January 28, 2017

Becky Warren – War Surplus

As a boy then one of the buzzes a teenager could get about his latest vinyl discovery was enjoying the fact that you were amongst the first to discover a bright new star. In effect, you were in on the ground floor before the masses discovered your secret find. Inevitably by their second stellar commercial success you had moved onto the next ‘secret’. This is where I am at the moment.

When I heard Becky Warren on this genuinely profound piece of work it was hard to grasp that this Americana artist was not huge. I heard her on the now much lamented but gone Americana Music Show podcast that brought so many unsung legends to my humble abode.

Based in Nashville she’s paid her dues and inspired by her experiences with her former soldier husband and his battle with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from his service in Iraq. She had the talent, passion and insight to link some hard hitting brutal lyrics to punchy Americana rock. Exceptional tunes accompany each track. Tight rhythm and beautiful guitar that fills the gaps between her vocals.

We begin the journey into Scott and June’s life with his military experiences cutting through their lives like a knife through hot butter. In ways that are reminiscent of Springsteen and his searing and frank word pictures of everyday folk in low rent urban America then her take on the returning damaged trooper are done with exceptional deprecating insights and gallows humour. This makes the story live and you empathise with their lot in life.

The album starts with ‘Call Me Sometime’. He’s returned to Texas and is not the man he was. “Stay Calm, Get Low’ picks up on Scott’s active service and takes you into the soldier’s world of surviving on the front line. Flicking back to ‘Seemed Like A Good Idea At Time’ covers the decision to join up and the time you have to reflect ‘when you are 3,000 miles from a decent beer’. ‘Take Me Back Home’ reflects on the reality that home might not be San Antonio but back on the front line, a place where his skills and temperament fit.

This arrived at the end of 2016 and was an antidote to the horrific quantity of music talent that checked out during the year. With this then I’m hopeful for the future but how many other artists and their wonderful music are out there?

January 23, 2017

B B King – Take It Home

I once woke up in Clarksdale. Mississippi and when the Delta Blues Museum opened I visited the exhibits before throwing my leg across my bike and cycling south. I rode the 65 miles to Indianola where the BB King Museum is sited. I got there in a steady downpour but the ride through Mississippi was flat. A busy and energetic day for the Blues I hear you say. It is a fabulous museum but there may be easier ways to get there.

This pilgrimage was because this legend was worth studying in greater detail, not least in his proverbial back yard. The museum is the best music museum I have been lucky enough to visit.

I’m not sure how I came across this masterpiece in 1979 but it is blend of straight down home Blues and Blues Rock. It was a brilliant introduction and so many of these tracks have become friends forever. BB King has a distinctive and melodic vocal style and the captivating, fluid and often soaring and searing guitar is an irresistible combination.

The team of Will Jennings and Joe sample wrote five of the tracks with Jennings collaborating on the other four. In other work then Joe Sample was a ‘go to’ session keyboard player and Jennings would become well known for working with Stevie Winwood, Eric Clapton, Whitney Houston and writing several soundtrack classics – ‘My Heart Will Go On’ and ‘Up Where We Belong’.

BB King was an early originator who played the US chitlin’ circuit in a time of segregation and prejudice with his band and maybe just about making a living. He started life on a plantation driving a tractor before his escape into music. As regards the ‘story’ every Blues man needs then he was authentic.

Blues music, at the time, in the USA was definitely a race thing and whilst it spawned white Rock n’ Roll then it wasn’t remotely mainstream up until the 1970’s. Eventually white music fans heard from their white Rock heroes about the real Blues men and from here many people who we would now regard as Blues legends – Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters and ‘Blues Boy’ King started to get greater exposure.

BB King issued tens of albums up until his death in 2015 (this was his 26th) and played a major role in bringing the genre of Blues to a wider international audience.

What first caught my ear was the name check of our own Queen in ‘Better Not Look Down’, the mournful and beautiful self pitying of ‘I’ve Always Been Lonely’, the practical courtship analysis going on in ‘Second Hand Woman’ and the tongue in cheek affair of ‘A Story Everybody Knows’.

Bliss and worth the bike ride but maybe not the beg bug bites at the motel afterwards!

January 15, 2017

Miranda Lambert – The Weight Of These Wings

Nashville has long been the centre of a slick production line of artists promoted and supported by the music-making machine. In fact if you can sing, you’ve paid your dues and look the part and then with, granted, a hell of a lot of luck you can be pushed out front with a contemporary Country album with Top 20 hits. Providing you get on the road to work the USA then you’re made.

It’s easier for the boys and the current appetite for bro-country appears insatiable on American Country radio. Only two girls might make the playlist – Carrie Underwood and the Texan Miranda Lambert.

Despite the airbrush photos and PR then Miranda defies the convention and lives her life like many of her songs. Her former husband, the mega Country star, Blake Shelton, described her as ‘complicated’…. I’ll say.

This latest album comes on the back of that turbulent divorce and the general view by many in the Country establishment that Blake was well shot of her. A double album is a difficult project to pull off but there are few clunkers out of 22 tracks. Relationships and her difficult nature are to the fore in the often raw lyrics as she name checks the broken hearts, the highway (‘Highway Vagabond’), its towns, drinks galore and sometime casual sex (‘Vice’). You think that this is probably personally researched despite her co-writing status on nearly most songs.

So why is the record that good? Frankly she’s able to dictate to the record company that she’s not doing a bright and shiny Nashville product and so much of this has a traditional or roots feel like Chris Stapleton’s 2016 Academy of Country Music album of the year – ‘The Traveller’. The arrangements are moody (‘Tin Man’ and ‘Runnin’ Just In Case’) when they need to be and as usual exquisitely delivered. However there is the usual flippant levity that can chuck up a Top 20 hit (‘Pink Sunglasses’). This is an artist putting down her mark as the real deal and not simply reliant on a good set of lungs and a platinum rinse.

Let’s be fair anyone who includes ‘Tush’ by ZZ Top as part of their stage set clearly demonstrates that they had the cajones and independence in place well before they embarked on this defining album.

January 8, 2017

Joe Cocker – With A Little Help From My Friends

So I am the bloke with the odd album, and as they used to say, who has stuff on heavy rotation during most waking hours. I listen to new, old, CD, downloads, vinyl, podcasts, Blues, Pop, Folk, Country, Rock etc. I’ve always believed that there are two types of music – good and bad. I’ve just under 3,000 albums to choose from at the moment and I thought I’d pick the odd gem to talk about as my album of the week. Let’s start with:

Me and Joe go back a along way to the joy of sitting in the Odeon, on The Headrow in Leeds, and watching ‘Woodstock’, the movie, in 1971. For a youngster not really yet steeped in Rock then I’d only recently graduated from The Beatles and pop music to the heavy and good stuff. Hippies rolling around in mud and indulging in free love (what was that?) and wacky backy were a mystery to a 16 year old from Barwick-in -Elmet but the soundtrack sure sounded good.

His tour de force cover of Lennon & McCartney’s Sgt. Pepper’s jovial uptempo song was a revelation as it turned the ditty into a rock soul ballad of gigantic proportions. Anyway Joe had me in his corner from there on in. However, the former Sheffield gas fitter’s output from there on was patchy albeit with a few highlights until he checked out in 2014. (However, his career didn’t go without recognition for his services to music and he received an OBE in 2007; all of which confirms my scepticism about the worthiness of the Honours system!)

The much maligned Music For Pleasure label picked up this selection of tracks and released it at a budget price in 1969 (it seems to be basically virtually nearly all the same tracks he released on various labels internationally at the same time). So as a boy with limited cash to spend I bought this and got some brilliant vocals and an introduction to Bob Dylan (I Shall Be Released, Just Like A Woman & Dear Landlord) and Leonard Cohen (Bird On The Wire) and not least the Beatles classic.

He is one of the important Rock vocalists of the age and I am sure that this vinyl gem will come to a charity shop near you soon. Frankly they are ten a penny but it is still a magnificent listen.