Knowbody Else - Soldiers Of Pure Peace

Mrs Brown You've Got a Lovely Arkansas

From 1967 and essentially a curio, this pre-Black Oak Arkansas band and album features Jim Mangrum and his rather affected though still gravelly vocal that intrigues, if like me you are a fan of his raucous singing in BOA, especially on Keep the Faith [review here]. Most of the tracks are pop/baroque psychedelia, with here and there some fuzz, and on sixth track Secret Storm some opening chant-like background vocal, rolling drums and Mangrum's vocal nearly let loose until the song quiets to its pop middle, and then moves back to that wilder attempt. The most adventurous is eighth Ten Till Five with opening fuzz, electric sitar and Jimbo exercising the vocal to some experimental direction with hiccups, alveolar trills and other rolled effects: it really is wonderfully weird. Penultimate Until I'm Like Uncle Hugh is an acoustic track with Mangrum's vocal forward in the mix and naturally raw, the background vocals initially silly in their interjections and then adding some folk-esque harmony before ending on an abrupt explosion [as in bomb]. The final track White, Mix and Smith is basically Herman's Hermit's [Mrs Brown You've Got a Lovely Daughter] meets Black Oak Arkansas and that about sums up the transition this album represents in Mangrum's musical trajectory. I found it most enjoyable, but won't be listening regularly as I do with the later Southern rock gems.

Nebraska 22: Bruce Springsteen - Nebraska

More Outlaws

Returning to my ‘Nebraska’ theme, here’s the song lyrics from the title song of Springsteen’s album, the obvious choice perhaps to have mentioned before, but the State of Nebraska is not the central significance, nor is Lincoln where the narrative of this song begins: the whole album is a collective narrative about America and the struggles of blue collar everyman, whether immersed in evil – as with the title song’s representation of real killer Charles Starkweather – or with ‘good’ men who do ‘bad’ things, as with the policeman in my favourite Highway Patrolman who lets his brother escape after the sibling shooting someone.  I thought of this today as I listened to Steve Earle’s cover of Nebraska on the Copperhead Road Deluxe edition. So, it links to the aforementioned previous theme, and that of Outlaws re. my recent review of Billy Joe Shaver.

I saw her standin' on her front lawn just twirlin' her baton
Me and her went for a ride sir and ten innocent people died
 
From the town of Lincoln, Nebraska with a sawed off .410 on my lap
Through to the badlands of Wyoming I killed everything in my path
 
I can't say that I'm sorry for the things that we done
At least for a little while sir me and her we had us some fun
 
The jury brought in a guilty verdict and the judge he sentenced me to death
Midnight in a prison storeroom with leather straps across my chest
 
Sheriff when the man pulls that switch sir and snaps my poor head back
You make sure my pretty baby is sittin' right there on my lap
 
They declared me unfit to live said into that great void my soul'd be hurled
They wanted to know why I did what I did
Well sir I guess there's just a meanness in this world.

Jim Causley - Cyprus Well

Causley Cornish Delight

This is a beautiful, traditional folk album - traditional in the sense that Jim Causley has a classically rich, resonating tenor with slightly nasal inflected folk voice [best I can do], and the musical arrangements of these Charles Causley poems are also traditional sounding [can't delineate here too]. Jim is a distant relative of Charles, a fact he has only recently discovered, but he had apparently grown up with the poems. Another interesting context is that these songs were recorded in the study of Charles Causley's house Cyprus Well, and Jim plays Charles' piano which hadn't been played since the poet's death in 2003. The links are important because without them we wouldn't have the album - simple as that. The slightly echoed piano - the lo-fi reality of the in situ recording - adds a layer of authenticity to the full folk vocal.

Poet's study and piano

Some of the sweetest and upbeat songs reflect directly the Cornish context of Charles Causely: the lively My Young Man's A Cornishman and the beautiful Angel Hill which is set simply to piano and mandolin accompaniment. Other gorgeous folk melodies are opener On All Soul's Day, ninth Trusham with excellent fiddle and squeezebox accompaniment, tenth The Mystery of St Mylor which exemplifies the traditional vocal quality I tried to put into words earlier [just Jim and piano], and the superb three part vocal harmony on eleventh Who with Jim, Julie Murphy and Ceri Owen-Jones.

Billy Joe Shaver- Long In The Tooth

Outlawish

Authentic Outlaw Billy Joe Shaver - in 2007 he shot a guy in the face after a dispute, claiming 'I hit him right between a mother and a fucker' - returns at 74 to reassert his bad-boy credentials musically. He begins in good if less aggressive company with Willie Nelson dueting self-deprecatingly on It's Hard To Be An Outlaw, lamenting the state of pseudo-outlaw Country amongst other disappearances as far as these glorious old codgers see it. Second and title track Long In The Tooth is a juice-harp heavy declaration of, amongst other things, Shaver's sexual aptitude even at his advanced age: What I used to do all night/it takes all night to do/but the women-folk don't complain/'cause I still got a young man's brain/I can still do more than most men do. That's certainly a lot of doin'. A heavy guitar riff ejaculates mid-track to assert another kind of youthfulness. So far, rather self-obsessed, but it's good romping stuff. Third track is a harmonica driven beauty The Git Go and the acerbic lyrics about corrupt politicians and how rich kids go to college, the poor kids fight in wars is an outlaw sensibility far nobler than shooting a guy in the face, and is musically a country gem. It's this kind of songwriting that has made Shaver famous, and to confirm just listen to his debut album Some Old Five and Dimers Like Me, many of the songs on this album performed by many Country greats. Willie Nelson performs a beautiful version of The Git Go on his own latest album Band of Brothers [as well as Hard To Be An Outlaw], and the Shaver songwriting reverence continues.

After this, the rest of the album runs out of poop. The songs are formulaic country fare, and although pleasant enough, one misses the Outlaw bragging of the first two, as well as the social observation of the third. Sixth Last Call For Alcohol is a typical example: a bar-room honky-tonk with Shaver's increasing attempts to semi--yodel here as in the the rest of the songs being a little naff. But it's fun enough if you like this kind of lite country, and perhaps it exemplifies the truth of the opening track's regret. Ninth I'm In Love is a little cloying, but its romanticism is endearing when set against the boasting of the title track and perhaps lets us into the secret of Shaver's Other as well as Outlaw persona.

Ty Curtis - Water Under The Bridge

Consolidation Over Complacency

Journeyman, learner and artist - Ty Curtis is all of these from what I can glean reading snippets online and listening to this fine pop-blues album. Having cut his musical teeth in the North West America music/blues circuit he has moved to Texas and, from a piece I have read today, is currently or has been playing as a salaried sideman in a pop band there, performing 5 to 6 times a month. So, learning his craft, but when you listen to this album that craft is already learned judging by the songwriting, singing and solid guitar work. It isn't straight blues by any means and there are pop sensibilities that run throughout. The music ranges from rock blues in opener Key To My Heart, pop rock in Thief of Hearts, blues/soul balladry in Seen My Chance [sounding like Robert Cray], rousing blues in All It Took, and acoustic folk in Loveless Time and beautiful closer Shame On Me.

Rita Engedalen - My Mother's Blues

Universal Language

Singing the Blues is the universal expression of a universal feeling, but it still seems a little incongruous to find it in such fine female fettle in Norway. Dispelling such a naive thought, Norwegian singer Rita Engedalen presents twelve tracks of country and folk blues, her vocal a little variable, but at its best having a husky emotive edge. Title track My Mother's Blues is a plaintive tale with a fiddle lament; third She Let The Eagle Fly is a slow blues stomp with the American blues/gospel singer Ruthie Foster providing great quest vocal and harmony, and eighth The Hill has Engedalen singing at her emotive best where a slightly raw warble conveys the weariness one expects from the Blues. I mention because, as stated, her voice can be variable, as on seventh track Epitaph [Black and Blue] where it lacks conviction. But I'm now listening to eleventh Me and Rosa Lee as I write and this is an excellent acoustic guitar blues where Rita's vocal is as blues-native as it can be, even in Norway.

Malcolm Holcombe - Pitiful Blues

Writing In Good Company

Writing in the direct and honest storytelling mode of Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clark, Malcolm Holcombe's tenth album Pitiful Blues does present the pity in hard tales about those who struggle, but this is made meaningful beyond simple despair by the lyricism that can convey this so emotively - as well as prettily in the songcraft, for example Words Not Spoken. Holcombe's vocal delivery of rasp and slur is exactly like that of Watermelon Slim, and this brusque beauty seems to add a further layer of credibility to these haunting blues vignettes, though the musical genre is broader than this with its rootsy americana and folk elements, the fiddle of Luke Bulla and the dobro/mandolin of Jared Tyler in particular adding other depths. Fourth track Savannah Blues is a haunting lament on loss and death, whilst closer For the Love of a Child is sweetly reflective.

Elephant Wrecking Ball - Barren Serenade

More Messin' Next Time

An instrumental power trio of Scott Flynn [trombone], Neal Evans [drums] and Dan Africano [bass], it is a use of effects on the trombone that provides the focus on this album with its Don Ellis/Eddie Harris reminders. That said, it's more of a gentle experimentation, the afro-beats consistent on all tracks averaging 5 minutes each and the effects pedal used for subtle variations on pleasant enough melodies. The two most adventurous tracks are the final remixes of Erin's Sword and Chippy the Elephant. I'd like to have heard some wilder messing around, but perhaps that's for the live shows. But it is a sound package, opener Stomp Stomp Stomp going far out quite nicely.

Doppler Defect

It is a moving babel or snippets of phatic detail here and

there and gone, all announced as loud and quick as they

disappear. Mainly at weekends – in the quiet of what we

imagine these to be – the cyclists come and go with their

shared conversations like TV announcers on our auto-

alfresco screens. We have not turned them on but they

come and go in this Doppler reception as emphatic as the

overhead planes, and the narrative excludes as much as it

intrudes because like those flights, the journey begun must

continue and we are occasional passengers. For that moment.

Once more alone we do not care about what’s said could mean.

Talkers are far up the road with earnest continuing and new

if forced eavesdroppers picking up more deception - stories

quickly faded at their moving away to allow our full neglect.

Nina Simone - Pastel Blues

Wonderful Wail

Listening to this 1964 album just now I realise how little I know of her genius, one aspect of that even in the production of these tracks at this time - sounding very 'modern' in their instrumentations and rhythms [over-simplifying, I know]. It is the vocal that truly amazes [ditto] in its strength and those reverberations at times. Most on this album is piano-led blues, and her rendition of Strange Fruit is as blue as it gets, but two tracks that stand out even above this excellence are the ten minute wonderful rant Sinnerman, and the hypnotic chant Be My Husband - the way her voice keeps breaking into those falsetto wails.

Will Kimbrough - Sideshow Love

Main Stage Quality

This is a strong singer-songwriter album with many bluesy acoustic tracks providing thoughtfully familiar vehicles for thoughtfully familiar narratives about life and love in the best of this tradition. What I like in particular are the slower and beautifully structured ballads like Soulfully, I Want Too Much, Has Anybody Seen My Heart, the gorgeous I Can Count On You with its sweet descending lines, the harmony of Who Believes in You, and the reverb lullaby of closer Emotion Sickness. These are lovely melodies.

Blues Pills - Blues Pills

Marvelously Medicated

With instrumental elements of early Fleetwood Mac, but a raunchier female vocal that latter FM’s Stevie Nicks, Blues Pills has been medicated on the psychedelia and rock of earlier times, mainlined through their growing up, one imagines, so that the musical blood flows quite instinctively. 

The guitar work [by 17 year old Dorian Sorriaux] is at times Peter Green-esque - echoes of The Green Manalishi clearly infused in both opening tracks High Class Woman and Ain't No Change - but Elin Larsson's vocal won't get a namecheck here, just an acknowledgement that it belts out and soars and entices as wonderfully as any other established female precursors.