Some Awe's Top Twenty Albums, 2013

Roy Harper - Man & Myth

Had to be this one from the great man. January Man is beautiful and plaintively honest in its reflection on age and regrets; Heaven is Here is a Harper tour de force.

Beth Hart & Joe Bonamassa – Seesaw

Bonamassa is the current guitar genius out there, and songwriter. Paired with the astonishing vocal of Hart and this has to be a winner, and is.

Steve Earle & The Dukes (& Duchesses) - The Low Highway

Always brilliant. Always.

Gregory Porter - Liquid Spirit

Third album of superb jazz vocal, his most mature to date.

Jason Isbell – Southeastern

Could have had this at number one if I listened to Elephant again, perhaps the strongest song written this year. Beautiful and painful.

Low - The Invisible Way

Exquisite harmonies on beautifully written melodies.

Fire! Orchestra - Exit!

Blew me away when I first heard it. Such energy and power. Phenomenal jazz.

The Temperance Movement - The Temperance Movement

Of all the current retro rock bands, the most deserving of an accolade. Have worked hard at earning recognition above and beyond the quality of their playing and songwriting. Seeing them live was icing on this presentation cake.

Tedeschi Trucks Band - Made Up Mind

A stunning set of songs played excellently throughout.

Caroline Rose - America Religious

As a new singer/songwriter she has established herself firmly with this honest and poetic reflection.

Kings Of Leon – Supersoaker

It’s what they do and continue to do so well. RockPop of the highest quality.

Dhafer Youssef - Birds Requiem

The vocal is sublime. Stunning beauty.

Emmylou Harris & Rodney Crowell - Old Yellow Moon

Pairing of two greats = greatness.

David Bowie - The Next Day

As crucial as ever, Where Are We Now? sends chills when I listen.

Darrell Scott & Tim O'Brien - Memories and Moments

Such a spontaneous feel with superb chemistry. Virtuoso playing, and Country blues par excellence.

Boz Scaggs – Memphis

Mr Cool as smooth as the coolest smooth on this mainly laid-back gem.

Linda Thompson - Won't Be Long Now

As with so many others in this selection, when you are one of the greats, your greatness continues. If I Were A Bluebird is special.

Nick Harper – Riven

No accident to join the list with his father: an album of dynamic songs and distinctive performances.

Patrick Sweany - Close to the Floor

New to me and not that well known [unless it’s just me] but some outstanding songs.

London Grammar – If You Wait

A late entrant and winner as I’m only just discovering. Hannah Reid’s vocal is special and carries it for me: and yes, my contempt for the otherwise contemporary female vocal affectation is thoroughly repressed by Reid’s pure and powerful voice. 

NB I'd read somewhere that Uncut had chosen Roy Harper's Man & Myth as its number 1 album of the year, but this isn't true. The magazine's editor Allen Jones did, but the magazine as a whole selected My Bloody Valentine's m b v. Mojo magazine choose Bill Callahan's Dream River.

Nelson Mandela - Rest In Your Peace, 5th December, 2013

Roy Harper - Colston Hall, Bristol, 27th October, 2013

Still Batting at the Crease

On the same day as septuagenarian Lou Reed passed, I was watching septuagenarian Roy Harper playing a blissful if understandably reflective gig at Bristol. Many of his generation of musical greats are leaving us, not surprisingly because of their age and the ravages of, for quite a few, lives lived in a lane most of us could only ever imagine travelling – through we have journeyed by proxy through their wonderful songs – and this vulnerability on the continuing spiral of life’s mortal coil for those still performing adds that extra poignancy, if a little sentimental, in seeing them perhaps one last time.

Not that Harper seemed ready to go anywhere, other than home for a deserved rest after a truly wonderful and full performance on a night that presaged storms which never really bothered us in Bristol, nor on the still uplifted journey back to my home afterwards. Indeed, with respect to aging, Harper was self-effacing – and a little naughty, for two reasons – when he introduced the beautiful song January Man from his latest album Man and Myth. It was ‘naughty’ because he firstly claimed it was a song about a 70 year old man lusting after 25 year old women and being ignored [joking he’d forgotten to look in the mirror in the morning], and secondly because he actually made light of the song’s meaning in this way where in fact it is so clearly and tenderly and movingly about growing older, having regrets but also the honesty to articulate this.

Accompanied by a beautiful string and brass ensemble, playing arrangements by David Bedford who Harper remembered fondly, and by Jonathan Wilson who produced Harper’s latest [and performed an opening solo spot, a delightful bonus on the night], Roy played a surprising number from Man and Myth – pleasing me and my close friend also there, and who had seen Roy with Led Zeppelin at Bath in 1969 – and these included the other sweet track Time is Temporary and the epic Heaven is Here. Roy’s vocal was so strong. As I recently commented when reviewing M&M, his bass to falsetto range is still impressive on record, and now confirmed live too: absolutely startling. And the guitar work also continues to be so distinctive and brilliant.

Other highlights in two sets of sustained highlights were Me and My Woman and the delicate, gorgeous North Country Girl. I thought that after my emotional reaction to seeing Crosby, Stills and Nash recently I might have a similar response, a response born from an accumulation of overwrought nostalgia through seeing these great artists in the twilight of their careers and lives: it is in what they represent through their talents and how the music prompts the reverie of times gone and, as a consequence, the brush with that fragility and vulnerability I mentioned at the start of this review – but I didn’t. And when Roy closed on an encore of When An Old Cricketer Leaves The Crease, I simply wanted him to play on and on, uplifted, as I have said, by his commanding presence in the here and now and by his continuing intellect, wry humour and enjoyment in performing.

Crosby, Stills and Nash - Colston Hall, Bristol, 17th October, 2013

Nearly, But No Blubbering

I am still buzzing/affected by Crosby, Stills and Nash’s Thursday concert, and being reminded now in other ways by listening to a bootleg of their Royal Albert Hall performance on the 9^th October where the set list was very similar.

This review could be either extremely long in its unbridled enthusiasm, or brief – but still in its unbridled enthusiasm. Needs must and I will go for the latter. Or try to. One interesting place to start is in stating that on stage you had someone who played with Buffalo Springfield, someone who played with The Hollies, and someone who played with The Byrds. Consummate credibility already. And then you had the three members of their first incarnation, and then with the addition of Neil Young, and variously after that [Stills/Young, for example, and more consistently Crosby and Nash as a duo] and these guys played Woodstock and became the epitome of the West Coast sound and just so much phenomenally more. That lineage/history had massive much to do with the highly emotive state I found myself in when seeing them on Thursday.

I don’t normally sing along at gigs, but when I tried to join in with those opening first classic songs – Carry On and Questions – I found myself welling up. Pathetic I know, but I am not embarrassed to admit, and I think it was all about the expectation of going to see these musical giants but also, obviously, all that history of what they have achieved and how much their early days impacted on my youth and consequently my views and attitudes and – well, you know the powerful symbiosis that exists between adolescence and musical [and the other within: lyrical, political, reminiscence] influence. It was all there.

Needless to say I didn’t blubber at those early moments and nor did I later when I managed to sing along to other classics. And they were the classics, as well as very recent and other material along their long way together and separately. Each in fact got their solo spotlights, even if this was together but focusing on the songwriting individuality.

I’m not going to review the music because it doesn’t need that. But what matters is how they sounded now: the vocal harmonising was as outstanding as ever, Crosby and Nash in particular quite pristine. The backing band was remarkably tight and gifted in support, but it was the three up front and centre and foregrounded on the mics that carried the evening to its aural heights. Stephen Stills is known to have hearing difficulties and a consequent impact on his vocals, but this wasn’t even that noticeable on his solo contributions, and certainly not in unison. Or if it was noticeable – I don’t need to whitewash this performance – it was the simple reality of age and the years of whatever was done to affect that. And Stills’ gravelly, bluesy vocal had such an impact that evening, as did his superb guitar soloing: the crackling of the feedback controlled into the most mellow of full, beautiful sound, but also erupting into the wildest rock. The Crosby/Nash duet of Guinevere, performed thousands of times by these two, was sublime.

The gig began precisely at 8pm, the guys had a 20 minute break, and then it finished at just after 11pm, all packed with quality and even more history in the making for me. Closing songs were Almost Cut My Hair – Crosby’s vocal soaring in its clarity – and then Wooden Ships, with the encore – and as Nash said, it couldn’t be any other, not having been played yet – Sweet Judy Blue Eyes. There had been standing ovations throughout the set, and I was one of the first, compelled to react [so much better than shedding tears, no matter how joyous!], so can you imagine the reaction at the very end?!

And do you know, I’m still buzzing.

Gregory Porter - Soul Sessions, Cabaret Sauvage, Paris - 11th September, 2013

Sublime Session

Just listening to a bootleg recording of this concert [French radio] and it is a stunning performance from Gregory Porter, yet what you also get, and don't as rip-roaringly on a studio recording, is the brilliance of the band - all of the players - but in particular the saxophone solos of Yosuke Sato. It is a special listen.

More scat too!

I do keep listening to Liquid Spirit and it is also special, as already reviewed, but even more so.

Jackie Kaye - Budleigh Salterton Literary Festival, 20th September, 2013

Fucking Great

Had a delightful and genteel late afternoon in the calm autumnal sunshine at Budleigh Salterton, and then at the Public Hall to hear Jackie Kaye read her poetry and prose. I had the pleasure of Jackie visiting my school to work with sixth formers 14 years ago in July 1999. I recall how warm, friendly and humorous she was then. Nothing has changed.

It was an extremely entertaining reading, especially when Jackie regaled us with extracts from her memoir Red Dust Road, in particular meeting with her birth father in Nigeria. For those who don't know, Budleigh is a quiet seaside town on the East Devon coast populated predominantly by the retired and those of an age to make me feel reasonably sprightly. It was therefore reassuring that there were no gasps of outrage nor indeed heart attacks as Jackie managed to say the word fuck, denigrate Christianity [well fundamentalism, but it was a broad attack] and read aloud with alacrity the wonderful expression lesbian belly flap [you need to read the book!].

Actually, the audience who I have characterised quite accurately age-wise was extremely appreciative of her reading and her banter and her strident irreverences. So, had my prejudices and perceptions knocked around a bit today, and it was thoroughly enjoyed.

Lemn Sissay was the visiting poet last year and I mention now just so I can post this amazing photo:

Seamus Heaney - In Memoriam: April 13th, 1939 - August 30th, 2013

Genuinely saddened to hear the news of the death today of Seamus Heaney. I have read his work since I first became interested in poetry when a teenager, and I have over the years had the pleasure of teaching and sharing his wonderful writing. In memory of him and this, I include here a beautiful, consummate sonnet from a longer poem of his called Clearances, itself written in memory of his mother. For various reasons this is a poem that carries significant meaning for me.

In Memoriam M.K.H., 1911-1984

When all the others were away at Mass
I was all hers as we peeled potatoes.
They broke the silence, let fall one by one
Like solder weeping off the soldering iron:
Cold comforts set between us, things to share
Gleaming in a bucket of clean water.
And again let fall. Little pleasant splashes
From each other's work would bring us to our senses.

So while the parish priest at her bedside
Went hammer and tongs at the prayers for the dying
And some were responding and some crying
I remembered her head bent towards my head,
Her breath in mine, our fluent dipping knives -
Never closer the whole rest of our lives.

Morning Rush - Exeter Phoenix, 27th August, 2013

Playing at the Royal Albert Hall, no less

A Hopeful Rising From The Phoenix

Morning Rush: an apt name for a band playing this bright and breezy music and for my eagerness to listen to their EP first thing today, having downloaded in the early hours after last night’s ‘farewell’ gig in Exeter.  

‘Bright and breezy’: that suggests pop music, and I think it is, though I like to refer to the ‘pop sensibilities’ of a band when the take is this intelligent and mature. But more important, it’s the writing and playing. The playing is as infectious as the songcraft, and the band excels with their harmonising – and any regular readers will know by now my affinity for vocal harmony.

I’m sure the band has its contemporary touchstones, yet in the way I like to reference my own, I kept thinking of Andrew Gold as I listened to their set last night: not exactly sounding like him, but in the credibility they give to their sound. Then there’s America [listen to the start of Where Our Heart Is – but this song also immediately establishes its contemporary roots as it goes into its semi-rap...and then the complexity of those vocal harmonies and criss-crosses: impressive]. I also thought of Freedy Johnston, and then in one even more impressive moment, Crosby, Stills and Nash. Their EP song P.S. reminds of The Civil Wars.

I know it isn’t any of the above directly, but these are genuine reference points from an older listener. But enough of the precursors, though in wanting to return to the now one has to also reference the ‘farewell’ aspect of the gig. The five young guys are all about to go off to University, each to their separate geographical location – one already studying abroad – and whilst lead singer Sam Luca declared they would be back and performing at holiday breaks, the future as a band must be uncertain. It is an exciting time for each one of them – the cliché of new opportunities nonetheless a reality.

On stage the band has a musical rapport which is as fresh as their singing and songwriting. It’s great to see amped acoustic guitar as lead instrument, played by Luca, and in drummer Pip Arnold, the vocal harmonising he provides is superb, at times soaring at the high end, or even taking on alternative, additional narrative lines – this latter representing some of those more complex vocal structures. It’s good to see a drummer - at the back so often - musically at the front! But the tightness of the whole band is what also impresses.

Morning Rush is recording and finishing an album, and naturally many of the excellent songs played at last night’s gig will feature – hints at times in these of funky and soulful influences, broadening their sound. For now, you can still get their EP here – pay what you will – and this will definitely tempt you to that forthcoming release. 

In the reality that is five young guys going their separate ways, the band may not survive, though their performances clearly will in the memories of devoted fans, family and friends who were all given a heartfelt thanks last night for their support over recent years. And of course their music will too. In the other reality that is all about talent, there is plenty of music within these individuals and one can only hope that if the band does indeed end there will be other beginnings. 

The Temperance Movement - Cavern, Exeter, 9th July, 2013

The Rock Band The Eagles Always Wanted To Be

There’s a scene in the recent Eagles documentary where a key point in the band’s rise to stardom is plotted as the moment producer Glyn Jones heard them singing a cappella harmony and decided that this was the sound to define them as a band. Up to that point he hadn’t been overly keen on their rock aspirations, and the fact they never became an ostensibly rock band is apparently a fact Glenn Frey and Don Henley rue to this day.

At tonight’s outstanding The Temperance Movement gig at the Cavern , Exeter, there was a moment where the band went ‘off mic’ to sing their song Chinese Lanterns and the five part [with one guitar] a cappella harmony was as exquisite as anything the Eagles can do, and yet this occurred within the context of the band’s absolutely stonking rock-core performance. Indeed, the band happily cited influences such as Little Feet, The Allman Brothers and The Rolling Stones – and my goodness they have the credentials and talent to write and perform songs bearing those influences with panache – and yet I also heard the harmonies of the Eagles and America to name but two obvious echoes.

I had wondered before hearing them live if there would be a guitar focus too. Their excellent EP Pride obviously features the fine work of Luke Potashnick and Paul Sayer, but not the kind of soloing you might get played live. I’m still buzzing with the delight to observe that the band’s individual and dual guitar work is stunning. There was plenty of slide as well as sharp playing from both, but on the slow number Smouldering, Luke and Paul played an extended and deeply layered guitar duet that reminded of the very best of the past when such breaks were expected as well as lauded from the great rock bands of the 60s/70s.

Fronted by Glaswegian ‘spokesperson’ [his jest], but more importantly exceptional vocalist Phil Campbell, The Temperance Movement played a stunning set in, as Paul rightly described it, the ‘classic’ small but atmospheric Cavern venue where such a performance resonates because of that size but also the history and vibe inherent in such an environment. Campbell’s singing is itself ‘classic’ when heard on record/cd, but he can certainly deliver and sustain this live, moving effortlessly and emotively between ballads and rock stormers. Nick Fyffe’s bass and Damon Wilson’s drumming are integral parts of the consummate tightness of the band as a whole, and as already stated, all members can and do contribute beautiful vocal harmonising. For any regular readers of this blog who know I love ‘pretty’ music as well as hard-core guitar rock, you’ll understand my genuine reverie at the combination of this and more with this band.

They certainly deserve their own much bigger stardom and success in the near future. With their first album due out in September, and the continued support of Planet Rock, one would hope this will happen. I certainly feel the retro-rock tag is inappropriate for The Temperance Movement who displayed for me in this gig more breadth and sense of self than that label can embrace. But I also know how my listening habits – and, let’s be honest, my age – also define a certain audience for the band which won’t provide the platform they need for a genuinely expansive appeal. Perhaps that doesn’t matter. As I said, the band seems content with and enthused by the influences that shape their sound, accepting the lineage and its roots.

And if I could exploit that sense of being rooted, to a degree, in the past, I’d urge them to bring out a live album as soon as possible! Having invoked The Allman Brothers Band who brought out At Filmore East three years into their career, perhaps TTM could resurrect this once quite common tradition from rock’s heyday. I’d certainly love to have a recording of tonight’s gig or similar as it was one of the best I have attended in a long time of enjoying live music.

You can buy various versions of The Temperance Movement’s EP Pride here. Recommended.

Crosby, Stills & Nash - Bristol, 17th October, 2013

Whilst I've never been to Glastonbury, I have slept under the stars and under sheets of plastic in torrential rain, and this is long before port-a-loos and fine cuisine and wifi/4G were on a festival site - I actually don't recall eating in my Festival days - so here's another sit-down inside concert I am attending in lieu of going alfresco.

Roy Harper - Bristol, 27th October, 2013

OK, I haven't got to Glastonbury, but I do have my ticket for Roy at Bristol, and that's going to be special. Never seen the great man live before.

Ginger Baker's Jazz Confusion - Phoenix, Exeter, 12th July, 2013

What Was That? That Was Jazz

At 73 years of age, Ginger Baker isn’t the double bass-drum oscillator he used to be, but the African beats he deployed throughout his jazz set at The Phoenix, Exeter, last night – aided and abetted with a compensatory gusto by Ghanian percussionist Abass Dodoo [who would have thought cymbals could at times make such a distinctive and glorious contribution?] – reflected a continued love of playing live as well as for that genre.

With further assistance from the wonderful saxophone tone of Pee Wee Ellis [having played for the James Brown Revue between 1965 to 1969, and contributing to no less than 13 albums with Van Morrison] and Alec Dankworth, perhaps the most outstanding soloist of the night on double and electric bass, it was an evening of highly enjoyable jazz penned by Baker himself and the likes of Wayne Shorter and Sonny Rollins, all underscored by the aura of getting to see one of the great rock musicians/drummers of all time.

As someone most recently in the press because of the new film documentary about him titled Beware Of Mr Baker - but more notoriously when he breaks filmmaker Jay Bulger’s nose with his cane - and also widely available video footage of a rather cantankerous recent interview session, the only indication of such bad behaviour last night was when someone in the audience shouted out either a request or a heartfelt accolade and Ginger pricked up with a mildly aggressive ‘What was that?’ and immediate threat to have ‘hecklers’ dealt with in some punitive way: all indicative of the fact that after years of thunderous drumming, Ginger Baker can’t hear what is being shouted at him. Overall, he actually seemed to be enjoying himself, proffering a mild giggle as Pee Wee slowly walked behind him having too slowly walked off the stage before the encore and thus being significantly behind the rest of the returned band – and with Ginger’s pace at 73 hardly [wait for it] gingerly, you can imagine how desultory Pee Wee was ambling.

It was that kind of night: an audience whose seniority reflected maturity, wisdom, bad backs and other ailments, hair-loss and a multitude of unrealised dreams of rock stardom and a life of debauchery that Ginger Baker has passed through with some undoubted pain but considerable if crotchety resilience to arrive at this plateau of jazzy reverence and relative calm.  For me it was a night of consistently enjoyable music by a great man I never got to see in his prime but feel I have now seen pursuing his great love of jazz music, having always, apparently, referred to himself as a jazz rather than rock drummer. Where many stars hit the tours churning out their familiar hits [and that's OK too] it was reassuring to see this notorious survivor of the sixties doing so engagingly in his seventies.