Terry Lee Hale. The Gristle & Bone Affair. Glitterhouse Records

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This 14th album from singer songwriter Terry Lee Hale is an enigmatic affair. It seems a deeply personal record and it’s certainly an intimate listen. Hale’s voice, somewhat wearied, is not a million miles removed from the Zen wisdom of Leonard Cohen while the song arrangements are spare, allowing his words to flow unimpeded. The words envelop a world suffused with aging, memory and regret without ever plainly stating their case. The closest there is to a narrative is on Alive Inside as, over an impressionist soundscape, Hale details the locked in misery of dementia, but the majority of the songs are more abstract , poems almost, set to music, the words flowing. Hale sums it up when he sings, “Time is a river just running away.”

Recorded with remote assistance during the pandemic Hale and his producer, Chris Eckman (of The Walkabouts) enlisted the support of Ziga Golob on contra bass for most of the songs along with occasional keyboard, pedal steel and violin input while an old Seattle buddy, Claire Tucker, sings on two of the numbers. Her multilayered contributions to Gone help to make this valedictory number the one song here most akin to Cohen’s latter songs while Hale invests it with a world weary, almost saddle sore regret. There’s a slight, oh so slight, cowboy lament to it as Hale bids goodbye to a lonesome stranger. The pull of the old west is also discernible in the opening number Oh Life where Hale waxes somewhat philosophically on our cradle to grave journey, his yearning vocals leaning towards Hank Williams, albeit with a Camus and Lou Reed bent, the latter recalled particularly by Catherine Graindorge’s violin with its echoes of John Cale’s Velvet Underground work.

The pensive and dream like Fish features some of Hale’s superlative guitar playing along with washes of pedal steel guitar (played by Jon Hyde) while Curve Away is dense and claustrophobic, the lyrics almost apocalyptic as they evoke a feeling similar to that of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. It’s followed by the bluesy wallow of Time Is A River which, in an opaque fashion, seems to be about the eternal struggle to overcome adversity with Hale sounding as much as a sage as Dylan on Time Out Of Mind. The album closes with Hale on his own on All Fall Down, his take on our current affairs if we’re reading it right as he sings of scorched earth politics and the policies of cruel. You can make your own mind up about who he is singing about in the line, “Hard to get around the elephant in the room” but we’ve made our mind up already.

Following on from his excellent albums, The Long Draw and Bound, Chained Fettered, The Gristle & Bone Affair finds Terry Lee Hale in top form. He’s a unique songsmith who has crafted a signature sound which is deeply immersive, meditative and thought provoking.

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Terry Lee Hale. Bound, Chained, Fettered. Glitterhouse Records

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Texan born, long domiciled in France, Terry lee Hale is a survivor. Throughout four decades of changing fashions and tastes he’s continued to deliver thoughtful and sometimes meaty deliberations on the plight of man. Like his long time associate, Chris Eckman of The Walkabouts, Hale found that Europe was a more fertile territory for his lean tales and dark folk blues than his native land, his albums in the main released via German labels. His last album, The Long Draw, a thought provoking mix of Dylan like rambles and punchy roots rock was one of our favourites of 2013.

Intriguingly, for Bound, Chained, Fettered, Hale sought out the services of a producer, arranger and guitarist who he had long admired and who is, coincidentally,  a Blabber’n’Smoke favourite, Antonio Gramentieri of Sacri Cuori,  Dan Stuart and Hugo Race fame. Hale ventured to North Italy to record the album with Gramentieri in the producer’s chair, the pair recording live for the most part, Hale on acoustic six and 12 string, Dobro and harmonica with Gramentieri providing bass, electric guitar and lap steel. Unlike The Long Draw it’s an uncluttered reflective album, no raging against the political machine here. Instead Hale seems to be musing on life, relationships, aging and death. Gramentieri weaves his magic through the songs, as a player yes, but more importantly in his assemblage of some of his local cohorts (Christian Ravaglioli, keyboards, Franco Neddei, synth and mellotron, Diego Sapignoli, percussion and Franceso Valtieri, sax) whose spare contributions add a fine light and shade to the songs. Gramentieri has a light touch, the arrangements always at the service of the song and Hale is front and centre throughout, his voice up close; rarely has he sounded better.

Aside from The Lowdown, a raunchy blues number that wanders finely into Tom Waits territory with Gramentieri scowling via his guitar parts as Hale wails on harp and a baritone sax parps, the album is a quiet affair. The opening title song finds Hale sounding like Bill Callahan as he recites his words over a distant guitar grumble and dusty Dobro delivering a back porch Don Juan like philosophy. Acorns belies its gentle, almost breezy, delivery with its cryptic words, a broken love affair, a faltering memory clinging to fleetingly recalled events while the following instrumental, Flowers For Claudia, a brief one minute interlude, does seem somewhat elegiac. Age and memory seem to crop up again on Can’t Get Back (Just Like That), Hale’s guitar given just a dusting of guitar, organ and percussion allowing the lyrics to stand tall although the meanings remain vague.  Scientific Rendezvous is more structured with Gramentieri’s guitars and lap steel somewhat menacing as Hale recalls The Walkabouts’ spookier European moments on a song that is again something of an enigma. Here he could be singing about cloning or artificial insemination but the song’s mention of daddies and mommies does seem to relate to birth while the opposite end of the life cycle is the subject of the following song, Signed Blue Angel. Here he has adapted words written by an eight year old grandchild of an old friend on a death. While this might seem cloying it’s surprisingly fresh and direct, a child’s reference to angels and butterflies given a sincere reading and set within an almost Appalachian melody with gliding lap steel and a hint of cowboy balladry. It’s offset by the following stark threnody of Jawbone, an arching summary of the cycle of life and death and dust to dust. An elemental song given some heft from Gramentieri’s atmospheric guitar stylings and Franco Neddei’s muted synth playing it’s spine tingling as Hale balefully repeats the title towards the end. The album ends with another low down blues number, the slow burn of Reminiscent. More full blooded than The Lowdown, Hale picks forcefully, Gramentieri the gut in the bucket as the song slouches along like a grim reaper looking for his target.

Bound, Chained, Fettered is an excellent listen. Its slow groove, Hale’s fine vocals and words and Gramentieiri’s sonic additions all adding up to a chilling and absorbing adventure. It’s available now and Terry Lee Hale is currently touring on the continent, dates here.

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Glitterhouse Records