Lucy Roleff - Left Open in a Room, album review

Trope Enunciation

I’m content to describe this latest from Lucy Roleff as ‘the quintessence of folk music’ without fear of being challenged for hyperbole, [i] because I could care less, and [ii] with its acoustic plucked guitar, occasional flutes, sweet [angelic at times] harmony, and, above all, the clarity of Roleff’s singing, we have the key tropes of a classic type served with skill and feel.

In my reviewing of her previous work here, I have intoned Joni Mitchell – as have others – and that is an undeniable precursor motif: for example her singing is crystal clear* on fourth track Silver, though this has its distinctiveness, and as for these distinctions, next Sometimes Do pulls away from influence to a vocal foregrounded over harp and flute quite exquisite in its pure resonance. Yes, it is pretty, and there is no baulk at what I could imagine some headbangers perceiving as twee – indeed, next again Autumn Song, with its jollified harmonising, plays on the Donovan-esque lineage of a fairy-folk that is spirited and child-like in its portrayals.

The album’s songs are set in a gentle, peaceful mood and that is the place for receiving it. The title track and album closer is an embodiment of this with mostly strummed acoustic guitar and Roleff’s flawless voice coalescing in their soft singularity until piano and a distant ambient sound tail it to a tender peak.

You can listen and purchase on Roleff’s Bandcamp site here where this description [*] ‘classical enunciation’ can be found, and it is a referring I wanted to use earlier about her vocal but was hesitant for it sounding rather haughty – but it is actually apt in defining the clarity. Again, I should care less…

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Dionne Warwick - She's Back, album review

Back Gently

On the heels of Mavis Staples’ latest, reviewed in this blog’s previous post, this is most definitely not a comparison of talent or impact or musical significance, both beyond question, Warwick’s without further query simply stellar in popular music terms and especially her Burt Bacharach period of perfect renditions.

This is a fine enough album and important to hear Warwick still performing. However, in the inevitability of comparisons, having mentioned both singers, Warwick’s vocal is here a little fragile, the tone its most distinctive permanence, but there isn’t the depth and natural volume that once was. Staples has a growl of a vocal that survives intact, quite a different instrument and able to perhaps dominate within its grittier [though also balladic soulful style] offerings compared with the norm of Warwick’s gentler genre.

So it is no surprise this album takes on board the complement of additional singers and upbeat production, most of which works. In terms of production, there are the vocal effects on ninth track You Really Started Something that ‘modernises’ the song, but the song itself is fairly ordinary so it is simply more effect than memorable – though I still understand the purpose/intention. Guest vocalists are Musiq Soulchild on opening track Am I Dreaming that provides a sweet depth to the soulful sound [think Isley Brothers/Stylistics smooth]; Kenny Lattimore on third What Color is Love which again contributes a soft depth of tone to set next to Warwick’s crisper one; Kevon Edmonds on fourth How to Keep the Music Playing which is a piano driven ballad, Edmonds’ falsetto a little saccharine in the nonetheless apt mix; Krayzie Bone in fifth Déjà Vu which I entirely understand as a rap interjection exemplifies that ‘modernising’ intention to most of these accompaniments, but doesn’t work for me; Brian McKnight in Forever in My Heart which is  probably the weakest song for both, so the addition is lost in the melody-less inclusion, and finally FIJI in tenth Two Ships which returns to a workable combination of soft soul sweetly sung.

There are solo numbers and mustn’t be forgotten, themselves able to transcend the paired offerings, as with eleventh Life is Waiting which is upbeat and punchy, sounding like a Luther Vandross production model; penultimate What a Fool Believes is of course a big song made memorably big by McDonald, and Warwick here wisely doesn’t attempt to compete with that, so its calm take at the very least commands an interest, and closer What the World Need Now is probably unnecessary when one has such a dominant original out there, but the gospel chorus is rousing as is the sublime melody.

Where Staples is Gritty, this is Gentle, so simply chose your musical G-spot tonal requirement when selecting – different strokes, and that’s the end to the analogy.

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Mavis Staples - We Get By, album review

Change, But Not the Spirit of Mavis Staples

As with If All I Was Was Black reviewed here, Staples attaches her wonderful gutsy vocal to wonderful gutsy production, like the dirt gospel-blues of opener Change, and this is followed by a Motown riff-start to Anytime, another blues-infused funk of a song.

On third We Get By, Staples is joined by Ben Harper, who wrote the songs on this album, in a slowed soulful take on how to deal with change by enduring – their paired vocals adding a sonorous depth to the account of strength in perseverance. Next Brothers and Sisters is another funk number and this too is about change and the need for change – positive change: the theme embraced in the certainty of something’s got to give and one thinks, naturally, of a civil rights call to change which has, to a degree, been realised, but in so many others has simply atrophied to its original baser roots.

Heavy on my Mind rolls around with the blues of a reverbed guitar foundation – and this is solid lament about pain and suffering and, yes, another fight. That Staples has such a sense of perseverance aged 80, and after what she has seen in the nasty past and the nasty now, is of great credit to her soul, musically and spiritually. The song Sometime is driven by its verbs of give and need and cry and pray as well as everybody’s got to change sometime, so the theme continues. Long may it.

Mavis and Ben

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Patrick Sweany - I Wanna Tell You (20th Anniversary Edition), album review

Swinging with the Boogie and Blues

Solo acoustic guitar and vocal, superb playing and singing, essentially the blues as clear as their storytelling. Boogie and Swing too. 1999. I’m not hugely knowing, but everything that I have heard of his since this debut is excellent. How could it be anything other? Two of his subsequent albums reviewed by me here.

Get it here.

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The Claypool Lennon Delirium - South of Reality, album review

Shoehorned into the Psychedelic Trope

This is a self-fulfilling partnership, Claypool's bass driving throughout - popping and dancing as well - with Lennon providing those Beatles-esque vocals/melodies he has every right to continue in their lineage. It is psychedelic in so many cliched ways, and in those ways that cliche is precisely what we want - assuming you have come to this for its psychedelia and prog-rock immersions. Take Amethyst Realm, a title shoehorned into its trope, and the smoothly ruminating bass line controls from the start, and then the silky harmonies caress soon into the song. There is echo and siren and synth as sounds with some pacey interjections - the lyrics spacey too though I haven't communed inside their messages quite yet, communing instead with its King Crimson-esque instrumental out.

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