Best of 2014

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albums

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.

Gal Holiday and the Honky Tonk Revue. Last To Leave.

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Isn’t the internet wonderful? A few months ago I happened on a video that stood out for two reasons. First was the one take approach to it as the camera panned and dollied around the band playing, nice. Second however was the band itself. A Patsy Cline like singer with an intriguing look sang wonderfully over a magnificent blowsy Spanish inflected twang laden backing. The band was Gal Holiday And The Honky Tonk Revue and the song was To Make Amends. It stuck with me so Blabber’n’Smoke eventually acquired a copy of their latest album, Last To Leave, and lo and behold, To Make Amends is but one of the gems contained therein.

New Orleans residents, Gal Holiday And the Honky Tonk Revue are fronted by Vanessa Niemann, a wonderful singer, fired by the likes of Cline, Wanda Jackson and Loretta Lynn. She’s a formidable looking lady, the album cover has her imperiously sitting, defiant, outside an old trailer van, bags packed. Her lizard green dress and cowboy boots, tattoos and flame red hair all flagging up danger, this woman is not to be messed with. The image is carried on to the music, she sings with a sultry confidence, a country torch singer with attitude. Meanwhile the band curl and swing hitting plain old honky tonk, sweet bluegrass stylings and killer outlaw country.

From the start Niemann asserts her authority as a hefty grunt from her opens the first song, The Long Black Ribbon, a wide screen cowboy clatter with sterling pedal steel and telecaster twang. She’s A Killer is a film noire piece set to Western swing with double bass plucking bravely and the guitars just hoovering it up as they duel and quarrel. It’s similar to the rockabilly stylings of Imelda Mae but to the nth degree. Last To Leave is a fairly straightforward country styled lament but again the performance is well above par and they continue at this level throughout the album. Broke Down And Broke is gritty trucking fare while Rainy Nights, Sunny Days is suffused with early sixties Nashville smoothness, slightly jazzy with an excellent guitar solo that shares joy and tears, you need to hear this but it really is magnificent. Teach Me How To Two Step ups the sassiness quotient as Niemann swaggers over some more excellent guitars (it has to be said here that Chris Adkins and Tony Martinez on guitar and pedal steel shine throughout the album) and on the one cover here, Pat Benatar’s Love Is A Battlefield, they rein in the temptation to offer an amped up country rock version and instead treat the song to a brisk Bakersfield jaunt which again has some superb picking.

Last To Leave is an audaciously great listen from start to finish and while New Orleans folk can catch the band on a regular basis it would be great if someone could entice the band to cross the water. In the meantime we have the disc and that video.

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