Karen Jonas. The Restless.

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On her sixth album release Karen Jonas nudges further from the upbeat honky tonk and country sounds which populated her earlier albums. Much as on her last release, the four song EP Summer Songs, Jonas’ song writing here was informed by her time spent writing a book of poems, Gumball, which she has described as a “cathartic and confessional” experience.  The songs have a gloss to them with Jonas’ regular band (guitarist Tim Bray, bassist and co-producer Seth Morrissey, drummer Seth Brown and multi-instrumentalist Jay Starling) gelling perfectly whether it be on the dark melodrama of Rock The Boat (with its shades of Calexico), the pummel and bustle of classic LA rock on Paris Breeze or the louché Parisian swing of That’s Not My Dream Couch.

With the band in such fine fettle, Jonas delivers a set of songs which, in the main, revolve around love, love lost and regret. There are trysts in Paris on two of the songs, Paris Breeze coming across as quite exhilarating while Elegantly Wasted is more of a comedown, the sparkle now more of a memory. Whether Lay Me Down pertains to these Parisian affairs is moot but on this powerful song Jonas delivers an intimate portrait of a woman unsure as to whether she is just “a casual romance” while We Could Be Lovers is like a daydream with Jonas wondering if she and her protagonist should “Be lovers or maybe just friends.” That she sings in it such a seductive fashion and with lyrics such as “Is it getting hot in here or is it just you, tell me what a nice girl is supposed to do, take off my sweater, are you getting warmer too” leads one to conclude that  she is taking the lead here. It’s a wonderful song with both Jonas’ delivery and the slide guitar reminding one of Maria Muldaur.

There are some sassy southern soul licks on the tale of a stalkerish love struck belle on The Breakdown and an excellent and endearing love song in Forever, perfectly played on acoustic guitar and Dobro. But Jonas keeps the best to the last when she embarks on Throw Me To Wolves, a remarkable slice of country rock in which she comes across as an electrified Dolly Parton while the band sound as hot and sweaty as Waylon Jennings’ crew on Lonesome, On’ry and Mean.

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Various Artists – Tribute To A Songpoet: Songs Of Eric Andersen. Y&T Music/EARecords

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Most folk, including us here at Blabber’n’Smoke, aren’t too aware of Eric Andersen. He is perhaps THE cult artist of the Greenwich Village years, rubbing shoulders with his much better known contemporaries such as, well, Dylan, and the rest. His songs have been recorded by the likes of The Grateful Dead, Judy Collins, Fairport Convention, Gillian Welch, and Linda Thompson but, now aged 80, he remains pretty much a secret, perhaps in part because he’s never had that one killer song which rises above all others.

This album, a three disc affair on CD, does its best to remedy the situation as a host of famous fans perform his songs. Most of them have been recorded specifically for the album but there’s a clutch of vintage recordings included and it’s one of those which opens the album. From 1970, Bob Dylan sings Thirsty Boots, accompanied by Al Kooper on piano and David Bromberg on guitar with the song sounding as if it were an outtake from New Morning. It’s a swell start to the collection but not really indicative of what is to follow. The 1972 appearance of Linda Rondstadt  (with her proto Eagles backing band) singing (I Ain’t Always Been) Faithful and Rick Danko’s live rendition of Blue River are most welcome, the latter particularly poignant, especially when it’s followed by Andersen himself singing Thirsty Boots at a club gig in 1982 which closes the album’s song cycle. Of the new recordings, they are much varied, several of them well removed from Andersen’s folkie perspective, but in the main they pay testament to his song writing skills.

Close The Door Lightly When You Go is perhaps the best known song here (thanks to Iain Matthews) and Richard Barone with Allison Moorer perform it quite deftly while Amy Helms delivers a soulful Blue River, the title song from his most successful album. Thereafter it’s pretty much a pick and mix affair as to what will capture one’s fancy but the doleful folk rock of Goin’ Gone by Richard Shindell stands out as does Foghorn by Larry Campbell & Teresa Williams along with Janis Ian’s powerful rendition of Hills Of Tuscany, a song which has a Dylan like intensity to it. Pick of the mix goes to Wesley Stace’s eight minutes of sparkling and jangled mystery on Time Run Like A Freight Train and Eyes Of The Immigrant by Lucy Kaplansky, a song written many moons ago but still relevant these days.

That leaves another couple of dozen songs we haven’t mentioned (and artists such as Willie Nile, Elliott Murphy, Happy Traum, Dom Flemons and Lenny Kaye) but, rest assured, all are worth exploring. What’s for certain is that this collection shines a welcome light on a mighty fine songwriter who has for too long has remained in the shadows.

Ash Gray And The Burners. Live 55.

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It’s been a long time since Blabber’n’Smoke last heard of Ash Gray – nine years it turns out – but it also turns out that this Texan transplanted to Sheffield (his parents hailed from Yorkshire) has become a staple of the live scene in his adopted home and this live album finds him and his band, The Burners, somewhat on fire on their return to the stage as the Covid pandemic ebbed.

Live 55 was recorded  in a Sheffield pub, the Dorothy Pax , not a venue we’re familiar with but seemingly a well managed music venue (their website proudly states they have hosted two musicians who played at Woodstock). Given that, it’s a ridiculously well recorded album with the band sounding warm and close up with the audience present enough to applaud the songs but absent as the band are playing. And what a band. A tight knit five piece comprised of Gray on guitar and vocals, Jim Widdop on pedal steel, Tom Jarvis lead guitar, Johnny Griff on bass and Tom Townsend on drums, Ash and his Burners pretty much tear through a fabulous set of cosmic country rockers, sounding at various times like reincarnations of The Grateful Dead, New Riders Of The Purple Sage, Poco, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and The Long Ryders. Towards the end they even toss in some 13th Floor Elevators Texan garage punk.

And while the band tear through the songs with a fine tie dyed in the wool vigour, Gray comes up with the goods on the songs. The opening number Jeremiah with its “Hey grandpa” refrain romps along in a breezy country-rock style with Widdop and Jarvis duelling excellently and Two Lane Blacktop has the band rolling along the highway with a skip in their step. While Gray’s not the strongest singer in the land he sounds quite impassioned throughout and he is most energised on the more dramatic numbers on show here. Billy, introduced by Gray as “a song about the old West,” is an excellent outlaw blues country tale with Widdop’s pedal steel snaking throughout and Chickenwire has a Calexico like dramatic sweep in its essence, the highlight of the album actually.

The addition of keyboard player Joe Newman and Liz Hanley on backing vocals add some more “oomph” to the last two songs. Back Alive snarls with a Texan proto punk attitude, the band attacking the song as if they were auditioning for a slot on Lenny Kaye’s Nuggets compilation. The closing song, When The Devil Comes Home, finds Gray at his most impassioned while, over its seven minutes, the band show off their chops ending with a maelstrom of sound which reminds one of the eastern scales pioneered by Kaleidoscope on their Beacon From Mars album.

 As a live “warts and all” album, Live 55 is ridiculously good and definitely recommended. And if Gray and his Burners venture forth from Sheffield then get in the queue for tickets. You won’t be disappointed.

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John Train. Cowboy Dreams. Chapter 7 Records

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John Train was first of all a character dreamed up by Phil Ochs as he increasingly fell prey to delusional thoughts, telling interviewers he was Train and had killed the real Ochs. A sad story. This John Train are a bunch of Philadelphians who have been recording for several years with Cowboy Dreams their first album to be released on vinyl. It was released some months ago in the States and recently a copy arrived here at Blabber’n’Smoke. We always accord vinyl submissions the appropriate sense of respect but we were immediately taken by the album art by acclaimed artist Crystal Latimer, well known for her work celebrating Latin American culture. The cover reminds one of celebrated albums by The Byrds, the New Riders Of The Purple Sage and Poco and the music contained within doesn’t stray too far from the era of those bands.

Talking of the album, songwriter and lead singer John Houlon says that when the band went into the studio to record he decided to “Pull all of my horse related material together and call the collection Cowboy Dreams.” The band (Houlon – vocal, acoustic guitar, Mike Brenner – steel guitar, dobro, Mike Frank – bass, Bill Fergusson – mandolin, bouzouki, Mark Tucker – lap steel, various guitars, piano and Mark Schreiber – drums, shaky things) play in a loose limbed country-folk-roots fashion which reminds one at times of the acoustic Grateful Dead along with Jerry Garcia’s bluegrass combo Old And In The Way while Brenner and Tucker’s pedal and lap steel solos add a little more bite (and twang) into the equation.

The instrumental track, Sun Up At Belmont, sets the scene perfectly with a whiff of Calexico included, then Blood Horses races in with the band setting a cosmic country groove as Houlon sings of the thoroughbreds which run at the Kentucky Derby. A spiralling guitar solo cements the Dead connection. Closer to the Dead’s offshoot, The New Riders, there’s the sparkling trot which is Since She Started To Ride (a Jonathan Richmond song) while Further (written by David Halley) is a wonderfully slow paced country lament. Twister meanwhile is quite a jaunty number which sounds like an upbeat John Stewart.

Somewhat surprisingly the title song is actually a cover of a Paddy McAloon song and the band don’t dramatically change it, they just dial it down a bit while adding some honeyed lap steel. It fits right in here. Toss in a furious honky tonk instrumental (Cuttin’ Down on Cuttin’ Up, Tucker’s contribution to the album) and a closing riposte to the opening instrumental (Sun Down At Belmont) and you have an album which, were it a horse, would be a sure bet.

Cowboy Dreams is available on John Train’s Bandcamp page

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Daniel Meade. An Essentially Non-Essential Compilation Of Recordings From The Last Ten Years (2013-2022).

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Whether you consider this generous helping of songs from the back catalogue of Glasgow’s Daniel Meade essential or not probably depends on how essential you consider Daniel Meade to be. Certainly, from Blabber’n’Smoke’s first encounter with the man (when he was supporting a then largely unknown Sturgill Simpson) we’ve been mightily impressed with him, as have a roll call of musicians such as the aforementioned Simpson along with  Old Crow Medicine Show and Diana Jones.

A bit of a musical polymath, Meade, after an early encounter with the heady world of rock’n’roll with The Ronelles (who were big in Japan), formed The Meatmen and then The Flying Mules, both forging a great live reputation before he set off on a solo career with As Good As Bad Can Be, the starting point for this compilation. The 21 songs here, handpicked by Meade, ranging from barrel house roustabouts, tear stained country songs and a handsome dash of well jollied honky tonk sing-alongs and whether recorded in Nashville or in Meade’s own front room, make for a great album which serves as a fine introduction for those not already in the Meade camp and as a handy quick fix for those who have the albums these songs are garnered from.

The album opens with Keep Right Away, the title song of his 2015 album, recorded with members of Old Crow Medicine Show and featuring Joshua Hedley on fiddle. It’s a fine example of Meade’s ability to mix rock’n’roll with country as the band skiffle along and he plays some Jerry Lee Lewis piano runs. The following Juliette jumps with a juke box jive with Meade channelling New Orleans greats such as Fats Domino while his regular guitar foil, Lloyd Reid appears with some scintillating guitar runs. There’s more of a pop sensibility to the next song, These Things Happen which, according to Meade, was influenced by his time supporting The Proclaimers. In the liner notes he states that the song is “not quite as good obviously” as anything the twins have delivered but he does himself an injustice here as it’s a grand guitar and horn fuelled number which has the crowd pulling effect of the Reid’s and is given a rumbustious delivery.

Three songs in and three quite different styles already. It’s a mark of Meade’s magpie ability to pluck treasure from wherever he lands and the remainder of the album confirms this. There are rousing live versions of It’s Not Your Fault It’s Mine and What You Waiting For along with a superb Bullets And Bones which all have a rockabilly heart while songs such as Let Me Off At The Bottom, Not My Heart Again and Sleeping On The Streets Of Nashville are country delights while there’s even a touch of Motown/Stax mod grooviness on the stomping By The Book. Dialling it down, Meade can deliver intimate moments as on the plaintive Fixing Quicksand and the tender love song which is Shooting Stars & Tiny Tears but one of the best moments on the disc is the very simple and very excellent Cocaine Jane which, once again, features the excellent guitar playing of Lloyd Reid. All in all, an excellent collection of songs.

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Terry Lee Hale. The Gristle & Bone Affair. Glitterhouse Records

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This 14th album from singer songwriter Terry Lee Hale is an enigmatic affair. It seems a deeply personal record and it’s certainly an intimate listen. Hale’s voice, somewhat wearied, is not a million miles removed from the Zen wisdom of Leonard Cohen while the song arrangements are spare, allowing his words to flow unimpeded. The words envelop a world suffused with aging, memory and regret without ever plainly stating their case. The closest there is to a narrative is on Alive Inside as, over an impressionist soundscape, Hale details the locked in misery of dementia, but the majority of the songs are more abstract , poems almost, set to music, the words flowing. Hale sums it up when he sings, “Time is a river just running away.”

Recorded with remote assistance during the pandemic Hale and his producer, Chris Eckman (of The Walkabouts) enlisted the support of Ziga Golob on contra bass for most of the songs along with occasional keyboard, pedal steel and violin input while an old Seattle buddy, Claire Tucker, sings on two of the numbers. Her multilayered contributions to Gone help to make this valedictory number the one song here most akin to Cohen’s latter songs while Hale invests it with a world weary, almost saddle sore regret. There’s a slight, oh so slight, cowboy lament to it as Hale bids goodbye to a lonesome stranger. The pull of the old west is also discernible in the opening number Oh Life where Hale waxes somewhat philosophically on our cradle to grave journey, his yearning vocals leaning towards Hank Williams, albeit with a Camus and Lou Reed bent, the latter recalled particularly by Catherine Graindorge’s violin with its echoes of John Cale’s Velvet Underground work.

The pensive and dream like Fish features some of Hale’s superlative guitar playing along with washes of pedal steel guitar (played by Jon Hyde) while Curve Away is dense and claustrophobic, the lyrics almost apocalyptic as they evoke a feeling similar to that of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. It’s followed by the bluesy wallow of Time Is A River which, in an opaque fashion, seems to be about the eternal struggle to overcome adversity with Hale sounding as much as a sage as Dylan on Time Out Of Mind. The album closes with Hale on his own on All Fall Down, his take on our current affairs if we’re reading it right as he sings of scorched earth politics and the policies of cruel. You can make your own mind up about who he is singing about in the line, “Hard to get around the elephant in the room” but we’ve made our mind up already.

Following on from his excellent albums, The Long Draw and Bound, Chained Fettered, The Gristle & Bone Affair finds Terry Lee Hale in top form. He’s a unique songsmith who has crafted a signature sound which is deeply immersive, meditative and thought provoking.

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The Williams Brothers. Memories To Burn. Regional Records

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Sometimes a story is just too perfect to believe and this fabulous record stretched our credulity almost to breaking point. A pitch perfect 10 song blinder with an Everly Brothers sound-alike set of twins singing a tremendous selection of songs (including two by Robbie Fulks) and backed by a great trio of Don Heffington on drums, Greg Leisz on steel guitar and Marvin Etzioni on bass and production duties, recorded in 1995 and only now seeing the light of day? Hard to believe.

Some Googling backs this up. The Williams Brothers (David and Andrew), nephews of Andy Williams (it just gets better doesn’t it) apparently did have some success in the late eighties and early nineties. How and why they then fell off the radar isn’t too clear but apparently they went their separate ways leaving this nugget waiting to be discovered.

Anyhow, the twins plus their stellar trio recorded these songs live in the studio straight to tape, trying to recreate a Sun Records type of vibe. Etzioni is at the helm throughout, writing four of the songs on display with the Everly Brothers clearly in his mind. The songs swing and vibrate with a classic fifties sound reminding one of Elvis Costello and T-Bone Burnett in their guise as The Coward Brothers, evident from the opening cover of Fulks’ Tears Only Run One Way which is nothing short of brilliant in its fulsome country lope with keening pedal steel and the twins singing as if conjoined. Obviously enjoying revisiting this age of rock’n’roll innocence, they tear through two songs which both have a heart of darkness to them as if they were playing a high school prom but then vintage rock’n’roll always had a bit of a death wish about it so their versions of Robbie Fulks’ She Took A Lot of Pills And Died and The Kinks Dave Davies’  Death Of A Clown fit right in here.

Etzioni excels on the title track which is the most Everly like song on the album although it twists its way through key and tempo changes in an oddly intriguing manner. You Can’t Hurt Me and Cryin’ And Lyin’ may be more straightforward but with Leisz’s pedal steel driving the songs they are so authentic they almost hurt. And speaking of hurt, Unanswered Prayers is the follow up to Love Hurts you’ve been waiting all these years for.

As befits an album steeped in a 1950’s vibe, the 10 songs here are delivered in a 22 minute blast but each minute counts and there’s no sense of being short changed. It’s a brilliant album and is highly recommended.

The Sons Of Adam. Saturday’s Sons – The Complete Recordings 1964-1968. High Moon Records

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Occasionally Blabber’n’Smoke will wander off the roots music path to investigate other releases and when this fine compilation of 1960s garage rock popped through the door, we were definitely intrigued. The band’s name was familiar and, sure enough, there they were on one of the Pebbles LPs with a song written by none other than Arthur Lee of Love. That song, Feathered Fish, was a powerful slice of early pop psychedelia (with Lee revisiting some of it on Love’s Seven + Seven Is) and to have it here, in vastly better sound quality, was the gateway drug into spending some time with this disc.

For a band who released no albums and who really are no more than a footnote in the annals of Nugget styled punk/garage/psychedelia, they are treated very generously here. Available on CD or as a double vinyl release with a detailed 48 page booklet, it’s a very handsome package. Consisting of the A and B sides of their three singles, three unreleased studio songs and an eight song live set recorded at San Francisco’s Avalon Ballroom in 1966, the album also contains six numbers recorded when the band were into surf music and went by the name of The Fender IV. Altogether, that’s around 70 minutes of prime mid sixties LA rock.

The disc kicks off with the live show which has them playing four of their own songs alongside typical beat group fare such as the Solomon Burke number Everybody Need Someone To Love, The Yardbirds’ Evil Hearted You and, of course, Gloria. The sound quality is quite astounding as the band pound through their set with guitarist Randy Holden sounding like John Cipollina as he eviscerates Gloria with all manner of mind bending guitar effects. They sound as tight as a duck’s ass on stage and the studio songs reinforce the idea that, had they taken off, they could have been major chart contenders. They sound confident and assured and there’s a definite punch, especially on the four songs produced by Gary Usher. They kick off with the Mersey beat influenced Take My Hand before looking to The Stones on Tomorrow’s Going To be Another Day. I Told You Once Before and Without Love sally into folk rock territory al la The Byrds or The Turtles and their take on You’re A Better Man Than I is much more muscular than The Yardbirds version while its B side, Saturday’s Son is a rocket fuelled belter.

The postscript surfing numbers by The Fender IV which complete the album are certainly not there just to pad out the album. Leaning much more towards Dick Dale than Brian Wilson they’re turbo charged with the guitars set to stun as on the thrilling Mar Gaya and Everybody Up while Lonely Surf Guitar is quite simply, just astounding. All in all, a fantastic collection and a must for anyone interested in garage/punk/surf/psych pop of the sixties.

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Ian M Bailey. You Paint The Pictures. Kool Kat Music

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“If it ain’t broke then don’t fix it” goes the old axiom and, in Ian M Bailey’s case he certainly adheres to it. A veritable one man band, Bailey has just about cornered the market in revitalised California inspired jangled pop and rock over the past couple of years and You Paint The Pictures reinforces this, albeit with more nods to the trippier side of LA than on his previous album Songs To Dream Along To.

Once again Bailey has co-written all of the songs with Glasgow’s Daniel Wylie, the pair seeming to be in, a word which has recently become all too familiar, lockstep. And, as before, their collaboration comes up with golden nuggets such as on the sunshine rays of Life Without You which is just about as perfect a candied California pop confection as one could wish for. In fact, several of the songs here inhabit a similar terrain with jangled guitar and heavenly harmonies coalescing as on Change Is Easy and I Wanted The Sun To Shine while I Don’t Want To Start Again zones into mid sixties Gene Clark territory and does so brilliantly.

The trippier aspect looms large on the instrumental The Year Of The Tiger, a mobius strip like repetition channelling The Doors with its groovy organ pulse while Brazil, a Mondo Hollywood like loose limbed slinky affair really should come accompanied by psychedelic lighting and painted go-go dancers being ogled by Jack Nicholson and Peter Fonda. However, it’s the mini epic Dreams Of Love which really takes all of the honours here as Bailey wanders, wide eyed, through a psychedelic mindscape peopled by the likes of David Crosby and Curt Boettcher, creating a truly impressive trip of a song. Sure enough, You Paint The Pictures is coloured by the past, but Bailey and Wylie bring that past bang up to date with a super high definition fidelity. It’s a gorgeous listen.

Buy You Paint The Pictures here

Rob Heron & The Tea Pad Orchestra. The Party’s Over. Tea Pad Recordings

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After the relatively inward looking Soul Of My City, an album which found these retro rockers adding some social commentary regarding their home town of Newcastle amidst their usual old time carousing, The Party’s Over might be considered as a coming of age album. The opening and closing songs (Go Home (The Party’s Over) and The Doctor Told Me) both deal with the perils of over indulgence and the inevitable reckoning while several other cuts are sung in the wake of break ups. However, anyone fearing a sober and sombre listen need not fear as the band inject the songs with their usual infectious joy.

They open with the hybrid jug band blues of Go Home (The Party’s Over) which romps along with Tom Cronin’s harmonica getting a starring part (reminding one of Jimmie Fadden of The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band) and they bookend the album in a similar style (with more of a tongue in cheek attitude) on The Doctor Told Me although here the song eventually blows up into a grand New Orleans like bluster. In between, and as on previous albums, they sashay from style to style with some aplomb.

There’s the sax blown exotic sway of She Hypnotised Me which rivals the work of Leiber & Stoller’s songs for the Coasters, the zydeco strut of Snip Snap Snout and, quite wonderfully, a trip to the American south west on the Morricone influenced The Horse That You Rode In, a total hoot of a song with Heron tackling every cliché he can find (lyrically and musically) and doing so quite brilliantly, whip lash and all.  That song is followed by what might be the best one on the album which is the glorious rock’n’roll rumble of Dilly Dally Sally, a song which finds the band on fire with twanged guitar and urgent organ stabs pushing Heron’s frenzied vocals.

While there’s always been a great deal of fun to be had with Rob Heron’s previous albums, it’s very  tempting to say that The Party’s Over is his and The Tea pad Orchestra’s best yet. You can check for yourself as the band are currently on tour, all dates here.

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