Daniel Meade and The Flying Mules. Let Me Off At The Bottom. At The Helm Records

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Time then for Daniel Meade, Glasgow’s own hillbilly hell raiser, to raise the bar with his third official release and the first album to feature his wingmen, The Flying Mules. The Mules (Meade – guitar and piano, Lloyd Reid – guitar, Mark Ferrie – double bass, Thomas Sutherland – drums) are well kent faces locally with several regular slots in city bars and are veterans of tours with Pokey LaFarge and Sturgill Simpson. Indeed, they appeared as Simpson’s band on his latest Glasgow date, the US chart topper unsure about appearing before a Glasgow audience on his lonesome at the cavernous O2ABC. Meade himself has recently toured supporting and then playing alongside Diana Jones with several of the songs here making their first appearance. Now, hot on the heels of five packed shows in four days at the Kilkenny Roots Festival in Ireland last weekend, The Mules are set to unleash Let Me Off At The Bottom on the world.

Equally at home with Jerry Lee Lewis styled rockers and George Jones like laments Meade has the ability to take country music clichés and turn them into rockabilly poetry, the honky tonk hell raisers and beer stained weepers delivered with a Glaswegian gallusness. There are some fine examples in the rollicking There’s a Headstone Where Her heart Used To Be with Meade explaining, “Well I met lots of women on this rocky road, I love them whether long short or tall. Some for a weekend some twice as long but I still love them all.”  Of course he’s derailed by a femme fatale, a merry widow whose lips taste of candy, laughing with his friends as he looks on from beyond. It’s delivered with a vengeance, Meade’s honky tonk piano driving the song with an excellent guitar solo from Reid that’s half Les Paul, half Chet Atkins.

There are several hi-octane belters here, The Mules firing on all cylinders, the rhythm section tight as the proverbial duck, bass supple and slapping while the traps are expertly deployed. Back To Hell opens the album with a locomotive energy, Meade introducing one of the album’s themes, the demon drink, from the beginning. It’s a breathless dash from start to finish, again Reid throws in one of his seemingly  effortless solos, the notes curling from his guitar sweet as honey. Ghosts and Crocodiles has a jug band like infectiousness to it while Please Louise is a guaranteed crowd pleaser as Meade tries to back pedal from a shotgun marriage, his lyrics delivered expertly over the barrelhouse keyboards and fretboard wizardry, a Jordonaires type chorus the icing on the cake. He hasn’t learned his lesson on the avaricious rocker Lock Up You Daughter and it’s back to the drink for the closing The Bottle Called For Me, a saloon bar knockabout that ends with a good old rabble rousing chorus.

As infectious as these songs are (and a good indication of how superb the band are live) The Mules have other strings to their bow. As evidenced on his last album Meade can turn his hand to old time country songs and waltzes (as on his duet with Diana Jones on Help Me Tonight) and there’s a brace of these sadder tear stained moments on the album. Meade has an acute grasp on the topics that engaged George Jones and Hank Williams (heartbreak mostly), while his voice can convey the hurt just as well as the good times. He Should Have Been Mine laments with a fine plaintive piano and Poison Dart lopes along with some sweet guitar curls and a lonesome prairie feel. Best of all is the powerful confessional of Leave Me To Bleed, Meade, superbly accompanied by Siobhan Wilson on harmonies, reaching into the darker recesses of country music, his bride dead before the wedding, guilt and faith confused, the music a back porch funereal.

Midway twixt the light and dark there’s an excellent country ramble on Count The Roses which delves into George Jones territory with some style while the title song recalls the Everly Brothers with its harmonies. Like Pokey Lafarge, Meade has the ability to write songs that seem to have been around forever and here he’s forged a set of songs that cover a panoply of half a century of rockabilly and country music. The album’s a whirligig of rabble rousing honky tonk and forlorn laments all delivered with some panache.

Let Me Off At The Bottom is released on May 27th on At The Helm Records. There’s an album launch in Glasgow at The Rum Shack on the Southside on the 28th May.

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At The Helm Records

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mark Billingham & My Darling Clementine. The Other Half. Hachette Audio.

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On their two albums as My Darling Clementine Michael Weston King and Lou Dalgleish have celebrated the country tradition of singing songs about ordinary people and their day-to-day trials and tribulations, wrecked romances, succour in a glass of booze, trying to retain a dignity in the face of ongoing emotional blows. Their template has been George Jones and Tammy Wynette who, despite their successes, had their own troubles to deal with which were played out in the glare of publicity. My Darling Clementine’s triumph is their ability to inhabit the same world as George and Tammy in song with How Do You Plead and The Reconciliation almost mini soap operas peopled by life’s losers.

The Other Half takes this approach a tad further as My Darling Clementine offer a soundtrack to crime writer (and country music fan) Mark Billingham’s series of vignettes of life in a Memphis bar. The main protagonist, Marcia, is an ex Vegas showgirl, her beauty now fading and her circumstances reduced as she caters to the regulars who all have their own back stories. Billingham tells their tales as extracted by Marcia in her chats with the drinkers along with her imagined embellishments as she attempts to fill in the blanks the customers are unwilling or unable to complete. They all share a loss, a partner gone, in jail, with someone else perhaps; they all share a solitary existence stuck with their memories. Marcia is no different, she struggles to pay for her elderly mother’s care, her daughter has run off with a musician and she daily awaits a phone call from her own missing partner. Billingham weaves these tales together in a deadpan style that readers of Willy Vlautin will recognise.

While the stories are printed in the CD booklet allowing one to read The Other Half in the traditional style the disc consists of Billingham reading each short story with a song from My Darling Clementine at the end of each one. The songs, the majority of which are reworkings from the two previous albums, cleverly reflect the preceding story in Marcia’s imagination; No Matter What Tammy Said (I Won’t Stand By Him) follows on from Donna’s admission that her husband is on Death Row while Going Back To Memphis is a rare ray of light as Marcia’s partner eventually gets back in touch. The narration by Billingham is punctuated by the characters’ voices played by King and Dalgleish along with David Morrisey, Graham Parker and Florence King. As always, King and Dalgleish sing wonderfully together with the pared back acoustic setting giving songs like No Heart In This Heartache and The Other Half a new lease of life. The backing by the Brodsky Quartet on No Matter What Tammy Said adds piquancy to this tale of domestic abuse. There are two new songs. Friday Night At The Tulip Hotel describes the secret love trysts of a couple which end when the married male doesn’t turn up one week leaving the guilt-ridden woman to believe “she got what she deserved.” As Precious As The Flame, co-written by Billingham and My Darling Clementine, ends the album on an upbeat note recognising that while the fires of young love might not burn forever it’s possible to retain a passion albeit tempered by reality as King and Dalgliesh sing, “It’s slowing up, it’s messing up, it’s cleaning up and saving up. Remembered thrills, It’s tales all told, it’s paying bills and growing old.” By allowing for the hope of a happy ending the song mirrors Marcia’s journey as she moves on. The result is an engaging listen, perfect for a car journey or to savour at home and whets the appetite for the next full album from our very own first couple of country music.

My darling Clementine and Mark Billingham are touring The Other Half around the UK. Dates are here including three appearances at The Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August.

My Darling Clementine website

Mark Billingham website

The Other Half website

Cale Tyson. High on Lonesome EP. Clubhouse Records

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2014 is turning out to be a fine year for new artists delivering new music that is steeped in a country tradition. After Sturgill Simpson’s magisterial retake on hard core outlaw country along comes Cale Tyson, a new signing to Clubhouse Records who grasps the sound of Hank Williams and George Jones in a warm embrace to deliver some wonderfully honky tonk soaked, tear stained ballads. The sound Tyson and his excellent band produce is mesmerising with the guitars and pedal steel given a spectral feel, as if Santo and Johnny of Sleepwalk fame had turned up at the Grand Ole Opry or Chris Isaak had joined Petunia and The Vipers. At heart however this is pure Country and the opening song, Honky Tonk Moan, is a perfect example as the Hawaiian sounding pedal steel introduces the band who clip clop into view while Tyson moans like Hank Williams. It’s an almost perfect song with Kenny Vaughan’s electric solo dripping with class as the song weeps out of the speakers, guaranteed to melt the heart of all but the stoniest listener.

One could be forgiven for expecting the remainder of this seven song disc to fall short of the standard set by Honky Tonk Moan but Tyson rises to the challenge with a set of songs that at times are better in that they are less anchored in the past. Is the Flame Burning Low is another tear stained waltz with more George than Hank. With a lighter touch on pedal steel, a more acoustic feel and some fine piano added to the mix Tyson croons wonderfully albeit with a lump in his throat. Lonesome In Tennessee is another love letter to a lost girlfriend (and by now one is wondering if Tyson will ever get to keep a gal) which adds a female chorus to his love raddled misery while the band are yet looser with drummer John McTigue adding a touch of drama with his cymbal work. By now it’s clear that Tyson is destined to be lonesome and Not Missing You adds a touch of defiance as he determines to move on from his heartbreak. Despite this, it’s still a sorrowful song with the sense of loneliness accentuated by a fine fiddle solo from Christian Sedelmayer. Again, the song is in waltz time but on this occasion one can hear the influence of another of Tyson’s heroes, Gram Parsons, in the vocal delivery and lyrics.

There’s a change of tone next as Long Gone Girl is given a darker, bluesy feel. Tyson is more judgemental here, his girlfriend drug addled and dragging him down. Sounding not a million miles away from The Doors on LA Woman the band lay down a neon rain specked vibe while Tyson’s lyrics are evocative and bang up to date.
Now my mind is racing faster than a car/Back in Texas for a night I’m playing in a bar/She calls me up ‘cos that girl is never quite too far/Saying Baby, come back home to me/I live like a sunset and all your drinks are on me/Though when I return she’s too coked out to see
This is brilliant story telling that raises the hair on the back of your neck recalling Jim White’s more spectral moments but following this we’re back in traditional territory as Old Time Blues returns to George Jones’ like laments while Thorn In My Side returns to the Hankness (if there is such a word) of the opening song. Again it’s a pitch perfect capture of raw country music back in the days when giants ruled the Opry although there is a hint of Parsons in the delivery.

Overall Tyson shows that he has an extraordinary ability to capture and repackage what some folk might consider to be the golden age of Nashville while tweaking it somewhat to bring it up to date. A post modern take on Parson’s Cosmic American Music perhaps, indebted to the elders, topical topics on occasion but overall infused with the spirit of Country music. Whatever it’s one of the best discs we’ve heard this year. The EP is released in early November on Clubhouse Records

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Hank Wangford and The Lost Cowboys. O2 ABC Glasgow. Thursday 15th May.

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With his fine new double album, Save Me The Waltz, safely in his saddlebag veteran Hank Wangford ambled into town with his posse, The Lost Cowboys, in tow looking to entertain the folks on Sauchiehall Street.

Seriously this was a welcome return to Glasgow for Wangford who has roots in the city (which was his mother’s birthplace) with several audience members recalling fabled Mayfest community shows in the likes of Castlemilk Community Centre (although the primary recollection there was of the band having much of their gear nicked!). Tonight Wangford was backed by a stellar line up which included guitar and pedal steel wizards Martin Belmont (Ducks Deluxe, Graham Parker and The Rumour, Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe and Carlene Carter) and BJ Cole (Cochise, Deke Leonard’s Help Yourself and innumerable sessions including Elton John’s Tiny Dancer along with appearances with REM, David Gilmour and Iggy Pop). Rock history in person! Aided and abetted by drummer Roy Dodds (ex Fairground Attraction) and bassist/harmony singer Anna (Spanner) Robinson (The Hallelujah Trails) the five piece set up was at times magnificent with Dodds and Robinson setting the pace with some aplomb while Belmont and Cole showed why they are so sought after as throughout the night they pulled out some astonishing licks.

Aside from the sheer pleasure of hearing some top notch musicians doing what they do best Wangford remains a singularly good frontman. Wearing his years very well (and looking as if he could well take up Kris Kristofferson’s Hollywood role as the wise and grizzled cowpoke should Kris ever retire) he commanded attention as he related his love of the country waltz and offered potted histories of some of the legends who wrote the songs including the unfortunately named Bollick Brothers who eventually saw sense and renamed themselves the Blue Sky Boys, as Hank said “you don’t have to make this up, it’s all out there.” With particular attention to Willie Nelson and George Jones, Wangford proselytised on their behalf and as the songs poured out the attraction was plain to see. Nelson’s Permanently Lonely and Half A Man along with Jones’ Brown To Blue and Golden Rings were well served while the essential banality of song titles such as He Forgot To Tell You He Was Married and Let’s Be Lonely Together Tonight was undermined by the heartfelt delivery.

Mischievous as ever Wangford delighted in picking up his ukulele and teaching the audience the choruses of several of the songs pointing out their simplicity all the while celebrating that self same simplicity. The audience duly sang along as the sorrowful waltz time songs surely invited some tears in beers in the back rows. With some fine low strung twang guitar and country runs along with weeping pedal steel or Dobro the venue was slowly transformed into a south west honky tonk. Ms. Robinson took lead vocals on the excellent Insured Beyond The Grave while Cole was afforded the opportunity to beguile us with an inspired dreamlike rendition of Santo and Johnny’s Sleepwalk , a tune that inspired him (along with Peter Green) all those years ago. And while most of the night was an invite to waltz with Wangford there were some moments when the band let rip with Baby In Black conjoining Nashville and Liverpool while He Forgot To Tell You He Was Married rocked with the energy and feel of Commander Cody’s Lost Planet Airmen. A magnificent night.