Chuck Hawthorne. Silverline. 3 Notches Music.

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The good book mentioned beating swords into ploughshares and Chuck Hawthorne’s debut album, Silverline is a fine example of this. Hawthorne is a time served US Marine joining straight after high school and spending 21 years as a leatherneck. He starting picking guitar when aboard the USS Iwo Jima and was writing songs by the time he served in Iraq. Retired, he was scuffling around when a chance encounter with Ray Bonneville led to the recording of this album with Bonneville in the producer’s chair. The end result is a relatively unadorned slice of down home rootsy picking and singing that’s elevated on two counts. Hawthorne has one of those voices that just fits, half Don Williams, half Guy Clark, superbly supported by the pared back playing, for the most part acoustic guitars and a rhythm section with occasional pedal steel and fiddle. Secondly Hawthorne turns out to be a fine writer in the grand Texas style offering snapshots of hard lives that breathe life into the characters.

He opens with Silver Line, a mellow train song which has Gurf Morlix on pedal steel adding a stately grandeur to Hawthorne’s hymn to the frontier rail lines. Morlix again features on Welding Son of A Gun where Hawthorne salutes the sweat and toil of a man who has sold all his guns and bought himself a welding machine while the thumping The Gospel Hammer has Hawthorne recalling his father’s skill with a hammer and bal peen which defines his life and death. Eliza Gilkyson adds fine harmonies to Dragon Flies, a song that comes across like a Guy Clark rewrite of The Ballad Of Lucy Jordan and she features again on Leaving Amarillo, a dusty portrait of a woman with a chequered past, “A wild desert rainbow lost in her shadow. She’s dated every cowboy that fell to the ground.”

Hawthorne’s fine sketches continue on the slow country waltz of Ovando and the story of an old drinker lost in his thoughts and memories on Ashes and Embers. There’s a darker edge however on the sinister Enemy which features only Hawthorne’s guitar and voice along with some spooky harmonica from Bonneville. Finally, Hawthorne confronts the war in Iraq with the simple folk tale of Post 2 Gate which tells of the murder of a child street vendor caught up in a suicide attack, a scene revisited each night by the soldier narrator in his dreams as he eventually returns home a different man.

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Tom Russell. The Rose Of Roscrae. Proper Records

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The first thing to say about this album is that if you intend to listen to it then best go out and buy some beers and snacks beforehand. Next, get a comfy seat, set up your audio for its best “widescreen” effect and prepare to sit through two and a half hours of prime Americana country folk opera. It’s an effort for sure to sit throughout The Rose Of Rosecrae but having done so on three occasions (along with several dips into individual songs) Blabber’n’Smoke can confidently declare that ultimately it’s an interesting and rewarding endeavour and that the album, while not quite the masterpiece that some are pronouncing, is poised to loom over competitors in year end lists.
Tom Russell is no stranger to themes and concepts with previous albums such as The Man From God Knows Where and Hotwalker comprised of songs and spoken word, sound collages and guest artists. The Rose Of Roscrae takes this to another level, it’s a full blown musical story that traces the journey of a young Irishman to America where he goes West (as young men were inclined to do) allowing Russell to include Celtic laments, talking blues, cowboy songs, square dance, slave songs, Native American chants, Gospel and Mariachi music. Weaving traditional songs, standards and his own material into his sonic tapestry Russell has engaged a luminous cast of characters using archive recordings and contemporary collaborations to flesh out the story, the list is daunting……………
Jimmie Dale Gilmore, David Olney, Johnny Cash, Joe Ely, Augie Meyers, Fats Kaplin, Barry Walsh, Jimmy La Fave, Gretchen Peters, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Walt Whitman, Moses “Clear Rock” Platt, Jack Hardy, David Massingill, A.L. “Bert” Lloyd, Finbar Furey, Sourdough Slim, Blackie Farrell, Tex Ritter, Glen Orhlin, Pat Russell, John Trudell, Henry Real Bird, Thad Beckman, Maura O’Connell, Eliza Gilkyson, The McCrary Sisters, Ian Tyson, The Swiss Yodel Choir of Bern, Bonnie Dobson, Lead Belly, Guy Clark, Dan Penn, Gurf Morlix, Pat Manske, The Voices of the Waverley School, Pasadena, California and The Norwegian Wind Ensemble.
You get the picture.
As we said the album is a night in, the songs rolling over you. Some are snippets, over in less than a minute but like connective tissue essential to the overall sinewy aural chew. However there is sustenance galore in many of the individual songs which cleave to Russell’s familiar styles, bold and proud American folklore with sparkling guitar and Dobro providing punch and his spoken soliloquies that paint campfire pictures with tender guitar backdrop. When his hero is thinking back to his homeland Russell captures a fine Hibernian air which is best heard when Finbar Furey provides an excellent Carrickfergus/ The Water Is Wide before Russell wades in with a fierce expatriate’s memories of the Irish landscape. Throughout the album Russell deploys his “actors” as a director might with Jimmie dale Gilmore’s high lonesome voice capturing the frontier while David Olney rants magnificently as a hang ’em high judge. Meanwhile Eliza Gilkyson is a fine vocal foil to Russell on the opening songs of the second disc as does Gretchen Peters before the story heads down to Mexico allowing Augie Meyers and Joe Ely to shine.
Overall there isn’t enough space here to dig deeply into the 52 songs that comprise The Rose Of Rosecrae. Suffice to say that it’s a bold adventure and one that by and large succeeds. It’s begging for a visual accompaniment, a stage show or film gathering all of the cast (although the deceased might have to phone it in) but it’s safe to say that for those who have enjoyed Russell’s previous thematic albums this is essential. As for the others I’d recommend a deep breath, some popcorn and open ears and prepare to be astonished. Tom Russell will be appearing in Glasgow as part of Glasgow Americana in October.

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Grant Peeples and the Peeples Rebublic. Punishing The Myth.

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Grant Peeples is a muscular, shaved head, scary looking guy, the kind you’d avoid in a bar in case he’s looking for a fight. His music too is muscular and it’s looking for a fight, in this case with the hucksters and moral majority who run his nation. Always on the side of the downtrodden and oppressed, Peeples, over the course of his four albums is a powerful voice telling us what the networks and syndicates won’t.
Punishing The Myth, his third album to be produced by Gurf Morlix kicks against the pricks and punctures the balloon of hypocrisy that populates the American Dream. Peeples sings about outsiders including a lesbian aunt and a revolutionary while he takes a pop at himself and his ilk on the opening song You’re A Slave To Your Imagination where he writes
“You call it art but you’re just jerking off, all you want to do is make a name for yourself, sucking up to owners and promoters, could it be any good if it’s something you sell?”
before going on to say “Yea its true every song is just a compromise, but every now and then I find a word’ll ring true, I hang my hat on a hook I know’ll get um, then I scribble down some crap and I call it a tune.” The irony here is that it’s a rollicking good tune with Sarah Mac trading vocals with Peeples over a wicked bluesy groove with organ and cornet in the driving seat over finely picked electric guitar and that’s true of all of the songs here. Peeples songs are first and foremost eminently listenable and on the face of it Punishing The Myth is an excellent album of country, folk and blues that will please fans of Willie Nelson, Guy Clark, J.J. Cale and Mr. Morlix himself.

Who Woulda Thunk It, the one cover on the album (written by Greg Brown) is another cracking bluesy number with Knopfleresque guitar snaking throughout while the lyrics connect with the overall sense of the album that Americans are sleepwalking to doom, relying on Mastercard and Visa instead of being self reliant. This belief is hammered home by Peeples on the spoken word High Octane Generation where he thunders against the pampered state of present day car owners who rely on the bleeps and alarms on their space age dashboards but who are unable to check their oil. This could have become a Luddite rant but Peeples changes gear to celebrate the automobile as an allegory of the “passions, and ideals that mapped out our interior destinations across the crooked fields of time” before lamenting that owning a car that can park itself appears to be nothing to be ashamed of these days.

Peeples hammers oligarchs and Wall Street in The New American Dream while The Morning After The Coup appears to share The Who’s sentiment of “meet the new boss, same as the old boss.” I Can’t Imagine Him Carrying a Carbine subverts a father’s greeting to his new born son as he fears he’ll not be fit to defend the revolution and guns feature in She Was a Wildflower as the narrator remembers “watching her swing from the barrel of an M1 rifle.” There’s a militant feel to many of the songs, Peebles says of himself “I’m a vegetarian that watches NASCAR, a tree-hugger that keeps a gun under the seat,” but his recollection of his lesbian aunt “Aunt Lou” has a tender edge to it while acknowledging her bravery.

Peeples ends the album with an excellent live recording, “It’s Too Late to Live In Austin,” that firmly places him in the Texas story telling tradition as he tells of a night in “this myth-ridden city” with vocal support again from Sarah Mac. The highlight of the album however is the dark country duet, The Hanging where he’s joined by Eliza Gilkyson who sings wonderfully on what is a powerful portrait of an execution and in its chorus damns the death penalty. A powerful song on a powerful album.

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Grant Peeples. Prior Convictions.

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Peeples’ follow-up to the sinewy folk tales on his last release, Okra and Ecclesiastes, serves to cement his position as a worthy carrier of the torch previously held by the likes of Guy Clark and John Prine. Singing everyday tales of everyday folk Peeples can come across as a bit of a musical chameleon here with various songs reminiscent of those who came before but his writing and delivery is spot on and ensures that he is no mere copycat. Sounding grizzled and wise he delivers songs that rock and songs that are more akin to talking blues with lyrics that are evocative and provocative. Throughout all of this he is ably assisted by his producer and accompanist, the great Gurf Morlix who plays some fine guitar and bass along with banjo, pedal steel and keyboards.
Opening with a cover of Dylan’s Things Have Changed, a slow bluesy groove with some sublime guitar by Morlix, it features a fine vocal appearance from Ruthie Foster. A late (2000) Dylan song Peeples dresses it up in the gospel style of Dylan’s born again period which is in keeping with the biblical references he often uses and it’s one of the best Dylan covers we’ve heard in a long time. Had the remainder of the album continued in this style then we wouldn’t feel short changed. However Peeples changes tack with the second song Patriot Act which places him firmly in the earthy Texas outlaw tradition. Dedicated to Dave Hickey, an author and art critic who recorded some songs in the early seventies and whose volume of short stories provides the album’s title this song is like a time machine for anyone who knows early Guy Clark.

The remainder of the album is delivered in pretty much the same style with gritty vocals and pedal steel guitar predominant although each song has its individual style. It’s a testament to Peeples’ character that he even manages to deliver a cover of eighties new wave band Shriekback’s Gunning For The Buddha as if it was written in a Texan barrelhouse. The gentle paced Market Town is a tremendous portrait of a slave auction with the ugly scenes described delivered with a terrible beauty in the handsome tune and delicate playing. The accordion playing of Joel Guzmen adds a fine filigree here and later on he adds atmosphere to Last Night I Dreamed in Spanish, a song about Peeples’ sojourn in Nicaragua which Willie Nelson would have been proud to have written had he the chance. The wonderful Road To Damascus with some fine banjo and nasty guitar licks from Morlix stomps along as Peeples dissects St. Paul and unveils him as an opportunistic carpetbagger. Sad Naked Woman is a voyeuristic soul search which recalls Terry Allen’s Lubbock On Everything.

The provocative Nigger Lover demonstrates the power of language with Peeples at pains to point out that he ensured Ruthie Foster would approve of its presence here. Ironically scored out on the album cover the N word rings loud on what appears to be an autobiographical account of the travails visited on the young Peeples and how nowadays bigots might temper their words but still harbour the same prejudices. It’s delivered in a world wearied voice with a spare accompaniment and is very much a twin to the recent song by Chip Taylor, Fuck All The Perfect People. This theme of outward respectability covering all sorts of hypocrisy is nailed in the final and solo acoustic song Last Honest Man which references Diogenes’ mocking search for honesty by shinng a lamp in daylight to highlight the futility of it all.

In summary then we have an album that is an excellent example of country folk tales delivered in the style of the extraordinary collection of talents that gathered in Texas in the early seventies. Added to this is the unique and intriguing philosophical viewpoint of Peebles which rails against modern mores and harks back to a simpler time. Even simpler, this is brilliant.

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Patriot Act

Mark Lucas. Uncle Bones.

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This is a fine collection of tales from Kentuckian Mark Lucas. Bare boned musically for the most part the dominant sounds are Dobro (from Bleu Mortensen) and fiddle (Jenee Fleenor) with occasional banjo and mandolin. Lucas sings of a dark and mysterious world where death and the devil lurk and where strange things happen in the shadows although he tosses in a few lighter hearted rambles to sweeten the mix. Every Day I Have The Greens is a Guy Clark styled jolly romp that does for veg what Clark did for home grown tomatoes while Grits and Redeye Gravy is a wonderful paean to a diner peopled with a vibrant list of characters.
“Mac taps his skullbone, they all fought in Korea, Mac took some lead, he’s got a steel-plate that can tell the weather, he picks up Louisiana Hayride in his head.”
Fine and jolly as these are they are merely the gravy for the meat of this album. The jaunty banjo introduction to the opening title song leads us into a tale as old as the Greek myths as Lucas tells of fiddler Orphie Coulter who begs the Devil to return his lover but who makes the fatal mistake of looking back and ends up fiddling in Hell for eternity. Superbly delivered with Flenee’s fiddle playing full of fire it’s a cracking opener. Lucas slows the tempo for the scintillating Take Me Back, Water where the Dobro shines like a light in the darkness highlighting a sad tale of a nymph tortured for her ability to shed tears of pearls and who ultimately escapes.
“Rocks sewn in the pockets of her coat, she walked down to the river, got in a boat. A hunter’s moon shone, the oars creaked and moaned and a song echoed out through the cove. Take me back, water, take me back home, wash off this flesh and bleach out the bones, hold me down like a stone, take me back, take me home.” Great stuff.
Elsewhere there’s the archetypal tale of a traveller meeting the Grim Reaper on the woozy waltz that is Hezekiah while Big Bad Love is a chilling description of the tragic end to a troubled couple who fight and fuck. With sinister pedal steel and a gritty blues feel this is the aural equivalent of a Weegee Crime scene picture. The bluesy vibe continues on Pick Up which tells of a spurned wife who poisons her philandering husband and which cleverly uses the McGuffin of mobile phones which allow her to know he’s cheating and affords her a cold revenge as she calls his phone which is buried with him.
With a firm strong voice and some superb playing from his band Lucas has delivered a gem of an album which deserves to be held in the same respect as those by the likes of Gurf Morlix or Ray Wylie
Hubbard.

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Uncle Bones

Marvin Etzioni. Marvin Country!

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Very occasionally an album comes along that stops you dead in your tracks, knocks the wind out of your sails and demands that you pay attention. Marvin Country! is one such album. The work of Marvin Etzioni, one time member of Lone Justice and producer of the likes of Counting Crows, Peter Case and Toad The Wet Sprocket (remember them?)it’s a double disc CD with various “star” names guesting which had our antenna twitching. After all aren’t such beasts often a recipe for disaster? All doubts were dispelled as soon as the virtual needle hit the grooves (and there is a vinyl release which I presume will be magnificent in its own grooviness) and as song after song tumbled out of the speakers, each and every one great in its own unique way we realised we were in the presence of an album which in its ramshackle and splattergun approach pretty much approaches the pinnacle of current Americana music.
While Etzioni plays much of the music himself including various keyboards, mandolin, mandocello, casio, bass, drums, porchboard, synthesiser, mellotron and some scintillating electric guitar he opens the borders of Marvin Country to the likes of John Doe, Steve Earle, Maria McKee, Buddy Miller, Richard Thompson, Gurf Morlix, Greg Leisz and Lucinda Williams. While it’s fair to report that they all add something special to the mix even without their presence the album would stand up on its own.

With his songwriting credentials pretty much confirmed via his tenure with Lone Justice Etzioni has at least one stone cold bona fide classic here with Lay It On The Table. A tear jerking duet with Lucinda Williams and weeping pedal steel from Greg Leisz you should be hearing it over any decent airwaves very soon. You Possess Me, the opening song and another duet (with Maria McKee this time) is almost as good. However any notion gained from the curtain raiser that we’re in for some sweet modern country is dispelled by the following song, The Grapes of Wrath. John Doe takes the vocal duties here on a turbo charged rocker that sounds like vintage Dylan delivered by a souped up Chuck Prophet with a great big fat guitar sound that humbbucks like hell. Speaking of Dylan Etzioni proclaims Bob Dylan Is Dead on a tremendous acoustic thrash that is exhilarating in its iconoclasm and clever in the allusions within the lyrics. Etzioni throws up several other tremendous songs throughout the album such as the Cash like A Man Without A Country and the country punk Living Like a Hobo while You are The Light with vocal accompaniment from The Dixie Hummingbirds is simply superb. If all of the above were to constitute the album then it would be highly recommended but there is more, so much more, to hear on the second disc. Much of the delight in listening to this is in the rollercoaster feel of lurching from thrash to country to gospel to folk but on disc two (or side three if you do get the vinyl) Etzioni throws a fine curveball with a suite of what might be best called “oddball” songs. Where’s Your Analog Spirit? is a synth drenched protest song reminiscent of Roger McGuinn’s space rock. Etzioni plays around with sound samples on Gram Revisited, a primitive sounding tribute to Parsons and the goofy sounding What’s Patsy Cline Doing these Days? He then slips in anther cracking song with Hard to Build a Home which could not only end up as a country classic but also refers back to a song on the first disc, Son of a Carpenter. Aside from any biblical possibilities this is just more evidence of the very keen mind that made this album. The run up to the end of the album is packed with gems. The guitar solo in the bluesy Trouble Holding Back (by Trevor Meanor) is audacious and ridiculously spellbinding while the mournful horns of There’s A Train is one of the album’s highlights. The simple God’s Little mansion could be an old Carter Family homily.
We haven’t even mentioned the fine lazy cajun Richard Thompson vehicle It Don’t Cost Much and Gurf Morlix’s turn on Son of a Carpenter but if we were to go on this review would never end. Suffice to say that this album sits up there with the likes of Terry Allen’s superb Lubbock (On Everything) as a great example of left field maverick Americana. In order to try and offer a sense of its reach there are two samples below which demonstrate the breadth of the album.

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The Grapes of Wrath

What’s Patsy Cline Doing These Days? Pt. 1

March Musings

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Going by the number of CDs sent to Blabber’n’Smoke there are countless country troubadours, singer songwriters and nitty gritty dirt bands out there releasing music by the boatload. The majority of these are folk who are not well known, who might have a local audience, have spent their savings on their vision. Self released or on local labels it’s encouraging that despite the oft trumpeted “death of the CD” a horde of well intentioned and usually quite talented musicians plug on. Although there is the occasional clunker the majority of these have something to say and they say it in style. With the advent of the blog musicians who might not have got a mention in newsprint have an outlet and can use the reviews to further promote their disc. All this is a prelude to this latest roundup, a bunch of folk who won’t feature in the major press outlets but who all have something to recommend them.


First up is Pete Sinjin with his debut Better Angels Radio. Sinjin is from New York and has produced a belter of an album that could be loosely categorised as country/folk rock. With lashings of guitar, pedal steel, mandolin and fiddle married to a solid rock rhythm section Sinjin delivers driving Californian type anthems, souped up Springsteen type rockers and jangley power pop. While the opening Driving California and the pell mell tumult of Romance of The Punkers are full bodied rockers in a Tom Petty vein Sinjin excels on the evocative Funeral Train, a memory of waiting for the carriage carrying Bobby Kennedy’s body back to Washington to pass through his town and the closing Shuhuykill Red, an impressionistic tale of a couple hanging about on a bridge, no Terry and Julie here but a song set against a wasteland of lost opportunities.

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From a fresh young thing to a grizzled veteran, Grant Peeples tried his luck in Nashville in the seventies but eventually ended up living on an island off of Nicaragua with his music on the back burner. A series of events led him back to the states and into the arms of Gurf Morlix who produced this album, Okra and Ecclesiastes. Peeples drinks from the well of Ray Wylie Hubbard and Guy Clark. His songs are spare muscular tales delivered with a world weary aplomb. While there are jaunty moments such as Last Great Buffalo Hunt (reminiscent of J.J. Cale in a Cajun style), spooky acoustic blues on Powerlines and on Lethal Injection Blues a chilling record of the last moments of a death row prisoner Peeples is at his best on the opening song My people Come From the Dirt. A powerful description of the lifestyle of a disenfranchised underclass. This is a powerful song, Peeples sings
“My people come from the dirt, full choke and steel guitar
Cigarettes and whiskey, and a dog chained in their yard
My people come from the dirt, white bread and kerosene
Catfish and flatbeds, sweat stains and retreads, okra and Ecclesiastes.”
The title refers to okra, a staple food of the rural poor and the book of Ecclesiastes which Peeples reads as meaning “all the strife, struggle and actions lf Man are vain, futile, empty, meaningless, temporary, transitory, hopelessly fleeting.” Glum indeed but the song itself is a searing indictment of the lot of the poor in the land of plenty.

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Gurf Morlix pops up again in the producers seat for Betty Soo’s Heat Sin Water Skin. He is all over this album, providing guitar and vocals and adding it to a fine line of south western roots music. Soo is a second generation Korean based in Austin and this is her fourth release. As one might anticipate from any project connected to Morlix this is a great sounding set with Soo delivering some sweet country sounds on Whisper My Name, sultry rock on Who Knows and a driving soulful sound on Still Small Voice. Throughout there is some fine sinewy guitar work from Morlix who manages to give this album the honest , sweet yet gritty feel that he attempted to give Lucinda Williams on the Car Wheels album. Soo has a fine clear voice that can be tender or ballsy as required and her writing is well up to par with all of the songs bar one written by her. The album was released two years ago in the states but is only now getting a UK push. Well recommended.

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Blaze Foley and Gurf Morlix: Glasgow Americana Festival

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It’s not often that a world premier of a movie occurs in Glasgow, Even less so when it’s a film about a musical legend. If I Could Only Fly is a movie about Blaze Foley, a singer and songwriter, friend of Townes Van Zandt, companion of Gurf Morlix, and it is Morlix who will be there at the film’s première this Sunday at the GFT. Following his gig at Brel in the late afternoon as one of the highlights of the Glasgow American Festival Morlix will join Glaswegians in a celebration of the Texan hell raiser and inspiration for Lucinda Williams’ song Drunken Angel.

Details for the GFT show here

Sally Spring. Made of Stars.

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Time was when one talked of “classic” or “veteran” artists the reference was to pre sixties icons, blues or folk or country singers that stamped their legacy on those who followed. Well time marches on and these days singers and songwriters such as Loudon Wainwright or John Prine debut’s are as far removed from us as Leadbelly or The Carter Family were to them. A long winded way perhaps to introduce Sally Spring who made a minor splash in the seventies but who has landed this superior slice of rootsy Americana that is as contemporaneous an album that I have heard all year.
The eleven songs here all dwell in the Americana idiom, covers of Johnny Cash’s I still Miss Someone and Los Lobos’ Short Side of Nothing illustrate the breadth that this entails, yearning classic singing on the Cash piece and an urgent rock pace on the Lobos track. Spring’s band are able to rock and coddle with equal aplomb and she is joined by guests such as Gurf Morlix, Caitlin Cary and Peter Holsapple on several songs. Overall the playing is excellent, sympathetic with a particular nod going to James Mastro on guitar and Ted Lyons on resonator, guitar and percussion.
Throughout the album Spring sings with an easy, assured and warm voice. She invites listeners to almost wallow in the sound of her singing. Of the eleven songs, at least half of them beg to be played over and over and again. Lake Ponchatrain has a chorus reminiscent of Joni Mitchell’s Circle Game with an accordian supporting a nostalgic tale. Mentone, Alabama is a road song with a bluesy clipped guitar that avoids the driving down the highway cliche but instead takes the listener down wisteria lined avenues and byways. Beautiful Ride has a wonderful wearied feel of regret and longing while Mattie showcases the band with a tremendous coiled slouch of snakelike guitar and rattling percussion, a voodoo version of southern swamp blues. The album’s closer, Boys In The Cornfield digs deep into the roots of folk as Spring commands attention on a song that can bring shivers to the spine. The one quibble here is the inclusion of a live song, It Don’t Make Sense, a Willie Dixon song that interrupts the overall vibe.
The album isn’t officially released for a few months yet but is available here

Mattie