way Out I’ll Wander (an achingly beautiful reflection on the loss of Hannah’s much loved grandfather “…on the last day of the year…”); and the invigorating Boots (which oozes delight in the simple pleasures of newfound love).

Filled with songs of true depth and beauty, Way Out I’ll Wander is likely to bring Hannah Read even greater recognition on both sides of the Atlantic, on a par with her good friend Sarah Jarosz (who provides backing vocals on the album).

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Rich Krueger. Life Ain’t That Long. RockInk Music

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richkrueger6We were introduced to Rich Krueger last year via his EP Overpass (reviewed here) which revealed him as a serious songwriter with razor sharp wit, a sometimes surreal way with words and an excellent ability to blend various musical styles ending up with his own idiosyncratic sound. The EP was a curtain raiser for two planned album releases with Life Ain’t That Long the first to be whelped into the world and a fine pup it turns out to be.

There’s no template for a Krueger song and the album weaves like a drunken sailor with bar room wisdom, tin pan alley pop, country and old fashioned R’n’B  all stumbling into view.  Sure enough there are shades of Springsteen, Newman, Bukowski and Van Morrison here and there but it’s all filtered through Krueger’s sardonic prism. The album opens with the country styled A Stoopid Broken Heart which sweeps along with pedal steel, fiddle and slide guitar in a glorious manner as Krueger sings as a barfly longing for the bar singer and telling everyone in the saloon about it. The Gospel According To Carl is more mannered, kicking off like a Randy Newman number with Krueger and his piano carrying the melody before the band weigh in and the song swells into a Gospel number. It’s a grand narrative, the protagonist a flashy used car dealer who can charm the pants off the customers having learned his craft as a pretend cripple at his dad’s tent shows. Of course dodgy brakes on a just sold car lead to calamity and his literal downfall as he sits atop a church, sozzled and ready to fly. Meanwhile the guy opportuned for casual sex in a bar in A Short One On Life grows to empathise with his paramour’s plight while Ain’t It So Nice Outside Today inhabits the souls of people who suffer- ill, old, maimed, feeling helpless, yet, despite this parade of horrors, there’s ultimately a sense of optimism by the end. The quest for happiness is investigated in the jazzy What Is It That You Want with Krueger recalling Ben Sidran back in the days.

Krueger seems to delve into his own past on a few songs. ’77/17 is a coming of age tale which recalls a first love and the ongoing flame it ignited, his own American Pie (in both the Don McLean and the movie series sense). Krueger’s teen sex life and the cultural highpoints of 1977 are conjoined in this winning slice of slightly stained urban R’nB grit. The Sex Pistols are one of the cultural touchstones in ’77/17 and Sid Vicious makes an appearance in the schlocky Springsteen like Then Jessica Smiled which is replete with farting sax solos and female harmonies straight from the Brill Building as Krueger looks back on his life, the lyricism here diametrically opposed to the wonderful pastiche that is the music with the song ending with a quote from Bonnie Tyler’s It’s A Heartache. Delicious.

Finally there is the crowning glory that is The Wednesday Boys, a song which truly inhabits the Celtic soul of Van Morrison with Krueger even approximating Morrison’s stream of consciousness delivery. It’s his Brooklyn version of Cypress Avenue and his band here support him with flying colours creating a wonderful neon lit night time ambience, Ed Hopper’s Nighthawks coming to life. We look forward to the promised second album.

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Rod Picott. Out Past The Wires. Welding Rod Records

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12IN_GATEFOLD_JKT_2PKTWhetting our appetite for his upcoming tour of the UK, Rod Picott releases his most ambitious album yet, the sprawling double disc (on CD and also on vinyl!) Out Past The Wires, 22 songs carved from his usual cast of blue collar workers, hard luck losers and folk living on the edge. Picott seems to have been extraordinarily prolific in the last year, the songs on the album whittled down from a long list of 78 to 32 serviceable ones, the ten spare songs expected to surface at some point. In addition he has released a collection of his poetry (God in His Slippers) and is preparing a book of short stories which will expand on some of the characters in the songs here.

Produced by Neilson Hubbard, the album features Picott backed by a studio band which includes Hubbard on percussion along with Will Kimbrough, Evan Hutchings, Lee Price and Kris Donegan with Picott recording his voice and guitar initially before the band set to backing them allowing the fuller band arrangements to rock out with some finesse, a finely nuanced balance of loose limbed spontaneity and excellent playing. There are moments here when they sound like The Faces with the slide guitars on A Better Man particularly reminiscent of Ronnie Wood slashing away while Better Than I Did opens with a Lennon like harmonica trill before the band head into Basement Tapes territory.

With Picott’s more sensitive songs, featuring just him and his guitar with some minimal backing, scattered throughout the two discs, mingling with the full on band songs, there’s no dichotomy between the discs here and, somewhat rare for a double album, no sense that Out Past The Wires would work better as a single disc. Instead it’s a double dose of good medicine with no slump in quality control in sight. He’s by turn joyous and morose, optimistic and pessimistic, angry and resigned. Blanket Of Stars is a beautifully delivered tender song sung by an outsider who’s mother was a teenage bride, his daddy a little bit drunk while Holding On ruminates in a similar manner with Picott in solo folksinger mode, the song grabbing one’s attention just as much as the rockier items here. Dead Reckoning is a perfectly realised love song as is The Shape Of You although here the love is in the past and the singer is drinking away his memories. Alcohol is the devil in Bottom Of The Well, a stark and astute portrait of a descent into addiction but this despair is somewhat redeemed by the following We All Live On, a rare note of optimism from Picott.

It’s a joy to hear Picott and the band gel on songs such as Take Home Pay (one of four co-writes with his buddy, Slaid Cleaves) and Coal which burns with a slowly seething sense of injustice along with a Southern rock swamp vibe while Hard Luck Baby is a rocker in the Mellencamp camp. But the 22 songs here run through a gamut of styles with the common denominator being Picott’s finger on the pulse of today’s America with Hard Luck Baby coming across like a condensed and updated version of The Grapes of Wrath. Overall the album is a triumph with Picott stepping up to the mark throughout and it certainly sets the barrier high for his upcoming shows, a barrier we are sure he will surmount as he’s a seasoned and exceptionally good performer. In addition he’s preparing the companion book with a first sneak peek available here as he fills in the background to Take Home Pay.

Rod tours the UK in March, all dates here

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The Lost Brothers. Halfway Towards A Healing.

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a3891704386_16Oisin Leech and Mark McCausland, the Irishmen who sing so beautifully together as The Lost Brothers, headed to the arid lands of Tucson, Arizona for their latest instalment of wonderfully crepuscular songs. The pair have a penchant for choosing a specific location for each of their recordings (including Liverpool, where they started off as a duo, Sheffield, Portland Oregon and Nashville) and often a particular producer, believing that it’s key to attaining the “magic.” For Halfway Towards A Healing they recorded in Dust and Stone Studios with owner Gabriel Sullivan and the legendary Howe Gelb overseeing the production and sure enough, some of the Giant Sand man’s sonic drizzle percolates throughout the album.

There’s no dramatic change in The Lostie’s sound. They’re still the perfect late night accompaniment, their harmonies excellent, the songs almost lullabies, a balm for the discontented and the lonely. They’ve often been compared to Simon & Garfunkel but at times here they approach the melancholic lyrical beauty of Leonard Cohen, the title song here being the premium example (while it also slouches along wonderfully with Gelb’s fingerprints all over it). More Than I Can Comprehend (co-written with Glen Hansard) is a lyrically stark portrait of a relationship blowing up and Songs Of Fire is despair writ large despite its incredibly nimble arrangement. For true melancholia however it would be hard to beat Summer Rain which rambles along wonderfully with Gelb’s idiosyncratic lounge piano allied to a lazy cowboy rhythm.

The opening songs, Echoes In The Wind and Where the Shadows Go, will satisfy those who hold to the Simon & Garfunkel comparison, the former in particular is suffused with Simon’s early style. Come Tomorrow, a song which canters along in comparison to its siblings recalls another sixties songwriter, in this case Tim Rose and his version of Morning Dew. Again Gelb seems to be in the background with gently twanged guitar and occasional sonic splutters making their mark. On working with Gelb Mark McCausland says, “He would pick us up in the morning and take us out into the desert. We’d walk for hours, then he’d drop us back at the studio. We’d go through songs with studio engineer Gabriel Sullivan, then Howe would meet us at the end of the day, listen to what we’d done and work on the tracks. All those trips into the desert were to get the environment into our system.” The Tucson topography looms large in the instrumental, Reigns Of Ruin, a gentle cantina styled strum and Gelb himself has a cameo appearance as he narrates the closing song, The Ballad Of The Lost Brother, a self help manual of sorts which sounds like the sort of thing Travis Henderson (from Paris, Texas) might have said were he a gonzoid Zen like musician from Tucson, an odd end to the album but a delight for any fans of Gelb.

Mark Twain said, “Comparison is the death of joy” but if one were forced to compare Halfway Towards A Healing against their earlier albums it’s tempting to say that this is their best yet.

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