The Doug Dillard Expedition. Live At The Fremont Hotel, Las Vegas, 1970. Floating World Records

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Best known amongst Americana fans for the two albums he released with Gene Clark in the late 1960s (The Fantastic Expedition of Dillard & Clark and Through the Morning, Through the Night) Doug Dillard was an exemplary banjo player who had first found fame of sorts with his brother Rodney in The Dillards. Tagged as hillbillies via TV shows such as The Andy Griffith (where they regularly appeared, under the name of “The Darlings”) Doug Dillard was drawn to the newer sounds coming out of Los Angeles leading to his leaving the band and hooking up with Clark. Their first album is now considered to be one of the earliest country rock albums but when Clark dissolved the union Dillard decided to carry on with what was left of the band, utilising the “expedition” part of that first album.

The Doug Dillard Expedition proved to be a short lived affair but this disc, recorded when they played support to Kay Starr in Las Vegas (billed only as “The Expedition”) is a unique time capsule, capturing them in their prime. Retaining the brilliant fiddler Byron Berline from the Gene Clark band, Dillard had recruited Roger Bush on double bass and Billy Ray Latham on guitar, mandolin and banjo and the quartet are pretty much a perfect bluegrass and old time band on the strength of these recordings. Strangely, there’s no evidence of Dillard’s dalliance with Clark aside from a frantic delivery of Roll In My Sweet Baby’s Arms, a song which appeared on their second album. Instead we get a heady (and well recorded, given its vintage) set of speedball instrumentals and well harmonised songs, all played with no reference to the then burgeoning country rock scene. This is much more akin to the vintage music being revived at the time by The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band on their groundbreaking Will The Circle Be Unbroken triple album.

Anyhow, there’s so much to enjoy here as they rip through their set. Most of the songs and tunes will be familiar to anyone acquainted with the bluegrass and country canon – Uncle Pen, Don’t Let Your Deal Go Down, Take A Whiff On Me and Cumberland Gap all get an outing – and at times the playing is quite incendiary. Berline’s fiddle is on fire on Orange Blossom Special while Dillard’s banjo playing on Dear Old Dixie has to heard to be believed. When they weigh into gospel as on Wicked Paths Of Sin their harmonies are quite excellent and by the time the set ends with Berline again a whirling dervish on fiddle on Lee Highway Blues, as a listener you might be quite exhausted. If at all you are interested in that intersection of tradition and new in the early days of country rock then you might want to invest in this fine recording.

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We haven’t got a clip from the album to share but here’s a short video from around the time the album was recorded.

Session Americana. The Rattle And The Clatter

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Despite having nine albums under their belt, Session Americana are not a band whose name is likely to trip off the lips in conversation. A shame really as this collective, originally formed around informal jam sessions in a pub in Massachusetts in 2003, have recorded with several well known performers such as Anais Mitchell, Kris Delmhorst, Laura Cortese and Jefferson Hamer (all of whom appear on this album). The Rattle And The Clatter is a retrospective collection, a best of if you wish, which plucks 16 songs from their nine albums so far (with a new one in the offing).

The album title comes from the second song here, a live capture of the band in a well burnished and sleek blues rock mode on Making Hay which originally appeared on a 2018 live album. From the same album, Rodney Crowell’s I Ain’t Living Long Like This is a turbo charged country rocker while another live cut (from 2011’s Live album) Doreen finds the band having fun on a rural mandolin fuelled song which recalls the likes of The Gourds. The audience certainly seem to be enjoying it as they heartily join in on this loose limbed fun number.

While the above should encourage one to check out the band live if you get the chance, the studio cuts here are all memorable also. Beer Town chugs along quite wonderfully in a manner reminiscent of the Colorblind James Experiment while Helena (written by Jefferson Hamer) is a sly mix of gothic horror and Byrds’ like harmonies and jangle guitars. The band do flit from style to style but, like musical chameleons, they always blend in.

With a basic core of Billy Beard, Jon Bistline, Ry Cavanaugh, Dinty Child, and Jim Fitting, the band have seen auxiliary members come and go and several of the songs here feature guest vocals although the liner notes don’t make clear who sings what. Nevertheless Trip Around The Sun features a female lead on a sublime song, replete with rippling strings while Love Changes Everything has Laura Cortese singing with the boys in the band on a song which recalls the heyday of The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. We have to mention the opening song, Pack Up the Circus. Produced by Anais Mitchell, it sets the band’s wares from the outset. Wonderfully played, perfectly sang and rippling with a very cool country rock vibe it’s a grand start to what is an excellent album.

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Scott Ashworth. Ghosts And Broken Men

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It seems like eons ago that Blabber’n’Smoke first became aware of Scott Ashworth, a singer songwriter currently residing somewhere around Falkirk who, over the past year or so has released a steady trickle of songs in a lengthy run up to this, his debut album. Singer songwriter perhaps does him an injustice as several of these songs were far removed from the solitary pose one expects from such a description. The first one we recall hearing was The Ghost, a fine slice of gothic Americana, peopled with, well ghosts, and accompanied by some superb spectral pedal steel and cavernous drumming. We liked it then and we still do, ensconced as it is in this very impressive album.

The album opens with the horn laden lament of I Never See Colour Again. Corkscrewed (and occasionally squalling) guitar is entwined within a New Orleans like slow procession creating a fine gumbo of a song. Over this hefty chunk of southern soul stew Ashworth proclaims himself a broken man, helpless at the hands of fate. A swirling organ introduces more misery in the Band like Pity Clown which features some extraordinary guitar playing on a song which sounds as if it were birthed in the famed Muscle Shoals studios as opposed to a rain swept central Scotland.

Throughout the album Ashworth displays a deep affinity with some of the best Americana music of the past few decades but he’s at his best when he’s delving into its heyday. Learning To Be Me glistens and chimes with echoes of Gene Clark’s masterpiece, No Other, while Running From Tomorrow also has a touch of Clark in its veins. You Can’t Break My Heart delves deep into the self misery which is essential to great country music while the band, and, especially here, the pedal steel playing (courtesy of Stephen Hicken Jr.) recall the cosmic country stylings of bands such as The New Riders Of The Purple Sage. A duet with Laura Begley on Sinking Silently is also redolent of classic country rock. Reining it in to just voice, acoustic and pedal steel guitar on the restrained Love Ain’t Around Anymore, Ashworth proves worthy of writing a song which envelopes a true sense of misery. Meanwhile, Happy Man (a true misnomer given its depths of despair) grinds and gyres with a heavy Crazy Horse vibe.

Overall, Ghosts And Broken Men is quite an impressive debut and the band (Barry Frame on lead, rhythm and bass guitars and piano, Dave Cantwell on Drums, Iain Donald on bass, Steven Hicken Jr on pedal steel guitar, John Elliott on lead guitar, Andrew Alston on piano, organ and harmonica, Laura Begley on vocals and Andrew Hooley, Damian Cook and Ben Cummings on horns) are to be congratulated for some exemplary playing. Ashworth meanwhile is more than capable of mining the depths of despair and displaying a true feel for the classic sounds of primetime country rock. His voice, slightly nasal, could perhaps do with some variance but, aside from that, Ashworth has certainly delivered the goods.

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Skyrie. Ceilidh-Celi

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So, what’s a ceilidh band doing here in the American –roots music infused pages of Blabber’n’Smoke? Much of it is down to simple intrigue. Skyrie, who recently performed at Celtic Connections’ Danny Kyle stage might play traditional Scots music but two of their members have what might be termed rock’n’roll backgrounds playing with acts as diverse as Nazareth, Big Country and Shirley Manson of Garbage.

The band are composed primarily of a trio, Lesley Thompson Smith on fiddle and whistle, Jimmy Anderson on guitar and bass, and Chris Smith on drums and bodhran, but often play live with an expanded line up. Ceilidh-Celi, their latest release was Celtic Music Radio’s Album of the Week back in September of last year and having listened to it we can understand why. It’s a grand listen, even without the benefit of a ceilidh floor to get up and dance to it.

When on stage the band have been described as being “Hotter than a goat’s butt in a pepper patch!” but the album is somewhat more restrained although there are moments when it’s hard not to at least get both feet tapping furiously, not least on the boisterous Virginia Reel where the band reach out across the ocean to add some Appalachian tones. Much closer to home is the Auchtermuchty Hat Dance, the title alone enough to draw you in but an excellent fiddle tune with Thomson Smith skirling and bowing as if possessed while Chris Smith’s bodhran is assisted by his skilful full drum set up giving the tune a propulsive beat. From the start, opening with a tune called Whisky on which Thompson Smith and Anderson display their respective skills quite excellently and there’s much joy to be had when they both take their turns to indulge in short solos. However, it’s when the band are truly locking step that the tunes are most infectious. In this they are ably supported on the disc by the award winning multi instrumentalist Fraser Fifield.

With tunes indulging in most of the favourite traditional ceilidh styles – reels, military two step, Gay Gordons and Strip The Willow – this album is just about all you need for a home made ceilidh. Roll back the carpet, get the drinks in and turn it up loud.

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Brown Horse. Reservoir. Loose Music

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Loose Music have long proved themselves dab hands at discovering emerging American artists and releasing their albums over here in the UK. They’re no slouches however when it comes to home grown talent and their latest discovery, Norwich based Brown Horse, shows that they still have their ear to the ground.

The band, a six piece outfit, are grounded in the classic sounds of 1990s alt country. Listening to the album recalls days listening to off kilter songs by the likes of Granfaloon Bus, The Silver Jews and Clem Snide, or indeed, Loose Music’s own early sampler albums which were instrumental in bringing this strain of music to a wider audience.

Much of the album sounds endearingly home made in its execution. Accordions huff and puff, guitars and fiddles are scrubbed and scraped, the Felice Brothers come to mind at times, another band not afraid to sound as if they just tumbled out of bed and pressed the record button. The stall is set from the opening song, Stealing Horses, a wayward journey through tumbledown country rock, Neil Young grunge and Palace Brothers shambles mixed into one fine opening number but it’s eclipsed by the following title track which sounds as if it needs crutches as it limps (quite magnificently it has to be said) across a blasted heath of scowling guitars, plaintive banjo and wheezy accordion.

With singer Patrick Turner sounding suitably wounded and vulnerable across the tracks, he’s in need of support and the band set out some excellent scaffolding to support him. There’s a reliably chunky country rock feel to Shootback and Everlasting actually has some polish to it with a stately piano added to the mix while the lengthy Paul Gilley, a song about a drowned songwriter (the writer of Cold, Cold, Heart, and I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry, both hits for Hank Williams), approaches the best of the early Whiskeytown days. For those who want a full blooded Neil Young like guitar thrash then Bloodstain and Silver Bullet should satisfy that fix.

Outtakes, towards the end of the album is another accordion inflected wheeze which also features some very fine twangy guitar and they close on an intimate note with Called Away, a delicate and wistful song which, with its rippling guitars and slithers of harmonica, banjo and accordion, give it a fine back porch feel.

Reservoir is quite an astounding debut album with the band showcasing a true affinity with classic alt country and we’d suggest that you get a copy so you can tell folk that you were with the band on the ground floor. 

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Dean Owens (featuring Will Kimbrough & Neilson Hubbard). Pictures. Songboy Records.

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After his epic (and hugely rewarding) series of releases which dug deep into the sounds and legends of the American south west wilderness, aided by Calexico and other luminaries of the Tucson scene, Dean Owens returns to his own roots on Pictures, an album suffused with memories and personal reflections. It’s a welcome reminder that Owens, prior to his immersion into the torrid and dramatic Sonoran desert landscape, is equally as able to summon up the windswept romance of the Lothian hills and the daily grit of growing up in Leith, both detailed here with a huge sense of affection, almost rose tinted at times, tinged with regret for lost loved ones but leavened by some happy times.

Recorded during lockdown, Owens reached out to two of his erstwhile collaborators, Neilson Hubbard and Will Kimbrough who joined in on the endeavour from their Nashville base. Together, the trio hark back to the sound and feel of earlier albums such as Into The Sea and Whisky Hearts with Owens here firmly on home ground. A set of vintage photographs within the album cover are proof, if required, that this is a deeply personal album but we have to say that kudos are due to Hubbard and Kimbrough for their vibrant contributions (on guitars, keyboards and percussion),  giving the album a fully fledged band sound.

The album opens with Hills Of Home, a lilting slice of Celtic Americana if you wish, which finds Owens gliding over landmarks from his past as, presumably, he sets out on a transatlantic flight. His description of the bird’s eye view of his homeland soon migrates into a reminiscence of how he started off in the music business, back to the day when he first heard “the big music.”  He next dives deep into a love song, Pure Magic, on which he admits to his own blemishes, family traits from ancestors leading to mood swings (lion tamer and clown) and a hangover from his father’s stout (and much shared in the Scottish male) lack of patience. His salvation is in his relationship, his love, and it’s well expressed in a song which is gently borne along with sublime guitar and keyboards from his U.S. partners. In a similar vein, Neilson and Kimbrough add deft touches of piano and guitar to the sombre Sometime, a song which carries a seed of optimism and which can be seen as a thread of hope written when the world was, to all extents and purposes, shut down.

The spirit of Ronnie Lane looms large on Staring At The Lid (a song inspired by a saying of Owens’ father) which is enlivened by Kimbrough’s slide guitar and mandolin, perfectly evoking Lane’s raggle taggle travelling music and that mood is also present on Buffalo River, a delightful slice of whimsy which portrays Owens setting out on his adventures, protected by his ties to his homeland while Dalry Cemetery, an affectionate portrait of an ordinary but slightly eccentric  pair of characters is also reminiscent of Lane (and laden with Leithian lore). The past also looms large on Boxing Shorts, the most autobiographical song here on which Owens recalls his youthful endeavours as a boxer, paying tribute to his mentor with his band mates giving the song a slightly southern soul groove with punchy horns coming in at the end.

The album closes, much as it opened, on personal notes. Friend opens with Owens singing “We scattered your ashes in your favourite place…” as he offers a song soaked in loss, sadness and, ultimately, affection. It turns out that it’s a tribute to his late four legged friend, his much loved dog Alfie. Pictures, a slightly more upbeat number with the trio returning to the lilting airs of the opening song finds Owens commemorating his past adventures, his memories and his eternal ties to a friend (pictured on the album sleeve and to whom the album is dedicated) who has passed on. With a lonesome banjo dribbling out the last notes of the song it caps the album quite wonderfully. 

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Live review: My Darling Clementine @ The Fallen Angels Club. Glad Café, Glasgow. Friday 24th November 2023.

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Glasgow’s no stranger to witnessing the odd bout of bickering between married couples and so it was that an almost sold out crowd crammed into the Southside’s Glad Café to welcome back our favourite marital sparring partners, My Darling Clementine, in anticipation of what we used to call, “a good clean fight.”

Lou Dalgleish and Michael Weston King, the two warring elements of My Darling Clementine, have long proved to be one of the UK’s favourite acts, taking the long held premise that country music can’t abide a happy pairing and transforming that into a hugely entertaining show. It helps of course that the pair have released a series of albums in which they sing superbly of the twists and turns and the ups and downs of being in a relationship, cleverly updating old Nashville tropes.

They used to take to the stage as a recording of George Jones and Tammy Wynettes’ wedding vows was played but tonight it was the stabbing keyboards of Timmy Thomas’ Why Can’t We Live Together which announced their appearance, Dalgleish resplendent in her thrift store glory and Weston King a testament to polyester, his sta-prest trousers featuring the sharpest crease in town. Launching, of course, into a divorce song, the weeping strains of faded love and regret parlayed by each on Unhappily Ever After set the scene for much of the evening’s entertainment, the pinnacle of the disharmony being a glorious rendition of There’s No Heart In This Heartache along with the somewhat redemptive I Know Longer Take Pride which has Dalgleish singing from the beyond to support her grieving husband. Performing as a duo tonight there was no sense that they needed a band behind them especially when they delivered the exotic rhythms of King Of The Carnival and there was even choreography as the pair danced to and from the microphones in step.

With no support act, the pair set out all their wares on stage tonight which meant the inclusion of several songs taken from their latest project where they delved into the country darkness they have exhumed from the songs of Elvis Costello. First off was a Costello song written with Loretta Lynn, I Felt The Chill Before The Winter Came, sung brilliantly in harmony, very much in keeping with the heartache which had come before and a reminder of how well My Darling Clementine have burrowed into Costello’s songbook. I Lost You and Either Side Of The Same Town just cemented this thought.

According to Dalgleish, Weston King has had the temerity to record an album of his own and this led to some inspired duelling dialogue before he was “allowed” to play two songs from The Struggle – The Hardest Thing Of All, a powerful description of solitude, along with his thoughts on a policeman duped by Trump on Weight Of The World. Dalgleish, bless her soul, weighed in on keyboards instead of leaving in a huff.

Of course, the pair revel in the comedy of the bickering – George and Tammy writ large on the stage. But when Dalgleish gets serious, responding to Wynette’s Stand By Your Man with her wife beating tale No matter What Tammy Said (I Won’t Stand By Him) with words such as “She’s seeing black and blue and purple because he’s seeing red,” in a rare onstage moment, she leans on Weston King affectionately. The pair are united when it comes to this.

Signing off with a great rendition of The Embers And The Flame, the duo announced they’d stay on stage for the encore, none of this false exit nonsense, and so, as the crowd bayed their applause they sang a grand version of Joe Henry’s You Can’t Fail Me Now. They would have ended there but an eruption from the crowd demanded more and so, an actual encore proceeded. Weston King dug into his past to bring up Endless Wandering Stars, a song inspired by a James Joyce line in Ulysses (“on page three” he said, he’d never got beyond that page). It was a delightful end to a hugely entertaining night.

Baskery. V: End Of The Bloodline.

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The three sisters, Greta, Stella and Sunniva Bondesson, who comprise Baskery, last released an album in 2018, Coyote And Sirens, and toured extensively in support of the album. Originally from Sweden, the trio by then lived in three different countries and when it came time to record a follow up album they were hamstrung by the Covid lockdown. Unlike many other artists who resorted to remote recording the sisters bided their time, each using their enforced isolation to write their own songs. Come the time it was safe again to mingle, they worked up the songs and decamped to Devon to record V: End Of the Bloodline with Sean Lakeman (The Levellers, Imelda May, Equation, Billy Bragg) in the producer’s seat. The sisters had met him when they toured with his brother Seth Lakeman and Seth appears on two of the songs here, playing viola.

Harking back to the coyotes named in the previous album, this disc is quite feral with the sisters rattling out of the traps on many of the songs. The most ferocious is Miss America which is whipped along with healthy doses of slide guitar and rattletrap percussion allowing the trio to sound like a love child of Tom Petty and The Violent Femmes. The opening song, Wolf Hook, while not as wild, finds them prowling in a southern swampish style with just the merest hint of Fleetwood Mac voodoo in its veins.

At times the band veers just a little too close to Stevie Nicks’ like chanteusing but they never fully fall into that trap. Little Lonesome Hate (with Seth Lakeman joining in) is a fully fledged slice of Child like balladry with the sisters playing excellently as the song takes flight while A Little Goes A Long Way is suffused with California power pop guitar. They close the album with some excellent sisterly harmonising on the rather gorgeous Birds Of Passage.

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Tom Heyman. 24th Street Blues. Bohemian Neglect Recording Works

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Back in 2012 Chuck Prophet released Temple Beautiful, his hymn to his hometown of San Francisco. It was a bright and vibrant record with many of the songs remaining highlights of his live set. Now, just a little over ten years later, Tom Heyman, a one-time member of Prophet’s Mission Express band records his experiences of San Francisco on 24th Street Blues, a decidedly lower key effort which is less focussed on past events and more in tune with the city’s denizens who are, in the main, worlds removed from the hi-tech industries which the city is primarily associated with now.

The 12 songs here are rough hewn, appropriate enough for the subject matter. Heyman, accompanied in the main by just a couple of collaborators (primarily Rusty Miller and Mike Coykendall) prowls through the songs, sweetening some of them with his sublime pedal steel guitar but never losing sight of the gritty reality he’s singing about. His characters are the jobbing day to day folk, those displaced by gentrification, those scrabbling to make ends meet. He follows in the footsteps of Jack London and Jack Kerouac, writers who could make San Francisco come to life on the page and who, like Heyman here, celebrated the daily grind.

The centrepiece of the album is the powerful The Mission Is On Fire, a grim song delivered in a dark and ominous manner. Inspired by a disastrous fire in the Mission District which claimed a life (Mauricio Orellana, to whom the album is dedicated) and displaced more than 60 residents, the site is now earmarked for a multi million redevelopment. Heyman’s anger and despair here is almost palpable as he just about spits out the refrain, “The Mission is on fire and some people are getting rich.”  However, it’s the lack of outrage after the inferno which fuels Heyman on the delicate following song Quit Pretending.

The album opens with the folky refrains of the title song with Heyman cleaving to a simple day in the life in San Francisco before bewailing the glowering cranes set to redevelop the city. Desperate is a more personal song (which is revisited at the end of the album) which finds Heyman seeking for a balm, presumably leading to his sojourn in San Francisco where he has found himself (and his wife) surviving in a somewhat bohemian music minded community.

There’s a brace of songs which paint portraits of youthful ambitions and failed promises. Mike Coykendall’s 12 string guitar adds a slight Byrds’ like sense to the story of Barbara Jean while Sonny Jim is given a slinky, somewhat cocksure strut. Much more sombre is the tale of a juvenile pair who deal drugs and run away on Hidden History. He’s banged up and by the time he’s out, she’s married with kids, another dream killed dead. Heyman nails this song which comes across like an Elmore Leonard story set to a lonesome pedal steel flavoured lament. And while Chuck Prophet’s ode to the Ford Econoline is a turbo charged driving song, Heyman drops into Steinbeck territory as his White Econoline is merely the mode to transport itinerant fruit pickers, today’s gig economy not much removed from those days of the Grapes Of Wrath. Back on a more personal note, Heyman delivers the most fully fledged rock’n’folk song here on Searching For The Holy Ghost which finds him accepting his lot as a citizen of San Francisco, in love with its romance and history and still settling in.

24th Street Blues is available in various formats including a package which includes the disc alongside a very handsome songbook with lyrics, music notation and illustrations by Heyman’s partner, Deidre White. See all options here.

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Daniel Meade. Your Madness Is My Medicine

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After a couple of albums (Ever Wonder Why you Get Out Of Bed and Rust) which found Glasgow’s Daniel Meade exploring various musical avenues, he returns to his roots with a bang on this exhilarating rock’n’rollercoaster of an album. Reunited with his long time guitar foil, the ever excellent Lloyd Reid and backed by Ross McFarlane on drums and Deke McGee on horns, Meade positively wallows in the barrelhouse rock and roll which he wallops out on piano throughout. It’s a killer album in more than sense as The Killer himself, Jerry Lee Lewis, is a guiding light here with Meade channelling the tousle headed firebrand who shocked the UK way back when he first toured over here.

Alongside Lewis there are healthy whiffs of Fats Domino, Professor Longhair and James Booker. Even the ghost of George Frayne, AKA Commander Cody is in the mix. McGee’s wonderfully fat horn fills are very much part of the joy here as he punches up the sound giving many of the songs a New Orleans vibe.  Drink It Up Now is in the New Orleans tradition of drinking songs celebrated with saloon piano rollicking away while Ain’t What It Ain’t is a classic sing-along song which one can imagine being as popular in a front parlour as a low down dive.

While he’s well able to deliver raucous and joyous slices of vintage sounding rockers, Meade tops it all with his vocal delivery, his voice just on the right side of Jerry Lee like lasciviousness. While he uses traditional tropes he sure knows how to knock them into shape with the best example here the title song with its repeated title refrain although special mention should be given to Got Me On A Good Day and Don’t Look Back, both of them perfect examples of how to update age old rock’n’roll with vigour.

Overall, Your Madness Is My Medicine finds Meade maybe returning to a comfort zone, the sort of music he can knock out without abandon, the sort of songs he was singing with his band The Flying Mules, but that he does it with such style and obvious love for the period just makes the album that much more compelling.

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