Rod Picott. Welding Burns.

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Picott is for want of a better term, a “blue collar” singer songwriter. Working in the same field (more appropriately factory but that doesn’t really fit) as Springsteen in his more contemplative moments he celebrates working life. While he’s never set the heather on fire his albums have always been dependable slices of weary lived in tales delivered in a laconic style. Welding Burns will be no surprise to anyone who’s familiar with his work, some co-writes with Slaid Cleaves, harmonies by Amanda Shires and some fine picking and playing from some superb Nashville cats.
The 10 songs here are all fine examples of Picott’s work, vignettes, little slices of life. The title song tells of the inability of ordinary folk to move on from their inheritance. Delivered over a Southern blues groove with some fine fiddle from Shires it’s a powerful performance. Black T-shirt continues in this vein as a high school drop out sees the only way out to be robbery. The criminality and the southern vibe continues in 410.
Still I Want You Bad is an achingly heartfelt love song addressed to a partner whose bad habits don’t matter. Will Kimbrough adds some fine guitar here (as he does throughout). The album’s themes of loss, poverty and disillusion are gathered together in the opening song, Rust Belt Field. As the factories of the likes of Detroit closed the workers are left, bereft of self-respect and scrambling for any chance of a quick buck. Picott portrays this with a degree of empathy and a wonderful delivery. All in all a fine listen and a powerful indictment of the plight of some ordinary folk in the USA of today.
A regular visitor to these shores, Picott has a Glasgow date pencilled in for October.
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Rust Belt Fields

Ciara Sidine. Shadow Road Shining

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Dublin songwriter Ciara Sidine’s debut album Shadow Road Shining is a fine example of a writer taking a genre, in this case Americana (a broad church I’ll admit), and adding some local colour. Here the colour is undoubtedly of a Celtic hue. Aided and abetted by a crew of Irish session players including Steve Wickham (Waterboys, violin) and Justin Carroll (Van Morrison, keyboards) her songs are for the most part warm and comforting, cosseted by Carroll’s Hammond organ while Wickham’s violin adds a folky tilt best heard on the lilting The Arms of Summer. The folk roots are well displayed again on Constellations High where she duets with Jack Lukeman on a maritime tale. The meat of the album however resides in the songs which delve into the American south with the Muscle Shoals sound appearing to be an influence typified by the slow burning keyboards and guitar playing of Connor Brady. Mercy Moon has an earthy feel with churning guitar and even a hint of Fleetwood Mac’s Christine McVie. Hollow the Breeze is less successful in its attempt to capture that southern feel but all is redeemed by Sweet Breath On A Lonesome Flame. Here Sidine succeeds admirably in marrying her folk side to a southern groove, a beautiful song.

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Sweet Breath On A Lonesome Flame

The Wilders, Classic Grand, Glasgow. 15th May 2011.

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Kansas City band The Wilders are becoming such frequent visitors to Glasgow that going to see them has become almost akin to popping down to your local to see the resident band on a weekend. This was the fourth time this reviewer has seen them in the space of around 18 months and looking around at the audience there were several others obviously in the same boat. Having said that each show has had its own character with the one constant being the fire and occasional ferocity with which they deliver their set. Their last appearance here was at Celtic Connections playing to around a thousand folk in the Old Fruitmarket. Tonight their audience numbered in the one hundred plus but there was no difference in their approach or delivery and the intimacy of the smaller venue added to the connection that many of the audience have with this fine band.
With a new album on the shelves (review following soon) there was a slew of new songs, some of which were previewed at the Celtic Connections show. Having heard the album however one was struck by the impact the live delivery has with a song like L.A., a frenzied enough song on the album delivered in a maelstrom with fiddler Betse Ellis in particular screeching like the proverbial devil’s elbow.
In fact all of the songs from the new album gained impressively tonight, partly perhaps from only a slight listening to the CD but there is no doubt that the Wilders thrive on the stage. Whether delivering tender folk songs such as singer Ike Sheldon’s acclaimed Hi Little Darlin’ and the new album’s bitter sweet This Old Town, the honky tonk reveries penned by Phil Wade or the muscular roots rock from bassist Nate Gawron the difference is akin to that of seeing a favourite movie in high definition for the first time. Spectacular.
Highlights of the show included an inspired rendition of My Final Plea where the band conjured up the ghost of Hank Williams and several “shitkickin” (Ike’s description) hoedowns including their always crowd pleasing Keep my Skillet Good and Greasy.
To encore The Wilders invited the support band, The Dirty Beggars, a fine young crew from Peebles who played a rousing set earlier, to stand in front of the stage and deliver an Old Crow Medicine show song, Wagon Wheel which ultimately was a fine end to a fine night.

Gregory Alan Isakov. This Empty Northern Hemisphere.

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We’ve said it before and here we’ll say it again. One of the pleasures of reviewing albums sent from God knows where is that amidst the chaff there is always some wheat. An album that tumbles into our lap unannounced but which has that essence, that pull which reaffirms our belief that music can be transcendental, beautiful, moving.
From the moment Dandelion Wine poured from the speakers the ears perked up. A skeletal banjo joins a simple guitar line, mournful and desolate before a string section joins in. Isakov ‘s voice floats over this, warm and comforting before it is joined by his sometime vocal collaborator, Brandi Carlisle. A beautiful song it sets the scene for the remainder of this album which envelops the listener in an aural feast. Isakov cites Iron and Wine, Kelly Joe Phelps and Leonard Cohen as his influences but there are elements galore here of Tim Hardin, Nick Drake and the relatively unknown Hobotalk. Overall there is a sense of melancholy delivered with a resigned air as Isakov sings tales of lonely souls, travellers and lost lovers. His lyrics are rich but cloaked in poetic smoke and mirrors, his voice is for the most part wearied and relaxed and on several of the songs he is accompanied by Carlile who harmonises well. The true beauty of the album however is in the textures of the sound. For an album “recorded in many different locations, a closed down bookshop, my apartment, the studio and our friend Brandi Carlile’s house” there is a fantastic sense of dynamics. The songs ebb and flow with an organic feel and the playing is excellent. While most of the songs rest gently on an acoustic guitar bed the instrumental trimmings, be it piano, vibes, banjo, violin, viola or cello support and at times lift the songs into a sumptuous space that is at times mesmerising. He ends the album with a fine cover of a Leonard Cohen song, One Of Us Cannot Be Wrong where he and Carlile capture perfectly Cohen’s miserabilist approach.
Isakov is playing in the UK in June however at present there are no Scottish shows which is a pity.
(Edit) Been informed that there is a Glasgow gig at Brel on June 1st.
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that Moon Song

Hungrytown. Any Forgotten Thing.

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When an album plops into the Blabber office with a press release noting it was recorded in rural America by a husband and wife team we generally fire up the search engine and head to backwoods Appalachia for reference points. Hungrytown however forsake old time country and down-home hoots. The reference points here are the folk duos who populated the sixties from Simon and Garfunkel (OK, two guys but you get the drift) to Richard and Mimi Farina and all points between. Back then a whiff of old time Americana music might occasionally peek through but the primary influences were English (or Scots or Irish) folk song delivered in a bright collegiate style, precious, unsullied.
Hungrytown, Rebecca Hall and Ken Anderson, capture that innocent era perfectly on this, their second album. Hall has a crystal clear voice while Anderson provides accompaniment and harmonies that have a naïve, innocent vibe especially when he adds glockenspiel to his guitar, mandolin, banjo and assorted other instruments. At times there is just too much sweetness and light and although they never descend into Puff the Magic Dragon land a song like Rolling Train with it’s opening lines “You’ll never stop the wind, never stop the rain/By standing in the path of a hurricane” is just a little bit too twee. Although they teeter on this edge on a few other songs happily the majority are rescued by some excellent harmonies and on the opening song “Year Without Summer” they turn in a real showstopper. A historical tale based on the long winter that followed the eruption of a volcano in 1815, Hall sings like Judy Henske on a song that could have been delivered on her Farewell Aldebaran album. The measured delivery even has some touches of early Pentangle about it and the addition of harmony vocals from Laura Molinelli adds a fine icy grandeur. The dreamlike Calliope with its circus waltz tune and Sally Lazy, a distant cousin to Sally Go Round The Roses could sit easily on a Hollywood psychedelic soundtrack featuring the likes of Tuesday Weld running through a meadow in slow motion.
Hungrytown will be touring the UK in may with a performance in Penicuik included. Dates on the website

Year Without Summer

Greg Trooper Upside-Down Love.

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For every Steve Earle or John Prine there are a dozen of other singer songwriters who don’t shift as many units or garner as much press acclaim. You could call them second division but essentially that’s unfair. Time after time I’ve been pleasantly surprised and on occasion gobsmacked by an album that is simply terrific but which struggles to get out of the starting gate. There’s a vast hinterland out there, jobbing musicians, troupers indeed who might not have the killer touch or the luck to be plucked out and cast into the spotlight. Instead they carry on, delivering quality songs to a small but discerning audience who benefit from a unique relationship with the artist, mingling after a gig, communicating via the big old interweb and most recently helping to finance the recording and delivery of an artist’s album.
If a police artist was asked to produce a photofit of someone fitting the above description then it could very well look like Greg Trooper. With several albums under his belt since the mid eighties he’s had his songs recorded by Steve Earle and Vince Gill and been produced by Buddy Miller and Dan Penn. Setting up his own label, 52 Shakes, he’s used kickstarter to finance this album with donations from his fanbase. Well, his fanbase kicked in and here’s the result, released in time to prime UK fans for a tour in April and May.
While the album doesn’t blaze any trails Trooper is a confident and assured writer and he’s gathered a band that deliver a sweet, slightly southern soaked slice of Americana with a Muscle Shoals organ and guitar sound on many of the songs. This results in the driving Time For Love and the J.J. Cale groove of Nobody In The whole Wide World, both guaranteed to have the hips swinging. Elsewhere Trooper’s singer/songwriting roots are well displayed on a brace of songs that deliver the goods in the tradition of Guy Clark and Butch Hancock. First True Love is a delicate love song while Everything Will Be Just Fine could be used as a template for a perfect Americana troubadour song.
The good news is that Trooper is touring the UK from late April with some Scottish dates including Laurie’s in Glasgow on 30th April. Check the others on his website.

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Everything Will be Just Fine

The Foghorn Trio. Sud de la Louisiane.

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Been a while since we’ve had any old time string band music to mention so here’s one that’s coming out in May and is an absolute delight from start to finish. The Foghorn Trio comprise of two members of the Foghorn Stringband, an outfit from Portland, Oregon, Caleb Klauder (fiddle, mandolin and guitar) and Stephen Lind (fiddle, banjo and guitar) who have teamed up with Quebec born Nadine Landry who plays bass and guitar with all three sharing vocal duties. The title is a bit of a misnomer as there is little in the way of Louisiana here other than the title track, a Cajun song delivered by Landry. That said the album was recorded in Eunice, Louisiana by producer Joel Savoy whose rural studio is featured on the album cover.
The meat of the album is in god fearin’ honest homilies delivered in the style of the likes of the Carter Family along with strong instrumentals that feature the band’s dexterity. The majority of the songs are covers and they are astonishingly good at capturing the earnestness, innocence and to be fair the slightly hokum quality that is a quintessential ingredient in the pleasure one gets from listening to pre war country music. Two songs illustrate this perfectly. The Carter Family’s Hello Central is an aching plea to the Almighty from a youngster trying to contact his deceased mother, while Benton Flippen and The Smokey Valley Boys’ Go Home is a tremendous temperance plea. Listening to the versions here one could be forgiven for thinking you had been transported to a black and white world where television had not yet been invented and the sounds you hear guide your moral compass with your primary release being the weekend dance where you can let loose to the joyful fiddle and guitar of A Bottle of Wine and Gingercake.
Two originals by Caleb Klauder, the instrumental Puttin’ Up The Wood and Just A Little, a song very much in the tradition fit right in to the overall feel of the album. So pull out your bible, put away that demon drink and thank God you’re alive and able to enjoy such a fine recreation of past, more innocent times served with such virtuosity and love.
The Foghorn Trio play some dates in the UK in May.

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Hello Central

A Bottle of Wine and Gingercake

The Wailin’ Jennys. Bright Morning Stars.

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Canadian sirens The Wailin’ Jennys are a publicist’s delight. Attractive, talented, perfect for tasteful radio play, winners of numerous awards, it seems they can do no wrong. On this, their fifth release and the first for True North Records they maintain the qualities that have so far helped them remain leaders in the field. Blabber’n’Smoke was lucky enough to see them in St. Andrews In the Square a few years ago and can testify to the enchanting lure of their voices.
On Bright Morning Stars their vocals remain the primary feature. Each of the trio ( Ruth Moody, Nicky Mehta and Heather Masse) take ownership of the songs they have written with the others adding sublime harmonies. They are supported by a very sympathetic band in an atmospheric setting that recalls Daniel Lanois’ trademark sound (the album was co-produced by Mark Howard and Dave Travers-Smith). The result is an intimate snugfest, perfect for relaxing while wallowing in the soft comforting pillows of sound. Although the Jennys provide one acapella song (the title track) and sing Asleep At Last accompanied only by acoustic guitars the beauty here is in the arrangements and playing. Much of this is down to the excellent and various guitar players who adorn many of the songs in a manner that is ever so slightly reminiscent of the intricacies of Bert Jansch and John Renbourne duetting. This is heard to best effect on All The Stars and What has Been Done. The one drawback here is Cherry Blossom Love, a fine song delivered well but its retro swing feel puts it slightly at odds with the rest of the album.
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March Musings: The Flyin’ A’s, Alicia McGovern, Little Miss Higgins.

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The Flyin’ A’s “Til They shut It Down”
Texan couple, Hilary and Stuart Adamson are the Flyin’ A’s, their name taken from a brand that was seared onto the hides of cattle many moons ago on Stuart Adamson’s family ranch. As such its an apt name because in common with their bovine forebears they can be described as shit kicking in the best sense. Aided and abetted by a fine crew including the great Lloyd Maines on pedal steel they deliver a fine set of songs that range from bar room belters to sobbing ballads all done in a fine Texan style. Ain’t that Something in particular has some wonderful Maines’ playing although he sprinkles magic all over the album. Adamson writes well and several of the songs could be comfortably grafted onto on any number of top selling country artists with the best example being One More Time which would just spill out of radio speakers. A cover of Joe Tex’s (I Want To) is a nitty gritty southern blues swamp while Jon Ims’ Good Luck is given a fantastic showing which should have radio programmers foaming at the lips.
With twang guitar, beer soaked sobs and shit kicking delivery this is a fine little album.

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Taking it down a notch Alicia McGovern’s Words Through The Season has been high on the Euro American chart for the past two months. Woody and rustic McGovern is one of those singers with a voice that is unconventional, brittle and occasionally cracked but which ultimately worms its way into the listener’s ear. In addition she plays some fine acoustic guitar and her songs are perfect examples of the craft. With a lineage going back to sixties icons such as Melanie up to modern day exemplars like Natalie Merchant McGovern delivers an album that is heartwarming in its simplicity with sympathetic and understated backing from Duke Levine, Brad Wentworth, Rob Jost and Daisy Castro. While all play with a light touch the delicate banjo on I Wanna Grow Old is excellent while the use of sitar on You Do Not Bring Me Flowers adds a slight exotic touch. McGovern writes well with the majority of the songs bittersweet meditations on love and its attendant problems although she has a fine, brittle Christmas song in The Holly and All . This song should be packed away and brought out each year along with the decorations. At times her songs are reminiscent of early Loudon Wainwright’s melancholic style.
The final cut, So Many Songs addresses the songwriter’s dilemma
“so many love songs we all sing/songs of birds with wide open wings/you think we’d have learned to do one or the other/either to love or to find better things/and all the songs still to be sung/all the days and nights still to come/to be filled with hands and heartaches/and star-hung moons and bring-down suns”
From start to finish a minor gem of an album.

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If you need a wake me up after the comfort blanket that is Through The Season then Canadian artist Little Miss Higgins’ Across The Plains might be just the thing. Sassy, sexy and in your face Higgins swings through a set of songs in a style that might best be described as swingtime jazz blues with its roots in Memphis Minnie and Bessie Smith as well as latter day proponents like Maria Muldaur and early KD Lang.
With trombone, saxophone and clarinet carrying the swing element Higgins plays a mean guitar giving the songs a powerful engine room drive under the jazzy froth. Banjo and violin add a western swing style to some of the songssuch as Snowin’ Today: A lament For Luis Reil. The song that jumps out immediately is the mildly salacious Bargain Shop Panties where Higgins sings about her underwear choices but the passion behind songs such as The Tornado Song and Hope You Don’t Feel Blue prove that there is more to her than mere titillation. So Glad Your Whiskey Fits Inside My Purse is an excellent primer, opening with a faux scratched recording before Higgins launches into a brilliant tale of smuggling booze into a venue. The closing song, Slaughterhouse (Revisited) abandons the swing concept to deliver a mean and dirty blues thump that sounds like a cross between Ry Cooder. Taj Mahal and P.J. Harvey.
Little Miss Higgins is touring the UK soon and has a date in Edinburgh at the Leith Folk Club on 29th march. I reckon that she’ll put on a mighty fine show.

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March Musings

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Going by the number of CDs sent to Blabber’n’Smoke there are countless country troubadours, singer songwriters and nitty gritty dirt bands out there releasing music by the boatload. The majority of these are folk who are not well known, who might have a local audience, have spent their savings on their vision. Self released or on local labels it’s encouraging that despite the oft trumpeted “death of the CD” a horde of well intentioned and usually quite talented musicians plug on. Although there is the occasional clunker the majority of these have something to say and they say it in style. With the advent of the blog musicians who might not have got a mention in newsprint have an outlet and can use the reviews to further promote their disc. All this is a prelude to this latest roundup, a bunch of folk who won’t feature in the major press outlets but who all have something to recommend them.


First up is Pete Sinjin with his debut Better Angels Radio. Sinjin is from New York and has produced a belter of an album that could be loosely categorised as country/folk rock. With lashings of guitar, pedal steel, mandolin and fiddle married to a solid rock rhythm section Sinjin delivers driving Californian type anthems, souped up Springsteen type rockers and jangley power pop. While the opening Driving California and the pell mell tumult of Romance of The Punkers are full bodied rockers in a Tom Petty vein Sinjin excels on the evocative Funeral Train, a memory of waiting for the carriage carrying Bobby Kennedy’s body back to Washington to pass through his town and the closing Shuhuykill Red, an impressionistic tale of a couple hanging about on a bridge, no Terry and Julie here but a song set against a wasteland of lost opportunities.

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From a fresh young thing to a grizzled veteran, Grant Peeples tried his luck in Nashville in the seventies but eventually ended up living on an island off of Nicaragua with his music on the back burner. A series of events led him back to the states and into the arms of Gurf Morlix who produced this album, Okra and Ecclesiastes. Peeples drinks from the well of Ray Wylie Hubbard and Guy Clark. His songs are spare muscular tales delivered with a world weary aplomb. While there are jaunty moments such as Last Great Buffalo Hunt (reminiscent of J.J. Cale in a Cajun style), spooky acoustic blues on Powerlines and on Lethal Injection Blues a chilling record of the last moments of a death row prisoner Peeples is at his best on the opening song My people Come From the Dirt. A powerful description of the lifestyle of a disenfranchised underclass. This is a powerful song, Peeples sings
“My people come from the dirt, full choke and steel guitar
Cigarettes and whiskey, and a dog chained in their yard
My people come from the dirt, white bread and kerosene
Catfish and flatbeds, sweat stains and retreads, okra and Ecclesiastes.”
The title refers to okra, a staple food of the rural poor and the book of Ecclesiastes which Peeples reads as meaning “all the strife, struggle and actions lf Man are vain, futile, empty, meaningless, temporary, transitory, hopelessly fleeting.” Glum indeed but the song itself is a searing indictment of the lot of the poor in the land of plenty.

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Gurf Morlix pops up again in the producers seat for Betty Soo’s Heat Sin Water Skin. He is all over this album, providing guitar and vocals and adding it to a fine line of south western roots music. Soo is a second generation Korean based in Austin and this is her fourth release. As one might anticipate from any project connected to Morlix this is a great sounding set with Soo delivering some sweet country sounds on Whisper My Name, sultry rock on Who Knows and a driving soulful sound on Still Small Voice. Throughout there is some fine sinewy guitar work from Morlix who manages to give this album the honest , sweet yet gritty feel that he attempted to give Lucinda Williams on the Car Wheels album. Soo has a fine clear voice that can be tender or ballsy as required and her writing is well up to par with all of the songs bar one written by her. The album was released two years ago in the states but is only now getting a UK push. Well recommended.

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