Hitchhiker

As I round the curve to the open road

I catch her come-on thumb in the distance

and my thoughts begin to assess every possibility.

The approach is a targeting, homing in on those things that tell me

where she’s been, what chit-chat is liked and the music she listens to;

her hair will have the smell of a bedroom shared with another:

there in the dark curls, there in the lovelock across her eye, and

her long legs have walked the whole mile to this place at the roadside -

all of this is in a clear outline because I’ve seen it a thousand times.

Getting closer, I can taste cigarettes and red wine;

the chocolate she licked from fingers at breakfast after making love.

I know how later on she will rest her head on my shoulder

pretending to fall asleep, and I will look down at her tired, tangled legs

then back to curves along the open road.

Eric Bibb - Deeper In The Well

Such Simple Depths

This is a bucketfull of music pulled expertly from a blues and folk well. And there's no unnecessary splash as its contents are tipped out for our listening thirst - it is rather a steady and even pouring of gentle sips to sooth and satisfy.

There is an admirable simplicity in the performance and production of this latest album. Bibb's voice and guitar playing are, to keep the analogy flowing, the bucket that has dipped, filled and quenched so often before, but the familiar contents this time around are enhanced by the fluid musicianship of Jerry Douglas on dobro, the fiddle of Cedric Watson, Dirk Powell's multi-instrumental offerings, and the great harmonica playing of Grant Dermondy, which includes a sparkling Southern-song solo as a hidden track ending. Just listen to the fiddle and harmonica licks on an emotive rendition of Sinner Man. Brilliant.

There is a faithful and yet fresh version of Dylan's The Times They Are A Changin' which exemplifies the whole with its uncluttered arrangement of simply strummed banjo, Bibb's heartfelt vocal, and minimalist drumming. As you listen you are struck with the powerful relevance of those lyrics in today's economic and social climate, but at the same time the sad recognition that this very power did not affect the change it so hopefully asserted in its time.

Perhaps the well will always retain its dark depths no matter how often we pull such richness from that place.

Angel Wings

Mum is crying because I played

your music, and this was bound to happen

since you left home (although I think

these songs are more like the ones

I used to listen to when I was your age)

but can you imagine the sobbing if she

had seen the kitchen door with

condensation filming the glass

and huge letters spelling ANGEL WINGS -

a ghost of your handwriting from

maybe months before - still there even

after asking you to quit such scribbling

because I had suggested it was

time you’d stopped being a little girl?

Gugun Power Trio - Solid Ground

Far East Blues Gentility

I have just come across this brilliant Indonesian blues trio and downloaded their latest album from Amazon. Lead guitarist Gugun has that felicity with the fretboard that marks him as truly gifted. He plays with the empathy of the consummate craftsman but also the precursor presence of people like Trower, Hendirx and Bolin for whom the tenth track, impressive instrumental Marching Strut, is dedicated. Gugun also has a fine blues voice - it isn't the growl of many, but is soulful, even funky at times, and ably supported on occasion by backing female vocals, as on the sweet sixth track Trampled Rose - which also has a signature guitar solo: nothing flash or bludgeoning, just crisp and utterly fluid.

This tight trio is completed by Jono on bass and Bowie on drums. The music is unashamedly 70s rockblues and is consistently superb. There is an overall gentleness to the playing which stems from that felicity I mentioned at the start - the effortlessness of it all exuding smooth curves rather than the rough edges of a rawer rock. I like both poles, but here is a paradigm for the former. There is a spiritual/religious leaning in some of the lyrics, but I haven't quite worked these out yet, and there is little to find about them online. I will be seeking out other work to acquire that fuller, no doubt continually pleasing picture.

The closing Hidden bonus track is a stonking instrumental: night-time insect sounds bookend a jazzfusion fretfest quite unlike the rest of the album, with drummer Bowie laying down some superlatives of his own.

Blue By Nature – Blue To The Bone

Karen Blues-Bones Lawrence

This posting is essentially about the great American vocalist Karen Lawrence. Having written not so long ago about European chanteuses, it’s time to acknowledge this superb singer and songwriter.

She has a long performance history dating back to her youth, but came to prominence in her early band 1994 with their eponymous debut album of 1978 and then Please Stand By in 1979 – both reflecting the hard rock sound of that time and more obviously in the early 80s: her voice here powerful and perfect, but not yet the blues bombshell of her later years as a singer, especially in band Blue By Nature.

 

She is also known for her guest vocals on two significant recordings: backing vocals on Aerosmith’s 1977 Draw The Line album, and singing the lead vocal for Back On The Street on Jeff Beck’s 1985 Flash album.

There is a great live Blue By Nature album - Live At The Lake [1998] - yet I want to mention my favourite Blue To The Bone of 1995. Every tack on this is sublime, but it really kicks off on track five with Lawrence’s gutsy version of It’s a Man’s, Man’s, Man’s World: the emotion in her voice reminding of Joplin, but in Karen’s own clear tone – with excellent guitar work from ex-Aerosmith axe-man Rick Dufay. Just brilliant. This is followed and matched, unbelievably, by the Albert King/Otis Rush So Many Roads, So Many Trains with its blues oozing from every musical pore on this great cut. Eighth track is a beautiful version of the beautiful Boudleaux Bryant song Love Hurts, Dufay adorning it with some wonderful Hendrixesque ‘Little Wing’ guitar licks. Ninth Love Me All Night then comes chugging in on a pulsing bass line and Karen’s vocal continues its sultry, growling and fulsome occupation of this memorable blues arena.

The penultimate track is an a cappella number Grinnin’ In Your Face and highlights Lawrence’s sustained vocal supremacy, not that she needs such a solo demonstration having shone from the start, but it is nonetheless a superb showcase. Closing track is Blue By Nature, a blues anthem to honour the band’s name with a fine horn accompaniment, and Karen Lawrence’s vocal adding the complementary grit to the pretty melody of its rhythmic line. It exemplifies the blues sung raw and also romantically and you will fall in love with its pain and passion.

Mirror

She holds a two-faced mirror,

one side to return the light,

the other, held to an obsessive

scrutiny, to return its cipher.

Now the long stare of her fear

speculates. She must gauge

urgency between the unknown

and evidence from this image

as its puzzle answers back

again from the factual glass.

Like a cruel mute there is no

sign, and a flat reflection

refuses to explain what she

sees in the dark of her lesion.

Milk Carton Kids - Prologue

Free MilkThe

This is a sweet acoustic album, and quite simply it is a mirror reflection of Gillian Welch/Dave Rawlings - in both tight harmonies and dual guitar work - and/or Simon and Garfunkel, or just Paul Simon in his early solo work. Their own and real names are Kenneth Pattengale and Joey Ryan and they are from LA.

If you want confirmation, you can download their 2011 album free here: http://www.themilkcartonkids.com/?page=music

That's quite sweet too. Actually, that's quite brilliant.

Ted Hughes

Crow Blacker than ever 

When God, disgusted with man,
Turned towards heaven.
And man, disgusted with God,
Turned towards Eve,
Things looked like falling apart.

But Crow.      Crow
Crow nailed them together,
Nailing Heaven and earth together -

So man cried, but with God's voice.
And God bled, but with man's blood.

Then heaven and earth creaked at the joint
Which became gangrenous and stank -
A horror beyond redemption.

The agony did not diminish.

Man could not be man nor God God.

The agony

Grew.

Crow

Grinned

Crying: 'This is my Creation,'

Flying the black flag of himself.


Crow's Theology

Crow realised God loved him-
Otherwise, he would have dropped dead.
So that was proved.
Crow reclined, marvelling, on his heart-beat.

And he realised that God spoke Crow-
Just existing was His revelation.

But what Loved the stones and spoke stone?
They seemed to exist too.
And what spoke that strange silence
After his clamour of caws faded?

And what loved the shot-pellets
That dribbled from those strung-up mummifying crows?
What spoke the silence of lead?

Crow realised there were two Gods-

One of them much bigger than the other
Loving his enemies
And having all the weapons. 

When I posted recently on Enright's Paradise Illustrated I also referenced Ted Hughes' Crow, a book that had a huge impact on me at the time I read it, probably around 1975/76, 3 or 4 years after its publication. It's a publication that produced at the time, and continues today I suspect, the poles of opinion and response. Without exploring these, I will say that I still find its nightmare vision and bludgeoning expression of this as compelling today as when I first read.

Unlike the Enright, there aren't the ostensibly comic moments to lighten the darkness, though I do think the comic-strip hyperbole exists to reflect the poetic madness of any commentary trying to explain our lives and world, and the other mythologies that have attempted the same.

I studied for a Bachelor of Education degree - English and Education - and in my third year I wrote an extended essay on Crow. Whilst I could improve so much on its expression if I rewrote this today, the depth and intensity of my research and use of supporting reference has long passed me by. That awful seepage! It was a wonderful and impressionable time.

I do vividly recall seeing at that same time Ted Hughes and Seamus Heaney reading together in the Newman Rooms at Oxford. It was stunning. Hughes read almost exclusively from Crow and it was a mesmerising experience. I was so powerfully affected I wrote about the experience, but perhaps thankfully I couldn't find the poem when looking for it today [!], though I do remember prefacing it with a quote from, I think, Anthony Thwaite, referring to Hughes' Pennine stabs of voice which is an apt description.

I saw Hughes reading again one or two years later in Swindon, this time from his book Moortown [1979]. I was upset and annoyed by the repetitive and what seemed gratuitous references to the fluids and other mess accompanying sheep giving birth. It wasn't some precious antipathy to such agricultural realism - I had completed three years as a full-time farm worker before studying for my degree, and had just finished two years working part-time on a small farm outside of Oxford where as well as a tractor driver I was a pigman and shepherd: I knew plenty first-hand [excuse pun] about that messiness. Hughes' graphic but literal descriptions seemed a far cry from the myth-making and originality of Crow, and I wrote a critical review of this book for Howard Sergeant's Outposts magazine, my one and only review for such a publication, and one that had the arrogance to be critical of Hughes' poetry. I haven't changed my judgement of much of the poetry from that book, but I wish I had been asked to review Crow and perhaps comment on what a huge impact Hughes had on my love of his and all poetry. Indeed, from Gaudette [1977] onwards I  collected first editions of everything Hughes published, including a number of pamphlet and special publications. It is a personal treasure.

Imprints

Too late, washing my hands with

mulberry and rosehip having stained

your book of poems about death

in olive oil fingerprints.

The smell of garlic too,

spices rubbed into chicken before

I paused to read - domesticated,

dying in between words

and the loss written there:

I too feel loss, this cooking and reading

two of the many simple things

I naturally try to survive it all,

and now these imprints

are something else to share.

John Steinbeck - To A God Unknown

Proper Lust

I have just finished this, beginning it many months ago, and don't know why it has taken so long - having been quite gripped by its portentous narrative - apart from the rather feeble reality that I like reading outside in the sun and it has just returned after a long and grey absence.

It is a novella and Steinbeck's second significant book, completed in 1933 and having taken, apparently, five years to write. It is the polar opposite of Of Mice and Men being laden with language and philosophy. What is does share, however, is a tragic inevitability as the protagonist Joseph Wayne is consumed by his love and worship of the land and eventually sacrifices himself to it, literally, when that land finally rewards him for his gift - not that he can then benefit. But others do, and that is perhaps crucial.

I sound like I am saying Of Mice and Men has no philosophy which would be inaccurate. But To A God Unknown is heavy-handed in this respect, not that this weight in any way dissuaded me - indeed, this and the voluptuous language Steinbeck was exploring to encapsulate such early literary and philosophical preoccupation is the book's strength. There are times when Joseph's communing with nature is so intensely realised that you want to partake wholly in its pastoral ideal, though that makes it sound more cerebral than acknowledging the primacy given to the physical commitment required in achieving that spiritual attainment.

It is above all, I think, a humanist attainment too. There seems to be an undercurrent of rejecting Christian precepts of humbling oneself before God in gratitude for what is given through the natural world, and Steinbeck offers a pantheism of which even Coleridge couldn't conceive. Perhaps it would have been too pagan for someone like Coleridge too.

I am intrigued by the cover of the book that will end this posting and its notion of a 'lust' for the land - which is quite appropriate - but  is quite inappropriately [if comically] represented by the near-naked female. There is a strong and powerful quest for love through Joseph's marriage to Elizabeth in the story, but this too has its tragic conclusion,