Daniel Meade & Lloyd Reid. If You Don’t Mind

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An old buddy of Blabber’n’Smoke, Duke Dali, was released for a while recently and having glommed on this release amidst a pile of albums awaiting review, decided to wax on it.

Glasgow’s dynamic duo, Meade and Reid, have been joined together at the musical hip for nigh on 14 years, playing as a duo and in the bands The Flying Mules and The Meatmen, in most of Glasgow’s dives and in some of our more salubrious saloons and venues. In addition, they have an international profile having built up an impressive rolodex of influential chums (including Old Crow Medicine Show and Sturgill Simpson) and have graced stages far and wide with their infectious mix of country, rockabilly and good ole’ fashioned rock’n’roll. Daniel Meade may be the more familiar name having released a slew of solo albums alongside his band projects but those in the know, know that when Lloyd Reid is in the mix then the pair really work their magic.

If You Don’t Mind is the first release (bar an earlier single) to have both their monikers on the sleeve and it’s the culmination of a germ on an idea hatched on a tour bus some years back but only realised in lockdown isolation. Reid’s guitar has been a vital part of Meade’s sound over the years but he has been expanding his vistas adding steel guitar to his well regarded fluid Hofner guitar licks and here he provides an incredibly impressive array of sounds to Meade’s well honed songs. The closing song here, Why You Been Gone So Long, features his trademark runs which owe as much to jazz guitarists as it does to country slickers as he lifts an already excellent song into the ether (not to mention Meade’s fantastic piano solo which is just sublime).

Why You Been Gone So Long is a fine example of Meade’s ability to produce an immediate classic, sounding as it does as if Woody Guthrie could have penned it and throughout the album he hits the mark time and time again. The anguished If You Don’t Mind kicks off proceedings as the pair sound like The Rolling Stones playing in a puddle of beer amidst broken glasses in an old time saloon. Hard To Be A Man These Days belies the remote recording involved in lockdown as the pair sound as if they were hunkered down in Sun studios in Memphis. Meanwhile, the very brief Give This World A Shake could have easily been inserted into a 1960’s soul revue.

Over the course of the album, Meade digs into hard luck and hardscrabble times. Choking On The Ashes has Reid adding weeping pedal steel and Mexicana guitar to Meade’s mournful words while Good Heart Gone Astray is a good old god dam country weep with honky tonk piano and keening pedal steel. Sleeping On The Streets Of Nashville is a grand tale of crashed dreams as a would be country superstar hits the skids but Meade and Reid do hit the highlights on the superbly performed Old Rope And Razor. Here, Meade writes a song which bears comparison with sixties luminaries such as Fred Neil or Tim Buckley while Reid’s guitar lights up the song like a Greenwich Village cafe neon sign. It’s perhaps the best number Meade has offered us over the years and with Reid’s nimble playing it’s quite sublime.

https://danielmeade.bandcamp.com/album/if-you-dont-mind

Daniel Meade. Keep Right Away. From The Top Records.

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2014’s been quite a year for Glasgow based country and roots rocker, Daniel Meade. His debut album, As Good As Bad Can Be, released last year, had led to BBC Radio Scotland airplay and a video of his radio session came to the attention of Old Crow Medicine Show’s bassist, Morgan Jahnig. Sensing a kindred spirit Jahnig set wheels in motion leading to Meade travelling to Nashville to record Keep Right Away. In the interim Meade played a support slot for the then relatively unknown Sturgill Simpson and the pair hit it off with Simpson, who is now just about the hottest ticket in Country music, asking Meade to accompany him on his subsequent tour and then for Meade’s band, The Flying Mules, to play the support slot on his third and all conquering trip around the UK. To cap all this Meade is sitting at home back in October when his phone rings. It’s his new pals, the Old Crow guys. Their support act for their sold out Glasgow show is stuck in Ireland with the ferries cancelled. Could Daniel oblige? Several hours later, Meade and his guitarist, Lloyd Reid are astride the ABC stage as several thousand Glaswegians roar their approval.

You almost couldn’t make this up but it’s testament to Meade’s talent that guys of the calibre of Simpson and OCMS are first in line to recognise it. In addition his own work rate and dogged determination is now paying off. While it might seem that he’s sprung from nowhere Meade has beavered away with a past that includes a brief shot at rock stardom with The Ronelles. Hooked on The Beatles from the age of 13 he delved into the past to discover artists such as Hank Williams, Big Bill Broonzy, Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters and Jerry lee Lewis before hooking into current acts that shared his love of this music such as Old Crow Medicine Show, Justin Townes Earle, and Pokey LaFarge. When he’s not touring he can be found playing several nights a week in local bars and clubs, solo, as a duo or with a band, honing his skills. Blabber’n’Smoke can testify, having seen him several times with audiences ranging from four folk and a dog to a room of 50 folk, a hall for 500 or a concert for 2500, that he delivers every time.

Testimonial over, what of the album? True to his word Jahnig produced and conjured up a dream team including fellow Old Crow members Chance McCoy and Cory Younts, BR549’s Chris Scruggs, Joshua Hedley, fiddle player for Justin Townes Earle and Aaron Oliva. Meanwhile Meade’s long time guitar associate, Lloyd Reid, another Glasgow chap, adds his fine skills to the mix while there are guest appearances from Diana Jones and Shelly Colvin. The result is an untrammelled success with Meade delivering 13 songs that draw deep from the well of traditional American acoustic roots music with honky tonk, sad waltzes, string band stomps and rockabilly all featured. While his debut album had all these, here the bar is raised both in the writing and the performance with the players lifting it up to another level. Perhaps the best example is the rollicking country romp of Gimme A Draw with its honky tonk piano, harmonica vamps, talking blues vocals and western swing delivery. Similar in style (and content) to Smoke, Smoke, Smoke That Cigarette it swings mightily. Swing and rockabilly and at times even skiffle, inhabit the uptempo numbers here with the opening number Long Gone Wrong a classic take on 50’s rock’n’roll when country musicians were shoved into studios with quiffed young studs and Gospel quartets. Trying, Rising River Blues and Livin’ On Tootsie Time are all cracking skillet lickin’ country romps with a lick of rock and string band shenanigans thrown in with Meade particularly impressive on the tongue twisting vocals of the latter as he barn dances and barrels along and the band scoot magnificently. Meade releases the throttle to deliver Always Close To Tears which cleaves to the Hank Williams’ songbook with a fine swagger while Not My Heart Again (with Shelly Colvin on vocals) is classic Williams’ honky tonking with some fine humbucking guitar licks from Reid. The Hangman Blues is probably the song here that owes most to the influence of the Old Crow players as it twists and turns with sly slide guitars while Keep Right Away recalls The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band back in the seventies.

So far so good but the album excels when Meade gets maudlin and weary. Sometime’s A Fool’s The Last To Know is a tears in a bottle, Charlie Pride like, countrypolitan lament, Always Close To Tears could have come from the George Jones songbook while Mexico‘s accordion colourings remind one of Freddy Fender. The jewel here is the astounding duet with Diana Jones, Help Me Tonight, as Meade visits saloon bar territory with tacky piano stuttering along to this wearied love song that stands tall against comparisons to the great country duets with an antebellum feel and a sepia stained sound. Finally we need to mention Meade’s tribute to his forebears on Sing It Loud, a very fine loose limbed and fiddle laced shamble of a song that nails his colours to the mast and harks back to the outlaw country days.

Keep Right Away is released in January and already it’s looking to be one of the top albums of the year, certainly from a home raised musician. Meade will be touring in support of the release and the dates are here. In the meantime local folk should check their listings as it might be that soon enough Mr. Meade might not be so local if things go well for him.