Sam Amidon - Bright Sunny South

Folk Tweaking

The Folk revival is thriving. There’s the traditional but quirky Anais Mitchell & Jefferson Hamer to the prog-refined traditional of Wolf People - with a considerable range in between and around. Sam Amidon takes traditional and perhaps deconstructs it the most - though he also toys with songs from Mariah Carey and Tim McGraw – with core tunes redefined, for example, by the jazz trumpet of Kenny Wheeler on I Wish I Wish and He’s Taken My Feet, this latter ending on a guitar freak-out, to the flute-focus and soft acoustic guitar of Pharaoh, to a familiar folk fiddle take within Short Life – all mostly sung in a Will Oldham-esque vocal to add further layers of modernity. As I Roved Out is all banjo and turbo-charged vocal; Groundhog is 46 seconds of instrumental guitar; Streets of Derry is absolutely folk-authentic with fiddle again, and the album ends on Weeping Mary with opening fuzzed guitar then clarinet and other instruments, a song apparently played over 30 years ago by his parents in their group Word of Mouth Chorus. An album of considerable strength in its creative interpretations.

Long Player

Vinyl spiralling back into memories, black in the pain

spun at the time by its sound, the ache then in some

bliss of discovery and now a pang of how far ago –

these records both played and chronicle in one

long line. Covers too delight and hurt in recalling:

outer, inner, gatefold, and almost origami in trying to

go beyond; how the liner notes tell stories about creating,

influence, histories – and writers wrapped up in their

own words to spin out of control. Always the music

pulling you back into the one true groove. I will

forever want their noise reminding me, the vicarious

haunt or a new thrill, and silences are interruptions

that need filling, the circle on a turntable to round

upon itself again and again in a constant of sound.

Mad Shadow - Heavy Blues

But Not Disguised

Vancouver retro-rock Led Zep reincarnation band wears its nostalgic – some might say plagiarising – heart pulsating on its bloodred sleeves. The sound is as overstated and gloriously immediate as that. Uncannily, I watched snippets of Back To The Future yesterday, and here it is again in another pleasing guise.

Alan Jackson - Precious Memories Volume II

Hypothesis

I have always liked Alan Jackson’s resonant Country tenor and the stridently traditional sound he delivers – not quite the ardent fan, but when I have that urge for some twang and reassuring platitude wrapped in requisite perfection, he is a certain provider [and that’s perhaps more dismissive than I want to sound, and would positively cite his fine Country album Freight Train from 2010, and especially a beautiful classic song like Tail Light Blue].

I am staunchly averse to the most ‘traditional’ of Country music proclivities where god is invoked as the spirit of America in the most cloying of banalities, so it is clear that my fondness for Jackson as performer assists greatly in the appreciation of his latest album Precious Memories II which is a collection of familiar Christian hymns. I have to acknowledge that as hymns they exist as proclamations of genuine worship rather than an appropriation to underpin the occasional inanities of a culture.

The album begins with the most obvious of covers in Amazing Grace. It is, of course, a beautiful song, and Jackson gives it a graceful rendition. The delivery is so clear and careful that the line ‘save a wretch like me’ seems to be foregrounded, but perhaps the awfulness of that pious expression of weakness and despair hits me much more profoundly than the positive notion of salvation. Indeed, the intentionally uplifting purpose of the hymns prompts an uncontrollable sing-along effect even for this atheist – as on second He Lives – but my prejudices constantly remind me of the meek supplication inherent in those declarations of reverence, and I am angered – but keep singing along! It is easy to see how a person in need can be swayed and comforted and anesthetised by the power of the hymnal through its aural magic as much as lyrical lancing. Imagine this enhanced by the communal context of church and collective voices.

So when I get to a song like O How I Love Jesus you’d imagine I would reject the urge to join in, but O How I Cannot Resist! I do believe it is the building-block effect of singing with the previous and by the fifth track it is a tower too tall to topple, and I'm already singing on the top floor. So sixth, Only Trust Him, prompts another collective chorus. Jackson performs with mainly simple accompaniments – like piano here – and tight Country harmonies which beg to be added to.

The album ends on a richly resonant Wherever He Leads I’ll Go with Jackson’s tenor demonstrating the power of a distinctive voice/vocal as much as the words and sentiments of the hymn. Perhaps there is a thesis to be drawn from this persuasive partnership, with the dichotomy of my intellectual view and involuntary attachment serving as the hypothesis for debate. 

John Smith - Great Lakes

Great Great Lakes

This is an excellent folk album with fluid guitar playing by Devonian John Smith and a wealth of superb accompanying instrumentation, as on wonderful opener There Is A Stone. Smith has a rasping whisper of a voice in the Ray LaMontagne mould. 

As has been noted elsewhere, there is an echo of John Martyn at times – perhaps quite simply in the acoustic playing and that rasp in the vocal – but it is most notable in the chord tone and phrasing on third track England Rolls Away. Just a distant echo, but Smith does not do a disservice to the ripple. His songs are certainly more conventionally English in their folksiness, and that isn’t just from the megaphoning of the title.

The songs are occasionally adorned with fine vocal harmonising, provided perfectly by Lisa Hannigan who I haven’t always felt obliged to compliment but do so now, and even more occasionally lush string arrangements, as on fourth Freezing Winds Of Change, which shouldn’t work, but do. They appear again on She Is My Escape and work here in the way they did for Nick Drake. This is a gorgeous song. This is, in fact, a great album. 

Way to Blue, The Songs of Nick Drake - Various Artists

Touchstone

Nick Drake is perhaps the foremost musical touchstone when we want to assess/comment on any other male acoustic performer singing and playing in a gentle folk manner. Jeff Buckley is the other, but that is more refined to anyone venturing to the falsetto in their repertoire. Drake’s significant legacy is built on his core three albums Five Leaves Left, Bryter Layter and Pink Moon, all finding little popular success in his lifetime – recorded and released between 1969 – 1972, but gaining in legendary status over the years since his untimely death from a drugs overdose [intention unknown] in 1974. His many memorable songs form the foundation of that status, but the mystique surrounding his death and insular, withdrawn persona has inevitably contributed to it. 

This tribute album was recorded live over three separate performances – two in Melbourne in 2011 and one in London in 2010 – and the range of superb artists coupled with Drake’s by now genuinely iconic tunes is a classic recipe for success. The original orchestration of Robert Kirby provides both an authenticity and expansive symphonic resonance to many of the numbers, and the removal of applause – apart from the final track where it is left to represent the all – provides an unobtrusive quality to the whole listening experience. Musical direction is by Kate St John, who apparently died recently, and the great bassist Danny Thompson who originally played on Drake’s albums is an underpinning performer, duetting with pianist Zoe Rahman on the instrumental cover One Of These Things First. 

Virtually every track is a ‘success’, and favourites are probably as much to do with a personal preference for an artist as much as the song/interpretation itself. Therefore, two of my favourites are performed by Teddy Thompson, his solo cover of River Man – brilliant – and then his duet with fine American vocalist Krystle Warren on closing track and Drake’s memorable song Pink Moon. Other beautiful versions are, for example, the opening Things Behind the Sun by Lulac, who I do not know as an artist so it is very much the beauty of the song itself and the lush orchestration that appeals; Scott Matthews on two songs Place To Be and the lovely When The Day Is Done; Vashti Bunyan on Which Will; Shane Nicholson on Rider On The Wheel, and Luluc again on Fly – her vocal wonderfully redolent of the 60s/70s folk voice.

Neither here nor there, but I do not like Lisa Hannigan’s version of Black-Eyed Dog, her overwrought warble presenting a tension that seems anathema to Drake’s music. She murdered her cover of John Martyn’s Couldn’t Love You More on his tribute album Johnny Boy Wouldn’t Love This..., an observation I made in a review of that album and which drew a caustic defence of her from a reader [but not on this blog]. It’s just opinion, and the bearing is it is the only relatively weak cover on this superb album. Indeed, her duet with Lulac on Saturday Sun is less intense and works well enough, with pretty harmonising.

Wolf People - Fain

The Borg Review

One of the best albums I have heard in a long time, from a band entirely new to me [so a back catalogue to explore], and playing a mix of folk and heavy fuzzed rock that invokes far too many influences to intuit from their eclectic sound and then show off citing here.

The key elements are great vocals, including tight harmonies, and fine folk/rock/prog playing. And having just written that sentence I have the strongest urge to name those influences to validate the genres claimed, but I am resisting. I’m keeping this simple: if the 60s/70s musical palette appeals applied new, enthusiastically and expertly, then this is a band and album to unreservedly enjoy.

Fairport Convention and Yes.

Resistance is futile.

And that’s just two of many, many more so I've demonstrated a restraint of sorts.