Emma Swift. Blonde On The Tracks. Tiny Ghost Records

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a0721381643_16Here at Blabber’nSmoke we were first alerted to the talent that is Emma Swift when she supported Robyn Hitchcock at Glasgow’s Mono cafe bar way back in 2015. This Australian, transplanted to Nashville, knocked us out with her superb voice and excellent songs . Her then current release, a self-titled mini album, (reviewed here)  reinforced our suspicions that Ms. Swift was on the cusp of greatness. However, an anticipated follow up album failed to appear until news of Blonde On The Tracks started to trickle out a few months ago. It was a surprise to hear that it would be an album of Dylan covers, but as promotion for the release picked up, Swift revealed that the genesis of the record was rooted in a period of depression and, unable to write her own songs, she turned to Dylan for some kind of solace.

The record’s been long in the gestation with the earliest songs recorded in 2017 but the covid lock down seems to have been the midwife which gave Swift the final push with the final songs recorded via file transfers and email. Indeed, there’s a cover of I Contain Multitudes from Dylan’s latest opus, which brings us bang up to date. Despite this storied history, the album hangs together perfectly as Swift sings some of her favourite Dylan songs, honing in on his romantic bent and wanting to retell the songs with a female voice. In this, she was influenced by the tradition of interpretation, citing forebears such as Joan Baez and Sinead O’Connor who stamped their own personality on their covers of other writers’ songs.

The album opens on familiar territory with an excellent folk rock take on Queen Jane Approximately including a Byrds’ like jangled 12 string guitar break. It’s quite glorious and in its mannered poise recalls Gene Clark as opposed to Roger McGuinn while there are also elements of the early Fairport Convention in its delivery. In contrast, I Contain Multitudes, recorded in lock down, is pared down but Swift’s intimate voice offers much more warmth than Dylan’s venerable stylings. Indeed, over the rest of the album, it’s Swift’s  voice which commands attention as she breathes new life into the man’s back catalogue while the arrangements are, at times, breathtaking.

One Of Must Know (Sooner Or Later) is offered a plangent Laurel Canyon country arrangement with wallops of keening cosmic country pedal steel with Swift reminding one of the late Terry Melcher’s ennui on his ill fated solo album. Simple Twist Of Fate has the hazy feel of Mazzy Star and there’s a lovely blast of Garth Hudson like organ on the sublime The Man In Me. It’s commendable that Swift avoids most of the obvious contenders here, digging deeper into Dylan’s past and it’s a delight to see that she visits Planet Waves for her rendition of Going Going Gone. On this perfectly realised vision of a potential Dylan visit to Muscle Shoals, Swift’s band members really shine as the rhythm section hit a slow groove, the various guitars slip and slide like moccasin snakes in a swamp and Swift inhabits Bobbie Gentry territory.

The epicentre is Swift’s superb rendition of Sad Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands. Equal in length to the original, Swift and her band retain the ebb and flow and mystique and romance of the original. Thus shielded, Swift truly inhabits the song, her voice a plaintive and endearing invitation to enter Dylan’s kaleidoscopic world. It’s like Alice in Dylanland, a glorious tumble down a glorious rabbit hole.

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Emma Swift

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Emma Swift might be a new name to many in the UK, although it’s apparent that she picked up quite a few fans on her recent tour with Robyn Hitchcock, in her native Australia however she was well known as the host of radio shows In the Pines and Saturday Night Country. All the while she was finding her way as a songwriter and performer both solo and as half of the duo 49 Goodbyes before eventually taking the step of locating to Nashville a year or so back. This self-titled mini album is her debut and was released around a year back in Australia but Swift has just relaunched it on iTunes.

Live Blabber’n’Smoke described Ms. Swift thus

…her lachrymose country songs were well received. Her version of Gram Parsons’ Brass Buttons highlighted her aching bittersweet voice while the suicide note that is Rowland Howard’s Shiver was delivered with a fine mix of tenderness and defiance. Her own song, Seasons, marked her as a writer and singer who could be up there with the likes of Lucinda Williams…

The album reinforces this with Swift’s voice in particular commanding attention. She combines the languid manner of Lucinda Williams with the effortless swoon of Linda Ronstadt while also managing the sultriness of kd Laing in torch song mode. In addition she’s a great writer, the five songs here all worthy of attention (in addition there’s a cover of The Motels’ Total Control) and to cap it all the band she’s assembled play some very sweet heartbreaking country music.

She opens with the bittersweet Bittersweet, a soft rock country balm for the soul effortlessly singing over the slow rhythm shuffle with pedal steel and Wurlitzer curling around her voice. Woodland Street has a late night jazz feel to it with Swift vulnerable in her pleading, a sense continued on Seasons, an initially brighter, summery song where again she’s looking for affection (with her voice here reminiscent of Lucinda Williams). Swift manages a neat trick here with the first half of the song optimistic as she waits for her lover in the spring, honeyed pedal steel and sparkling guitar like reflected sunlight on the sea before she fears he’ll be gone by the fall and there’s an almost imperceptible shift in the mood of the music, the guitars sadder, keening instead of honeyed. At the heart of album is the lengthy King Of America, eight minutes of hesitant, slow flow twang guitar and cosmic country tinged pedal steel that recalls the glory days of NRPS and Garcia himself as it weaves an unsteady course over deadpan percussion. Almost as if the Grateful Dead had scored David Lynch’s Twin Peaks Swift offers a portrait of the narcotic pull of the likes of Gram Parsons or Hank Williams as she succumbs to their invitation to dance. It’s a glorious song that places Swift at the forefront of our singer/songwriters today.

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Robyn Hitchcock/Emma Swift. Mono Cafe Bar, Glasgow. Monday 8th June 2015

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Robyn Hitchcock has always been a singular artist, even back when he fronted The Sort Boys, a psychedelic post punk crew. While they could storm through the nihilistic rant of a song like I Wanna Destroy You he remained calm in the centre, his Home Counties voice cutting through the guitars. His lyrics inhabit a world that’s like a Magritte painting, the mundane juxtaposed with the incredible, peopled with crustaceans and statues with other worlds hidden behind mirrors. While he credits Dylan as his first influence he’s incorporated the psychedelic whimsy of Syd Barrett, the autumnal tones of Nick Drake and the jangled rock of the likes of REM into his work.

It’s a privilege really to see such an artist as Hitchcock in the cosy confines of Mono; close up and unplugged he commanded attention, the audience were rapt throughout, no chatter at the bar just a sense of respect and admiration. The stage was set by Australian Emma Swift who has recorded with Hitchcock and whose lachrymose country songs were well received. Her version of Gram Parsons’ Brass Buttons highlighted her aching bittersweet voice while the suicide note that is Rowland Howard’s Shiver was delivered with a fine mix of tenderness and defiance. Her own song, Seasons, marked her as a writer and singer who could be up there with the likes of Lucinda Williams, a sense reinforced by her recorded version of the song.

Robyn Hitchcock opened without fanfare with a cover of Dylan’s’ Not Dark Yet and it wasn’t until after a devastating delivery of My Wife And My Dead Wife that he spoke to the audience. Thereafter most of the songs were treated to a weird and wonderful prologue with Hitchcock reminiscing about past appearances in the area going back to the lunacy that was the Bungalow Bar in the eighties to the Renfrew Ferry. He recalled the era of the trolleybus, dedicated songs to the brass beer vats to the side of the stage and bamboozled the audience with time shifts and warps reminding us that he would be here at the same time yesterday if we arrive tomorrow or some such tomfoolery. Introductions to the songs were hijacked by flights of fancy, the transition from life to death likened to the difficulties of mastering an I phone.

The audience ate up Hitchcock’s raps which were at times hilarious. He was serious when talking about his forebears, introducing his sensitive version of Robin Williamson’s song, Nightfall as his second twilight song of the evening after the opening Dylan song. With I Got The Hots For You the one nod to the Soft Boys tonight Hitchcock played several songs from his latest album The Man Upstairs that showed he continues to be a most intriguing writer. With Ms. Swift on hand for some excellent harmonies San Francisco Patrol and I Used To Say I Loved You were magnificent before the pair launched into a shiveringly good Queen Elvis. Their rendition of Follow The Money, a Hitchcock song recorded by the pair for a record store day single was an exemplar of harmonised singing and they ended with a superb rendition of Townes Van Zandt’s Pancho and Lefty with Swift and Hitchcock swapping worlds with Emmylou Harris and Gram parsons for a nanosecond. Simply superb.