If your concept of boogie woogie piano only extends to hearing Jools Holland tinkling the ivories, no matter who he’s playing with on the telly, then prepare to have your boundaries expanded by Glasgow’s Daniel Meade on his latest album. While Meade is a versatile character, as seen on previous albums, a rocker, a balladeer, a country singer at times, Hip Hip Hooray! is a straightforward celebration of the piano tradition in rock’n’roll which of course encompasses Jerry Lee Lewis but here he pays special emphasis on the grand roll call of New Orleans players including Fats Domino, Professor Longhair, James Booker and Dr. John.

Whether the inspiration for the album was due to the acquisition of a new set of keyboards as laid out by Meade on the most immediate song here, Got A New Piano, is moot. What matters is that the song is a rip roaring barrel house trip with Meade announcing that he’s back in town with a brand new piano that won’t let you down. Fat horns adorn the rolling rhythm while the piano solos just trip and rip from the speakers while the chorus is tailor made for audience participation.

The album opens with the very brief shot which is The World Is On Fire, just a minute long but it sets the scene for what is to follow. There’s a brief respite halfway through but aside from that there’s little breathing space allowed as the album thrashes from start to end. There’s the aforementioned Got A New Piano which is then followed by the darkly humorous Carry Your Own Coffin, another rollicking horn blown boogie woogie which serves to remind us that Meade is a master of catchy choruses as he basically tells an estranged father to fuck off.  Come Back To Me is a Fats Domino like ramble with a slight zydeco influence while I’m An Addict (I Can’t Help It) skelps along with percussive handclaps bolstering the barrel house blues piano which drives the song. Meade’s talent for grabbing a headline title and chorus comes to the fore again on Crackpot Jackpot, a song which was probably recorded in Meade’s front room but sounds as if it were zooming in from Memphis’ Sun Studios. It also allows Lloyd Reid, Meade’s long time guitar foil, to unleash a solo. Reid gets another opportunity to shine on the closing song, Like Your Boogie Woogie, where he lets rip in between the verses as the song builds to a tumultuous climax.

We mentioned a possible chance to let our breath out amidst the album’s infectious onslaught and it’s to be found on the fifth song, Sinking Stone. Here, Meade harks back to the country tinged songs of Keep Right Away and his piano and organ cleave more to the likes of The Band as opposed to the New Orleans players which abound elsewhere. It’s a gorgeous song which just goes to demonstrate how versatile Meade is.

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

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

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

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

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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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What to do if you have to self isolate for a week after catching that nasty Corona virus bug thing? Well, if you’re Daniel Meade, once the first couple of days of (thankfully) mild sniffles are over, you sit right down and record your latest record. And so it was that in early January Glasgow singer and songwriter Meade, in covid house arrest, recorded Down You Go, six original songs and two covers in a stripped back manner which we last heard from him several years ago.

Forced to go back to basics, Meade reminds the listener of what a fine performer he is on his own, away from the raucous rock’n’roll of his band the Flying Mules and the pyrotechnics of his last couple of albums. Indeed, you need to go back to his earliest releases to find him in a similar compact and relaxed vein. And, while the album is home grown, Meade is quite the master at home recording so there’s no lo-fi nonsense here, the recording is clear and vital, his voice and guitar up close and intimate. In some ways it’s a perfect bedsit album, draw the curtains, and wallow in the sounds.

The album opens with the simple guitar strums and rippling piano of Fixing Quicksand with Meade inhabiting Jayhawks territory on a bittersweet love gone wrong song, a relationship with shakey foundations.  Contrary wise, If I Didn’t Have You, is a song of love and salvation with Meade giving thanks to his soulmate and confessing his past sins. Its simple melody, plucked guitar, slight percussion and strings remind one of very early Townes Van Zandt and Meade’s voice has a similar world weary  manner to that of Van Zandt’s. Meade continues in this vein on Down You Go although the theme is darker with a hint of Hank Williams thrown in. The jauntiest song on the album, Cocaine Jane, is beautifully simple. A strum along country roots song which follows in the footsteps of Johnny Cash, The Grateful Dead , Davey Graham and such, it’s a grand listen in a fine tradition.

Moving from Cocaine country to troubadour land,  Meade turns in an excellent exercise in wintry melancholy on Will You Still Love Me When It Rains, an incredibly moving song which, while once again reminiscent of some of the most sage singer songwriters around,  has Meade singing quite brilliantly, no mid Atlantic voice mannerisms here. Aside from his own songs, there are two covers on the record. There she Goes was written by Mark May, a Glasgow musician who died far too young. Meade played in May’s band while still in his teens and this is his affectionate tribute to a mentor. It’s a lovely song which has a hint of Gene Clark in its genes. The other cover is a bit of a surprise. Having watched that Bros documentary, Meade was inspired to take on their hit, When Will I Be Famous. Here he strips it back to the bone and reveals it as something like a cry for help. There are wisps of Leonard Cohen and The Proclaimers flitting around the delivery as Meade sings quite authoritatively and yet plaintively within his Covid imposed exile.

Down You Go is available as a download and extremely limited edition CD here.

Following on from his successful “back to the roots” album, If You Don’t Mind, recorded with long-term guitar partner, Lloyd Reid, Daniel Meade returns to his one-man band set up for his latest opus. Ever Wonder Why You Get Out Of Bed? is a disc which sees him continuing to pursue a fuller sound while retaining much of the spirit which has inhabited his recent releases.

It’s evident from the beginning, as the title song opens the album with a whistling wind behind Meade’s lonesome voice and strummed acoustic, before swelling into a grandiloquent mix of synths and fiery guitar, that Meade is aiming high. He paints a dystopian picture, a wail of despair really which includes a litany of life’s losers and villains. His words and the delivery are quite reminiscent of Pete Townshend’s work circa Who’s Next. Townshend comes to mind again when Sometime The Rain Don’t Get You Wet erupts into view with its guitar power chords, although, as it powers along, the presumably synthesised horns threaten to overpower what is in essence a cracking slice of power pop which is just begging for some 12 string Rickenbacker jangle. It’s a fine double whammy to open the album but thereafter Meade dials it down (slightly) and begins to roam, which is where the fun really begins.

By The Book comes across like Jerry Lee fronting  Booker T & The M.G.s with its turbo charged guitar while Watcha Doin’ To Me roots around in garage band exuberance, joining the dots between the Sir Douglas Quintet and the sneering punk ridden Costello & The Attractions. Meanwhile, planted at the piano, Meade rips through the exuberant rockabilly roustabout of I’m Too Tired To Sing The Blues. He dresses this song up with snatches of found sounds and radio excerpts but, at root, it’s a grand showcase for his exceptional keyboard skills, up until and including the final trill. There’s more roustabout piano (along with a soaring guitar solo) on the amped up vocal duet with Cara Rose on Look No Further which simply rips along, just awaiting its turn to be picked up by some enterprising film director looking for the perfect song for his Scots road movie, a follow up to Restless natives perhaps?

There’s a loose limbed Stones cum Faces’ like rumble on Now I Laugh but heading back into his roots, Meade offers the clap along strum of The Choices That You Make which makes more sense of the Scots male psyche than any number of learned papers. Topping these however is the glistening ode which is To The Lovers, a glorious glitter ball swirl of sounds with a wonderful air of resignation in its refrain.

The album is available on CD and vinyl and download, see here.

Although Glasgow’s Daniel Meade has recorded with the cream of Nashville, he’s no stranger to home recording so it’s somewhat apt that in these lockdown times he’s come out fighting. Bullets And Bones is a three-song release, download only and for a ridiculously low price, with Meade really playing to his strengths.

Break Me Down To Pieces is a glorious slice of honky tonk styled rockabilly with Meade’s piano setting the pace along with creamy guitar licks. With an insouciant swagger in his voice (while the multi tracked choruses sound for all the world like the Everly’s), Meade rocks and rolls here quite magnificently as the song vamps into an excellent guitar led outro. Bullets And Bones finds Meade transporting outlaw country to his Glaswegian domain, the prodigal son returning having failed to make it over there. Its sweaty country chunk delivery with whiplash guitar recalls Waylon Jennings back he was orn’ry and mean. Closer in style to his last full album release, Meade then offers up Through The Dirt, a pumping organ fuelled blast of peacock pop strutting. With echoes of The Beatles, Jeff Lynne and Elvis Costello coursing in its veins it seals the deal as Meade romps brilliantly through the song.

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Available fromthe Itunes store

Glasgow’s very own “Americana” star, Daniel Meade, returns to the fray with his latest release Rust, an album which finds him moving further away from the countrified songs which populated his breakthrough album, Keep Right Away, which was populated with a bevy of Nashville stars. While songs such as Always Close To Tears prove that Meade is well schooled in the way of honky tonk country, he’s always had more up his sleeve. Having cut his teeth on the rock circuit with his first band, The Ronelles, he moved into rockabilly and old time rock’n’roll with his band The Flying Mules and his cluster of album releases, whether solo or with various band combinations have always had an interesting mix of styles.

Rust follows in the wake of When Was The Last Time, an album on which Meade beefed up his sound, especially on the guitar front, with Townsend like chords and jangly power pop driving the songs. This time around, the guitars, while still in attendance, take second place to Meade’s first love, the piano, with the songs here bashed out at his home on his old joanna and recorded by him and then embellished with overdubs, all played by Meade himself. He says that many of these numbers were either written some time ago or were percolating in his head for a while, just waiting for the right time and circumstances to record them and, having exorcised some demons via the previous album, the time was now right. In addition, Meade has reached back to some of his original influences, rock’n’rollers and writers such as The Proclaimers and Gerry Rafferty and he even delivers several numbers in an unashamed Scots accent.

For a home produced and self-played album, Rust is quite astonishing. There’s layers and layers unfolding on many of the songs. Funny How The World Turns opens with some slick piano, not too far removed from Blue Note cool, before fuzzed guitar and trumpet like arpeggios take us into sixties psychedelia and Dreams Grow On Trees likewise has a warm fuzzy sixties feel to it with its massed voices. Elsewhere, Meade dives into fat sounding rock’n’roll bliss as on the rollicking Same Kind Of Crazy and the roadhouse blues of Another Conversation while the barrelling piano and guitar intro to Fanny Fanny Bang Bang is quite exhilarating. A “nonsense song,” according to Meade, Fanny Fanny Bang Bang is the sort of song which will appeal to anyone who thinks that the finest sentence ever written is, “A-wop-bop-a-loo-bop-a-wop-bam-boom!”

It’s surprising to hear Meade open the album with the bar room piano jaunt Anywhy Anywhere Anyhow which he sings with his Glasgow accent (and vernacular) well to the front. But, with his curt dismissal of much that poses for Americana these days, it’s a fitting curtain opener to some of the preoccupations which populate the album. Meade’s been through the mill and seen the damage done and much of Rust is a farewell to those days. These Things Happen is a joyous song buoyed on parping horns, inspired by Meade’s time on the road with The Proclaimers and the title song is a glorious amalgamation of honky tonk piano and gnarly guitar al la The Stones with an uplifting chorus. Meade nails it however on the one stripped back song here. There’s just his guitar and voice on Workin’ On An Old Song, a manifesto of sorts as he sings “It’s good to run with old ghosts.” It’s comparable to Neil Young’s infamous Borrowed Song in some respects with Meade setting out his wares for all to hear.

Rust is available now and there is an official launch party for the album this week at Glasgow’s Rum Shack. All details here.

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You have to admit that Glasgow’s Daniel Meade has several strings to his bow. Run through his back catalogue and you’ll find country, country blues, rockabilly, hillbilly, boogie woogie, honky tonk and good old fashioned rock’nroll all rubbing shoulders. A compulsive (and very talented) songwriter, Meade also has an eclectic approach to recording with some of his albums being entirely home made one man band productions while others have entailed trips to Nashville and collaborations with the likes of Old Crow Medicine Show, Diane Jones and Joshua Hedley. What we can say with some certainty is that all of the albums are well worth grabbing a hold of, while we can also say (again with some certainty) that if Meade has a natural element to be in then it’s when he’s onstage with his regular band The Flying Mules. Of his seven albums there’s only one credited to Meade and The Mules but anyone who has seen this band live will know that their high-energy rockabilly/skiffle approach allows Meade’s songs to leap out. In addition, in guitarist Lloyd Reid, Meade has the perfect foil as Reid’s mastery of his Hofner guitar adds an excellent touch to the songs channelling the likes of Barney Kessel and Les Paul.

There’s a degree of serendipity in this live album from Meade and The Flying Mules. They were playing in Shetland back in 2016 and the sound engineer was trying out a new rig so he recorded the show. Fast forward to last year and Meade was rummaging through some stuff and came across the recordings and reckoned they were good enough for a “warts and all” guerrilla release, a quick smash’n’grab affair perhaps but anyone buying this is not going to complain. It’s a short show (just over 30 minutes, they were the support band that night) but it’s well recorded and a grand document of the band in their live glory. There’s a swagger about them as they run through ten songs  with a delightful sense of energy and glee, the audience cheering them along throughout with Meade’s laconic Glasgow wit on show in the introductions. They swing mightily, the rhythm section of Mark Ferrie on double bass and Thomas Sutherland on drums, loose and tight (as Meade says), driving the songs while Reid rips out several scintillating solos.

Take a listen to the opening bars of Back To Hell and try to tell us that this is not the sound of Sun Studios back in the Memphis glory days as the band pick up a head of steam while Long Gone Wrong is surely summoning up the ghost of Lonnie Donegan. Meade has a knack for excellent song titles with There’s A Headstone Where My Heart Used To Be one of the best and they do it full justice here. Let Me Off At The Bottom takes the foot off the throttle slightly allowing Meade to come across in a jaunty Hank Williams style while Please Louise rumbles mightily with slightly risqué lyrics recalling the pre bowdlerised days of rent parties and juke joints. While the sources of much of Meade’s music is American he successfully transports the idiom to Glasgow’s Sauchiehall Street on the energetic bash that is What You Waiting For which paints such a vivid portrait you can almost smell the vinegar wafting from The Blue Lagoon. However his roots are to the fore on  Rising River Blues, a tremendous hucklebuck which harks back to the numerous songs commemorating river floods in the American south while the band close with a cover of a Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee song, Hooray, Hooray. The fact that it fits in perfectly with the rest of the set shows that Meade is indeed rooting around in the same fertile ground as these blues pioneers and keeping alive a precious tradition.

As live albums go this is top deck, immensely entertaining and vibrant. It allows Meade to showcase The Flying Mules on several songs he recorded without them and they certainly rise to the occasion. If you have seen the band live then this is a tremendous souvenir. If you haven’t, then this is a tremendous introduction.

This isn’t from the album but was recorded by the BBC around the same time.

Glasgow’s Daniel Meade has made his reputation on the back of a series of impressive albums which reached into the hinterlands of American folk, country and rockabilly aided and abetted by names such as Old Crow Medicine Show and Diana Jones. When Was The Last Time is a different kettle of fish in many respects however as Meade delivers a set of songs that positively explode from the speakers with a full bodied rock sound full of clangourous guitars and driving rhythms.  He’s been on tour for a while with Ocean Colour Scene (playing keyboards) and perhaps some of their stadium filling sounds have seeped into his soul while some folk will remember his days as the jangle meister guitar player (on Rickenbacker even) in The Ronelles.

The genesis of the album was in a series of letters written by Meade to himself when he was going through a period of self evaluation in an attempt to ward off episodes of anxiety and depression, a self help therapy of sorts which allows the writer to reflect on their self beliefs and sometimes distorted image of themselves. Here Meade went one step further and decided to transform these letters into song, their therapeutic value to be expressed with a sense of positivity and hope, as he says about the album, “I felt the arrangements and production had to capture this same positive and hopeful feeling, so we went for big and driving for the most part.” Delving into the album there’s still a sense of darkness here but Meade beats it around the head with a big stick and some major chords, coming up with this fairly triumphant epiphany, the healing power of crashing guitars and letting it all hang out.

The album opens with an almost Townshend like clutter of acoustic guitar slashes and electric power chords on As Good As It Gets, a song which reflects on pill addled days and declares that clarity is the better option. It’s a chiming declaration of independence with a glorious outro. Nothing Really Matters continues in a similar vein with the guitars pummelling along as Meade delivers a fairly ferocious manifesto which whips along like Fleetwood Mac with teeth bared while Oh My My Oh sounds like a Travelin’ Wilburys’ offshoot with a deft nod to The Beatles in some of the vocal refrains. The Wilburys’ come to mind again on When Was The Last Time, another jangled rocker with harmonies so reminiscent of those wrinkled rockers who cast some light on some of their members final days. There’s a darker edge to If The Bombs Don’t Kill Us, another full blooded guitar fest which recalls the classic sound of bands such as The Comsat Angels and The Sound, an apocalypse draped in reverbed sounds.

It’s not all sturm und drang however as Meade comes across like an upbeat Gene Clark on the frenetic The Day The Clown Stopped Smiling which has a bar room piano and banjo underpinning its jauntiness along with a casually tossed in Sun Records like guitar solo midway through. Meanwhile there’s a slight return to the traditional American sounds which Meade has mastered with So Much For Sorrow  harking  back to chain gang work songs while  How High We Fly is a classic  song  which lyrically recalls the emergent Loudon Wainwright  in its yearning with its spare arrangement adding a sense of alienation. Meade ends the album with the folky lament of Don’t We All, a song which reaches across Celtic and American folk influences, one can imagine The Clancys, Phil Ochs or Pete Seeger singing this to a crowded pub audience with the audience joining in on the chorus in a reverential mood. In fact, and on closer listening, it’s not too absurd to suggest that Don’t We All would not be out of place on a Dylan album from around 1964. Whatever, it’s a grand end to a brave album.

When Was The Last Time is certainly not what one expected from Daniel Meade but it’s bold and adventurous. The fact that these spangled rock arrangements and intricate harmonies are all performed by the man himself with only  Ross McFarlane  (from the band Texas) playing on drums is quite astonishing and Meade certainly carries off this trip into rock’n’rolldom with some aplomb.

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