December 4, 2018

Kayla Ray – Yesterday & Me

I doubt you’ll care but there is a battle raging amongst Country music fans and professionals about the state of the industry. Whilst, in my opinion, it has always been a broad church of a genre with novelty records as well as more serious songs then there is fury that something known as Country Pop has eaten it.

Country Pop is formulaic and what US radio stations want to play. The formula? Exclusively male artists, limited lyrical topics – drinking beer, driving a pick up, tight black dresses and quite a lot of Jesus. Layered into this confection is a predictable Rock sound with a dance rhythm, similarly placed electric guitar solos, repeatable choruses and any other tedium that the same session players can take to their next studio date. Even more infuriating to the supposed ‘Keepers of the Flame’ is that these automatons are infusing Country with Rap. I agree this is deplorable and Florida Georgia Line should be imprisoned for a long time or at least until they show some remorse.

Me? Frankly there is enough Country music that is wearily called ‘authentic’ to still go around. Yes, there is every chance that Sara Evans, Alan Jackson and Lee Ann Womack’s revenue stream is being hit. The kids just want to dance and luxuriate in a lightweight tuneful chorus rather than explore the dark recesses of 9/11 or divorce.

Amongst all this ire then if you just look at releases from many artists on small record labels there is enough magic to go around. And so it is with the above gem. This album came by an email from a PR company and I’ve loved it ever since. Lyrical themes are family rifts, infidelity, substance misuse and the proverbial lessons of life.

Ray has been playing for some years despite still being a millennial and graduating to being in front of a microphone by band management (Jason Eady). This diminutive tour de force has a Texan drawl you could cut with a knife made more special by that achy breaky fragility that heaps on the emotion. “Camel Blues” refers to the cigarettes rather than the quadruped. She ruefully sets the scene as regards a moody and independent man:

He smokes his Camel’s blue,

Drinks his Label Black

Three fingers whiskey,

The man ain’t coming back.

We discover that she’s apparently to blame for the schism despite “it taking two hard working fools to build a wall, but it takes two fools still in love to make it fall”. In the meanwhile the pedal steel produces magic complemented by some other deft electric guitar over a shuffling rhythm. What a start!

“Once A Week Cheaters” is a Keith Whitley composition she duets on with Colton Hawkins. The pedal steel provides the colour whilst the acoustic rhythm section plays a slow waltz. A familiar Country theme of two illicit lovers making a rendezvous to dance. Drenched with sadness, frustration and loss weigh this down with raw emotion you can barely guess at.

So that’s the serious bit. “Pills” she says is about the advance of “big pharma, vulture capitalism and the perpetuation of addiction”. With a lively fiddle playing the dance melody she talks of the proliferation of these tablets available from all sorts of credible medical practitioners including more unusual sources including “my very favorite electrician buddy from the east side of the river back home in Waco who we call Sparky!”

Above I distanced myself from the debate about authentic Country music, however, I love it. Texas seems to be the epicentre of all that’s traditional Country at the moment. Ray has released an album that might have been accumulating accolades in the 1960s. This was when Dolly Parton, Tammy Wynette and Loretta Lynn were playing the victim with such lasting profundity. “I’m Still A Woman” is a slower ballad that dares to talk about her sexuality and needs despite her  secondary role in a man’s world. Again Joshua Barnard’s guitar picks the correct note every time as Ray’s voice captivates at the front of the mix.

Every track is a true joy and Jason Eady’s production could not be more sympathetic or understanding of this talent. My favourite Country album of 2018.

November 10, 2018

Jamie Lin Wilson – Jumping Over Rocks

A stand out release from the steady stream of new music is Jamie Lin Wilson’s second solo album Jumping Over Rocks. Ten tracks of Country Americana include nine original compositions, several in collaboration and one remarkable cover: more of that later.

From the first notes of “Faithful & True” you know you’re in the presence of something exceptional. You’ll find a crystal clear voice with pure and sweet tones. However, it’s drenched in heartfelt emotion.This slow ballad tells the story of her relationship with its frailties and failures containing a plea for her lover to accept her for what she is.

“The Being Gone” seems autobiographical with the opening line “Well I’m headed back from Dallas two days gone and gone to hell”: a weary travelling musician with home on her mind. The track, and album, sound beautifully produced (Scott Davis) and a tribute to the band’s talent is that it was all recorded in four days in Austin, TX. All tracks were cut live which will drive listeners to check out her touring plans.

Lyrically it’s all observational and confessional, and often delivered in a conversational style. She says that she’s made music and toured forever but stopped at regular intervals to have and raise children. Predictably with such a background there is a lot of maturity and confidence – not unlike Amanda Anne Platt. Similarly each song relies on an excellent melody and arrangement.

If you’re going to pick a cover then Guy Clark’s 1975 “Instant Coffee Blues” is a great choice. Wilson captures Clark’s tired and lost delivery of empty lives charting a downward trajectory. Jack Ingram takes a verse as the man “she took home for reasons that she didn’t understand.” Sparing pedal steel keeps them company. (One for my end of year compilation album).

“Death & Life” took Wilson four years to write and hinges off the story of a premature death and how the mourners (mother and son) coped. A beautiful lyric that address the gaps that occur when such events happen and how the survivors clamber back into light. With a slow and atmospheric backing driven by Charlie Sexton’s guitar 

As always I wonder how such a talent is not headlining the Grand Ole Opry but in fairness there’s such a long queue of hard working, yet seemingly invisible, troubadours ahead of her. 

I truly love this album. You need to hear it or own it.

November 8, 2018

Cory Morrow – Whiskey & Pride

I fell in love with contemporary Country music at the start of the millennium, when a whole raft of artists I’d never heard of like Pat Green, Dwight Yoakam, Eve Selis, Sara Evans, Clint Black and Gary Allan moseyed into my life. I found tremendous musicianship, great tunes with uplifting choruses, stories about life that I could relate to and seldom a duff track out of twelve.

Cory Morrow might not, in my opinion, be worth the ‘legend’ status his website ascribes him but he’s a Texan delight and this album transported me back to 2000 with its 13 tracks of exceptional Country. You’ll find a tight band able to produce note-perfect upbeat songs and words that encompass love, life and the spiritual. Morrow has been around since the start of the millennium, and is clearly no newcomer as (according to a brief Google search) he has an apparent net worth of $2 million! (no doubt his accountants are unaware of any figures like this). His adult life has been through the admitted usual mire of substance abuse and hard-living, but he’s well on the other side as songs like the uproarious Christian “Revival” testifies (Oh Lordy!)

The title track and single, “Whisky And Pride” comes with a splendid video where our recalcitrant loser receives another shot of fire water from the bar man, whilst the live honky tonk band bait him from behind. They suggest that he should swallow his pride (rather the whiskey) and head home to the missus. (Spoiler alert – a quick check of his mobile at the end suggests he does.) It’s here the craft of the album is demonstrated with a great tune, splendid wordplay and the type of rhythm driven by an accordionno less, that will have you shuffling your feet.

Lloyd Maines is another Texan with sensational producer credits, probably best known for his work with his daughter’s band – the Dixie Chicks. His production here regularly lets acoustic guitar come forward in the mix and the quick and beautifully picked lines are melodic and dove tail perfectly with Morrow’s attractive and achy baritone.

“Top Of My Heart” is a reflective and tender love song with the narrator trying to look within to find the ability to commit to the right woman. Country music on occasion professes to be the white man’s blues and “Blue Collar” extols the virtues of hard work, modesty, paying one’s dues, being charitable, being humble and not least being satisfied with your lot. I’m not sure I’m convinced about all that but it is a familiar Bible Belt mentality revisited even if it does emanate from a little further South.

Eleven of the 13 tracks are composed by Morrow and there isn’t a misstep to be found. It’s this kind of Country music which first sparked my interest in the genre and I urge you to invest and to wear this out. It’s the real thing.

November 7, 2018

There was a strange smell in the car. As opposed to something that you could identify easily it was a chemical smell that might have been screen wash? I couldn’t see anything and expecting something expensive to resolve. The car was booked into the garage.

I handed across the keys but was shortly invited into the workshop to inspect the car. The mechanic had peered beneath the front passenger seat and found a satsuma. Clearly it had advanced to be decomposed in the extreme. The trip was a great waste of my time and there is a running family joke is that no one is allowed to eat in my car! See the image on the left!

Two trips to London were part of the week. The first was as a trustee of the Moores Furniture Group Pension Scheme. With the other trustees we were selecting a fiduciary manager for our investment of the funds. I seldom wear a suit and in fact it is quite a pleasure once in a blue moon: nostalgia overcomes me for cuff links, ties and polished black shoes. So sat on the train I take my spectacles off to scrutinise something closely and put them in a pocket. On eventually restoring them to my face the arm fell off! So I turned up at a meeting to discuss the best deployment of £93 million by first asking if someone had any cellotape.

The second trip, at the weekend, was to stay with Katrina and Matt. However we really visited to see some veteran cars. These are motor cars made before 1905. In fact a large number look like ‘horseless carriages’. After exhibiting themselves on Regent Street on the Saturday they then participate on the Sunday in the London to Brighton Veteran car Run of 50 miles.

In the scheme of things then leaving central London and driving to Brighton by 4.30 pm doesn’t sound difficult but it is. They set off from beside the Serpentine lake in Hyde Park, from around 7.30 am. These cars were only ever expected to make short distances and they are chronically unrelaible. I think we take for granted the reliability of modern day machinery. Amusingly then from where they started were pools of oil and water. When diesel and petrol engines are banned, in a couple of decades time, these cars will still be allowed to run with all their pollution.

Even if I dwell on my 1965 Triumph Herald then it had a load of faults that came with cars of the era. For these veteran automobiles the major challenge is not only moving forward but also braking. The brakes are inefficient and you need quite a lot of space to come to stop. Back in the day there wasn’t as much traffic on the road and therefore plenty of space to slow down. Nowadays the roads are crammed. Michael, one of the owners and drivers (to the left in his 1904 Oldsmobile and deer stalker) ruefully talked of cars nipping into these gaps as they approached lights.

I mentioned nostalgia above and never is the subject more alive than on a newstand with the publications that revisit times gone by. I’m usually looking for Country music magazines but the tractor one caught my eye. Back in the day I spent a lot of time buying several items that were originally fitted to this tractor. I was at Ford Motor Company between 1978 to 1984 and bought, during that time, all the electrics, hydraulic tubes, tyres, some cabs, castings and forgings (used on the tractor and in the engine) and other things I forget. Also during this time I bought items and services that were necessary to run the plant and various departments. I bought print and artwork that mainly concerned the manuals that were supplied with each tractor. To think now about air brushing and printed materials is to step back to another century. Today a bright operative sat at an iMac could do the job in a fraction of the time and then publish it all digitally.

Into every life a little rain must pour they say. A deluge arrived when looking out across the trees from our front garden I saw a 15 metre high pole. We were delightfully secluded without any other buidlings or similar in view. This pole is shortly to be adorned with satellite dishes and electronic gubbins. This mast will enable broadband signals to be received from about 4 miles away and then be beamed elsewhere locally. Myself and other neighbours are not impressed at this erection.

So we have got the Council involved who are scheduled to visit to see if it conforms with Planning law and other relevant agencies have been engaged. Needless to say the neighbour who’s allowed this monstrosity to be placed on their land has been spoken to and told that he’s the spawn of Beelzebub. I got a lot of waffly disclaimers back about it not being his responsibility to consult with his neighbours about this pole. Not mentioned is the lucrative contract (thousands of pounds per annum) he’s signed with the company that owns the mast. Anna, when passing by my chair, was signalling for me to calm down as I got more vocal on the ‘phone. We’ll see where our complaint goes. 

One neighbour suggested resolving the problem with a chainsaw. Watch this space. “Timber…”

October 24, 2018

Colter Wall – Songs Of The Plains

Colter Wall’s second release Songs Of The Plains comes quickly after his 2017 debut. Judging by the 11 songs it appears that there was still a lot left unsaid. The images conjured in these lyrics continue his theme of being a drifter, whether today in his native Canada or the 19th Century American Wild West. The simplicity of the arrangements and, producer, David Cobb’s continued isolation and promotion of Wall’s unique and remarkable voice make this an intimate experience where the pace of delivery, timbre and the rising and falling is literally orchestral.

A simple chord pattern on his acoustic guitar starts “Plain To See Plainsman” and Wall declares, “I cut through the Rockies like some unholy blade”. We are placed in the Canadian outdoors learning of his love of the mountains, ocean and wheat fields. This is his home with its raw beauty, unforgiving winters and wide open spaces. He says that recent conversations in Europe and the USA confirmed how little his fans knew about Canada. With pride and sentimentality he immediately sets the record straight.

“John Beyers (Camaro Song)” was debuted on his last tour and recounts his planned retribution after three bullets were put into his prized 1969 Chevrolet Camaro. From here we learn about his impetuous past. “Wild Bill Hickok” tells the story of this Wild West plainsman legend. We end with Bill’s untimely demise after a disgruntled fellow gambler shot him. To achieve this full timeline in just over two and half minutes shows his gift as an economic wordsmith.

There are seven original compositions. However Wall walks the talk as regards his love of the catalogue of traditional North American folk songs. On tour he played Wabash Cannonball and Railroad Bill and on the album are “Tying Knots In The Devil’s Tail” (with vocal duties shared with fellow Canadians Corb Lund and Blake Berglund), “Calgary Round-Up” and “Night Herding Song”. The latter is a traditional cowboy song; it didn’t work in his Nashville studio and so he recorded it live beside an outdoor fire. 

His compositions are the most memorable and the Western Swing of “Thinkin’ On A Woman” sees him joined on acoustic guitar by Cobb and Lloyd Green on pedal steel. Throughout the album other instrumentation is light of touch and always sits behind his powerful baritone voice. Special mention must go to Mickey Raphael on harmonica – it would be easier to list the luminaries who he hasn’t played with – always measured, sparse and evocative.

Despite the inevitable unrequited message this is one of his most upbeat songs. Others can be bleak and “Manitoba Man” covers the abandonment of another female “light of his life”. However the man in question is selling drugs at a garage in Manitoba and a visit is necessary before he flees. 

After his 2017 breakthrough with his eponymous album it wasn’t guaranteed that his star would continue to shine brightly in a very crowded marketplace of talent. Wall is armed with stories, the sympathetic husbandry of David Cobb and a unique voice that is commanding and sonorous. I consider this Volume 2 to his last release but whether you want more or he’s new to you then this is a wonderful record.

October 11, 2018

Rich Krueger – NOWthen

Chicago based Krueger has balanced a career in the medical care of newborn infants and been part of the 5 piece band The Dysfunctionells since the 1980s. Despite the surprising combination then the reality is many of the artists on these pages have lives outside music: they need to eat. If there is a surprise then how damn good Krueger is.

NOWthen is his second solo release of 15 tracks and immediately leaps onto my list of year end contenders. A strong and plaintive voice with an attractive timbre and ability to hold a melody is the first draw. Then staggering yet often surreal stories unfold in long and articulate lyrics coupled to heavyweight tunes to make this a joy. Falling into the broad church of Americana. Krueger is close to a Singer Songwriter sound and I think he’d have few complaints to be compared to Randy Newman.

“Girls Go For Arse’oles” is a gentle acoustic melody with acoustic guitars to the fore whilst an organ holds long notes. Krueger’s voice has clear space to deliver a love song strong with eccentricity: “Let me start by saying I’m a liar, Can’t say how much of this is true, But if it makes things any better, I’ll swear by the copper in my tattoo, And you will watching me steal your heart.”

With “Por Que No Me Amas (Love Me)” we go a long way south of Illinois to cross the border. A Mexican melody with accordian recounts a suicide attempt (failed!). We join him after his incompetent drowning and his eventual re-emergence into the city. As always woman trouble underlines his “maladaptive behavior”. As we progress the accordian remains but a Mariachi band adds colour along with an upright bass setting the rhythm as Robbie Fulks helps him sing the chorus.

So up across the border we go Cajun with “O What A Beautiful Beautiful Day”. It takes us into Krueger’s other ‘office’: a maternity delivery theatre. Maybe not a promising subject? Nah, absolutely, as the whole album is soaked in humour and here he tells us of dad fainting, hospital bills, unspeakable pain and the fact that it is a day that all will remember for the right reasons.

Again in another genre switch “À Tout Jamais (Pour Eva)” we slow thing down and a ballad of stunning beauty unfolds. We place ourselves in a bleak European setting of a war. Apparently this song was once destined for a play in the mid nineties. Female voices act like sirens in the background above a chorues of other voices. Oh man…

“Me & Mr Johnson” is that Mr Johnson and we’re in Clarksdale with a full electric rock ’n roll band laying down a groove with full brass and a female chorus visiting the folklore of his swap with the  devil of his soul for guitar playing prowess.

Did I tell you about the engrossing story of “Don”? Well maybe another time as all the tracks are exceptional.

The lyrics read like short stories. Without doubt his writing is as strong as his music and can stand alone as something to enjoy without the soundtrack. He descibes himself thus “I’m a friendly and open smart and funny guy with a mouth and willingness to use it. I’m pretty much an iconoclast….NOWthen is full of real songs that are never ordinary”. How true.

October 5, 2018

Dillon Carmichael – Hell On An Angel

Dillon Carmichael has a lineage of East Kentucky Country music forbears and, as they say, the apple hasn’t fallen too far from the tree. Now a Nashville resident he’s developed his song writing talents in collaborations. On his debut record he has co-written seven of these 10 compositions. It seems that to go from being a Nashville songwriter to a recording artist is the quality of the voice. It’s here that Carmichael kicks the ball out of the park with a rich and expressive baritone; I immediately thought of Jamey Johnson but Chris Stapleton fans will be drooling.

An atmospheric “Natural Disaster” leads us off – the voice powers through familiar troubles: “Just like an angry volcano, she blew me away”. A slow moving Stapleton arrangement that crosses Country, Southern Rock and the Blues into an Eagles confection is an attractive introduction. One of the singles off the album “It’s Simple” is a ballad drenched in pedal steel and eulogises about an uncomplicated life; you start to sense the old time feel pervading the album. If that wasn’t traditional enough for you then “Country Women” opens with the immortal lines: “I like girls that ain’t afraid of a tractor” and then by line three we get references to Haggard and honky tonks. As a tune, maybe a little Outlaw comes to mind with lively pedal steel and female backing singers giving this a feel good swing. 

The title track, “Hell On An Angel”, is another upbeat stomp and the lyrics tell you of hell raising: “Well I was hell on an angel, that liquor burned like gasoline, I had one foot in the fire the other steppin’ on her wing, Well that temperature was risin’ but I could not feel the heat, Well I was hell on an angel that loved the devil out of me”. Leroy Powell’s guitar playing on the album is immaculate and here we rock out with an Allman Brothers’ lick.

“Dancin Away With Heart” deploys that baritone and it stops you in your track. He puts into song a true story of playing a gig when his ex rolls up with her new beau. Needless to say he’s crushed by her appearance. This is an album highlight. A great melody that could be from the 1980/90s. Again sensational drums (Chris Powell) propels this along with discreet guitar solos and female backing. If this doesn’t make Country radio then nothing will.

Stapleton’s 2015 “Was It 26” was a unique reworking of a Charlie Daniels’ track by Don Sampson. Quite surprisingly, Carmichael’s “What Hank Would Do” misappropriates this arrangement with the distinctive guitar sound. I found this shameless and unoriginal. Dixie Againcloses the album with anthemic twin guitar rock. A slow build with more tales of dissolution and the pursuit of redemption. Lynyrd Skynyrd would be proud to call this their own.

This is mainly authentic and promising Country from a newcomer. Cobb is so sought after that he can pick ‘winners’ and turning his talents to producing this record, at Nashville’s legendary RCA Studio A, is maybe a sign that Carmichael is seen as one for the future. All efforts are behind that voice and we’re taken back a few decades where the melody and vocals have to do the heavy lifting. 

Unlike Tyler Childers who emerged from Kentucky last year to immense goodwill with an exceptional, authentic and original sound then he was still an outsider and singing about contemporary themes. Carmichael despite his tender years seems to have leap frogged this rite of passage phase and the industry has turned out a fully formed, at times, formulaic Nashville offering. 

Early days but I’m encouraged if the Nashville ‘machine’ is producing Country music again.

September 19, 2018

Jason Eady – I Travel On

The first thing that strikes you on Eady’s seventh release is the quality of the playing. On the opening track, “I Lost My Mind In Carolina”, a real steering wheel tapper, you hear his band fire up. The album was recorded live and acoustic. Such a platform means that fiddle and banjo are immediately important in the mix. This along with the lyrical content takes you back a decade or two for how chart popular Country used to sound. Eady may be new to you but he’s been around a long time and garners much respect from his musical peers.

“Happy Man” is in stark counterpoint to many of the songs here where struggle and moving on are the theme. With the type of sentimentality that only Country music can ever feel confident to cover we hear of a contended life with many blessings of marriage and family. “Calaveras County” (in California) hits a familiar rhythm and his wife and solo artist, Courtney Patton, joins him on the first of a number of harmonies. The story has its origins about when his father broke down short of petrol in the middle of nowhere. His salvation came in the form of a hippy in a multi-coloured VW camper van that took him to fetch the fuel. This story of kindness has stuck with him ever since.

“She Had To Run” slows the album and is reminiscent of Alison Krauss and Union Station with a tale of a woman thumbing a lift to escape an abusive partner. Fiddle and dobro intertwine in a haunting and melancholy duet as his masterful baritone recounts this getaway with a passenger in peril and distress. 

“Pretty When I Die” is a bluegrass outing and sumptuous husband and wife harmonies sit on top of the hoedown. As the band take their solos he extols the virtue of hard work and living life to the full to avoid the ignominy of dying pretty! “I Travel On” is his most memorable vocal and takes us on the road with this lilting ballad from Monterey to Richmond: 

“I’m out here searching, 

For cities made of gold, 

I don’t know what is real, 

Just some stories I’ve been told, 

Maybe someday I’ll find out, 

Somewhere on this road I travel on”

This is a beautiful authentic Country album of considerable lyrical and musical craft. I can understand the affection that follows this Texan troubadour. Sadly, given the industry’s predilection for formulaic Country Pop music purveyed by 30 somethings males in Stetsons and blue jeans then this won’t be anywhere near a Country Music Association nomination for album of the year anytime soon but maybe that tells you how fabulous it is.

September 15, 2018

“That’s the end of the death portion of the show” chirped Jim White after five of his 15 songs. Maybe the ‘death’ section of the show has finished but White has had a troubled life and in this couple of hours you get a tour through his taxi driving, homelessness, depression, failed marriages and then his emergence into the sunnier uplands through not least the joy of his daughters.

A rapt audience of around 100 are holding onto every word as he recounts this personal journey between songs. He is a storyteller. The sublime virtuoso Clive Barnes accompanies him on electric or acoustic guitar adding atmosphere to White’s wry, observational, seldom judgemental, and brutally honest confessional musings.

“A Perfect Day To Chase Tornados” from his 1997 Wrong-Eyed Jesus albumis met with delight as the gathering discover that White is about to revisit some of his most cherished songs. The complex lyrics illustrate that you are in the company of a thoughtful yet often conflicted craftsman: 

“Sometimes I think that the sky is a prison and the earth is a grave.
And sometimes I feel like Jesus, in some Chinese opera.
And sometimes I’m glad I built my mansion from crazy little stones.
But sometimes I feel so goddamned trapped by everything that I know.
And I wish it wasn’t so, cause the only thing that anyone should ever know
Is that today’s a perfect day to chase tornados.
Yeah, when the wild wind whips around your head you know,
That you have found a perfect day to chase tornados. To rapturous applause he quips that the song was ‘wrote before I was a rock star.”

Sat still with the guitar on his lap we work through songs off five different albums, with five coming from his 2017 release: Waffles, Triangles & Jesus.Torn between poet and raconteur we have asides about the commercial success (or not) of his releases.”Objects In Motion” he declares come from the album “that ended my career” – Drill A Hole In A Substrate. With relish he advises that the song was probably the least popular track on the album “judging by the meagre couple of cents I get from royalties then it had two plays, probably, in Namibia and Iran”. However when the laughter subsided we had a haunting and atmospheric song sung and half spoken.

Highlights are many but “Wound That Never Heals” about a female serial killer spins you off kilter. The story is dark with murderas its main theme. I suppose against the backdrop of White’s mental challenges then you never quite know where the fiction or autobiography might collide. “Silver Threads” from his latest album recounts the difficult parting from a girlfriend of four years after initial promises of marriage. However, don’t be glum “she’s happy now with a Norwegian!” “Bluebird” off the album “that ended his career” starts with the matter of fact declaration that he conceived a child with a woman he disliked and with fragile vulnerability and bleak loneliness he sings about the daughter:

“Bluebird on a telephone line
How are you? I’m feeling fine
Sweetly do I whisper your name
Lonely solo taxi ride to a cheap motel”

Before a sentimental closer he sang “Christmas Song”, the most autobiographical of his songs. Marooned in a Greyhound bus station on December 25th1998 after his transportation broke down. At this time separation from his child is the most agonising and the scatter of words spill out his pain, anguish and the realisation that he is in many ways a mess and maybe he’s the problem.

If you haven’t caught him then you must. He is a one-off: capable of stories, vivid images of America, delicate yet compelling melodies and an interpretive (yet never hurried) delivery that is like no other.