Maiden Voyage Recording Company

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All aboard the Skylark…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And here’s a taster from Henry Senior Jr.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Favourite albums of 2015

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Well it’s that time of year again when we make up lists. Some get songs written about them (Santa’s naughty or nice one), some guide us around the supermarket, ensuring we don’t forget that all important stuffing. Blogs. Well, blogs do their “best of the year” lists so here’s Blabber’n’Smoke’s list of our favourite albums of the year. They’re not in any order (other than alphabetical) so there’s no number one and no losers, just some great music. 2015 was a bumper year for country music with young artists wresting the spotlight away from the ‘bros; back home there were some excellent releases that have received international recognition on websites, blogs and radio stations scattered across the globe. I’ve separated local releases simply because I think it’s important to highlight Scottish made music, had it been a straightforward top ten several of these would be in there. I’ve provided links to reviews where possible.

My thanks to all the artists, PR Agents and labels who have been kind enough to submit their efforts for Blabber’n’Smoke scrutiny, we love you. To them and to all readers have a happy festive season however you care to celebrate it.

Anna & Elizabeth. Anna & Elizabeth. Free Dirt records

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Brent Best. Your Dog, Champ. At The Helm Records/Last Chance Records

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David Corley, Available Light, Continental Song City

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Danny and The Champions Of The World, What Kind Of Love, Loose Music

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Justin Townes Earle. Single Mothers/Absent Fathers. Loose Music

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Barna Howard, Quite A Feelin’, Loose Music

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Sam Lewis Waiting On You. Brash Music

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Jeremy Pinnell OH/KY Sofaburn Records, 2015

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Michael Rank & Stag. Horsehair. Louds Hymn Music

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Daniel Romano, If I’ve Only one Time Askin’, New West Records

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Pharis and Jason Romero, A Wanderer I’ll Stay, Lula Records

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Sacri Cuori, Delone, Glitterbeat

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Cale Tyson, Introducing Cale Tyson, Clubhouse Records

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Stevie Agnew & Hurricane Road. Bad Blood & Whiskey. Skimmin’ Stone Records

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Dark Green Tree, Secret Lives, Haven Records

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James Edwyn & the Borrowed Band – The Tower

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Daniel Meade Keep Right Away. From The Top Records

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Iain Morrison. Eas. Peatfiredog Records.

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Findlay Napier. VIP Very Important Persons Cheerygroove Records.

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Dean Owens. Into The Sea. Drumfire Records

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The Wynntown Marshals, The End Of The Golden Age, Blue Rose Records

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Honourable mentions

Lewis and Leigh Hidden Truths EP.

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Blue Rose Code Grateful

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And that’s about it. Lots to look forward to in the New Year, not least albums from Norrie McCulloch and Blue Rose Code in the next few weeks and of course, Celtic Connections. See ya.

Trevor Moss & Hannah-Lou. Expatriot. Anglophone Recording Company.

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Erstwhile members of Danny And The Champions of the World, London husband and wife duo, Trevor Moss & Hannah-Lou have achieved something of a coup by scooping up acclaimed producer Ethan Johns to helm this, their fourth album release. Johns had toured with them and was somewhat enamoured of their sound and welcomed them into his home studio. The album, in the main consisting of the duo’s voices and Trevor’s acoustic guitar does sound great, crystal clear, the voices ringing out with the spare additional instrumentation given just the right amount of space and colour. The press release notes that the album has the couple moving on from their folk sound although there’s not a significant shift in their sound here. Instead there’s a confidence and assurance that might reflect the guiding hands of Johns at the desk and a year of solid touring supporting name acts at auditoriums across the world. In addition there’s a nod to an increasing American influence in the music, a hint of which is offered in the cover art which is a recreation of their pose on their 2010 single England. Instead of a George Cross painted behind them there’s now a stark black rendering of the album title. Do they feel estranged from the current version of Englishness or demonstrating that they’ve spread their wings?

There are certainly some comments on the state of the nation here, finger pointing songs as Dylan called them; the wheezing harmonica led The Relinquished, which bemoans factory working the exemplar here. The Dylanesque style here is repeated throughout the album especially on the opening title song and the declamatory Babe To Cradle with the latter’s opening lines “You callous kings and queens, it’s time to lay down your rusty crowns, they don’t impress us anymore,” reminiscent of Greenwich Village folkies and Broadside magazine. Much of the album indeed has a sixties glow, the tender Our Tryingest Hour rippling with echoes of Paul Simon and it’s tempting indeed to think of Trevor and Hannah-Lou as a modern version of Richard and Mimi Farina here. However there is a definite whiff of that dappled English folk sensibility on the mesmerising If only I Were The Kind where the vocals are shadowed by some nuanced guitar feedback. Again, there’s a retro feel here which in this case recalls the very early Fairport Convention when they were in thrall to Joni Mitchell and not yet folk rocking.

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Case Hardin. Colours Simple. Clubhouse Records

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Case Hardin’s last album PM was a spare affair, its stripped back songs gathering comparisons to Willie Vlautin’s bare boned American tales. For Colours Simple the band have limbered up, taken a Charles Atlas rock’n’roll class and now show off their musical muscle. Singer and main writer Pete Gow continues to recount his tales of life’s casualties with a keen journalist’s eye but there’s a heft to the songs and in particular the sinewy guitar work of Jim Maving sparkles throughout. The four piece band (Gow, Maving, Tim Emery, bass and Andy Bastow, drums) are augmented by the keyboard playing of Mike Wesson while a horn section (composed of Robin & Joe Bennett of Dreaming Spires and Free Jazz Geoff Widdowson of Danny And The Champions Of The World) features on one song.

They nail their colours to the mast with the opening eight minutes and twenty seconds of Poets Corner, a song that is epic in its sweep in a manner reminiscent of Springsteen but without his swagger. A booming bass drum tolls as the song begins before organ and guitar creep in and Gow paints a claustrophobic picture of a hot and sticky urban scene. Halfway through the song Maving launches into a spiralling guitar assault as the song ascends a crescendo before eventually winding down and ending with that same tolling drum. A spectacular and intense song it leaves the listener somewhat winded, for the remainder of the album however (other than two songs) they continue to rock and definitely roll with less intensity and, dare we say, a sense of fun. Fiction Writer and High Rollers hark back to the spare sound of FM, the latter especially given the presence of Hana Piranha’s violin. Fiction Writer is a melancholic meditation on loneliness with Gow sounding world weary while High Rollers is a classic story telling song in the Townes Van Zandt/Guy Clark tradition. Bravely Gow sings here from the point of view of a female casino worker who does more than deal decks, describing the grimness behind the glitz and supposed glamour.

Elsewhere it’s all shoulders to the wheel as the band romp into the rockier numbers. These Three Cities has Gow telling of an encounter with a prostitute over a rolling bluesy and blowsy melody reminiscent of Del Amitri. Roll Damnation Roll sees Maving on acoustic slide guitar on a short introduction before the song kicks in much in the manner of an old Rod Stewart number. The song itself follows suit with its acoustic swing recalling Ronnie Lane’s sashaying strut as mandolin and honky tonk piano trill and roll. Cheap Streaks From A Bottle is a streetwise rocker with the brass section injecting the bustle of city living and again one is reminded of Rod Stewart, this time in his guise as one of the lads in the Faces, a sense repeated on the rollicking The Streets where The Bars Are with Wesson’s fingers flying across the keys and Maving sliding away. The inevitable hangover is memorably described on (Jesus Christ Tomorrow Morning) Do I Still have To Feel This Way? which bumps and grinds with a fury, guitars snarling over organ swirls and a tight backbeat. The album ends with the mandolin and acoustic guitar driven Another Toytown Morning with Gow coming on like a modern day Phil Ochs, full of fire and fury.

Colours Simple is the album which should elevate Pete Gow to the upper echelons of UK songwriters while he and the band are to be congratulated for carrying on the baton from the likes of Ronnie Lane carving out a rootsy rock and folk route that is not slavishly American.

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Simon Stanley Ward.

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When Blabber’n’Smoke met with Ags Connolly back in April we were talking about albums we were currently enjoying. Ags mentioned that he was really digging the debut album from Simon Stanley Ward, a London based musician who’s been pretty much a feature of the London scene for the past ten years or so. Ags also mentioned that Ward had Paul Lush from Danny & The Champs playing guitar all over the album which was incentive enough (apart from Ags’ impeccable taste) to search out this album.

Well, Ags spoke the truth as Ward’s album is one of the best UK based “Americana” albums we’ve heard in some time. Over the course of 10 songs he delves into honky tonk, bitter sweet country ballads and some rockabilly coming across, believe it or not, as the missing link between Lonnie Donegan and Dwight Yoakam. Ward has a similar nasal twang to Donegan in his voice and although there’s nothing pioneering here, like Donegan he’s a Londoner singing songs inspired by an American dream. In fact Ward homes in on this potential dilemma with his inspired song, American Voice where he admits he “never heard a whippoorwill cry at night and I don’t drink whisky, I never been in a fight” but in his defence he has been “so lonesome I could cry.” The irony here is that Ward sings this with a fine sense of braggadocio while his band of local worthies conjure up an excellent country rock skirl, fiddle blazing away before a characteristically brilliant guitar solo from Lush. The playing throughout the album is excellent. While Lush might draw in fans of The Champs the band (David Rothon (Redlands Palomino Company), pedal steel; producer Arthur Rathbone Pullen, keyboards; Geoff Easeman, bass; Neil Marsh, drums and Ben Wain, fiddle) match him with their ensemble efforts while Lorraine Wood and Laura Tenschert support Ward with some fine backing harmonies.

The album opens with a brooding guitar twang on Monster Song, a moody and remorseful apologia which summons up the ghosts of Roy Orbison and Mary Shelley, a mood immediately dispelled by the spritely rockabilly strut of 100 Days In Heaven. Trouble Somewhere weighs in with a classic pedal steel introduction as Ward and the band parade their finely honed Burritos’ styled country rock while Please Excuse me (I Feel Sorry For Myself) returns to Yoakam like hillbilly rock. There’s some more retro riffing on the Buddy Holly hiccups of Obvious To You while Homesick rattles along with a sound and vigour that recalls Dylan and The Band going pell mell in 1965. Dylan comes to mind again on the closing song, Over Here although this time it’s the latter day biblical prophet who’s mined here with an organ led soulful groove sounding like an out take from Slow Train Coming.

Elsewhere Ward delivers some finely honed sob stories. Another Page is a plaintive ballad with lonesome guitar pleadings while Behind Closed Doors is a simply beautiful and heartfelt love song. Laced with yearning pedal steel, gentle piano and wistful harmonica the song is haunting with some vivid images in the lyrics as Ward recalls a first walk around a lake with his partner “getting naked in every possible way.” Ward sings wonderfully here, wounded and lost as the song meanders to its conclusion.

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Danny And The Champions Of The World/The Goat Roper Rodeo Band. Broadcast, Glasgow. Saturday 20th June.

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Danny Wilson’s self-professed gang swaggered into town riding high on rave reviews for their latest album, What Kind Of Love and trailing clouds of glory from the unanimous praise heaped on the nine shows they’ve played so far on their summer tour. The news that they are still one of the top live bands of the day is really no news to anyone who’s caught them live in the past three years or has heard their thrilling live album released last year. What Kind of Love was recorded in the wake of a punishing schedule of shows at the end of 2014, 17 shows in Scandinavia in September and another 25 shows in October, and most of the songs on the album were forged on the road, at soundchecks or back at the hotel after the show. As Wilson says

“We wrote songs in Scandinavia, in Nashville, in the Preston Travelodge. This line-up of the Champs has been together for some time now, the group started out as a loose, lawless thing now we’re a bit more of a gang than we used to be.”

Rooted in the soul records they were listening to on tour What Kind Of Love is a solid soul groove that was an attempt, Wilson says, to sound like Gladys Knight & The Pips covering a Dylan song. Live, The Champs have always had a touch of the soul revue about them with Danny cajoling the audience with monologues within the extended songs inviting participation and tonight was no exception. With a new album to promote the set list was significantly different from the past three occasions the band have played here but the new songs more than made up for some old favourites missing in action. No Space Rocket opening tonight, instead the punchy and defiant bliss of Clear Water, a song that seems to encapsulate all of their influences, The E Street band, Motown and vintage Van Morrison with its tremendous sax riff and swirling pedal steel wrapped around Wilson’s impassioned pleading voice. Precious Cargo ebbed and flowed like a powerful tidal surge, the pedal steel flowing indeed over the chunky beat as if Booker T had forsaken his keyboards as guitarist Paul Lush threw out Steve Cropper lines. By the time they swept into the forsaken country soul of This Is Not a Love Song it was evident not only that the band were riding the crest of a wave via the new album but are also finely honed as the pedal steel and guitars curled around one another. An outing for Stay True showed that the soul genie has been flitting around the band for several years now sounding tonight as if it were an old Smokey Robinson song. Another oldie, Every beat Of My Heart, was launched with a cacophonous crash and raced along like Springsteen in a dragster with saxophonist Free Jazz Geoff given full rein but the frenetic delivery of Words On The Wind, a song from the new album showed that the spirit of the freewheelin’ Southern sound of a band like the Allman Brothers is still there with Lush’s guitar curling like a snake in the everglades. The Gospel influence on soul was apparent on the magnificent juggernaut that was Just Be Yourself with Wilson testifying as if his life depended on it before the sweeter tones of What Kind Of Love reminded one that soul can encompass Al Green as well as Otis Redding.

So, an hour into the set and having established the Church of Danny & The Champs to everyone’s evident satisfaction the band launched into an amazing pick’n’mix of old and new songs with Henry The Van a crowd favourite kicking off before (Never stop Building) That Old Space Rocket really revved the audience and the band up. It’ll Be Alright in The End was a perky slice of New Orleans inspired jive with some hot guitar licks and was followed by some inspired tomfoolery as Free Jazz Geoff led a sax fuelled conga line through the hot and sweaty cellar. Cold Cold World and These Days pumped away before the monumental Colonel And The King swung into view with the front rows dancing away. For the encore they delivered a coup de grace with the road philosophy of Restless Feet seemingly endless with the audience clapping and singing along wishing the night could last forever as the band took turns to solo.

All told it seems that Danny And The Champs are still the prime contenders for the best live band around these days. The new songs bite and the show in all is a glorious testament to the power and glory that is rock soul and country done just right. A lovely, tiring yet invigorating experience.

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We need to mention the support, The Goat Roper Rodeo Band. Three young (and hairy) guys from Rhyll in Wales they have two guitars and a double bass and scrabble up a fine thrash that has old time country roots. More so than that they conjure up a vocal harmony that recalls the Everly Bothers in their prime and if they can build on this they might be a name you will hear more of.

Danny And the Champions of the World

The Goat Roper Rodeo Band

Danny And The Champions Of The World. What Kind Of love. Loose Music.

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Over the past few years Danny And the Champions Of The World’s live shows have increasingly resembled a country soul revue with the band incorporating elements of Motown and Stax into their invigorating music. While in the past Blabber’n’Smoke has noted that this mix has resembled van Morrison’s Caledonia Soul years the new album, What Kind Of Love, shows that the Champs have dived head first into soul territory with horn charts and full blown female backing singers accompanying Danny Wilson’s impassioned soulful vocals. While the obvious touchstones here are the likes of Otis Redding and Solomon Burke there’s a host of other singers who have been more associated with a country influenced take on soul, singers such as Arthur Alexander, William Bell, James Carr and Eddie James and it’s to them rather than the raucous Redding shows that the songs pay homage. In addition Wilson notes that some of his favourite singers are those sixties white guys who first heard Motown discs and immediately set up their own bands and whose voices proved perfect for strained and urgent R’nB. He cites Rod Stewart, Terry Reid, Paul Rodgers, Reg King, Frankie Miller, Steve Ellis, Van Morrison, Joe Cocker, Chris Farlowe and Eric Burden and there’s definitely a moment here on the title song What Kind Of Love when he sounds uncannily like prime Rod Stewart. Meanwhile Precious Cargo riffs mightily and not a million years away from Farlowe’s version of Out Of Time.

The decision to go down this route is not a huge departure for the band for anyone who has heard them playing Cold Cold World or Let’s Grab This World With Both Hands but the album is an unalloyed soulful wallow with huge horn riffs and Marvelettes like choruses which are most prominent on the one cover here, a version of Tyrone Davis’ Can I Change my Mind. Paul Lush’s clipped guitar drives the song along, the horns parp and the vocal interplay between Wilson and the backing singers is the most joyous we’ve heard since Laura Nyro and Labelle’s Gonna Take a Miracle album. Towards the end of the song Henry Senior’s pedal steel carries off the spectacular task of seeming to be part of the vocal harmonies.

While there’s a nod to the “classic” sound of the Champs on Words On The Wind with guitarist Paul Lush given full rein and sax man Free George wailing away, it fits neatly into the overall scheme of the album with Wilson channelling Steve Marriott and the sha la la refrain recalling the Small Faces. However it’s the slow sashay, the soulful strut, the reverential gospel tones of songs like Just Be Yourself and It’ll Be Alright In The End that confirm that the band have nailed the notion of recording a bona fide soul album. While all ten songs are bountiful mention should be made of Wilson’s magnificent vocal performance on This Is Not A Love Song (which of course it is). Curling pedal steel, a curt and magisterial guitar break and weeping organ sweep the song along as Wilson parries with the female chorus. The album ends with another cracker, The Sound Of A Train which moves on from the churchlike sixties soul sound to the urban sophistication of the seventies with mellow saxophone and jazzy guitar styling’s. Sounding like a nighttime version of The Rascals’ Groovin’ as performed by George Benson it winds the album up wonderfully with the only regret that the fade is not much much longer.

The album is out this week and The Champs are touring this month. The Glasgow show is on 20th June at Broadcast, the others are here. In the meantime, Danny Wilson has given a song by song account of the album which is a great read, have a gander here

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Best of 2014

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There’s a lot or pros and cons when it comes to listing end of year best ofs or favourites. Two years ago Blabber’n’Smoke eventually plumbed for the pros outweighing the cons so this is the third time we’ve presented what, when it comes down to it, is an arbitrary choice of remembered listen. Albums that have stood the test of (a relatively short) time, the ones we’ve returned to or recommended to others in the pub. Above all it’s been fun to look back, read the reviews and see if they still stand. So with this in mind the following are the official Blabber’n’Smoke 2014 picks, in alphabetical order.

Blue Rose Code. Ballads Of Peckham Rye
Birds Of Chicago. Live From Space
Fire Mountain. All Dies Down
Bradford lee Folk and The Bluegrass Playboys. Somewhere Far Away
Cahalen Morrison & Eli West. I’ll Swing My Hammer With Both My Hands
Jim Keaveny. Out Of Time
Parker Millsap. Parker Millsap
Michael Rank & Stag. Deadstock
Sturgill Simpson. Metamodern Sounds In Country Music
John Southworth. Niagara

Random honourable mentions go to

Lucinda Williams Down Where the Spirit Meets The Bone,
The Johnny Cash Native American album reboot, Look Again To The Wind,
Danny and The Champions Of The World’s Live Champs!
Dan Michealson & The Coastguards Distance
Cale Tyson’s EP, High On Lonesome,
Luke Tuchsherer’s debut You Get So Alone at Times It makes Sense,
Petunia’s Inside Of You,
Ags Connolly How about Now,
Chris Cacavas & Edward Abbiati. Me And The Devil along with Abbiati’s band Lowlands who delivered the excellent Love Etc.,
Zoe Muth. World Of Strangers,
Hank Wangford & The Lost Cowboys. Save Me The Waltz .
Grant Peeples and the Peeples Rebublic. Punishing The Myth.
Simone Felice. Strangers.
Bronwynne Brent. Stardust.
Sylvie Simmons. Sylvie (allowing an honorary mention here for Howe Gelb who produced).
The War On Drugs. Lost In The Dream.
Lynne Hanson. River Of Sand.
Gal Holiday & The Honky Tonk Revue. Last To Leave.
And finally John Murry’s EP, Califorlonia which is brilliant and hopefully just an appetiser for his follow up to the majestic Graceless Age.

Digging through the archives it’s been noticeable that there’s been a fine contribution this year from Scottish acts who dip into or draw from an Americana well to a greater or lesser extent. While Blue Rose Code’s Ballads Of Peckam Rye features above the following are all stellar contributions to the local scene.

Dropkick. Homeward
Dumb Instrument. The Silent Beard (with the Scottish song of the year, Suffering from Scottishness).
John Hinshelwood. Lowering The Tone.
The David Latto Band. Here Today, Ghost Tomorrow EP
Norrie McCulloch. Old Lovers Junkyard
The New Madrids. Through the Heart of Town.
Red Pine Timber Company. Different Lonesome
The Rulers Of The Root. Porky Dreams
Ten Gallon Bratz. Tales From The Long Shadows

Although his album, Little Glass Box came out in 2012, Fraser Anderson is a major find of the year while another local lad, Daniel Meade unleashes his Nashville recorded Keep Right Away in January. Hopefully folk will have long enough memories to recall this when it comes to compiling the 2015 lists. In the meantime it can be first on the New Year shopping list.

The Dreaming Spires. Darkest Before The Dawn EP. Clubhouse Records.

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Oxford’s The Dreaming Spires are based around brothers, Robin and Joe Bennett who together have a quite a history toiling at the Americana coalface. Their previous band Goldrush had a good pop at making it big and for a period they were in an early incarnation of Danny & The Champions Of The World while in their spare time they were prime movers in setting up Truck Festival. Darkest Before The Dawn is a three song curtain raiser for their second album due early next year. As with their debut album, Brothers in Brooklyn which related some of their adventures in the States, there’s an autobiographical element to the EP with the three songs relating to a friend of the band’s, a guy called Danny who co-wrote several songs previously with Robin Bennett. According to Bennett Danny fell on hard times and the EP is an elliptic account of their relationship and the travails of touring in America.

The EP opens with the seven minute jangled jewel that is Hype Bands (Parts I & II), a song that starts off like Big Star backed by The Memphis Horns as Bennett packs in personal experiences and name checks or alludes to classic American music icons, songs and singers. The addition of the horns and the groove that the band lock into are reminiscent of Danny & The Champs’ recent forays while the road trip element recalls some of The Wynntown Marshals’ album, The Long Haul. It’s a brave, slightly convoluted, adventure with wide-eyed wonder at being in the land of musical heroes dulled by the actual enervating experience of being part of the biz. Musically however it’s a great rollercoaster of a song which definitely benefits from repeated listens as it caroms from jangled country rock to The Band like funky horn grooviness.

The mysterious Danny (actually, with some deft Googling you can easily check out his identity and rest assured he has heard the songs and approves) was the brothers’ road manager on their first trip. House on Elsinore finds them back in LA with Danny in a dark place and the band adopt the identity of one of the classic bands who epitomise the duality of LA. There’s a mighty Byrds thunk from the off with thick 12 string jangle recalling their baroque fondness of Bach. It’s a glorious song that has some of Crosby’s medieval trappings woven throughout.

Darkest Before The Dawn ends the EP on a minor key as The Spires return to Big Star territory with a song that recalls Alex Chilton at his best. Wounded and vulnerable but eventually optimistic as the song is wafted upwards by a heavenly chorus and soaring guitars, a song to make Nick Kent cry.

We mentioned above toiling at the coalface of Americana and in the press release for the EP Robin Bennett expresses a fear that UK bands playing American influenced music has at time seemed laughable before going on to explain that The Kinks, The Beatles and The Stones were all doing this before UK Americana happened. On the evidence here it’s apparent that this is no joke. The EP is a powerful chunk of music, influenced of course by some classic American bands but in the end whether they come from Oxford, England or Oxford Mississippi is irrelevant when the result is as delicious as this. It whets the appetite for the new album and you can read more about that in an interview with Robin Bennett here. The fact that Tony Poole of the criminally underrated 70’s UK Americana rockers, Starry Eyed & Laughing is involved is proof indeed that Americana is a state of mind, not place.

Darkest Before The Dawn is released on November 24 on Clubhouse Records

Danny & The Champions Of The World. Live Champs! Loose Music.

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It’s been a long time since I’ve seen such a buzz around a forthcoming release as surrounds this live recording of the magnificent Danny & The Champions Of The World. Ever since it was announced social networks and actual people (remember them) have been following every utterance and pronouncement on Facebook and Twitter along with some early reviews. It’s testament to The Champs’ current status as perhaps the best live band in the UK right now as they’ve relentlessly toured on the back of their last album “Stay True” which won accolades right left and centre while they were voted best band in the Americana UK readers poll for 2013.

I’ve been fortunate enough to see the band twice this year and can honestly say that both nights were the highlights of the year so far. Danny George Wilson grabs the attention as the front man, passionate and on fire, barking out the lyrics and acting as ringmaster to the hugely talented band he has grouped around him. An excellent songwriter (as evidenced on the albums going back to Grand Drive days) Wilson has supplied his Champs with prime musical DNA which on stage leads to extended workouts allowing the band to stretch out as Danny pumps the audience like an old time revue MC. Tight and disciplined they never descend into jam land, the solos are all in service to the song and as a unit they can hunker down allowing Danny full rein as chorus leader, cajoling the crowd. In addition they can switch from country to soul to rock’n’roll almost at the drop of a hat with the show as a whole offering a variety of styles recalling the likes of Van Morrison, Bruce Springsteen and Otis Redding.

It almost goes without saying that anyone who has seen The Champs recently should be champing at the bit for this opportunity to relive the experience in the comfort of their own armchair. For the others I’d suggest that their album is almost on a par with that doyen of live albums, Van Morrison’s Its Too Late To Stop Now. Not in the sense that it sounds similar (although The Champs certainly have more than a whiff of Morrison’s Caledonia Soul about them) but that it’s a perfect capture of an artist at the height of his powers as the songs tumble out, each one a gem. (Never Stop Building) That Old Space Rocket, an autobiographical tale, opens the album and immediately the sinewy suppleness of The Champs grabs you. A Southern backbeat befitting The Band drives the song while pedal steel glides. Sax and gutsy guitar solos burn for a while before the steel hovers back into view on a song that stirs up a powerful emotional pull. Cold Cold World is, simply put, an excellent slice of country styled Motown dance stance that shows off the band’s tight playing along with Wilson’s way with a catchy riff. There’s more Motown mischief with the Miracles styled Let’s Grab This World With Both Hands which oozes soul before the lengthy Colonel And The King lets the band off of the leash, ripping into the song with Paul Lush on guitar firing off rapid volleys as the rhythm section batter on like an express train. A fiery solo from Lush eventually gives way to a master class in pedal steel from Henry Senior as the tempo slows and Free Jazz Geoff Widdowson lets fly on sax. The elements all converge from here on in as the band whip into a frenzied state before winding to the end, an astonishing performance which is as powerful as anything The Allman Brothers laid down at the Fillmore. Darlin’ Won’t You Come In From The Cold and Stop Thief are soulful entries and disc one ends with the crowd favourite Henry The Van which engenders a fantastic crowd sing-along.

Other Days opens disc two with more soul styled pleadings from Wilson as the band weave pedal steel and sax into a fantastic sounding amalgam of soul and country Every Beat Of My Heart is a rip roaring E Street Band type number as is You Don’t Know (My Heart Is In The Right Place) with the band in rip roaring form, parping sax, crunchy guitar and tight solos delivering a killer punch. Restless Feet, a song from Streets Of Our Time is graced by the presence of Trevor Moss and Hannah Lou who sang on the original. Its Dylanish heritage gets a hefty Muscle Shoals makeover with pedal steel snaking throughout the song while Lush rips out an audacious solo guitar burst. After this we’re into the encores on the night with Been There Before a slick streamed stroll that has Wilson growling and scatting as the band vamp magnificently. Finally These Days ( where Wilson initially forgets the words!) has a Stax pumping beat that leads straight to the feet, live or on disc you can’t help but jive to this. Chris Clarke on bass drives the song on as the band lock tight into a mighty groove.

Danny & The Champs are definitely on a roll and this album caps what has been a tremendous year for them. They’re slated to appear at Jack White’s Third Man Records stage at the next Americana Music Festival in Nashville while they will be swinging back through the UK in October including a date in Glasgow. The album is released on 29th September and you can order it here.

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