Husband and wife team Rob and Sarah Skinner have an enviable reputation to trade on, feted by country and blues audiences with awards for their albums and Sarah’s saxophone playing. Their bluesy side was to the fore on their last release, the warts and all Live At The Blue Lamp but on Behind The Wheel they seem to have settled on a more bucolic, almost folksy approach.

They kick off with the rousing title track which offers Sarah opportunity to display her Dixieland like soprano sax on a song which woozily wanders along at a fair clop as they sing about the joys of life on the road. A fine opener the one complaint here is that it fades out far too soon, just as Sarah is letting loose on the sax. It’s one of two up tempo numbers here, the remainder a collection of contemplative songs that are complemented by Rob’s guitar skills as ripples of strings float throughout, at times gilded by the floating sax solos, a style used to best effect on the dreamy Home Sweet Home. The Other Half is a boudoir piece, the couple swapping verses in an intimate fashion but Eleanor Joan is very much a showcase for Rob, his psychedelic guitar buzzing away behind his acoustic picking as he sings this render song, Sarah’s voice closely harmonising. The Inspiration is a stark piece, piercing harmonica and stinging guitar reflecting a hopelessness that’s contained within the lyrics despite the allowance that the experiences might become, as the title says, an inspiration.

A pity then that the mood that’s built up so far is somewhat spoiled by the horn driven Bad Apple, a song that probably works well live and is surely an opportunity for Sarah to wig out (as she does here) but in comparison to the other songs it doesn’t really carry any heft. Hurrah then for the almost medieval Thoughts Of the Past which is an ode to the past glories of a woman who’s life is now counted by the glasses of wine she can get hold of. Daybreak and a reprise of Eleanor Joan close the album, the former a lengthy narrative that switches courses as it twists and turns in its capture of various predawn happenstances before launching into an extended display of guitar dexterity and saxophony.

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Billed as an “official bootleg” and recorded in Aberdeen in July, Live At The Blue Lamp is a fine addition to the catalogue from the award winning married couple, Rob and Sarah Skinner, who have the distinction of being feted by both the blues and country fraternities. With Rob on guitar and drums and Sarah on sax and blues harp with both singing they inhabit a country blues world that in the UK started off with skiffle before being taken up by the beatnik community who all moved to Cornwall singing Josh White and Jesse Fuller songs. While Chicago heat was the primary fuel that fired the 60’s blues boom bands like McGuiness Flint and even Mungo Jerry kept the skifflish side alive. Live it seems the Skinners sit on this side of the fence with the sax adding a Dixieland touch to several of the songs. The album features songs from all of their three studio albums and while the “warts and all” one take capture means that the sound is slightly on the harsh side with the spoken introductions to the songs booming somewhat it does convey the sheer sense of fun and enjoyment that the band bring to their audiences almost as if this were a hootenanny.

They set up their stall on the opening Cornbread, Peas and Black Molasses which features the pair at their best, harmonising well while the song sashays with a Southern spiritual swing. Up All Night is more of a holler with a stomping beat while Girl In A Truck takes on the stereotypical chest beating bro country formula without the bombast with Rob declaring he doesn’t want a girl all dolled up, just a girl in a truck. There’s an odd detour next as they deliver a cover of Bowie’s Space Oddity, admittedly a very fine cover but at odds with the surrounding material. They also cover Dylan’s Forever Young which does fit into the canon but one gets the impression that these are primarily opportunities for Sarah to shine on the sax (she did win Instrumentalist of the Year at this year’s British Blues Awards) and it’s telling that both covers pale in comparison to the rest of the album.

Able to be tender on the likes of Lay Me Down they can also stoke the fires with a rousing Got My Mojo Working with Sarah channelling the last of the red hot mamas on breakneck sax and throaty vocals while Stuck is a sassy spurned lover rant. They close the album with the very fine countrified Browns Ferry Blues and the risqué romp of Hot Tamales which allows Sarah Skinner plenty of space to vamp on the sax.

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