Dean Owens. Into The Sea: Deluxe Edition. Drumfire Record

Posted on by

s707229809767138635_p47_i2_w320

2015’s Into The Sea is perhaps the most perfectly realised of Dean Owens‘ albums rivalling Whisky Hearts for fans affections despite the presence of his two most iconic songs (Man From Leith and Raining In Glasgow) on the latter. Both albums were recorded in Nashville and both feature Owens’ long time compadre Will Kimbrough but Into The Sea, recorded seven years after Whisky Hearts is a better distillation of Owen’s Celtic Americana, the players and producer Neilson Hubbard at the top of their game. It’s also a more passionate album. At the time of recording Owens and his family were coming to terms with the death of his sister Julie from cancer, the album is dedicated to her. When I spoke to him about the recording of the album he said,” It was a difficult time for me when I was making the album for various reasons and a lot of that I poured into the song writing… It’s quite an emotional record… it was a time in my life when a lot of unexpected things, tragic things were happening and as a songwriter that comes through in your craft. “The song Evergreen in particular addresses his loss, it’s tender, affectionate and moving, happy memories recalled despite the sad reality. Owens sings powerfully here with some magnificent support vocally from Kim Richey.

Owens addressed other losses on Virginia Street, Kids (1979), The Only One and Sally’s Song (I Dreamed Of Michael Marra) but it would be false to describe the album as a series of eulogies. The opening song, Dora, a musical genealogy, is quite stirring and the glorious sweep of Up On The Hill is a celebration of open spaces and the opportunity they offer to reflect on and give thanks for the good things in life (along with an opportunity to hear some wicked slide guitar from Kimbrough). 18 months on from its release Into The Sea remains an album that stirs and invigorates and we can personally vouch for the power of these songs when delivered live with Dora and Up On The Hill especially moving. This Deluxe Edition adds four more songs to the album including one from the original sessions, Alison Wonderland, a song which fits snugly into the overall feel of the album with Kimbrough’s guitars keening throughout as Owens disappears down a rabbit hole of yearning. There’s Cotton Snow, previously only available digitally, Owens’ setting of a civil war battlefield which is wonderfully realised along with two songs  recorded at the time of the Into The Sea sessions which didn’t make it into the studio process, here delivered as solo acoustic guitar and voice performances. Again one refers to shows we’ve seen over the past year, Owens with his band a mighty prospect but on his own he can still deliver and here Forgotten Shadows is a fine mix of memories and regret, faded pictures pored over with Owens in fine honeyed voice. Shadows appear again in his rendition of Warren Zevon’s Keep Me In Your Heart, again it’s delivered perfectly and it dovetails perfectly with the overall sense of love, loss, memory and family.

If you haven’t got the original album then this release is a no brainer. For those who have it already then I suppose it depends on the degree of fandom but we can guarantee that if you do plunge then you won’t be disappointed. Having reviewed the original album here and Cotton Snow here it’s been quite invigorating to having to listen more carefully to the album for the purposes of this review and the bonus songs are now irretrievably entwined within the whole and it is an album that deserves to be on the shelves of any discerning music lover. Meanwhile Dean, with and without the Whisky Hearts continues to roam around the country with several dates coming up including full band shows in Glasgow, Stirling and Edinburgh, all dates here.

The Deluxe Edition is available here and there’s an opportunity to support Dean in his next endeavour, Southern Wind,  another collaboration with Nielson Hubbard here.

Finally Dean and his band The Whisky Hearts appeared on Radio Scotland’s Quay Sessions last week and you can see them in their full glory here

 

Tommy Hale. Magnificent Bastard. Holiday Disaster Records.

Posted on by

screen-shot-2016-09-02-at-20-04-43

Apparently a well known figure on the Dallas roots rock scene Tommy Hale was a member of cult rockers Swank Deluxe before breaking off to record two solo albums in 2003 and 2008. Blabber’n’Smoke was oblivious to the man until Magnificent Bastard, his third album, a mere eight years after his second effort, popped through the post but a little delving allowed that more discerning folk had welcomed him to the UK a decade or so ago. Chief among those folk were Simon George Moore and John O’Sullivan of UK band The Snakes (see here) and this pair appear on Magnificent Bastard which was recorded in rural Wiltshire, a world away from Dallas.

The album opens with a killer slice of punk infused swagger on the title track. That’s punk as purveyed by NY types such as Mink Deville and Jim Carroll as Hale sneers arrogantly, the guitars switch and flash while a Farfisa organ parps away. An excellent start but somewhat misleading as there’s only one other song here that rocks, the burnished chrome glide of Backburner, this time with Blue Oyster Cult coursing through its rifftastic veins. While it’s a bit of a head banger it does feature some bonkers Theremin throughout although the horn section that muscles its way in towards the end is a bit top heavy.

Perhaps exhausted by this effort Hale reins it in for the rest of the album proving himself to be a dab hand at wistful pop infused melodies,  the recollection of school proms on Homecoming Mum and the rippling Simple Song fine examples but his best effort is on Can I Lay Down Next To You. Here there’s a soulful touch (reinforced by the organ and percussion recalling Otis’ try A Little Tenderness) allied to some sweet pedal steel on a song that recalls Wilco at times. There’s another comparison to be made when the gospel country strains of Just How She Died start up taking us into the land of Gram Parsons. Almost a parody (an affectionate one) of country duets with Madison King the female foil,  it’s stuffed with black humour  – “It’s all a bit hazy now but I remember a few things, about how she kicked my dog and flushed my wedding ring” and “I can’t remember how she died or if she’s just dead to me.”  They capture perfectly Parson’s wide eyed cosmic cowboy persona, Hale’s delivery mimicking Parson’s mixture of yearning and insouciance.

There’s more dark humour (although no laughs) on the brooding Mexican tale of Sonrisas y Sunshine wherein a young punk hopes to be the star of the next narco-corrida hit by killing his girlfriend. With spooky Theremin adding a fifties sci-fi touch to the coiled menace of twanged guitar and lone Tijuana trumpet it’s a killer song. The centrepiece of the album however is deadly serious. Save Me (The Ballad of Odell Barnes Jr.)  is informed by the story of a classmate and friend of Hale’s who was convicted of a murder and executed. Opening with a brief encapsulation of the crime from Barnes’ viewpoint delivered over a sole piano it then swells into an epic ballad with slide guitar recalling Lynyrd Skynyrd as Hale imagines the condemned man’s plea to be saved. While it’s not a song that can be considered a condemnation of the death penalty it does ask one to consider the condemned. As Hale says, “I don’t know if he did the murder or not but I want people to know what it is and to know the story.” Whatever his intentions it does pack an emotional punch.

Hale closes the album with a cover of Bill Withers’ Hope She’ll be Happier, another powerful punch that features Hale and a corrosive guitar that sears, his voice calling into a wilderness, an eternity of loneliness.

So, a magpie of sorts, an album that picks up shiny forebears but overall it’s quietly magnificent.  Hale, the titular Magnificent Bastard, keen eyed and whip smart, tender and tough. The picture on the back of the album is a fine joke and reminded us of Geoff Dyer’s story White Sands in his latest book of the same name.

Website

 

Austin Lucas On Why Sad Songs Are Here To Stay

Posted on by

btm_tm_lp_cover

For those in the know Between The Moon and The Midwest by Austin Lucas is one of the finest albums released this year. It’s an album that tugs in two directions. There are chunks of tough country music and then there’s a shimmering, almost psychedelic sheen to several of the songs. Sound familiar? Well when the album was released back in February, several reviewers compared it to Sturgill Simpson’s Metamodern Sounds In Country Music, in particular with the song Turtles All The Way Down. Good company for sure but in the end it’s a shorthand way of saying that both artists are at the forefront of reclaiming country music from the plethora of truck’n’beer’n’broads crap that’s been masquerading as country over the past few years.

Based in Indiana Lucas had a punk rock background before edging into his country sound on albums such as Somebody Loves You and A New Home In The Old World. His 2013 album Stay Reckless was considered by many to be his best but it coincided with a collision of personal and business problems that almost derailed him. Amidst a failing marriage and bouts of anxiety and depression his record label dropped him saying they didn’t hear any singles on the album. Cast adrift Lucas could have sank but instead he’s back, leaner and fitter and with a new label who believe in him and in the record. Between The Moon and The Midwest, recorded with Joey Kneiser from Glossary and featuring appearances from John Moreland, Lydia Loveless and Cory Branan is a tremendous slice of modern country and Lucas is touring the UK over the next few weeks promoting the album. An opportunity then for Blabber’n’Smoke to talk to the man about the album and its torturous conception. First of all we asked him about those comparisons to Sturgill Simpson.

I think there are several comparisons that can be made considering that we’re both legitimate country artists who are trying to push the boundaries of what the genre can be. Although it may be worth mentioning that his releasing Metamodern Sounds very nearly derailed the making of Between The Moon and The Midwest. I got pretty worried when I first heard Turtles All The Way Down reckoning that he’d already done the thing that I was in the middle of working on. However, in the end I decided to allow it to hearten me. Firstly, it showed that there was interest in this style of music. Secondly, his wasn’t a concept album. Nor was it psychedelic all the way through. Merely one song and a couple of small hints at psychedelia scattered throughout. Therefore, I felt I was still innovating the genre in a way that he hadn’t exactly done with his album. 

While people have honed in on the psychedelic aspect of the album at heart there’s a lot of Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings in the album. Are they big influences on you?

Of course they are. In my mind, they are two of the greatest and most innovative artists from that period in country music or any other genre. These are two guys who pushed more boundaries than anyone else and who did things their own way. In many ways, they’re role models for me and who and what I want to be and how I want to do things.

Some of the characters reappear throughout the album, is it a concept album, were you trying to tell a story?

Yeah, I actually came up with the concept for the album under the influence of a very special brownie, in the desert while on tour with Willie Nelson in 2011. It’s a love story about 3 best friends and how they miscommunicate, hurt each other and eventually ruin each other’s lives.

You open the album with Unbroken Hearts singing, ““I’ve been told to walk away nearly every time I make an album. I hear there’s no good men left, everyone in Nashville’s deaf, sad songs are a thing of the past.” I read that actually happened to you when you took the album to your previous label. The album’s been out for about eight month’s now so are there people out there wanting to hear “sad songs?”

There are absolutely people who want to hear sad songs and I am glad to say that I think there will always be people of quality who are interested in real songs. Truthfully though, since we’re on the subject, the song isn’t an indictment of the world at large, or even music row. It’s simply something that I wrote because I find the large scale music industry overall to be sort of unnecessary. There are many artists who court mainstream success but I’m not one of them. I exist in a world where that’s never been a desire or even an option. I’ve always existed on the fringes of the music world. Even within the scenes that I play in I’ve generally been an outsider. As a result I’m no stranger to the fact that, there has always been and always will be a place for independent artists, people who make extensive bodies of work for nothing more than the need to do so. My records or career may not ever have big money behind them. But quality music always finds fans and since I’m not interested in being a pop star music row is something that exists outside of my career equation. To be direct in a way that I haven’t been before, the words to that song in particular were only meant to shine a small amount of light on exactly that. The idea that these traditions of great song writing and storytelling would die after all these years is ludicrous. I think most of us know that, at least my friends and I know that. So I wrote it as a tongue in cheek battle cry of sorts. Nothing more, nothing less. 

You’re on a new record label, Last Chance, who have a deal with At The Helm in the UK. Are you able to say anything about them in terms of releasing albums that some major labels don’t see as hit material. After all, there is something of a resurgence in a more traditional country and songwriter form at present.

There is no question that they release a lot of stuff which would not be considered to be viable from a commercial standpoint. Certainly they are benefactors of the arts and in that way, I’m very proud to be a part of their team. 

The album and its predecessor Stay Reckless were recorded when you were going through a rocky patch, your marriage ending and such. I hope it’s not glib of me to ask if you subscribe to the notion that “break up” albums bring out the best in an artist?

I have no idea. I think that turmoil is well documented as being extremely fertile artistic soil though I’d rather not hypothesize on whether one must be in an aggravated or depressed state of being in order to make great art. To me, I think it’s simply a matter of staying hungry and being interested in getting better at your craft that should propel one to ever greater musical endeavours. 

You’re touring here with The Dreaming Spires who will be your backing band as well as playing their own support slot. It’s an interesting prospect and I was wondering what your thoughts are on what they’ll add to your sound.

I met them last year in the States during Americana fest through our shared UK label At The Helm. We got along very well and I quickly grew to respect them musically as well as personally. I have no question that they’ll have an effect on my sound and that’s exciting to me. The beauty of playing with new and different people is that freshness that you can get on old songs. Every new set of ears hears things in a different way and therefore, you can quickly find yourself in new musical territory. I’m excited to explore what those talented guys are going to show me about of my own songs. 

Before we go can you tell us anything about any future plans?

Just gotta get back into the studio and work on another album. Hopefully that will happen in the next half a year or so. 

Well, thanks and the best of luck with the tour. austinlucas_euro2016-800x565

Austin Lucas with The Dreaming Spires tour the UK and Ireland starting in Oxford on the 15th October with a Glasgow date at Broadcast on the 18th October. All dates are here.

Freakwater. Scheherazade. Bloodshot Records

Posted on by

1881499_orig

This album’s been out for a while now but with Freakwater playing in Glasgow tonight it deserves a mention. Essentially a vehicle for Janet Beveridge Bean and Catherine Irwin’s love of ancient sounding Appalachian and American Gothic sounds Freakwater set the standard for a bare boned and raw Americana sound in the nineties, Old Paint being a particularly good example. Scheherazade is their first album in ten years and while the vocal pairing of Bean and Irwin remains the focal point the album is their fullest yet in terms of arrangements with their long term bass player, David Wayne Gay, augmented by a host of Kentucky musicians and pertinently Warren Ellis, presumably happy to be ensconced in the badlands yet again.

From start to end the album is a glorious collection of blood soaked tales and grim narratives. The opening What the People Want recounts a violent and bloody encounter, a woman “split from stern to stern” and thrown down a well as Ellis’ spooky fiddle scrapes away. The lullaby Rock A Bye Baby is transformed into a vertiginous nightmare replete with squalling guitar battling an unhinged banjo on Down Will Come Baby. There’s a crepuscular element in the sly guitar lines on Falls Of Sleep, a song that foreshadows an execution while The Asp and The Albatross derives from Coleridge and Shakespeare as the band deliver a powerful folk rock sound which recalls the singular oddity that was Farewell Aldebaran, Judy Henske and Jerry Yester’s psychedelic folk masterpiece.

Bolshevik and Bollweevil and Take Me With You are more akin to the Freakwater of old, the voices prominent over a restrained backing but sitting in perfect harmony with their sibling songs here. The album as a whole is a fine addition to what was already a fine canon.

Freakwater are playing Broadcast, Glasgow tonight. On the strength of this album it looks like a night to remember.

Website

 

Chip Taylor. Little Brothers. Train Wreck Records

Posted on by

lb250

Where do you start with Chip Taylor? Well. First off he’s one of the headliners at this week’s Glasgow Americana Festival playing Friday at the Classic Grand. Simple, go get a ticket. After that it gets weird. On one level Taylor is connected, star wise, Hollywood firmament stuff, his brother is Jon Voight, his niece Angelina Jolie, he should be larging it up in Malibu. More pertinently he’s the guy who wrote the sublime Angel Of The Morning and the classic garage punk perennial Wild Thing, yes, that Wild Thing, covered by The Troggs, Hendrix et al. In fact, he was a regular one man Brill Building back in the sixties and early seventies churning out hit songs for numerous artists. Then he packed it all in and became a professional gambler (told you this was weird) only returning to music in the late nineties. A series of albums recorded with Carrie Rodriguez were classic dusty Americana while Chip himself rolled out his discs including the immense triple CD The Little Prayers Trilogy. Across these discs Taylor delivers his songs and spoken words like a sage Walter Brennan addressing you by a campfire. Words of wisdom suffused with a humanity which is occasionally tempered by an anger at the ways of the world. The albums are a comfort and a delight and this latest release is no different.

Addressing the plight of refugees, documenting a dream about his brothers (Jon and volcanologist Barry) and offering up a self-help mantra of sorts Taylor softly spins his wisdom across the album. The songs are laid back, guitarist John Platania (renowned for his days in Van Morrison’s Caledonia Soul Orchestra) and keyboardist Goran Grini delicately supporting the slim melodies. The album opens with Taylor delivering a narrative about his brother Barry and his granddaughter driving to a golf tournament for kids then driving back. A simple tale but one invested with a sense of dignity and pride as Taylor’s homespun voice delivers the story before coming to the conclusion that, “we all need some great rides home.” Similarly a dream about Taylor and his brothers in a taxi spins into a meditation on their relationship, their shared Yonkers background and their occasional differences on the title song. As Time Goes By, dedicated to his wife, is an affecting love song that acknowledges the passage of time and the deepening bond that develops, a wonderful song.

Over the course of his albums Taylor has displayed his wry sense of humour and also his deep love of humanity and both are well displayed here. Enlighten Yourself has Taylor delivering a lecture of sorts with an occasional mantra (which is reprised at the end of the album). Sounding almost like Mr. Magoo as he stumbles through his guide to becoming enlightened he highlights the absurdity of many gurus while pointing out the simplicity of just being yourself and enjoying the simple things in life.  Refugee Children is prefaced by Taylor setting the scene as he recalls a tour in Sweden and coming across a group of refugees. The song again is simple, painting a picture of the children fishing in a brook but Taylor makes his point midway as he reads from the Human Rights Convention relating to the status of refugees. Simple but effective.

As we mentioned up above Chip Taylor is appearing this Friday as part of the Glasgow Americana festival. It’s his first appearance in Glasgow for 15 years and a rare opportunity to see one of the legends of American music.

Website

Unfortunately none of the videos from the album are available here in the UK but just this week Taylor released this new song he has recorded with Carrie Rodriguez.

 

 

 

 

Ben Glover. The Emigrant. Proper Records

Posted on by

ben-glover-cover-300px

Although Blabber’n’Smoke hasn’t previously reviewed any of Ben Glover’s albums his is a name which has cropped up several times.  He co-wrote Gretchen Peters’ wonderful Blackbirds, winner of ‘International Song of The Year’ at the UK Americana Awards back in February and he was one third of The Orphan Brigade who released the very fine Soundtrack To A Ghost Story around a year ago.

An Irishman who has lived in Nashville since 2009 Glover was drawn to consider the theme of migration as he was going through the process of getting his Green Card. Of course Ireland has had waves of emigrations over the centuries but the current political climate, dominated by the plight of refugees across the globe and the ensuing backlash and rise of xenophobia assures that this resulting album has a topical purpose. For all that it’s far from a polemical album. Instead Glover has reached back to popular and traditional Irish songs that evoke feelings of displacement and exile  and to these he has added four songs, three co-written with Gretchen Peters, Mary Gauthier and Tony Kerr, the title song, commenced in Ireland and finished in collaboration with Peters being the starting block for the album.

Co produced with fellow Orphan Brigadier, Neilson Hubbard, the album stays close to its Irish roots, the instrumentation is spare; acoustic guitar, piano, fiddles, Uilleann pipes, whistles the primary instruments. Glover skilfully wrests the traditional and cover songs from any cosy sense of familiarity, the arrangements breathing new life into them while the presence of his own songs prevents the album from becoming a set of “well kent” Irish songs, the album as a whole a powerful listen.

Opening with a stirring rendition of The Parting Glass, the upbeat tempo belying the air of farewell within the song, Glover immediately takes us into an Irish heartland, a fiction perhaps of a jolly lot managing their loss through alcohol, oft posited by numerous screenplays. Aside from a slight return to a toe tapping moment on the traditional Moonshiner, another song with drink at its centre, the rest of the album is a more sombre affair, the reality of alienation and loss hitting hard. A Song Of Home, one of the originals is a magnificent effort, glover’s voice yearning, at times approaching Van Morrison’s stream of consciousness repetitions, the song celebrating the landscapes, mists and mysteries of a remembered homeland. The title song follows opening with plangent piano, a Tom Waits’ like moment considered perhaps but it then swells with Uillean pipes as Glover dissects with his poet’s scalpel the curse of the emigrant, “to be cut loose from all you knew, beyond the pale, beyond the blue…the restlessness, the discontent…” It’s a deeply moving song that stakes its claim immediately to be considered part of the folk canon. The co-write with Mary Gauthier, Heart In My Hand, is a roving fiddle fuelled ramble while Dreamers, Pilgrims, Strangers is a very brief reiteration of the lines inscribed within the album sleeve, Glover’s alternative to Emma Lazarus’ words welcoming emigrants to the USA.

Woven between these bitter pills are the familiars. Ralph McTell’s From Clare To Here, Glover more impassioned than McTell’s original, more bereft. The Auld Triangle wrings out all the emotion it can from this well travelled song with a touch of Shane McGowan to be sure in here. The Green Glens Of Antrim closes the album and again Glover summons up ghosts and memories, an emigrant looking back through rose tinted glasses, delivered here like a Hibernian Tom Waits. Finally Glover manages the almost impossible task of breathing new life into a song that through familiarity has somewhat lost its original impact. He tackles Eric Bogle’s And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda with a raw vocal and a tremendous arrangement, half Waits, half Weill as he snarls and rages, finally collapsing into a bereft croak, the band playing on.

It’s not that often that an album captures such a terrible zeitgeist but Glover here lays down a powerful challenge to those who just see immigrants taking up their council houses and jobs. Several of these songs should accompany news items but that’s too grand to ever happen. Still, there’s social media there to spread his message. On a more local level we should mention that Glover is appearing at next week’s Glasgow Americana Festival performing in the round with Boo Hewardine and Roddy Hart (information here).

Website

 

Heidi Talbot. Here We Go, 1,2,3… Navigator Records

Posted on by

heidi-talbot

In the space between her last album, 2013’s Angels Without Wings and this, her fifth release Ms. Talbot has undergone several changes, the birth of her second child, the passing away of her mother. More mundanely, she and husband John McCusker have built their home studio in the Scottish borders. Here We Go, 1,2,3… reflects some of these changes. There’s a contemplative aspect to several of the songs, a looking back and forward aspect. In addition she describes the new recording set up as being, “in your own environment, you’re comfortable, you’ve got all the time you need and the kids can come over.” Fittingly then she has written or co written eight of the ten songs here, a departure from previous albums where she relied mainly on traditional covers or songs from her extended musical family.

While Talbot’s (and McCusker’s) folk roots still underpin the songs with Uillean pipes and tin whistles prominent on Time To Rest and The Willow Tree, the album continues the slight shift into the mainstream that was evident on Angels Without Wings. Talbot here is closer to Eddie Reader than to Julie Fowlis and the beauty of songs such as A Song For Rose (will you remember me) and Tell Me Do You Ever Think Of Me recall the days when Linda Thompson was still singing the songs penned by her then husband Richard. Talbot’s voice is, as ever, a thing of joy. Light and clear with a youthful vulnerability to it she soothes as she sings, indeed there’s a childlike anticipation on the uplifting lilt of the opening title song despite it being about meeting in the afterworld. Likewise, A Song For Rose (will you remember me), written while her mother was ill, reaches into the past with a childlike refrain with Talbot’s daughter joining in briefly on the last chorus. While such a venture could easily become maudlin here it’s managed with grace and tenderness, the song  beautifully realised with warm strings. Throughout the album Talbot draws pictures that are evocative and warm. The Year That I Was Born sparkles with a nostalgia that anyone digging through old photographs will recognise while Tell Me Do You Ever Think Of Me starts off like an old grandfather clock brooding over Talbot’s tentative love song, the ensemble playing here just excellent, percussion, strings and horns all wrapped cosily together.

The musicians (including the hubby, Louis Abbott, Michael McGoldrick and Donald Shaw) conjure wonderful sounds throughout. Gossamer like on occasion, elsewhere gently swelling, all captured in a great clarity. It’s a comforting album, one to be savoured at length and perhaps late at night cosseted by a fine beverage.

website

 

 

 

 

Henry Senior Jr. Plates Of Meat. Maiden Voyage Recording Company.

Posted on by

a0155691206_16

So, here it is. The first release from the record company set up by Ark PR man Del Day and Danny Champ, both of whom spoke to Blabber’n’Smoke about the label here. It’s simultaneously a bold move; an instrumental pedal steel album and a safe bet; Henry Senior Jr being Danny and The Champs’ pedal steel player with all of the Champs playing on the album. There is of course a history of “solo” albums from pedal steel players, mostly Stateside chaps such as Buddy Emmons and Pete Drake although we shouldn’t forget our very own maestro BJ Cole who’s 1972 release The New Hovering Dog is very much a cult classic.

It’s Cole actually who was something of a mentor to Senior Jr after the 14 year old budding guitarist stumbled upon the wonders of “the ironing board of love” (as Mr. Champ calls it) and set out on his career. And while most folk immediately think of country music when one mentions pedal steel well it appears that it was while listening to Pink Floyd’s Breathe (from Dark Side Of The Moon) that Senior Jr. was hit by the fretless bug. A listen to Cole’s track Five Pieces For Steel Guitar and Percussion (From the Hovering Dog album) should suffice to show that the instrument is capable of so much more.

So, in amongst this tangle of foot pedals and knee levers what has the man come up with? Senior says, “I wanted to use the pedal steel outside its traditional context, picking up rhythm parts that guitar or keyboard players would play and using sounds and effects that they use.” So there’s no keening country effects here, Senior sounds funky with a nice big fat sound springing from his fingers while at times he takes flight in tandem with Paul Lush recalling twin guitar attacks from the likes of The Allman Brothers as on the fresh faced romp of Along Came Molly. There’s lush harmonics on the totally solo closing song, The Presence Of Namaqua, a tune that could happily sit inside Cole’s work, proto ambient Eno music.

The meat of the album is in the soulful funk that permeates much of the tunes here. There’s one foot in the Southern country grooves of a band like Barefoot Jerry, another in the New Orleans syncopation of The Meters’ instrumental days, indeed we have to pay tribute to the band here as they really nail the tight yet loose (go figure it out) beat with sax man ‘Free Jazz’ Geoff excelling on the title song, here exhuming the treasure trove that is Blaxploitation soundtracks.  Furthermore they delve into Western Swing on Cat Doggin’,  and there’s even a touch of dub on the glorious strains of Goodbye Bowler Hat as the pedal steel glides over the bass’n’drums.

Short and very sweet Plates of Meat is manna from heaven for anyone interested in the sound of pedal steel while there’s a nice sense of humour allied to the whole project. The title perhaps a cockney allusion to Little Feat, who knows?  The titles of the tunes, seemingly random, would not seem out of place on a Charles Mingus album. Whatever, it’s great fun and highly recommended.

Website

Maiden Voyage Recording Company

 

 

Maiden Voyage Recording Company

Posted on by

ed7b30_2305b119585940ac9293838edec8b720mv2

 

All aboard the Skylark…

It’s not every day that a new record company starts up. Even rarer when you hear that the cigar chomping head honchos behind the desk are folk you know. Maiden Voyage Recording Company is the brainchild of Danny George Wilson of Danny And The Champions Of The World (firm favourites of Blabber’n’Smoke and probably the best live band in the UK these days) and legendary PR man Del Day (who is responsible for alerting Blabber’n’Smoke to many of the artists we review). With their very own maiden voyage set for launch this week as they release their first album,  Blabber’n’Smoke spoke to Del and Danny about the label.

First of all. Why set up your own record label? Aren’t there enough to go around and surely it’s a major task.

Del: Well I’ve worked in all just about every aspect of the music industry over the last 20 odd years, retail, marketing, distribution, PR, promoting and run a booking agency.  So it was only a matter of time I guess before I dipped my toe into the dangerous waters of running a record label. e4c8778786e5b91f46063c4602c6ebd5_400x400

Danny: I love making music because I love records and it seems like another great adventure to be a record company guy too. The best thing about finding great records is sharing them with your friends and this is all just an extension of that. danny-champ-in-warren-tee-shirt

Del: I’ve known Danny  for a few years now. Initially as a fan of his band which then developed into a great friendship. We both share an insatiable love of music and spend most of our time together either listening to records, sharing tracks and just chewing the fat I guess. So starting a label together seemed both hugely exciting and, in a weird way, the obvious thing to do.  Maiden Voyage Recording Company was conceived over many drinks at The Betsey Trotwood in London on a rainy Wednesday night.  We see the whole venture as an expansion of those drink and music fuelled nights, a way of sharing our love of music from all genres with likeminded people and musical explorers.

Danny:  When I was a teenager me and my pals would get on the bus to Beanos’ record shop in Croydon. We’d spend all our money and then read the liner notes and credits in those gatefold sleeves all the way back. I’d buy anything that James Burton played on or anything on the Stax labeI. I went through fads that covered everything from Delta Blues to Prog to Hip Hop to Jazz to Country music, my mind was literally crammed with useless but brilliant information. It still is although it’s just a little harder to summon nowadays! Later I worked in a famous London second hand record shop and played poker with my work mates deep into the night trying to win more staff vouchers to spend on that Big Youth or Big Black album…good times.

I’m presuming that you’ve named the label after the Herbie Hancock album of the same name given its seagoing theme? 71xlqirvzyl-_sl1300_

Del:  Indeed we did. We are both huge fans, well jazz fans in general

And all set to sail this Friday with your first release?

Del: Yes. The label’s first record, Henry Senior Jr’s Plates Of Meat. It’s a wonderful instrumental pedal steel album that flits between country, jazz, funk and Allman Brothers’ jam band wonderment. Henry is of course the pedal steel wizard for The Champs so it was the obvious first release for us both in terms of working with musicians who are friends and musicians we both respect and love. ed7b30_241646c3551142ac890d5843cb2a2de2mv2_d_2000_2000_s_2

I’ve had the privilege of hearing Plates of Meat and it’s really rather good. Funky pedal steel driven tunes that reminded me of bands like The Meters and Barefoot Jerry, two bands that probably aren’t too often lumped together. Wonderful as it is it’s hard to imagine that a record like this would get much attention from more established labels despite an obvious audience of music obsessive’s like us who can appreciate the album itself and its antecedents. I’m wondering what you have up your sleeve for future releases?

Del: It’s hard to say really.  Danny and I drew inspiration from the likes of Light In The Attic and Honest Jon’s, record labels who consistently release albums that excite and surprise. Those labels appear free form any sort of genre categorisation, and we like that. We will be releasing albums and hopefully singles for all genres in all sorts of formats. We will be doing a 7″ singles club next year and we’re also looking to release some old reissues that we feel have laid dormant for too long. We do have two definite releases, both ‘concept’ albums if I can use that phrase. First off there’s I Want Blood by the London-based band The Suburban Dirts. It’s an ambitious piece set in Kentucky circa 1800 that borrows from the legend of The Harpe Brothers who are infamous for being America’s first serial killers.  It’s just stunning. We will also be releasing Moondogs And Mad Dogs by Donald Byron Howard Wheatley, an album that’s been 15 years in the making.

To be honest the love of music in all its weird and wonderful forms is what keeps me alive and it’s also the one and only guiding factor as to how we want to run the label. It really is a label of love and one that we hope people will keep an eye out for. MVRC will hopefully become a mark of quality, that’s the aim. The first three records already feel like dusty relics drawn from some second hand bin and Danny and I love that! 

Danny: And we should say that Maiden Voyage Recording Co’s online shop is now up and running! You can pick up copies of ‘Plates of Meat’ on both 180g gatefold vinyl and CD or one of our super cool t-shirts!!

As Danny says, the shop is now open while Henry Senior Jr’s album has been picking up airplay already before its release on Friday. Blabber’n’Smoke certainly wishes Del and Danny well in this venture and we look forward to hearing what comes next. You can keep up the news on their website here

And here’s a taster from Henry Senior Jr.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Honeycutters. On The Ropes

Posted on by

on-the-ropes-album-cover

Some bands just get a buzz about them at certain points in their career and it seems that right now it’s Asheville North Carolina combo The Honeycutters‘ moment in the sun. Their last release, Me Oh My (2015) was listed in many year end top tens’ with special attention being paid to their focal point and chief songwriter, Amanda Anne Platt.  Comparisons with Lucinda Williams and Mary Gauthier were bandied around but to our ears the singer, or more specifically the writer Platt reminded us of was Loretta Lynn, Platt being able to dig into the ups and downs of a relationship with as much sass as the venerable Ms. Lynn.

On The Ropes continues Platt’s examination into the foibles and follies of man meets woman. The album title and title song along with the artwork, the inner sleeve a close up of Platt’s bandaged hands draped around a guitar, might suggest a rather pugnacious approach  however many of the songs feature her straining to hold onto, recapture or recover from bruised relationships, sometimes defiant, sometimes shattered. Her voice is wonderful, just the right amount of country angst while the band are the perfect seconds, crafting bittersweet country rock with occasional bursts of honky tonk hoots.

Platt opens the album proclaiming, “I’ve been making something out of nothing for a long time now,” before the band kick in on the chiming title song, organ and mandolin duelling wonderfully on a defiant piece of writing. The gentle country shuffle of Blue Besides follows, Platt’s voice powerful as she explains that love “ain’t black and white.” The soulful country blues of Golden Child then glides into view, a regretful shrug of the shoulders from Platt singing, “I’ve been a stranger here before. I’ve been a soldier, I’ve been the war. I’ve done my time on the wrong side of the door.” A song about past glories and being supplanted by the latest attraction it’s a weird mix of A Star Is Born and Delaney and Bonnie’s Superstar (Groupie). This Southern soul soup is revisited on The Only Eyes and Back Row, the latter somewhat punchier while there’s a creamy country feel to Useless Memories and A Piece Of Heaven.

There are a couple of detours that sit somewhat uncomfortably within the confines of the album.  The Handbook is an upbeat number that approaches Texan swing with Platt jauntily singing about the qualities of a real man while the one cover here, Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah, nicely delivered though it is, is probably best kept for a live performance. Then again perhaps our American cousins weren’t subjected to the plethora of versions that hit the UK a few years ago.

They’re firmly back on track for the rollicking country honk of Let’s Get Drunk, sure to be a live favourite while Platt offers up a very fine story in best Texas troubadour style on the closing Barmaid’s Blues with its shades of Guy Clark.

website