Glasgow Americana Round Up Pt. 1

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Blink and you’ll miss it. Well, not quite but Glasgow’s annual celebration of all things country and, well, Americana, is indeed small but as so often happens it’s also perfectly formed – five days of world class entertainment on your backdoor, what’s not to like about that. For Blabber’n’Smoke it was even smaller as diary engagements (including a commitment to review Pokey LaFarge who was in town as well) meant that we missed what one might call “the big guns,” Bruce Cockburn and Tom Russell (you can read The Herald reviews of these acts here). So it was down to four shows (and ten acts!) on the Saturday and Sunday, a concentrated dose of new and returning talent that at times was stunning and at the very least terrific entertainment.

Saturday’s action took place at The Glad Cafe on the South Side, an excellent venue for intimate shows allowing the audience an up close and personal contact with the performers, all of whom seemed to enjoy the intimacy.

Betty Soo and Danny Schmidt (with Carrie Elkin). Saturday Matinee

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A second generation Korean American, Betty Soo is a Texan so she comes already armed with that State’s innate gift of storytelling in song. A selection of songs from her new album, When We’re Gone, displayed her talent well; Last Night, a swooning lament of a betrayed lover was sung with a desolate sense of loneliness with Curtis McMurtry (up for this one song) adding some understated banjo notes while When We’re Gone was another tender song detailing the mementos we leave behind. Wheels showed that Ms. Soo can be defiant with this more upbeat song although again the lyrics, while celebrating life seemed to accept that we all hurtle towards the inevitable end.

Armed with only her guitar and beguiling voice Soo had the audience rapt with older songs (a tremendous Whisper My Name) and a new song that captured again the aftermath of a break up as she catalogued a list of daily activities, once routine but now perpetual reminders of loneliness (no one there to tell you to shut the cupboard door). As we said Ms. Soo is from Texas and she paid homage to one of the great Texans with a rendition of Butch Hancock’s Boxcars, slowing it down and infusing it with a fine sense of loss and regret.

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It was a welcome surprise to see Danny Schmidt arrive on stage accompanied by his wife, Carrie Elkin as she hadn’t been billed to appear. A fine vocal foil for Schmidt’s husky voice, adding harmonies to the songs Ms. Elkin also had the opportunity to display her recently established command of the mouth organ which led to one of the better quips of the days as Danny added “I could have asked Neil Young to marry me” after one of her “moothie” solos. An affable host Schmidt spent a good deal of time talking; about his songs, explaining their genesis with a sly wit or engaging in repartee with Elkin, obviously relishing his relationship with her and singing the song he wrote by way of proposing marriage (and you can see that song at the bottom of this article).

Aside from the obvious happiness of the couple Schmidt got down to business with a solid performance, his excellent guitar technique, bending strings and achieving some fine vibrato and tremolo effects, adding colour and dynamics to the songs. He opened with Paper Cranes from his current release, Owls and several songs from the album featured with Schmidt delivering his thoughts on ecology, god and gun control (on Soon The Earth Will Swallow, Looks Like God and Guns and The Crazy Ones) but his best was on the spooky and dusty ballad Bad Year For Cane while his solo rendition of an older song, Stained Glass was a masterclass in storytelling, the words pouring out like a torrent towards the end. Rounding up the show, the pair returned to the Texan theme with their rendition of Guy Clark’s Stuff That Works, a fine and comfortable way to finish off with.

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Betty Soo. When We’re Gone. Independent release.

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Still banging on about the Glasgow Americana Festival (which starts today folks, see here for details) we were surprised to find Betty Soo scheduled to appear. Blabber’n’Smoke encountered Betty’s fine albums back in 2011 here and here after which she seemed to drop off the map. Well, perhaps she was quiet on the album front but according to her press release she’s been busy; touring, attending to friends with personal and mental health problems and managing her own health which has been problematic at times.

Nice then to hear that Soo remains at the top of her game on When We’re Gone, a swoonful mix of laid back country and folk styled songs, her wonderful voice surrounded at times by the graceful pedal steel stylings of Lloyd Maines or marinated in soothing cello. The cello is played by Soo’s primary foil here, producer Brian Standefer who recorded the album at his studio in Texas and together the pair have crafted an exquisite piece.

There are songs that have the inbuilt pain and heartache one expects from Mary Gauthier, The Things She Left Town With being the primary example. It’s a wonderful song, hesitant and painful, Soo’s voice emotional but distant, observing the scene as Will Sexton skilfully fleshes it out with some mournful guitar flourishes. There’s sadness scattered throughout the album. Last Night aches with betrayal as does Josephine, a song that that could have been written by Janis Ian, its inner city folkiness redolent of bed sit listening. Aside from some of the country leanings and its Texas origins, most notable on the curling guitar of Sexton on Love Is Real,  the album actually is more akin to late night musings in Greenwich Village. The Paul Simon styled title of 100 Different Ways Of Being Alone is home to a relatively fast paced deliberation on alienation and loneliness while Hold Tight swims with shimmering cello and recalls Laura Nyro’s city ballads.

When We’re Gone is an album that should mark Ms. Soo out as a major talent, her voice is like crystal, her songs heartfelt and delivered with grace and beauty. Any doubts as to this should be dispelled by her crowning achievement here, the heart rending Nothing Heals A Broken Heart. A meditation on a mother’s loss of her child it’s a monumental song, borne along on a weeping cello with an empathetic rhythm section the song weeps tears as Soo captures the mother’s pain in a series of vignettes opening with these lines.

We took your seat out of the car after a couple of weeks but your room is still unchanged/ Yellow and lime Jeans still crumpled in the basket/a small tear on the left knee from a big old oak you were proud to climb.

Five and a half minutes of heartache, the bass like a heartbeat and Soo, harmonising with herself, drenched in regret, it’s one of the best songs we’ve heard this year. Listen and weep.

As we said above Betty Soo is appearing at Glasgow Americana. She’s appearing with Danny Schmidt at The Glad Cafe on Saturday 10th October and on the strength of this album you’d be daft not to see her.

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Glasgow Americana Festival 2015 : 7th to 11th October.

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This week sees the ninth annual Glasgow Americana Festival and as always it’s an excellent opportunity to see and hear some top notch acts in an intimate setting far removed from the arenas and concert halls that often act as a barrier between audience and artist.

Festival director Kevin Morris will be no stranger to readers here as he is responsible for The Fallen Angels Club who promote shows throughout the year, his keen ear responsible for bringing the likes of Sturgill Simpson to Glasgow well before his star was in the ascendancy. The past week’s been a bit of a blizzard of last minute preparations for Kevin but he was kind enough to take some time to speak to Blabber’n’Smoke. We started by recalling the first festival back in 2007 which Kevin organised as a tribute to Billy Kelly, a key player in the local and national scene going back to the days of Mayfest and who was responsible for Big Big Country, Glasgow’s first Americana festival. Mary Gauthier appeared that year and was recorded in The Herald describing Kelly as “an angel,” his patronage among the significant stepping stones on a career that has taken her to Nashville as a major label recording artist.

Kevin: The Glasgow music scene sadly lost Billy in 2007 and he has been hard to replace ever since. Glasgow Americana has tried to fill the gap that was left after Billy’s sudden passing, and hopefully Billy is looking down us with an approving look at what we have achieved since we started in 2007. We always have a wish list year on year and go about trying to make it happen, we are lucky to have these amazing artists making the festival as part of their tours. We already have some ideas for both 2016 and 2017, so we will see what develops, but probably best to get the 2015 festival out the way first.

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Over the nine years there have been numerous artists performing but we wondered if there were any particular moments that stood out for Kevin

There have been loads and that it is a very good and a tricky question, I suppose one that does stand out was Alejandro Escovedo at The Arches in 2011. Also our Americana Saturday in 2012, we had Sam Baker playing the matinee show in The CCA and then Eliza Gilkyson play the evening show that year, that was a very special day indeed.

Kevin and his team are well known for their hospitality for the acts he puts on with many returning time and time again and who regard Kevin as a friend and not just the promoter. He told us a little bit about a special occasion for him earlier this year.

I have been very lucky with the people I have met through putting on shows, and have made so many friends from across the pond. Myself and my wife Lauren got married in Austin, Texas in June of this year. While we were there we met up with some musician friends that have played for us over the years, including Sam Baker, Eliza Gilkyson and Chip Dolan. On our wedding day we were very fortunate enough to have Alejandro Escovedo as a witness at our wedding ceremony over looking Barton Springs. Not your average day for a wee boy from Bothwell.

With that Kevin was back attending to business for what will be a busy week for him. The Festival kicks off on Wednesday 7th October with Bruce Cockburn playing at St. Andrews in the Square while Tom Russell plays the same venue on Friday 9th. Other venues are The Glad Cafe which has Danny Schmidt and Betty Soo on a matinee show on 10th October and Lewis & Leigh and Curtis McMurtry (son of James) that same evening while The CCA has Kathryn Williams and Michele Stodart (The Magic Numbers) on Thursday 8th October and a matinee show from Sam Lewis and Krista Detor on the11th.
The festival ends with Findlay Napier’s Hazy Recollections, his peripatetic event that showcases several acts and is hosted by Napier himself, the man responsible for one of the finest Scottish albums this year in his disc Very Important Persons. His VIPs for the night will be Sam Lewis, Dark Green Tree and Kera Impala and it’s shaping up to be a very interesting evening.

We’ll leave the final words to Kevin as we tried to get him to spill the beans on whether he had any particular artist or group who would be his ultimate Glasgow Americana catch, his “bucket list” as such. Kevin pondered on this before replying… Yes, but I’m not telling you anything else about that.

Full line ups and dates are here http://www.glasgowamericana.com/

Reviews of the latest albums from some of the acts are here
Sam Lewis
Lewis & Leigh
Tom Russell
Findlay Napier
Dark Green Tree

And finally here’s a clip of Sturgill Simpson closing last year’s Glasgow Americana Festival.

Latest Blabberings

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Here’s a few of the albums which have been rocking this joint over the past week.

Betty Soo and Doug Cox Across the Borderline: Lie to Me.

Blabber’n’Smoke first encountered Betty Soo a few months ago. Now she’s teamed up with ace guitarist Doug Cox to produce a fine, simple and superb album of covers. Soo is of Korean stock and hails from Texas while Cox is Canadian. Meeting at a guitar camp (indeed, do such things exist?) they appear to have shared a mutual admiration for Doug Sahm (whom Cox worked with) and soon Cox was touring with Soo. Together they cooked up the idea for this album wanting to share their favourite songwriters with the listener. Hence an album of songs by the likes of Loudon Wainwright, Butch Hancock, Sahm and Guy Clark along with lesser known talents such as Jeff Talmadge and Betty Elders.
Stripped back, the album features the pair on vocals with Cox’s fine resophonic guitar playing shining throughout. It’s an intimate affair, perfect for late night listening and the song selection is spot on. While the goofy country of Big Cheeseburgers (by Blaze Foley) and the bluesy Boxcars (Butch Hancock) are superb readings they excel on a pair of ballads. Betty Elders’ Light in Your Window showcases Soo’s fine clear voice while Guy Clark’s Dublin Blues ends the album on a high note.
Soo and Cox will be touring the UK in September and appear in Scotland for three dates.

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Brothers Reid. Top of the Old Road

Brothers Reid are a band from Aberdeen who take Americana by the scruff of the neck and give it a good shake. A busy bustling band this debut might be a little muddy in its production but they have a fine line in their mixture of West Coast influenced rock with some folk influences thrown in. Starting off with Done and Dusted the harmonies and sinewy guitars hint at evenings spent listening to old Steve Miller and Moby Grape albums. Flea Circus continues in this vein but it’s the third song, Farmboy Blues which catches the listener’s ear. While it has a hint of the Grateful Dead’s country leanings the band steer it away from homage with an extended coda that has some fine guitar and strings. The outright folk embellishments on the following song City Lights come as a bit of a shock at first but are a brave reminder that the band hails from Scotland and not California. Despite that California is never far from the mind as they deliver their epic Roll On, a guitar churning slow flowing piece that sounds like it might be a killer heard live. Similarly the closing title song, a blues boogie whose harmonica parts recollect Canned Heat could have an audience on its feet yelling for more. Promising.

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JD Malone & the Experts. Avalon

For a debut album his is a bit of a behemoth. Based in Philadelphia Malone and crew have produced a package that one generally expects from established bands. Comprising of two discs, the actual album on CD (with 13 tracks and five bonus cuts) and a DVD of them rehearsing in the studio it looks mighty impressive. Best of all however is the fact that Malone et al pull this off with no sign of filler throughout this bar the repetition of one song, Just Like New which has a “radio edit” version tacked on. Fitting perhaps as this band are nothing other than radio friendly with their version of blue collar American rock. Ringing and stinging guitars, sweet pedal steel and a rocking rhythm section back up Malone’s impassioned vocals on a series of songs that sound as familiar as hell after a few listens. The jangling intro Silver From is straight out of Earle county while the spooky Emmit Meets a Demon recalls the Byrds’ forays into swamp rock. Leave Us Alone has hints of the Jayhawks as has the Ballad of Mr. Bardo.
Covers of Creedence’s Fortunate Son (a great version by the way) and Tom Petty’s I Should Have Known It (on the DVD) show where the band are coming from. While they won’t win many awards for originality they do deserve an award for delivering this fine slice of energetic and rocking Americana.

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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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