Suzanne Jarvie

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S Jarvie live pic
Spiral Road, the impressive debut album from Canadian Suzanne Jarvie has been universally lauded since its release in April. Compared by many to Emmylou Harris Jarvie delivers sweet country rock, lilting ballads and lowering country funk over the course of the disc’s 10 songs. The heady mix of Hammond organ, pedal steel and crunchy guitars on Never Gonna Stop is just short of monumental while Tears Of Love with its keening melancholy buoyed up by a joyful country arrangement would be right at home on Emmylou’s Pieces Of The Sky album, indeed it sounds as if it were written by a metaphysical Dolly Parton.
Jarvie, whose day job is as a criminal defence attorney, began to write these songs in the aftermath of a family tragedy, her son in a coma after a head injury. His road to recovery unlocked a creativity in Jarvie. While she had always dabbled in music she found herself “in a feverish fit of writing” until her songs were heard by producer Hugh Christopher Brown who eventually helmed the album setting Jarvie’s songs in crystalline and sparkling arrangements. The result is a triumph, a testament to the human spirit, uplifting, sad yet joyous with lyrics that recall the cosmic mysticism of Mike Nesmith and Gene Clark.
Ms. Jarvie is currently in the UK preparing for her first European appearances, several dates in the Netherlands throughout May. Prior to this she’s taping a session for Barry Everett’s House Of Mercy radio show and on Thursday 7th May has a free show (with Lynne Hanson) in West Hampstead, London, laid on by Locally Sourced, details  here. Just arrived in London and battling jet lag Suzanne was kind enough to answer a few questions from Blabber’n’Smoke.

Spiral Road has been unanimously praised in review after review here in the UK and the continent. Do you read the reviews and if so did you recognize yourself in them?
Yes and no. Sometimes it’s like reading about a stranger who is living the dream I wanted but could never quite reach. I do ask myself, who is the person who wrote those songs. Are they mine? Other times I recognize the artist in myself that was silent all these years, (thanks Tori Amos) which feels like a homecoming. Especially given my years working and developing as a litigator. There’s an element of poetry in advocacy, and I see now how that’s the well I was always drawing from. The realization of an artistic longing in a way that has integrity and honesty. Also, my son’s accident, which was the catalyst for these songs, was almost 4 years ago, so that experience is somewhat misted over, at least in terms of emotional immediacy. Sometimes because of that I feel detached from the reviews, which I am incredibly grateful for. They reflect so much on the amazingly collaborative aspect of the work and I am deeply honored by the response.
This is your first album, written as you say after your son’s accident. Prior to that were you playing music, singing anywhere or writing songs? It seems astonishing that an album as assured as this wasn’t in gestation for some time.
I have been playing and singing for years, but until this record, not creatively. When I was much younger I played the role of musical mimic. Even when I tried to write, which was almost never, it was either something contrived or hopelessly mawkish and 16 year old school girl diary-ish. While I had a deep longing to be more and do more creatively, I don’t think I even understood what that meant. I did not know then that creativity does not come from the mind per se. Similar to the ‘you don’t know what you don’t know’ problem. My son’s accident turned off my mind completely for a while and suddenly there was tremendous room. When the mind is quiet – a sudden awareness that something else is present. So I think the unformed essence of the record had been gestating for ages, but the trauma of the accident opened the door and fertilized the material. Getting a bit reproductive here.
Hugh Christopher Brown says that a friend of his told him about you, he heard you and was somewhat blown away which led to him producing the album. How much of a role did he have in the musicians who play with you, did you know some of them or did Chris open up his phonebook and call in some folk?
Chris’ role cannot be overstated. I had a couple of good friends who I wanted to play on the record, but other than that I had no one. No band and songs which had stripped down arrangements. I had general ideas about sonics but no specifics on how to achieve them. Chris has a pretty orchestral vision and a wide circle of wonderfully talented musician friends – so we built the record in layers, largely based on his various waves of inspiration regarding who to call on (like the Homes Bros., the Abrams Bros., Mickey Raphael, Tony Scherr etc).
While a couple of the songs (2458, Angel Of Light and Wait For Me in particular) can be seen to be about your children’s’ illnesses the remainder of the songs are highly allusive with you singing about stars, the universe, molecules and such. There are references to Navajo tradition and Enola Gay tackles nuclear destruction with powerful imagery without descending into an anti bomb diatribe. Having had some time to listen again to the album and study the words I’m wondering what authors or poets (or songwriters) might have been an influence here.
My influences are elusive. Some days I think Dark Side of the Moon, some days Gillian Welch, other days Joni Mitchell, or Tolkien or Jung. Some days I know it is meditating on death (I don’t mean that morbidly). It’s like trying to identify a spice in a dish made by someone else. I know it’s “my” imagination, but it doesn’t feel like that when it’s doing its thing. I had a transcendent experience because of my son’s accident. Something about that finally allowed me to draw on my influences without being a mimic, but also without being able to definitively identify them either. Maybe that’s the whole point!
I see that in the liner notes you credit Dylan Thomas, J.K. Rowling, Gene Roddenberry and George Lucas for inspiration. Care to elaborate on this?
My imagination is a pretty thick soup of science fiction, Victorian literature, escapist fantasy, children’s classics and random poets whose work hit me hard, like Dylan Thomas and Phillip Larkin. I like the high brow low brow mix up too. All four of my kids have a similar penchant, and so together we have spent hundreds of hours reading and watching the Harry Potter stories, Star Trek, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars etc. I got pretty wrapped up in the recurring metaphors and archetypes. I wonder at the endless capacity for the human imagination to reinvent themes relating to corruption and redemption. I hate clichés, but the question of hope’s endurance and resilience is mysterious and inspiring. When everything is getting pulverized it appears and guides, like the deluminator orb! How is that? Also, passivity versus the emotionally active life. The universe really does want you to go tearing down the street after your dreams. When you do, it will give you tail wind. I think Never Gonna Stop and Enola Gay contain those themes. Spiral Road for example, is partly inspired by my experiences with the Navajo and partly by the Tales of Beadle the Bard, J.K. Rowling’s story within the story. As for Dylan Thomas, it’s something about Fern Hill. I read that poem for the first time at age 15 and found it emotionally devastating. It’s never left me. Ultimately what you know about mortality in the abstract is irrelevant. Fern Hill gave me that epiphany on mortality, through art. I think about that all the time, about the existential power and fundamental role of art and artists.
You’re playing a few dates in the UK and The Netherlands in May. Is this your first time in Europe? Will you be playing solo or with a band?
This is my first time in Europe and I am beyond thrilled. Chris Brown is touring with me, so we will perform the tunes as a duo. In addition to his awesome keyboard stylings he gets to work his falsetto on the harmonies!

So, if you’re in West Hampstead tomorrow night you know where to go. In the meantime there’s the album to enjoy, guaranteed to astonish and delight.

Various Artists. Look Again To The Wind. Sony Masterworks

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First thing to say here is that Look Again To The Wind is a perfect Christmas present for anyone who has any interest in American country music. Like the soundtrack to Oh Brother Where Art Thou it’s crammed full of excellent songs, excellently played by some of the best artists around. As a concept it’s interesting, as an album it’s little short of magnificent.

The album is a recreation of Johnny Cash‘s 1964 LP, Bitter Tears: Ballads of The American Indian. The original shows Cash at the cutting edge of the civil rights movement, the Civil Rights act was published that year in response to coloured Americans battles against segregation but Native American Indians were still primarily seen as fodder for John Wayne’s cavalry. Cash set out to highlight their cause although it’s not a political set as such. With five tracks penned by Peter La Farge, two by Cash himself and one by Johnny Horton (writer of The Battle Of New Orleans) it celebrates a culture while highlighting injustice such as on its most famous song, The Ballad Of Ira Hayes or the dangers of miscegenation as on White Girl.

Look Again To The Wind was produced by Joe Henry who picked the artists for the album, in particular Gillian Welch and David Rawlings who appear on several of the songs. Norman Blake, who played on the original, contributes as does his wife Nancy while Emmylou Harris, Steve Earle, Kris Kristofferson, The Milk Carton Kids and Rhiannon Giddens (of The Carolina Chocolate Drops) all perform. As such the delivery is impeccable, the songs transformed from the rough-hewn Cash originals into intricate tapestries with hints of bluegrass and country. Kristofferson towers on Ira Hayes while Earle offers a fine talking blues dissection of Custer. Nancy Blake, Emmylou Harris and Welch are delightful on The Talking Leaves while Giddens wails wonderfully on The Vanishing Race. The highlight however is the nine minute version of the opening title song of the original LP by Welch and Rawlings which opens here and almost spoils the album as it begs to be repeated as soon as it’s ended.

The track list follows the original with three exceptions. Apache Tears and As Long As The Grass Shall grow are reprised towards the end while another of Lafarge’s Native American songs, Look Again To The Wind, not featured on the original, is sung by Native American Bill Miller, a valedictorian statement that closes the album on a poignant note.

you can hear Gillian Welch and David Rawlings sing As Long As The Grass Shall Grow here

Zoe Muth. World Of Strangers.

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Blabber’n’Smoke reviewed Seattle’s Zoe Muth’s debut album back in 2010 likening her and her band, The Lost High Rollers, to Emmylou Harris and the Hot Band. Since then Muth has steadily toured and built up her reputation releasing her second album, Starlight Hotel in 2011. Three years on we find Muth relocated from Seattle to the sunnier climes of Austin Texas leaving the High Rollers somewhat lost (bar drummer Greg Nies who lugged his kit along for the album) and while there’s no great departure from the two previous discs Muth sounds as if she’s settled well and made some fine new friends in the process.

She opens the album with the sparkling Little Piece Of History which details her relocation setting off for Texas on New Year’s Day. Up tempo with rippling mandolin and piano it captures the sense of a new start with echoes of The Byrds in the free flowing energy expressed in the song. Mama Needs A Margarita finds Muth firmly ensconced in the Lone Star State with piano and pedal steel well to the fore on a song that Doug Sahm would have loved. While Muth doesn’t have the ballsy swagger of Sahm Make Me Change My Mind shows that she can rip it up when required as the pedal steel swells, fiddles saw and Nies pile drives the drums. Too Shiny is another turbo charged rocker with some fine Telecaster twang thrown in which recalls Lone Justice but the best moments here are on the ballads which allow Muth’s splendid effortless voice free rein.

Somebody I Know is a glorious song that builds in intensity from the lengthy instrumental intro before Muth waltzes in sounding like a younger Lucinda Williams with her sultry presence. Bruce Robison joins in on harmonies towards the end as the song takes flight. Muth is joined on vocals by Brandy Zdane (Twilight Hotel) for the sumptuous Waltz Of The Wayward Wind, a standout here as the guitars and pedal steel ebb and flow while the barroom piano tinkles forlornly, a classic song. She closes the album with another belter, the stately What Did You Come Back Here For which recalls prime Jackson Browne as piano and organ twin up providing a swirling backdrop for Muth’s evocative vocals.

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The Redlands Palomino Company. Broken Carelessly. Clubhouse Records.

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It’s looking to be a good year for what one might loosely term “alt country” albums with Scots acts the New Madrids and Red Pine Timber Company handing in excellent efforts so far. Time now to look to London to see what’s cooking down there and keeping their end up are The Redlands Palomino Company whose fourth album, Broken Carelessly is released this week. The Palominos are a classic UK “Americana” band with a sound that ranges from pedal steel laced country songs to jangled pop and rock while remaining true to their local roots. In addition their not so secret weapon is the wonderful voice of Hannah Elton-Wall (who’s had several mentions on Blabber’n’Smoke recently as backing or harmony singer on various albums). Here she sings like an angel and is the primary songwriter while hubby Alex adds his voice to several of the songs and produces. Recorded almost live in a Methodist Chapel in rural Gloucestershire within the space of a week there’s an immediacy and intimacy to the songs that is welcoming and reflects the recording environment which took on an air of a farewell party for drummer Dan Tilbury who emigrated to Denmark immediately the recording was over.

In these Lines opens the album with the band chuckling in the studio before launching into what is an almost perfect song. Hannah Elton-Wall’s voice is buttressed by acoustic guitar before the pedal steel and some chunky guitar chording kick in. Effortlessly she sings a bitter sweet lovelorn story with the ambiguity reflected by the honeyed pedal steel of Dave Rothon and a gritty guitar solo from guest Tom Bowen. Solitary Strangers has Alex on lead vocals on another honey slide of a song with some more grit in it as it picks up momentum. While it’s not as immediate as its predecessor it has an energy which should translate well into a live performance. On a roll by now Everything I’m Not is another up-tempo sad love song fuelled by jangling guitar and mandolin with the rhythm section gently propelling it along. These three songs epitomise the Palomino experience, loping country rock with vigorous breaks from the guitarists so it’s a surprise when the title song starts off as if they were about to dive headlong into glam rock. With a riff borrowed from The Sweet (believe it or not) Hannah sings about a Palomino horse with a free spirit while Rothon attempts to temper the propulsive beat and power chords with his pedal steel. It’s a bold effort but one that requires further perusal. No qualms about Don’t Ever Let Me Down however as it’s a country laced jaunt while She Can Live Without You , written by Rothon and with Alex on vocals heads into Teenage Fanclub territory with a fine chunky power pop feel. While Alex also offers us the woozy Floorboard George that sounds as if The Felice Brothers were recording on a cider binge the high points of the album are to be found in a brace of songs towards the end. Scattered Earth recalls Emmylou Harris’s ambient style from Wrecking Ball with mallets and subdued strumming swaddling Hannah’s voice. Swim is an impressionistic canvas with Hannah as a submariner drifting at the mercy of the current as organ swells billow and wave. The Big Freeze is another atmospheric piece, the lyrics dominated by images of snow and ice with the band tobogganing along as the pedal steel curls and weaves. Hannah sounds wonderful here, gliding above the music, soaring at times. They end the album on a valedictory note with Band Song which is like a diary entry as Hannah sings of the trials, tribulations and ultimately the reasons for being in a band.

“What a stupid thing to try and make money from, but when we’re dead and gone let’s hope these songs live on, oh why do I still try, why am I standing here tonight? It’s because the pedal steel still makes me want to cry.”

Of course the pedal steel weeps throughout as they build up to the climatic chorus which is proud and defiant ending the album ultimately on a high note.

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Cahalen Morrison & Eli West. I’ll Swing My Hammer With Both My Hands.

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Firm favourites here at Blabber’n’Smoke Cahalen Morrison & Eli West don’t disappoint with their third release, I’ll Swing My Hammer With Both My Hands. Their previous discs, The Holy Coming of The Storm and Our Lady of The Tall Trees are two of our favourite albums of the past three years inspiring quotes such as “They write songs that sound as if they have been disinterred from dusty archives” and “tales as strong as an Oak with language that seems to be hewn from ancient timber.” I’ll swing My Hammer With Both Hands continues in this vein although first impressions are of a less bare boned approach on some songs with producer Tim O’Brien adding his mandolin and bouzouki to the duo’s sound along with bassist Erin Youngblood while fiddle is added by Ryan Drickey (who appeared on The Holy Coming Of The Storm) and Brittany Haas. This string band approach allows them the opportunity to have a full blown hoedown on Living In America that Bill Monroe could have been proud of while Natural Thing To Do is an excellent old time country ballad with forlorn fiddles adding a fine Hickory touch to the wearied words. The fiddle returns for the dramatic Sinner Come Home, a fire and brimstone sermon with apocalyptic imagery. Surprisingly there’s no fiddle on the opening song, Fiddlehead Fern, just the sweet interplay between Morrison and West, complementing each other perfectly and harmonising as only they can do, voices rough hewn yet beautiful. The fiddlehead fern referred to in the title is indeed a young fern shoot, cooked, somewhat like Asparagus, in parts of North America. However at the end of the album there is an instrumental reprise of the song which does indeed feature a fiddle so no need to feel short changed.

The bulk of the album allows Morrison and West to appear as they do live, Morrison playing banjo, mandolin bouzouki and Dobro, West on guitar and bouzouki (although O’Brien does beef up the sound on a few songs), with Morrison writing the songs . Again Morrison seems able to conjure up songs that wouldn’t sound out of place on a scratchy 78 as Pocket Full Of Dust uses depression era language to describe a lovelorn loner while his lyrics paint vivid pictures such as ” My love’s a sparrow, she weaves a blazing thread. She flies in crimson when the sky is burning red. She sharpens like an arrow as the evening turns to rust.” James Is Out is a pleasure to listen to as their deceptively simple sounding guitar and banjo ramble and pluck while they sing a childlike vision of a rural family forced to cope on their own with a fierce family pride refusing to accept that poverty might be an issue. Down In The Lonesome Draw stands as the centrepiece of the album, a sepia toned portrait of the westward expansion, not so much Go West Young Man than the trials and tribulations of the settlers, burnt by the sun and with the promised land always one more town away, “Here’s to the great expanse, where everything is a poisonous dance.”

There are three cover songs included. H.W. Vanhoose’s Going To Live In Green Pastures ( familiar perhaps to fans of Emmylou Harris) is a fine gospel outing that allows Morrison and West to showcase their harmony singing, more so in their version of the Louvin Brothers’ Lorene as the duo are surely indebted to the Louvin’s (with the debt fully paid here). Voices of Evening comes from the pen of Alice Gerrard, another singer who drinks from the old time well. A funeral dirge to the departed it sounds as if it were recorded in a sylvan cathedral as the departed’s soul goes heavenward. Even a confirmed atheist could consider this for their own last calling card.

Suffice to say that I’ll Swing My Hammer With Both My Hands is another triumph for Morrison and West. Often the PR blurbs that accompany album releases are sheer hyperbole but one instance in the one sheet that came with this speaks volumes. “An effort to touch the unknown with eyes closed and fingers wrapped around the neck of your instrument and voices raised in beautiful harmony.” Well put. Finally it’s worthwhile noting that the packaging of the CD is handsome indeed for all of those pondering if a download would suffice.
Cahalen Morrison & Eli West are touring the UK from April 30th. Dates below.

Website

Tour dates

Wed Apr 30: The Garret Sessions at Queens Head, Fyfield, Essex
Thur May 1: The Green Note, London
Fri May 2: The Workhouse, Presteigne, Powys, Mid Wales
Sat May 3: The Walker Theatre (Theatre Severn), Shrewsbury
Sun May 4: The Cross Inn, Haverfordwest, Pembs
Tues May 6: Red Rooms, Cookstown
Wed May 7: Balor Arts Centre, Ballybofey, Co Donegal
Thur May 8: Whelan’s, Dublin
Fri May 9: Baltimore Fiddle Fair, Co Cork, Ireland
Sun May 11: Caedmon Hall, Gateshead
Mon May 12: Church on the Green, Denholm
Tues May 13: House concert, Edinburgh
Wed May 14: House concert, Edinburgh
Thur May 15: Acoustic Music Club, Kirkcaldy
Fri May 16: Glenbuchat Village Hall, Aberdeenshire
Sat May 17: The CatStrand, New Galloway
Sun May 18: The Barrels Alehouse, Berwick-upon-Tweed

Malcolm Holcombe. Down The River

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Slowly but surely North Carolina bred singer and songwriter Malcolm Holcombe has carved a reputation over the years as a fine purveyor of rootsy country blues with his albums and live shows almost universally praised. Despite this he remains a bit of a hidden gem, known only to the cognoscenti but there’s a chance this might change with the release of this, his ninth album.
Having been on several labels (including Geffen who refused to release the album he recorded for them) he’s self released Down The River and it’s a measure of the respect he’s held in that he’s gathered a grand set of musicians to assist him. The band include Darrell Scott, Ken Coomer and Viktor Krauss while vocals are supplied by Kim Richey, Emmylou Harris and Steve Earle. In addition the album is produced by Steve Earle’s sometime producer Ray Kennedy. The result is a stellar collection of songs that feature Holcombe’s amazing growl of a voice and his deft guitar picking with truckloads of banjo, steel guitar, mandolin, fiddle and Dobro backing him up. The effect is very similar to that of Earle’s “come back” album Train A Coming.
In addition to the excellent playing Holcombe writes with a fine sense of anger at the modern ways of the world railing against injustice but also celebrating the eternal optimism of the human spirit most pointedly in The Crossing, one of the more tender songs here. With some fine lilting fiddle this is a beautiful spiritual lament. The Door continues in this vein as Holcombe reins in his voice while pedal steel (by Russ Pahl) glides and weaves. Both of these songs are cloaked in mystery as Holcombe sings of people who seem to be lost and desolate but who are buttressed by hope and pride. The starkness of The Empty Jar is the culmination of this; delicate guitar and viola paint a lonely picture as Holcombe sings “an empty jar but full of eyes/ that see you here pourin’ perfect comfort /for thirsty silent tears.” The effect is similar to the grim determination seen in the photography of Dorothea Lange. The duet with Emmylou Harris In Your Mercy is lighter in its delivery but again tells of an abandoned soul clinging to pride and memories.
All of these songs are beautiful and had the album stuck with this style it would be very impressive indeed. However Holcombe adds a topping of righteous indignation and launches his full bear growl on a clutch of songs that damn those in control who cause misery and loss. Butcher In Town opens the album like a boxer jumping out on the bell. Darrell Scott’s Dobro is excellent here as Holcombe proclaims “I don’t claim a thing/not a two bit clue/but somebody whispered/war kills the truth” while on Twisted Arms he almost spits out the words. Whitewash Job nails the politicians with an undisguised glee with Holcombe sounding not unlike Baby Gramps with his piratical “har hars” over a fine chugging rhythm. The duet with Steve Earle, Trail O’ Money is the most direct diatribe as Holcombe declares “all the noise from the crowd/breakin’ hearts with deceit/all you war hungry bastards/bloodthirsty with greed.” Despite the vitriol in the words the song itself is a wonderful recreation of the sound of Bob Dylan circa 1970 with lonesome harp and a nice country lope. Holcombe sums up the album and his thoughts on the closing title song, a fine old fashioned number with female backing vocals and an uplifting beat as he sings “the hard times makes us stronger to get by/and leave this world behind/down the river.”

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Carrie Rodriguez and Ben Kyle We still Love our Country.

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Carrie Rodriguez has slowly carved out a name for herself over the past few years in the Americana field. Originally teaming up with veteran Chip Taylor her voice and fiddle made their four albums together a delight before launching a solo career. Here she returns to a duet format in tandem with Ben Kyle from the mid west band Romantica on an album that basically does what it says on the tin, proclaiming their love of country. Kyle’s youthful vocals replace Taylor’s sepia toned veteran’s voice and the pair of them sing wonderfully together on a selection of six covers and two originals. With a fine band in the shape of Luke Jacobs on pedal steel, Hans Holzen, guitars, Kyle Kegerreis, bass and Ricky Fataar on drums the playing is sweet and tender and always sympathetic.
Kyle’s Your Lonely Heart opens the album and immediately recalls classic vocal duos such as Tammy and George or Dolly and Porter on a humbucking country jaunt with exuberant fiddle guitar and pedal steel. A fine start. The other original song, Fire Alarm, penned by Rodriguez and Kyle is a rollicking rendition of a bickering couple who find their faults but stick together. The meat of the album however is in the covers which are in the main ballads, delivered with an intensity that raises the album well above that of a covers collection. Townes Van Zandt’s If I Needed You is given a reverential treatment with a shuffling rhythm and delicate fiddle playing. Kyle’s vocals come into focus here. He’s got a fine voice, slightly worn, wispy, vulnerable, perfectly matched to Rodriguez’s voice. They repeat this feat on their version of John Prine’s lachrymose Unwed Fathers but the gem here is Chip Taylor’s Big Kiss where their voices melt into each other with an ebb and flow that is spinetingling.
Squirrelling away throughout the album is the memory of what some might call the supreme male/female team of alt country, Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris. It’s reinforced with the inclusion of You’re Still On My Mind, a song Parsons sang with the Byrds and which Emmylou has covered. Rodriguez and Kyle grab the bull by the horns on the last song, their version of Love Hurts, a song covered by many but within the Americana idiom owned by Emmylou and Gram via their version on Grievous Angel. Kyle acknowledges this saying “ Gram and Emmy were a deep inspiration for this project and so you can say we chose this song as an acknowledgement or a sort of homage to them.” Suffice to say that the shivers sent up the spine on listening to this proves that they can carry this off.
A short album, only 30 minutes long, it’s a miniature gem and well worth grabbing a hold of.
Rodriguez is touring the UK later this month with a date at Edinburgh’s Cabaret Voltaire on Thursday 27th October.
Carrie Rodriguez website
Ben Kyle wbsite

Kimmie Rhodes “Dreams Of Flying”

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With 14 album releases under her belt since 1981, Lubbock, Texas born Rhodes has steadily carved a reputation as a solid songwriter and a vocal foil to numerous country stars. These include Willie Nelson, Emmylou Harris, Patty Griffin, Kris Kristofferson, Waylon Jennings and even Townes Van Zandt. Despite this she has never achieved the popularity of peers such as Emmylou, Nancy Griffith or Lucinda Williams. Plowing on, her latest release Dreams of Flying is a firm reminder of her songwriting and performing qualities.
Recorded in Austin and featuring a stellar band (Charlie sexton, John Gardner, Mike Thompson and John Mills, check them out) and produced by her son Gabriel Rhodes who adds some fine guitar touches the album sounds wonderful with Rhodes’ tender voice ably supported by some sumptuous playing. This is immediately evident on the opening title song which has a dreamlike quality similar to the otherworld inhabited by David Lynch’s ethereal soundtracks. Rhodes glides through Back Again with a quiet majesty while the band inhabit an ambient space that Emmylou Harris used to great effect on Wrecking Ball that wraps itself around the listener like a warm blanket. Like Love To Me has a touch of Van Morrison’s Caledonia soul to it with muted horns adding the honey. One By One is an almost unbearingly poignant song while New Way Through is an almost perfect song. Rippling mandolin and a wheezy keyboard sounding like an accordion support Rhodes who does indeed sing like an angel here as she uses clouds as a metaphor for her state of mind. With a cover of Donovan’s Catch The Wind, performed as a duet with Joe Ely that transforms the song into another elegiac rhapsody the overall feel of the album is of lost opportunities delivered in a heart melting style.
This might be Rhodes’ most fully realised album and there is an opportunity to hear and see her at the Centre for Contemporary Arts in Glasgow when she appears in May.

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June Bugs

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Old time American music continues today with countless proponents picking, strumming, fiddling and sometimes even yodelling, reaching back into the past and updating it with varying degrees of success. Here we have Western swing, Appalachian folk songs and bang up to date country rock.

The Quebe Sisters Band. Timeless

The Quebe Sisters Band are Texans who do like their Bob Wills and Spade Cooley. The three Quebe sisters all play fiddle and sing while Joey McKenzie strums and Drew Phelps’ upright bass provides the beat. The 14 songs here are all covers including “Across The Alley from the Alamo,” “Along The Navajo Trail” and “Tumbling Tumbleweeds,” familiar songs, perhaps too familiar at times. That said the album starts off with a cracking “So Long To The Red River Valley” and when they tackle Billy Strayhorn’s “Take The A train” the fiddle playing and guitar sounds like Django and Grappelli duelling. Perhaps the only complaint about the album is that with the vocals sounding at times like the Andrews sisters this is a bit too retro, a bit too safe especially if you like a little bit of grit in your music.
The Quebe Sisters Band appear in the UK for the first time in July for a bunch of dates including The Cambridge Folk Festival.

Jeni and Billy. Longing For Heaven

Jeni and Billy trade in the same homespun feel as the Quebes although it belongs on the back porch as opposed to bars and dance halls. Theirs is the sparse folk sound of the mountains and backwoods folk, god fearing, hardworking, scraping a living but finding joy in family and friends. The pair play guitar, banjo and mandolin while Jeni Hawkins carries the vocals with Billy Kemp adding counterpoint. Together they create a warm, honest sound as natural as flowers in a field. With a mixture of traditional and original songs they sing of drunkards, jilted lovers and ruined lives. Half of these songs could be turned into tear-stained movies, “The Ballad of Sally Kincaid” tells of a girl seduced by a thieving preacher who hangs himself leaving her to end her days in shame. “Father Will You meet Me In Heaven” is the story of Johnny cash’s brother, Jack’s tragic death seen as a redemptive moment for their father’s godless ways. A previous album, Jewell Ridge Coal, documented the lives of miners in south-west Virginia and here they sing a song for Cecil Roberts, the President of the United Mine Workers of America. It’s a reminder that even these days mining is dangerous, deadly even.
A pretty stunning album for anyone into old-time Americana. Jenni and Bily are currently touring in England.

Zoe Muth and The Lost High Rollers.

Zoe Muth draws on classic country sounds with lashings of pedal steel and dobro and a voice that could have graced Nashville recordings anytime in the fifties to the present day. While the debt to tradition is there Muth and her band come across as an up to date Emmylou Harris and The Hot Band. Muth writes all of the songs with a worn and weary take on modern life, cosmopolitan as opposed to rural her lost souls are stuck in a neon lit nighttime dead end. The full band sound throbs and swings with some excellent playing, a rock solid rhythm section lay down a beat while steel guitar, dobro, banjo and mandolin hammer home the country roots. Over this Muth sings like a wounded angel, vulnerable yet tough and above all else she can write. All of the songs here have a hook that should have radio station playlisters drool. “Hard Luck Love” is a stone solid classic radio friendly song while “The Last Bus” is a superb portrait of a drifter drifting the lonely highways and bus stops, hungry and broke she can sing and play guitar but seems doomed to go on in ever decreasing circles. While this may be the highlight here Muth delivers again and again. “The Middle of Nowhere” is Loretta Lynn arriving in a big city while “Not You” is another Lynn type perky put down of a philandering partner. Overall this is a mighty fine album and Muth is definitely one to watch.

Listen here
The Quebe Sisters “So Long To The Red River Valley”

Jeni and Billy “I Saw A Man At the Close of Day”

Zoe Muth “Not You”