Rhythms - September/October 2021

FREE RHYTHMS DOWNLOAD SAMPLER

a k i V Linda & “As you get older, if you’ve looked after yourself, you do get better.”

Black Sorrows Kutcha Edwards Jakob Dylan Shane Nicholson Martha Wainwright Billy Gibbons Sierra Ferrell Jay Farrar Joan Armatrading UB40 Charley Crockett PLUS: Driving Stevie Fracasso Steve Kilbey Saint Sister David Garnham

$12.95 inc GST SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2021 ISSUE: 307

HISTORY 1 Kevin Borich

UPFRONT 09 10

The Word.

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Archie Roach. Our national treasure curates a stage at Port Fairy and hosts a video series.

By Brian Wise.

Volume No. 307 September/October 2021

Rhythms Sampler #14. Our Download Card!

Only available to subscribers!

16 Nashville Skyline By Anne McCue.

COVER STORY

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THE WAIT IS OVER!

Vika and Linda Bull finally release a new studio album and it is destined to become a classic. By Jeff Jenkins.

PROFILES

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HEALING TIME

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REBORN

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BIGGA AND BETTER

Kutcha Edwards’ new album Circling Time is all about people on the fringe. By Chris Lambie.

Martha Wainwright moved back to Montreal, opened a café and recorded a new album. By Brian Wise.

UB40 casts a wide net for its new studio album. By Steve Bell.

UP 23 CLAMMING Oakland heroes Shannon & The Clams release their sixth album.

By Meg Crawford.

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MAKING HAY

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LATE BLOOMER

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FILLING THE VOID

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CONSEQUENTIAL

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HIDE AND SEEK

Colin Hay’s first collection of cover versions is a cracker.

By Jeff Jenkins.

Jakob Dylan resurrects The Wallflowers for a great new album.

By Brian Wise.

A visit to Nashville’s AmericanaFest changed David Garnham’s life. By Steve Bell.

Joan Armatrading releases Consequences, the 20th album of her illustrious career. By Meg Crawford.

Snowy Mountains-based duo Montgomery Church team up with an American producer. By Michael Smith.

END IS NOT IN SIGHT 32 THE

Saint Sister’s new album finds them in charge of their destiny.

By Bernard Zuel.

FEATURES

HARD ROAD 40 THE

With a new Black Sorrows album it’s 50 albums for Joe Camilleri. By Brian Wise.

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WHAT DO YOU KNOW, JOE?

50 facts you might not know about Joe Camilleri.

By Jeff Jenkins.

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DOWN ST GEORGES ROAD

Jeff Jenkins test drives the new Black Sorrows album St Georges Road.

PRODUCER 44 THE

Renowned producer Peter Solley returned to Australia for the new Black Sorrows album. By Brian Wise

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THE WILDE ONES Lachlan Bryan & The Wildes release their second album for the year. By Denise Hylands.

TRUE COLOURS 48

Shane Nicholson’s new batch of songs on Living In Colour add to his reputation. By Brian Wise.

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MADE IN THE USA

Charley Crockett confounds expectations once again on his latest album. By Denise Hylands.

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HIGH VOLTAGE

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HEY YOU!

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Son Volt’s new album sees Jay Farrar examining modern life.

By Brian Wise.

Tré Burt’s new album is released on John Prine’s Oh Boy! label.

By Denise Hylands.

ALL HEART

Erika Wennerstrom talks about the new album from The Heartless Bastards. By Brian Wise.

DRIVING STEVIE FRACASSO

An excerpt from Barry Divola’s rollicking rock ‘n’ roll novel.

HISTORY

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KEVIN BORICH

Ian McFarlane profiles Kevin Borich, one of our greatest music champions.

COLUMNS

69 33 1/3 Revelations: Freak Power. By Martin Jones Album: Sex, Dope, Rock’nRoll: Teenage Heaven.

70 ByClassic Billy Pinnell 71 Lost In The Shuffle: String Driven Thing. By Keith Glass Is Where The Action Is. 72 Underwater

By Christopher Hollow 73 You Won’t Hear This On Radio: By Trevor J. Leeden Around To Die: Americana 2021 – So Far. 74 Waitin’

By Chris Familton 75

Twang! Americana Roundup. By Denise Hylands.

REVIEWS 76

FEATURE ALBUM REVIEWS: Steve Kilbey, Sierra Ferrell, Joseph Tawadros, Justin Bernasconi, Bonnie Kay, Paula Standing, Paula Punch, Frock n’ Troll.

88 91 92 93 94 95

GENERAL ALBUMS Blues: By Al Hensley World Music & Folk: By Tony Hillier Jazz 1:

By Tony Hillier

Jazz 2: By Des Cowley Vinyl:

Lucinda Williams, Reigning Sound and more.

By Steve Bell.

96 Books 1. Beeswing by Richard Thompson. By Des Cowley.

97 Books Too! New across the desk. By Stuart Coupe 100 Hello & Goodbye By Sue Barrett.

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G N OU Y L ed i NEI n de E WON’T B >> The lyrics tell a version of Young’s story. Growing up in Canada, his father leaving when he was a young boy, beat up at school, dreams of stardom, leaving Canada for Hollywood, courted by “business men” who came to hear “the golden sound.” The key verse is the fifth one, especially coming as it did after the success of Harvest. Neil Young writing to himself, writing to his dead friend, writing to every wannabe rock star.

THE NEW

RHYTHMS T-SHIRT

“Well, all that glitters isn’t gold/ I guess you’ve heard the story told/ But I’m a pauper in a naked disguise/ A millionaire through a business man’s eyes/ Oh friend of mine/ Don’t be denied.”

CREDITS

And the chorus, which at times during the tour he would scream: Managing Editor: Brian Wise “Don’t be denied/ Don’t be denied/ Don’t be denied /No no, don’t Senior Contributor: Martin Jones be denied.”

Senior Contributors: Michael Goldberg / Stuart Coupe On this versionSally however, reprieves the fourth verse, the one Design & Layout: Sylehe - Sally’s Studio about business men coming to hear the “golden sound.”

Accounts: Alicia Wise Website/Online Management: Robert Wise On a tour where Young was challenging his audience with an Proofreading: Gerald McNamara album’s worth of new material, perhaps with this song he was

insisting one has to follow their vision, no matter the cost.

Certainly, he was saying there’s more to life than money – CONTRIBUTORS something he certainly knew by then. “‘Don’t Be Denied’ has a lot AlMcDonough.

Hensley Sue to Barrett do with Danny, I think,” Young told “…I think that’s Hillier Steve theBell first major life-and-death event Tony that really affected me in what Christopher NickI Charles was trying to do… you kinda reassess yourself asHollow to what you’re – because you realize that lifeDenise is so impermanent.

Hylands So, you Johndoing Cornell to say whatever the Jeffhere, Jenkins Des wanna Cowleydo the best you can while you’re fuck it is you wanna say. Express yourself.”

Martin Jones Stuart Coupe MegMichael Crawford Goldberg, a former RollingChris StoneLambie Senior Writer and of the original Addicted ToTrevor Noise online magazine, is J. Leeden Brettfounder Leigh Dicks of three rock & roll novels including Untitled.

Warwick2016’s McFadyen Chrisauthor Familton Ian McFarlane Samuel J. Fell Anne McCue (Nashville) Keith Glass Billy Pinnell Megan Gnad Michael Goldberg (San Francisco) Jo Roberts

CONTACTS Advertising: admin@rhythms.com.au Festival Coverage Contact: denisetwang@hotmail.com Rates/Specs/Deadlines: bookings@rhythms.com.au Subscription Enquiries: subscriber@rhythms.com.au General Enquiries: admin@rhythms.com.au

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PUBLISHER RHYTHMS MAGAZINE PTY LTD PO BOX 5060 HUGHESDALE VIC 3166 Printing: Spotpress Pty Ltd Distribution: Fairfax Media 6

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The brand new limited edition Rhythms Americana style t-shirt is available now for a special price of

$30

Simply go to: bandtshirts.com.au/shop/rhythms-magazine

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STUART COUPE PRESENTS

FOUR LIONS Imagine an album of early-nineties Oasis songs performed by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band …That’s exactly what Four Lions have accomplished on their new album Wide Awake.

The Bendigo-based rockers’ fifth album took an extra 18 months to make in the stop-start Covid era. But frontman Shann Lions says despite the numerous setbacks, Four Lions have created their best record in every gamut of the songwriting, performances, and production.

Lions came up with the idea of creating a stadium rock album during the band’s 2019 Hard Days national tour. “I remember watching The Killers on the MCG with Jack Riewoldt (in the 2018 AFL grand final), thinking that would be a dream to be performing there,” Lions says.

Wide Awake will be released on vinyl and CD on October 14, on the band’s own label Verse Chorus Verse, and distributed nationally via MGM. fourlions.bandcamp.com

MONTGOMERY CHURCH Montgomery Church release their highly anticipated sophomore album, Where The Quiet Can Hide. Produced by 7-time GRAMMY nominated Producer, Erick Jaskowiak (Della Mae, Crooked Still, Darrell Scott) and featuring the duo’s signature acoustic sound, steeped in a spellbinding mix of folk, americana and bluegrass influences that buries deep into the soul. With the addition of some magic touches from 11-time IBMA Fiddle Player of the Year & GRAMMY winner, Michael Cleveland, as well as a selection of Australia’s finest instrumentalists, this 10-track offering represents a unique acoustic sound seldom heard in the Australian music scene today.

This is the duo’s follow-up to their 2-time Golden Guitar Award nominated debut from 2018. Featuring an all-original collection of songs written in their little house of stone amidst the scenic Snowy Mountains of NSW, Montgomery Church explore themes from Australian history, rural landscapes, heartache and sorrow through their thoughtful storytelling, longing harmonies and masterful instrumentation on dobro and guitar. montgomerychurch.bandcamp.com

STEVE TYSON & THE TRAIN REX Byron Bay-based songwriter Steve Tyson has released three critically acclaimed records in recent years, and together with his touring band The Train Rex is about to release his new album Banjo’s Last Ride, a set of blues-infused songs, intimate story-telling one minute, swaggering alt.country the next, but decidedly Australian in content. Steve’s previous work has scored reviews such as these: “…a master song craftsman with a nuanced lyrical touch and strong melodies.” (Noel Mengel). “Tyson lets his ruined voice and lucid guitars do the talking” (Phil Stafford, Courier Mail). “...telling tales of home and family, of travel and politics, wrapped in a dark sense of humour that sets him apart from the myriad others plying a similar trade” (Sam Fell, Rhythms). The new album will be released in late October, on the back of the well-received first single “Berlin Bunker.” www.stevetyson.com.au

DAVID GARNHAM & THE REASONS TO LIVE David Garnham & the Reasons to Live look like truckers but sing like angels.

Despite coming from the tropical North these fellas are as dry as desert boots. Part larrikin, part broken bird, part bleeding heart, Garnham himself is awash with contradictions. His songs trail close behind in a mix of hope and hopelessness Last year the band cemented themselves as one of the top end’s favourite acts with their track ‘This Town’ being voted No.7 in the Territory Sounds countdown, a poll on the best NT songs of all time, putting them alongside Yothu Yindi, Warumpi Band, Warren H Williams and the Mills Sisters in the Top Ten. The track ‘Miss the Pain’ was recently named a semi-finalist in the International Song Competition and is the third single to come from their album ‘Noise to Fill the Void’ which is available only on Bandcamp. DG&TRTL recorded with Shane Nicholson at his Sound Hole Studio. davidgarnham.bandcamp.com

TORIA RICHINGS Hailing from the UK, Toria Richings writes stories and turns them into songs. With a cool original Alt-Country sound, singer-songwriter Toria Richings is starting to make a name for herself around the States and Australia, Toria spent a busy year during Covid, writing and releasing two EPs and a handful of singles, all have been received well. Toria’s songs have a soulful and modern sound with a strong country influence, stories and heartfelt emotions that resonate deeply.

In fact, Toria recently made the No.1 spot on The Roots music charts in America, for Aussie artists!

Her latest single release ‘Where It All Began’ comes with a beautiful video, made up of people from all over the world sharing photos of loved ones that have passed away.

Toria has a unique Country sound, with a new Album due out later this year Toria is an artist to look out for! toriarichings.bandcamp.com

WANITA Australia’s Queen of Honky Tonk, Wanita perceives the world through an autistic lens, is the centre of a turbulent life which undoubtedly is what makes her person and music so raw and real. The newly released album, I Am Wanita, hosts a mix of Honky Tonk, Rockabilly and Western Swing. It was recorded by Billy Yates & Larry Beaird at world-renowned Beaird Studios, Nashville. With a cult following, Wanita owns her red hair and lipstick beyond persona. The album captures ‘the dichotomy of Wanita’s life and torrid mood swings, her monumental stage presence, her exceptional vocal capacity and her deep connection with traditional country music,’ and realises the story of Wanita to date. The making of this album inspired the 2021 featuring documentary I’m Wanita in Canada’s HotDocs, Melbourne International Film Festival and Western Australia’s Cinefest Oz. cheersquadrecordstapes.bandcamp.com

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VIKA & LINDA

WALKING ON A WIRE T

hank you to all those who have subscribed or resubscribed during the past two months. Rhythms continues to exist because of your support. If you are not a subscriber then please think about becoming one and help us to reach our 30th anniversary which is looming on the horizon and which we would like to celebrate next April. Thank you to all our loyal advertisers who have also supported us in difficult times and we urge readers to return that support.

Just as we were finding reasons for optimism and, as we were looking forward to attending gigs and festivals for the first time in months, everything stopped again. The Covid-19 pandemic has forced yet another cancellation of Bluesfest and other events.

You have to wonder who would want to be a festival director or venue owner in times like these. And how difficult has it been for all the musicians who have constantly had to cancel tours and gigs and are unable to plan ahead at all?

Of course, a host of industries have been affected and I know many of you must be struggling out there. My thoughts are particularly with those in the arts and entertainment industries and the music sector in particular. I cannot imagine how musicians are surviving especially in the absence of Jobkeeper or similar assistance and for venues and festivals it must be a nightmare.

You have probably noticed how the major sporting codes have been able to continue thanks to the financial support of the television networks, one of which is using the slogan ‘Sport Never Stops.’ Largely because they are able to take place outdoors without spectators these sporting events have found a way through most of the restrictions. This is almost impossible to do indoors at clubs and pubs. Last year many musicians went online with performances and concerts but it is difficult to sustain this in the absence of an audience because so much of a performance relies on interaction with others (which is a little more complex than a football match where people either cheer or boo). Some venues such as A Day On The Green and the Myer Music Bowl had innovative ways of keeping the audience socially distant but this is an expensive exercise when you can only have limited numbers. I am sure there is a permanent solution which minds brighter than mine can devise.

While the State and Federal governments come to grips with the best way to support the arts industry – and it can only be done with a massive injection of funds – we can also do our part. In the past year or so I have spent more than ever purchasing music from independent musicians who have been marketing their music on their websites or on Bandcamp. If you have some favourite

musicians then, in the absence of being able to go and see them perform, this is the best way of supporting them.

We are also including in this issue yet another download card with some exceptional local talent and some international contributions as well. If you hear something you like, then please visit the website or Bandcamp page of the musicians concerned and support them.

Let’s hope that things have improved by our next issue and that we can look forward to enjoying some more live music in future. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the latest issue of Rhythms, which features Vika and Linda as our cover story. Finally, the sisters have released another studio album and it is superb. Coincidentally, we also have a feature on Joe Camilleri’s new album with The Black Sorrows, the group in which Vika and Linda first established their reputation.

Ian McFarlane has given us another epic, this time on another Australian legend in Kevin Borich. We also have an excerpt from Barry Divola’s excellent novel, ‘Driving Stevie Fracasso,’ which is one of the most entertaining books I have read this year and a must for music nerds.

Until next issue….enjoy the music and take care.

Brian Wise Editor 9

SPRING IS SPRUNG YET AGAIN!

Welcome to our Rhythms Sampler #14 guaranteed to cheer you up after a long lockdown! Here’s our Spring into summer sampler with 30 tracks of brilliant music!

That’s 103 minutes of great music just for your listening pleasure.

This download is available to all print plus print & digital subscribers ONLY. You can add the songs to your library, or you can also create your own CDs with the tracks (email us if you don’t know how).

If you are not a member of the Rhythms family, then you need to join to get a fabulous sampler each issue. Please go to rhythms.com.au/subscribe and join us.

Thank you to all the musicians and record companies that have donated songs.

Thank you also to all the subscribers who have made this possible.

1. HAND GRENADE Vika & Linda Written by Mick Thomas. From the great new album The Wait, the first album of new songs from Vika & Linda for more than a decade packed full of songs from Australia’s greatest songwriter. Courtesy of Bloodlines.

2. ST GEORGES ROAD The Black Sorrows From St Georges Road, the 50th album from the legendary Joe Camilleri and another classic to add to the catalogue. Co-written

by Nick Smith. Courtesy of Ambition Records.

3. DIAMOND STUDDED SHOES Yola From Stand For Myself, produced by Dan Auerbach, by last month’s cover artist.

With tracks co-writtten by Yola and a starstudded cast. Yola says this is the album that truly reflects her personality. Courtesy of Easy Eye Records.

4. SWOLLEN Michael Waugh From The Cast, produced by Shane Nicholson. Another superb album from one of Australia’s finest modern storytellers.

5. IN DREAMS Sierra Ferrell From the new album Long Time Coming which is out now. With her spellbinding voice and time-bending sensibilities, Sierra Ferrell makes music that’s as fantastically vagabond as the artist herself.

6. THAT’S THE WAY (R.PLANT & J.PAGE) Jacqueline Tonks From Music From Yikesville 202o, a cover of a Led Zeppelin song from Led Zeppelin III, released in October 1970. Available at: rhythmsmagazine.com 7. MAN IN THE MIDDLE Andy White From the album Rarer: B Sides and Other Songs 1987 – 2020, a 14-track anthology available now from this Irish legend now resident in Australia. andywhiteireland.bandcamp.com 8. SHINE YOUR LIGHT ON ME Natalie Bergman From the album Mercy, by Natalie Bergman who was one half of the duo, Wild Belle but recorded her solo album after a tragic accident changed her life. Courtesy of Third Man Records.

9. IN THE BEGINNING Silver Synthetic New Orleans rock and roll minimalists Silver Synthetic have released their anticipated self-titled debut album via Third Man Records. Comprised of members of New Orleans luminaries Bottomfeeders and Jeff the Brotherhood,this outfit has carved quite a niche for themselves.

10. EYE ON ME Fenn Wilson From the album Ghost Heroin soon to be released on vinyl via Cheersquad Records.

The son of local legend Chris Wilson shows that he also has an enormous talent and voice to match.

11. JUDAS TREE Greta Ziller From the album of the same name which was delayed by the pandemic and which Ziller says, “is made up of hurts and wounds, insecurities and affirmations. A pandemic may have slowed its release, but that same pandemic helped me heal and find myself again.”

12. SIX MONKEYS Even Even’s latest single is a full-bodied heavy hitter; a song that defines the term ‘jangle pop’ while making its presence felt with substantial gravitas and power. Built on a simple but irresistible lick from singer/ guitarist Ash Naylor and a simple but thick rhythmic base from drummer Matt Cotter and bass player Wally Kempton. even.bandcamp.com 13. COME ON DECEMBER Ben Leece & Melody Pool Newcastle-based singer-songwriter Ben Leece returns with his new single, teamed with acclaimed singer-songwriter Melody Pool and her partner Chris Dale to work on the track at the couple’s home studio.

14. I’M WANITA Wanita Following the documentary I Am Wanita, showing the self-proclaimed Australian Queen of Rockabilly comes the album recorded in Nashville and this title track.

15. FALLING DOWN The Redlands Hailing from North West Victoria, The Redlands are childhood friends Samuel Nairn (vocals) and Cousins Chase Williams (lead guitar) and Dean Williams (guitar/ piano). This is the first single for Cheatin’ Heart Records.

16. SOMETHING GOOD Eagle & The Wolf A new single from Sarah Humphreys & Kristen Lee Morris prior to the release of the new album, Two Lovers, on September 17.

17. I KNOW I’M HARD TO LOVE Camille Trail From Camille’s debut album River of Sins – a sultry melting pot of country, folk and blues – produced by Shane Nicholson and be released on Compass Bros / Universal Music Australia.

18. THE GREAT DIVIDE Montgomery Church From a forthcoming album this is a tribute to the Snowy scheme. Hailing from the Snowy Mountains of NSW, Montgomery Church are a Folk/Americana inspired duo fast becoming known for their captivating stage presence.

19. MAYBE Cahill Kelly From the album Classical and Cool Jazz.

Melbourne-based singer-songwriter Cahill Kelly relocated south from the evocatively-named Alligator Creek in far North Queensland. Courtesy of Cheersquad Records.

20. SOMEBODY Ella Powell Rising pop country artist Ella Powell took out the Peoples Choice Award at Tamworth in 2019. Ella’s new single ‘Somebody’ is an energetic and uplifting song, encapsulating the story of being proud of where you are in the present and rising in the face of adversity.

21. ONE THING ONE TIME Rinehearts The latest single released from the Perth group that has been powering out the pop since forming in 2016 and was formed from two notable Perth bands. Ben Ward (guitar/ vocals) and Mitch Long (bass) and drummer Ross Di Blasio 22. I USED TO THINK I WAS AN OUTLAW Raechel Whitchurch with Kevin Bennett From her new album Finally Clear released on Compass Brothers Records. Raechel was born and raised on country music. Adam Harvey said,“I have watched Raechel’s career since she was a kid performing in her family band and it’s been fantastic to see her grow as an artist.”

23. CALEB MEYER (GILLIAN WELCH) Frock N Troll From the album Streets of Life with singersongwriter Sherri Olding on acoustic guitar, mandolin, flute, whistle and percussion and husband Gus on violin.

24. LONDON COFFEE Carus Thompson This is from the forthcoming 8th album from the globe-trotting troubadour. Carus Thompson has toured the world alongside The John Butler Trio, The Waifs, Xavier Rudd, Jack Johnson and Pete Murray.

25. SYCO Bagful of Beez ‘Syco’, the first single from the first album that Link McLennan will be releasing under the moniker of Bagful of Beez. Founding member and beloved frontman/singer and songwriter of some seminal Australian acts, the new band is a melting pot of all those acts.

26. BERLIN BUNKER Steve Tyson & The Train Rex From the forthcoming album Banjo’s Last Ride. Steve Tyson was born into a fertile music scene in Brisbane, Australia. His earliest bands, Gentle Art and Spike, played in underground blues and r&b clubs whilst he was still at school.

27. FREE DIRT Looch Lewis This single is a cover of the ‘Died Pretty’ classic tune, written by Brett Myers and features an all-star recording band including Peta Caswell (vocals), Matt Galvin (guitar) and Drizabone D (Bass, Vocals).

28. IN DEFENCE OF THE BUSH Liam Gerner & Luke Moller From the new album The Bulletin Debate – Henry Lawson vs Banjo Patterson. The songs were inspired by the debate that took place via a series of poems about the merits of living in the Australian bush, published in 1892. They will be doing a Bulletin Debate live national concert tour to accompany the release of the album in late 2021/22 featuring special guests. liamgerner.bandcamp.com 29. BRICK BY BRICK Wayne Gillespie & Famous Blue Raincoat Singer/songwriter Wayne Gillespie has been making quality music in Australia since CBS released his second album here back in 1987.

This is a preview of the forthcoming album where each song delivers a different take.

30. HOLD TIGHT The Hard Ons Sydney group the Hard-Ons, who have been cranking out their own brand of punk rock for nearly 40 years now (yes, they started young!) have added a new frontman/singer - Tim Rogers! The new album I’m Sorry Sir, That Riff’s Been Taken.

Courtesy of Cheersquad Records.

FREE RHYTHMS DOWNLOAD SAMPLER

VikaLinda & “As you get older, if you’ve looked after yourself, you do get better.”

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2021 RHYTHMS SAMPLER #14 Black Sorrows Kutcha Edwards Jakob Dylan Shane Nicholson Martha Wainwright Billy Gibbons Sierra Ferrell Jay Farrar Joan Armatrading UB40 Charley Crockett

PLUS: Driving Steve Fracasso Excerpt Steve Kilbey Saint Sister David Garnham

$12.95 inc GST SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2021 ISSUE: 307

Joe Camilleri

HISTORY Kevin Borich 1

Subscribe to Rhythms Print or Print & Digital today and we’ll send you our EXCLUSIVE SAMPLER FULL OF GREAT MUSIC....AVAILABLE ONLY TO SUBSCRIBERS GO TO: rhythms.com.au/subscribe

ANOTHER GREAT RHYTHMS SAMPLER! EXCLUSIVELY FOR RHYTHMS SUBSCRIBERS:

Vika & Linda, Black Sorrows, Yola, Michael Waugh, Siera Ferrell, Andy White, Natalie Bergman, Silver Synthetic, Fenn Wilson, Greta Ziller, Even, Ben Leece & Melody Pool, Wanita, The Redlands, Eagle & The Wolf, Camille Trail, Montgomery Church, Cahill Kelly, Ella Powell, The Rinehearts, Raechel Whitchurch, Frock N Troll, Carus Thompson, bagful of Beez, Steve Tyson & The Train Rex, Looch Lewis, Liam Gerner & Luke Moller, Wayne Gillespie, The Hard Ons.

.

My checque/money order for $

is enclosed.

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POME provides Q&A sessions with all artists during their exhibitions – all explaining the history, meanings and unique processes of their art. Head to the POME webpage for all upcoming events plus online art store.

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UPDATE

Bluesfest will be back at Easter in 2022 with an all-star Australian line-up!

“It is obvious that we cannot present Bluesfest in a safe manner in October, so we have re-scheduled back to our usual timing with dates over the Easter Long Weekend next year; a time we expect things to be returning to normal,” said Bluesfest Festival Director, Peter Noble OAM, just before we went to press.

Noble also hinted that there would be a very special act booked for Easter Thursday, which is currently free.

Showcasing an All-Aussie (with some special guests from NZ) music bill in Byron Bay, Bluesfest is Australia’s most awarded music festival, and was recently nominated as ‘Best festival of the Decade’ by industry bible, Pollstar.

From the humble beginnings in 1990 the festival now takes place at the beautiful Byron Events Farm (formerly the Tyagarah Tea Tree Farm), attracting an audience of over 100,000 in pre-Covid days. Located just 10 minutes north of Byron Bay, NSW, Australia, Bluesfest is well situated and surrounded by the charming village of Mullumbimby and the beach towns of Byron Bay and Brunswick Heads.

“We are a resilient bunch,” continued Nobel. “We have worked so hard since May 2019 to make Bluesfest happen and, guess what, we are not giving up. We are immensely proud of who we are: we are proud of the Bluesfest name and what that represents, immensely proud, and we are already looking forward to Easter.

I thought this decision would be hard to

make, but it was the reverse. The safety and protection of our loyal Bluesfesters, our festival staff, our performers, our volunteers, stallholders and suppliers is paramount, and I will not put anyone at risk right now. So, the decision to reschedule was a ‘no-brainer’.”

“Now we concentrate on the future, and it’s a bright future - and the return of Bluesfest over four days next Easter: FRIDAY 14TH APRIL – MONDAY 18TH APRIL 2022. PLUS … we are working on something special for Thursday 14th April. I am confident that, by the end of this year, Australia will have achieved at least a 70-80% vaccination rate and will have achieved at least ‘Stage Three’ in the plan to open up the whole country. Lockdowns will be consigned to history. Perhaps we may even see international artists returning. If they can come we will be presenting them! ” “Almost all the October 2021 artists will return for Easter: Midnight Oil, Paul Kelly, Jimmy Barnes, Pete Murray, Kasey Chambers, John Butler, Xavier Rudd and all of your Bluesfest favourites will be back to play over the Easter Long Weekend. Only two or three can’t make it. It’s great to be adding Fat Freddy’s Drop, Josh Teskey & Ash Grunwald, John Williamson, C.W. Stoneking, and the return of RocKwiz Live next Easter: the first of dozens of artists we are adding to celebrate, including more of the biggest and best artists this part of the world has

to offer, with many Blues & Roots artists added too.” ”And … guess what … I have been working hard to fill these gaps. And … guess what … I HAVE !! And … guess what … You are going to love the new names – and I’ll let you know who they are soon.”

“In the meantime, I do ask and urge every ticket holder to hold on to their October ticket – and roll it over to Easter.

I promise you will not be disappointed.

As soon as this outbreak is over and we are out of lockdown safely, then I will be announcing the incredible new names joining our lineup, and then you can make an informed decision. Rest assured, we will continue to offer refunds until after the new artist announcement.”

“We will return and when we do it will be the greatest Bluesfest atmosphere you have been part of, with easily the strongest bill of Aussie and Kiwi talent ever seen in this country.” Don’t say we didn’t tell ya!!”

“After all – its only 35 weeks to Easter! !!”

PETER NOBLE OAM CHAIRMAN, BLUESFEST GROUP OF COMPANIES Bluesfest will take place over 4 days from Friday 15th April to Monday 18th April 2022 at the Byron Events Farm, Tyagarah, NSW, AUSTRALIA. All ticket options plus camping, parking and VIP are on sale now via the Bluesfest Website.

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11 - 14 MARCH 2022 MORE ARTISTS ANNOUNCED Baby et Lulu Bob Evans Courtney Marie Andrews (USA) Eilen Jewell (USA) Elephant Sessions (SCO) Emily Barker Emma Donovan & The Putbacks Eric Bibb (USA) Ernest Aines Fiona Ross & Shane O’Mara First Nations Voices Gordon Koang Heartbrokers Jon Boden (UK) Jordie Lane Kee’ahn Leah Senior Liz Stringer Maubere Timor (TL) Nadia Reid (NZ) Robyn Hitchcock (UK) Rudely Interrupted The Bushwackers The Thin White Ukes The Weeping Willows Tracy McNeil & The GoodLife Tuck Shop Ladies Van Walker & The Ferriters Watchhouse (USA) Weddings, Parties, Anything

TICKETS ON SALE NOW PORTFAIRYFOLKFESTIVAL.COM

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BY BRIAN WISE

ARCHIE’S CHOICE Archie Roach is curating a new stage for the Port Fairy Folk Festival and is presenting Kitchen Yarns, a YouTube series of interviews.

Photo by Jo O’Keefe

e might not be able to tour at the moment but Archie Roach has remained busy since we saw him at Womadelaide earlier this year. He has just announced the inaugural Archie Roach Foundation stage for 2022 Port Fairy Folk Festival. The stage will be curated by Archie Roach and the local Gunditjmara community of southwest Victoria, and will provide the opportunity to share the ancient knowledge of the Gunditjmara people through dance, art, music, storytelling and conversations about native plants and bush medicines.

“We’ve been thinking about it, the stage, and how to curate a stage,” explains Archie when asked about how it was initiated. Fortunately, we were able to get that up and going, but I just need to figure out what that’s going to look like, and talk to community up here and see what they can present also as part of the stage. So, it’ll be interesting, I think.”

“Oh, it is,” he replies when I suggest that Port Fairy must be one of his favourite festivals. “I can’t remember the first time I played it…….way back. It’s one of those great festivals. You get to know people and you see that acts come back. The great thing about playing festivals is that they have other acts that you’ve never seen before - especially Port Fairy. They support local and Australian artists as well. So, that’s the good thing about it, as well as overseas artists. That’s the great thing about Port Fairy.”

“It will just give, I suppose, a little bit more understanding of the mob down this way,” he continues, “the culture and also their music and dance and whatever we can present and things like that. So, it’ll be good. We’ve certainly got some ideas, and I’ve talked to community over there, and they’re eager and keen to present something.”

Archie has also unveiled the Kitchen Table Yarns – a twelve-part YouTube series initiated to support emerging Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander singer songwriters. It’ll be a story of intergenerational celebration and connection through music. The first episode saw Archie invite talented Yorta Yorta woman, Allara Briggs Pattison to yarn with him (via Zoom) at his kitchen table to share stories about her songs, her community and her language. The second and third episodes featuring Rulla Kelly-Mansell and Marlon Motlop and Lydia Fairhall have already landed. New episodes will be released at 5pm AEST on the first Wednesday of each month thereafter, all available to stream on Archie Roach’s YouTube Channel (YouTube channel www.youtube.com/archieroachmusic).

“Well, we did something last year, a YouTube series on Charcoal Lane Songs of Charcoal Lane - and the inspiration behind that,” explains Archie when asked about how the series came about. “So, we thought that this time it’d be good if we could perhaps talk to up and coming First Nations singer-songwriters, and just have a yarn with them about community and their music and songs, and inspiration behind their music. And it’s at the kitchen table.”

“Well, some we already know, like Allara, our first one,” says Archie talking about how he chose the acts to have a yarn with. “In Adelaide, we ran into Rulla Kelly-Mansell and Marlon Motlop, who sang their song ‘Black Swan’ to me acoustically, which just blew me away. Others, some from Victoria, a few that we’d already heard of, and others that we haven’t actually. But that’s good too, you know, so we can have a yarn to them.”

What’s it like being a video star now, being on camera and having his own video series?

“At first, I didn’t know what to think. I thought, this is a bit strange,” he replies. “But it was fun, the show we did last year, it was really good, and I reckon this’ll be good as well too. It’s good, and having conversations with each artist, it’s very exciting.”

Archie will certainly be bringing attention to a lot of artists that most people would not have heard of, which must have been one of the main aims to do this series.

“That was I think the main reason that we wanted to do this,” he agrees.

“When I started playing music people didn’t know who the heck I was, what I was about. I remember doing a show somewhere and somebody yells out from the audience, ‘Who are you?’ I went, ‘Oh, my name’s Archie Roach, and I sing songs.’ It was a bit of an awkward moment. Also, because they get a chance, if they wish, to ask me questions, and then hopefully I can give maybe some sound advice and some tips.”

Archie Roach’s YouTube channel can be found here: (YouTube channel www.youtube.com/archieroachmusic).

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SQUEEZING OUT FREQUENCIES

BY ANNE MCCUE

S

o, is this what concerts sound like? I don’t remember it this way. Certainly, it’s been two years since I’ve heard loud music so perhaps my ears have forgotten how to digest it…? Or is the sound guy struggling here? Perhaps the band is playing too loud because the frequencies are ping ponging from one surface to another - after all, it is their first concert since the tour got cancelled when the plague hit. But imagine every sound as a laser light bouncing and rebounding like a spirograph pattern on steroids, abrading our ears with pin pricks up on 11.

I hear the drums alright, more like a punk drum sound, I think. I see the bass player, but I don’t hear the bass. As someone said, ‘It’s very bassy but I can’t hear the bass.’ At least the wash of arbitrary bass frequencies is being counteracted by an equally random weave of treble but the higher frequencies actually hurt more.

Distress sets in at the third song when I realise that this is what it’s going to sound like. I start to feel a little panic coming on because I am in the middle of the row. The

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Squeeze at The Ryman Auditorium

way this place is set out is that they have church pews - a lot closer to each other than I remember - so getting in and out is a real palaver. We aren’t far from the stage right speaker so I’m getting the full throttle of this unfortunate sound bath bath being too nice a word.

But if I don’t get out of this row now, I feel I might die. So - ‘Sorry, I just have to get out, it’s too loud’ - I point to my ears, and I’m just going up the back to listen and I’m hoping that it’s just because we are too close to the speaker, that’s why I can’t hear Glenn Tilbrook’s words. I see him singing and hear his tone - beautiful as ever, but you see, I can’t understand the lyrics and lyrics after all, are half the song, and his songs are great, not just good and I want to hear the nuances of those chordal, harmonic and melodic changes which distinguish his work from most others.

I can tell he’s singing like hell, putting everything into it. I just can’t HEAR it, not specifically.

And the band looks cute too. They are wearing really lovely outfits. There is a

keyboard player wearing a red checkered suit. Delightful attire. How do I know there is a keyboard player? Because I can see him. I can’t hear him, not specifically, but he is playing some lovely lines, I am sure of it and he looks like he’s having a great time, which is definitely cheering me up on a certain level.

Tilbrook himself is wearing a jade green silk suit - really classy and he has his hair in a little pom pom atop his head. I like that. He just seems like a nice guy who can write brilliant songs. And Chris Difford looks a picture in his gorgeous grey tweed suit with red trimmings. He’s having a delightful time, he really is - mostly playing rhythm guitar. The band looks great and I know they are playing all the right notes, I just can’t tell you specifically because what I’m hearing is The Great Wall Of Sound but not the pleasant kind of wall of sound that makes sense and all melds together. It’s more like a cataclysmic wall that has just been exploded and all the pieces are flying every which way at random. I mean, it’s not so bad that I can’t

tell what song they are playing, but as I said, I can’t hear the lyrics and neither can I hear the individual instruments, per se.

For instance, there is a pedal steel player.

Nice touch, I think, for those orchestral sections which I’m sure are taking place and hopefully they can hear all that on the stage.

So, I got out of my row, finally, which felt like a win. I needed a win right then.

Sometimes it’s hard in those situations to make the right decisions and I’m thinking of all the times when I stayed instead of making a move and it was the wrong decision. But this is no time to become morbid.

I decided to walk all over The Ryman to find the sweet spot. Not downstairs, no. The most likely place where this will sound good is next to the sound man upstairs. Was I wrong? Yes, the music was simply too loud for the venue. The Ryman doesn’t work like that. The Ryman is a church. A church resounds and reverberates without amplification. The Ryman doesn’t need LOUD. The Ryman needs finesse, subtlety. And Squeeze is not a punk band. I’d put them in a category more akin to Crowded House than The Sex Pistols.

Is this what concerts sound like? Maybe at one am at the Trade Union Club in ’82, maybe this is what concerts sound like.

Surely not (UK) Squeeze in 2021?

I finally find the place where the concert sounds best - out in the foyer. There’s an interesting fellow out there in a hat and black-framed glasses. I say, do you think the sound is a little off and he says, ‘Yes, it’s too loud. It sounds best out here.’ I have to agree.

These songs! F*ckin’ killer. I LOVE this band. UK Squeeze are back and they are terrific! Seriously! This was their first concert. The band was great, the sound, not so much - but I’m sure they’ll get that sorted. Some of the best pop songs ever!

They are on the road. squeezeofficial.com 17

‘‘ Everybody

carries a spirit whether connected to an aboriginal songline or not.

I can access that.

’’

HEALING W

hen I last called Indigenous singer-songwriter Kutcha Edwards in 2016, he was preparing for a special event. He’d been nominated for both the Melbourne Prize for Music and the Distinguished Musicians Fellowship. Signing off from our chat, he was about to get his glad rags on for the awards night. Edwards was awarded both accolades. That night became significant for a couple of other reasons.

The Mutti Mutti man was the driver behind one of the artistic gifts bestowed on our community during 2020’s big COVID lockdown. The collaborative online video of ‘We Sing’ lifted us up during the tough time. It features on his new album Circling Time.

‘Kutcha recalls, “The song had festered in its infancy the night that Trump got in [as US President]. This is how dumb I am. I was the Melbourne Prize recipient that night but in the back of my mind, I’m thinking, ‘Great. I just received the prize for music and the fellowship aligned to that. But if a businessman is now leader of the free world, what’s going to happen? Everything’s gunna become about economics not humanity itself.’ He was all about the red button and the world was going to be thrown into disarray. One of his main platforms was building a wall between Mexico and the US.” Kutcha breaks into a Trump impersonation. (‘Build a wall! Build a wall!’) “So, I started thinking about some lyrics: ‘I hear a baby crying in the night, whispers in the wind, echoes calling out your name. Rocked to its core, sounds we cannot ignore. Time to reignite the flame.’ The flame is referring to Cathy Freeman. See, the Olympics is supposed to be apolitical. But for aboriginal people, it was supposed to be this form of unity, Cathy being this light. The second verse: ‘It’s time for us to hear, beyond the new frontier, waking to a brighter dawn, blessed by the sun, united as one, when a new child is born.’ That refers to unity and bringing a child into the world where all they’re hearing is bombs and so forth. Which, sadly, is still happening…”

The chorus declares: ‘We sing for love, we live for justice, we long for freedom, we dream of peace.’ I suggest those principles would qualify 18

the song as a new national anthem. “If only,” he says. “But I’d have to agree to the terms of engagement of the Australian constitution as it stands and I will not. That constitution has no connection or bearing to my ancestry. The powers that be understand all that. They know my stance.”

Guests adding their voices (remotely) to ‘We Sing’ included Emma Donovan, Joe Geia, Archie Roach, Paul Kelly, Judith Durham, David Bridie and Emily WurraMara. Kutcha says, “The logistics for the recording were astonishing. I think it was 70 people in the choir.

Each did two different vocals in two chord structures. So that’s 140 channels in itself. Producer Andy Stewart [Gotye, Paul Kelly] had to bring those vocals down to one channel to become 70 again. Then editing maybe 10 each into the one because the computer was going ballistic! Everybody sent film of themselves performing – on smart phones or whatever capability they had - to Luke McNee (Seagrass Films director). Luke kept creating that wall of people you see on the video. It’s an amazing piece of technology.” Kutcha believes there’ve been over 66,000 hits on YouTube. “I hope people will re-visit it after this album release.”

Kutcha’s music has always suited fireside gatherings. Whether uniting by the hearth at home or a campfire in the bush. He says, “This [his fifth studio album] is a bit different from Beneath The Surface (2016) and Blak and Blu (2012). They all have their own different character, purpose and story to tell.”

Circling Time again features stories representing characters on the fringes of society. A survivor of the Stolen Generations, Kutcha tells a poignant personal story on the new album. ‘Mrs Edwards’ portrays the visit of his mother to her ‘removed’ children. Authorities dictate the little time allowed. “To be coerced after a three hour visit that you have to exit, when it took you five hours to get there… And a lifetime to get to after us being removed. It’s those memories of childhood that tap me on the shoulder and say, ‘Do you remember?’ Me and my

TIME

Kutcha Edwards’ new album Circling Time features stories representing characters on the fringes of society. By Chris Lambie

mother only had a short sort of togetherness, from when I was 13 to 18…but it was very strong. She taught me a lot.”

there’s a crack of lightning and thunder. A portent of the storm to come.”

Somehow, despite no dialogue of his mum being sung, her pain is palpable across the track. “When I sat down to record that vocal, I felt a presence. I’m sure it was mum. I asked Andy – still at the desk – ‘How was that, old son?’ He wouldn’t turn around. I said, ‘Are you ok?

What’s going on? Was it that shit?’ He was very emotional. He said, I’ve recorded all around the world and that’s the best vocal I’ve heard.

I said, ‘Funningly enough (sic, a classic Kutcha-ism) I’m sure the old girl was in the space’. He said, ‘Why do you think I’m a mess? I heard the moment when your delivery changed from singing a lyric to entering the lyric.’ It’s affected all the guys who recorded the album. Satch (Marcus Satchell) who played bass, Col Matthews (lead guitar), Dean Roberts (rhythm guitar/keys) and Tom Lynch who played piano on that track, I think. I find myself listening to it and it takes me back to that day, not to the moment that I recorded it, but to that day. That’s what music is supposed to do. Take you on a journey in life or remind you.”

The hypnotic track ‘Trying To Outrun The Sun’ sees Kutcha singing falsetto, a surprising contrast to his familiar baritone resonance. It was inspired by the singer and his wife watching the rapid setting of the sun on the west coasts of Tasmania and Broome. “One minute the sun’s there, the next it’s gone. It’s actually freaky. It was the first time I’d used the Omnichord in recording. I don’t play it when I’m with a band but I use it when I’m doing solo. Andy persuaded me. ‘You have a relationship with the Omni because you do all your writing on it’.”

Kutcha says, “There’s a lot of subliminal messages in the tracks. Andy is a deep thinker. He’s a different cat. He looks at audio differently.

He’ll go right into the structure of notes, patterns. All producers do that, but he’s very particular. One day he asked Col to play a G chord.

He recorded it then zoomed right in on it, put it through some phaser or something, and said, ‘That looks a lot better!’ The stunning ballad ‘Singing Up Country’, in three movements, sends shivers up the spine.

Its outro features singer/linguist Wayne Thorpe singing the Gunnai words Boondjil Noorrook would have sent across Country 250 years ago, alerting neighbours of the approach of ‘ghost ships’, the First Fleet. Former Watbalimba bandmate from the 90s, Thorpe initially couldn’t quite match the vocal to the timing of the accompanying piano. “I told him, ‘Sit quietly, let the timing into your spirit and you’ll get it’. And that’s what he did. It’s an amazing vocal. Stops you in your tracks. When people hear it, they get very emotional. At the ending,

‘Homeless’ is a song inspired by Kutcha’s work in the community. “You understand your purpose when you go to men’s behavioural change gatherings. They’re looking for that guiding spirit. Struggling in the journey of life itself. Until you find your actual purpose, you’re chasing your tail, looking for affirmation with the wrong connections.”

‘Today’ is dedicated to Kutcha’s wife. The pair had surgical procedures just weeks apart in 2020. Their healing brings hope, echoing the spirit of the 2021 NAIDOC theme. Much longer than Kutcha’s previous albums, Circling Time was recorded over 15 months.

“I loved the process. It’s about the journey not just the destination.

The relationships born in the studio. I really appreciate the guys who created it with me, not for me, but with me. Creating this bed and entering into my songline. As non-aboriginal people, I’m giving them access to spirit of place that not many people get. Everybody carries a spirit whether connected to an aboriginal songline or not. I can access that. I hope I’m not trying to be overly culturally connected. I just understand process and the responsibility I take in explaining, not just my personal journey, but my family’s journey in that.”

Circling Time is available now.

19

hile a gap of five years between albums might seem to be an extended break for a musician who had released four albums in the previous eight years, in Martha Wainwright’s case the hiatus was hardly what you would call a holiday.

After going through a marriage breakup in New York City, Wainwright not only moved back to her hometown of Montreal but also decided to buy a building in a suburb where she once lived and open a café. The basement of Café Ursa then became a studio for the new album, Love Will Be Reborn, which features the most original songs from the singer since her 2012 album Come Home To Mama.

Wainwright, who plays guitar and piano (for the first time) on the new album enlisted Toronto musicians Thom Gill on guitars and keyboards, drummer and percussionist Phil Melanson and Morgan Moore and Josh Cole on bass to record the album with producer Pierre Marchand, who might be best-known for his collaborations with Sarah McLachlan and his production of Martha’s brother Rufus’s second album Poses as well as Martha’s mother and aunt’s record, Heartbeats Accelerating.

When we catch up on Zoom to talk about the new album it is early evening in Montreal, church bells are chiming in the background and Wainwright has just left her café after running a creative pottery camp for children.

“It’s been a really different time,” says Wainwright when I ask her of the last half decade of her life. “There’s been some touring in Quebec, in Canada, but it’s really been buying this building, transforming it into this space with friends and family, into this little community center and then booking shows and running it. That’s a whole learning curve, and then making a record and finishing this book that I’ve been working on for a really long time. Then COVID happened.”

In the past few months, the café has been able to have customers back and the kids camp has added to the activity.

“I live around the corner from the cafe,” continues Wainwright, “but this is near where I grew up in a way. My mother had bought a building 25 or 30 years ago, that I lived in. Then I went out to New York and was in New York for almost 20 years and then I realized I wanted to come back to Montreal and face what was here, and what was left for me here. I wanted my kids to go to school in French and to know my family that I grew up with. So, it was a big change and it was a return, a coming home, and putting down roots for the first time ever, because as a touring artist, it’s hard to do that.

It’s also rewarding in a way, but it is a struggle. It’s like there’s two parts of me, but I just have to also embrace it. I think also with the pandemic, we all had to sit in our own homes and neighborhoods, and family, and with the people that we’re with, and face it a little bit, and make adjustments accordingly.”

As the title of the new album suggests, Wainwright has undergone a personal reinvigoration.

“Obviously, I am now middle-aged, deep middle age, I just turned 45 in May,” she says, “and that is one of the themes I suppose but it’s not really about that - although there is a song called ‘Getting Older’. But there’s a lot of light after darkness.

There’s really almost an A side and a B side on this 20

record. There are songs that I generally steeped in a little bit of - or quite a bit of - anger and fear, and disappointment, coming out of a bad divorce and not being able to have access to my kids, and lots of pain and strife around that, and fear. Then, unexpectedly, also being free of something that wasn’t good, maybe, and then more unexpectedly, a new love, which was surprising. Then these new beginnings, like Ursa and things like that. So, it seems like, very much a shedding, dare I say it, of an old skin.”

Part of shedding the old skin has involved writing a memoir and, if it is anything like her songs – which are openly honest – it should be quite revealing.

She started working on it seven years ago and recently decided to finish it.

“It’s called Stories I Might Regret Telling You, if that says anything about it,” explains Wainwright. So, it’s quite personal, of course, because that’s how I write. I only write about myself because I don’t feel equipped to write about much of anything else.

Then everything changed and it went a little upside down in my personal life, and I had to stop writing it because it was clear that it couldn’t be published, because it was altered, everything was different.

“So, I’m just glad to have done it, it’s more in the final process. The editor has finally gone through it and done her damage or her work, but I appreciate the work she’s done. So, we’re proofreading it and I’m totally over it. I’m so tired. I was contracted to write 80,000 words; I must’ve written 500,000. I mean, I wrote it and rewrote it, and threw it out, and burned it, and rewrote. So, I’m pretty over it, but it’s been an albatross and, hopefully, it doesn’t feel like that or read like that - but it might.”

I suggest that songwriting for the new album must’ve come as a relief after the experience of having to write her memoir.

“Absolutely!” agrees Wainwright, “and with music, four minutes, poetry - is a nice setting, to be able to say things.”

Love Will Be Reborn was started in the Café Ursa’s basement but finished remotely in producer Marchand’s own studio.

“We had been open for a few months,” explains Wainwright, “and then there was some time where nothing was happening, no shows were booked.

So, I turned it into a recording studio. I had five or six songs written by that point, or maybe a little more, and tracked them. I really loved what I heard, but I also realised that I wanted a producer and didn’t really want to produce it myself, because it’s hard to do that. This seems, to me, to be an important album because it had been a long time since making a record.

“So, I contacted somebody who I had always wanted to make a record with, but he was not available or too expensive, it never quite worked out. That’s Pierre Marchand, who produced my mom [Kate] and Anna’s comeback record, their Heartbeats Accelerating, which is a record that they released after eight years of not making a record and a record that they released at my age.

So, there were some parallels there. I met Pierre when I was 14, and I came to him at 44 and asked to do this and he liked the idea. So, then he took what I had done, and then we went into his studio, which has more controlled sound. Then COVID happened and we were able to finish it remotely. He was 100 kilometers away but could control the computer in

his other studio from where he was, and we did it that way, and got it done. So, it was amazing.”

Some of the music on the album sounds so free flowing and spontaneous it is as though Wainwright worked it up with the band in the studio.

“Yeah, that’s possible,” she agrees. “I write all the songs by myself because that’s how I do it. I’m quite shy, and so I play the guitar at home and sing, and then just construct a song. Then normally, I would have gone out and play the song by myself, a lot, and I did with a couple of songs, like ‘Love Will Be Reborn’ and ‘Body and Soul’, but the other ones, I didn’t really get an opportunity to play live. So, I brought them to the musicians and having worked with them before, I wanted their input and their sensibility somewhat. We worked it up, we would just jam. Everything was recorded live on the floor, and we would jam on the song for several hours, and then try and get a take.”

“That’s the first time I’ve ever played the piano,” admits Wainwright when I mention the song ‘Falaise de Malaise’. “I don’t play the piano generally. I’m not a piano player but I’ve been playing around with that melody on that little piano part for a long time, because it was just in my head. I have a piano in my house, and so every once in a while, I’d sit down and go, ‘Martha, you really should try harder.’ The piano is really hard, especially, any instrument, learning it as an adult is really hard and I feel guilty about not playing the piano. I feel bad about it because so many people around me are great piano players, and I work a lot with piano players, and so I’m very aware of what they can do and what I can’t do.”

The title song, ‘Love Will Be Reborn’, was written in London five years ago when Wainwright was staying at a friend’s house and going through a dark time. While her friend suggested they write together, Martha actually ended up penning the entire song herself.

“It’s the first song that I wrote for this record,” she explains. “I was on tour with the band, these musicians that you hear on the album, promoting Goodnight City, which was my last record. It was just an absolutely very difficult, very difficult time, and very scary, and really at a low. I was at the highest point of divorce drama, and court, and I was on the road and I couldn’t take my kids, and I just felt really scared, although I was having a great time playing with these great new young musicians, who were really bolstering me up, who were really helping me get through.”

“I sat down and that song, it just came out of me, through tears,” she recalls and adds that she had sent her friend and his partner off to the pub so she could dabble and come up with something and by the time they returned the song was finished. “It was just really positive too. In a way that was just like this idea that out of bad will come good. I was just totally overwhelmed and it never happens that the songs come out quickly. It was quite simple, the lyrics were easy to write.

“I would play at a lot of shows. The song is saying that everything’s going to be okay and then things got better. I met somebody else and it was totally great. So, it was interesting. It was really, really helpful, the song was a real gift, it felt like a gift.”

Love Is Reborn is available now through Cooking Vinyl.

“I only write about myself because I don’t feel equipped to write about much of anything else.”

Photo by Gaëlle Leroyer

BORN AGAIN

Martha Wainwright releases her first album for five years but the intervening time has seen the singer probably busier than ever. By Brian Wise

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0 4 B

U

BIGGA AND BETTER

UB40 casts its musical net wider for their latest album - By Steve Bell

W

ay back in 1985 UK reggae collective UB40 released an album called Baggariddim, which took tracks from their previous two albums - UK chart-topper Labour Of Love (1983) and Geffery Morgan (1984) - and completely reimagined them using predominantly local guest singers and toasters on vocals (as well as throwing in a duet cover of Sonny & Cher’s ‘I Got You Babe’ alongside The Pretenders’ Chrissie Hynde which went to #1 in both the UK and Australia).

Decades later in 2020 when the advent of COVID curtailed touring for their 2019 album For The Many - the pandemic not caring whatsoever if you’ve sold in excess of 100 million albums - UB40 returned to the concept, this time casting their net far wider and using digital technology to their advantage as they pulled together their brand new collection, Bigga Baggariddim.

“It was really simple to do,” smiles founding guitarist Robin Campbell. “Obviously all of the rhythm tracks already existed because they’re off the last album For The Many and we just literally emailed all of the people we’ve worked with over the last few years and said, “Would you fancy doing something?’

“We’d discussed it with some of them already, like when we were down there last time House Of Shem supported us in New Zealand and Inner Circle supported us in Australia, so both of them we asked them at the time if they’d be interested in collaborating and they both said, ‘Yeah, send us something’. That was what happened.

“We did the original Baggariddim in the ‘80s and that was like a showcase for Birmingham

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artists - rappers and DJs kind of stuff, as well as getting Chrissie Hynde in obviously whereas this time around we’ve been on the road for 40 years so we figured it should be a bit more international, you know?

“It was just great to hear all of the different styles and different ideas that people came up with for the same backing track, because we sent the same backing tracks to different people - we sent everyone two or three tracks and asked them to pick one and put a song on it, and a lot of people picked the same tracks so you’ve got two or three backing tracks on the album which are the same but have different songs on top, which is fascinating to me.

“We didn’t place any restrictions on them or anything - we just said, ‘Send us something back’ - and we sent everyone the various tracks and asked them to pick one and send us something back, but then other people like House Of Shem we send them three tracks and they sent us three songs! We used all three of them because we couldn’t pick one!”

It’s not all old pros and touring mates though, with Bigga Baggariddim also showcasing some younger up-and-coming stars like BLVK H3RO and Leno Banton (son of revered dancehall artist Burro Banton).

“We hadn’t worked with those guys and we didn’t know them, we’d just heard of them though the grapevine kind of thing and knew that they were hot and happening, so we asked them to be involved and they both jumped at the chance,” Campbell explains.

“BLVK H3RO was another one of the guys who sent us three tracks, so he’s got three

tracks on the album as well because we just loved all three and didn’t want to pick one.

“But it’s great to work with young artists because they might have an audience that’s not listening to us old-timers, and hopefully we’re getting them a new audience because people who are listening to us - our fans mightn’t have heard of them either, so it’s an exchange of cultures and approaches and it’s great.

“I mean Inner Circle are older than us even - they’ve been going 50 years them guys, the “bad boys of reggae” - and then there’s Winston Francis as well who’s been making records since the ‘60s, it’s great to have those old guys but it’s great to have the young kids too. It just shows that reggae’s still really healthy - the guys who’ve been around a long time are still making great music, but there’s new kids on the block coming up, all melding into one vibrant sense of community.

“Reggae doesn’t always get the recognition or exposure that it deserves, being a global style of music which has influenced every form of dance music in the last 40 years, and - considering how popular it is - reggae gets very little airplay on the radio, so any exposure that you can give to young artists is going to be appreciated by them, because all they’re trying to do is get their stuff out there and get heard, same as we were back in the day.”

Shortly after the album release singer Duncan Campbell announced his retirement from UB40 in order to focus on his recovery from the seizure he suffered at his home last month.

UB40 have announced fellow Birmingham reggae band KIOKO’s Matt Doyle as their new lead singer.

SHANNON AND THE CLAMS

BRING THEIR PUNK-EDGED R&B FEELS TO YEAR OF THE SPIDER Oakland’s cult-heroes spin a spooky doo-wop web with their sixth studio album

By Meg Crawford

B

ay Area legends Shannon and the Clams’ groove sits somewhere between garage-punk, doo-wop and surf guitar – think Kid Congo Powers and the Pink Monkey Birds and JD McPherson, with a side serve of the Slits. If anything, on their latest album Year of the Spider the quartet gets leaner and meaner. It’s a sound cultivated over a decade of collaboration between the band’s singer-songwriters, Shannon Shaw (bassist) and Cody Blanchard (guitarist).

Originally, the pals met at college where Blanchard was a creativewriting major (which explains a lot about the narrative nature of his songwriting), while Shaw was a watercolour painter and an illustration major (you can admire Shaw’s handiwork on Year of the Spider’s album cover). However, it wasn’t a case of best mates, just add water.

“I didn’t really care for him at first, just because I thought he seemed very aloof and rude to our teacher who I really liked,” Shaw says.

“She was a sensitive lady.” “One time she wept in class,” interjects Blanchard. “It wasn’t because of me though.” “No, it was one of our other friends,” Shaw continues. “Anyway, she was a very sweet soul, and I thought Cody was a brat.” Happily, the divide was conquered when the pair completed a video project, and Blanchard’s brilliance swung Shaw. “I was like, ‘Wait, this guy is way cooler than I thought he was. Maybe this is someone that I should try and be friends with’.”

In the background, Shaw was toying with a lineup for her band. “All these friends of ours were like, ‘You should have Cody in your band.

He gets your sound. He loves your music. He would be a much better fit than who you have in there now’, she recalls. “Eventually, we tried it out and it was like, ‘Oh my God, this person totally gets me and my taste and what I’m trying to do’.

“I have no musical background and don’t have the language to explain myself. So, usually the way I talk is really descriptive or I’ll see a guitar part, or I’ll reference other songs to get someone to understand what I’m going for and Cody’s just always been able to translate. Which is awesome, because if I had never given Cody a chance to play guitar for the band, I doubt I would be here right now. I mean, maybe I would still be putting out music, but he’s always been very patient with my rudimentary skill level – hang on, what’s less than rudimentary?’.”

“Remedial?” asks Blanchard. “Yeah, exactly, remedial skill level,” Shaw concurs. “So, the rest is history.”

Covering themes spanning death, love, loss and the impact of the absence of community, the album sounds for all the world like a pandemic baby. But no. Shaw began writing the album in 2019 when she was in the thick of a really tough year. Among other things, Shaw’s dad was battling it out with cancer, and Shaw was being stalked by the neighbourhood peeping tom. “It was a really rough time personally,” Shaw confirms. “Which is just great album fodder. It’s interesting though, because I feel like so many themes that come up on the record were kind of foretelling the future.”

While the band’s sound is shaped by Blanchard and Shaw, their approach to songwriting couldn’t be more different. Shaw’s tack is heart on sleeve. “I’m so personal when I’m writing the songs and sharing my music, I reveal a lot of myself. I want to spill the beans on everything, but you got to keep some things to yourself.” In contrast, of necessity, Blanchard takes a leaf out of the Dolly songwriting book and writes standing in another’s shoes. “Shannon writes everything from a very personal perspective and from her real life,” he notes. “If I try to do that, I just get writer’s block. I don’t know how to do it and make it sound good and real. To me, the trick of writing someone else’s stories means that I can write the lyrics for several songs in a row, really fast.”

With that in mind, it was Shaw’s arachnophobia that spurred the title track and a central theme for the album. Maybe it’s also a precept for days of doom scrolling. Shaw explains it thus.

“Spiders have always been this source of extreme fear to me. My mom has told me over and over again that ever since I was a baby, they’ve been really drawn to me. She said they just dropped right in front of my face. That always scared me. Like why? Why are they drawn to me of all people? Anyway, I just decided – because I had so many crazy, terrible, terrifying things happening in my life – to look to the spider as a symbol of something to reframe. I was trying to think of ways to turn around the stuff that was happening to me, use the momentum and roll with it, instead of pushing against it and freaking out.”

PHOTO: By Kristin Cofer 23

MAKING HAY WHILE THE

Colin Hay’s first covers collection is a cracker, showca

By Jeff Jenkins

S

tuck at home during lockdown, Colin Hay was moved by the passing of Gerry Marsden. The lead singer of Gerry and the Pacemakers, who had an actual pacemaker inserted after heart surgery, died in January this year when a blood infection travelled to his heart.

Hay started singing his favourite Pacemakers song, ‘Don’t Let The Sun Catch You Crying’, which was a hit in 1964 when Hay was 11 and living in Saltcoats in Scotland, three years before the Hay family moved to Melbourne.

“Your heart may be broken tonight,” Hay sang in his home studio, “but tomorrow in the morning light, don’t let the sun catch you crying.”

Hay sent his recording to his friend and co-producer Chad Fischer, who said, “This is great, send me another!”

So, Hay recorded ‘Waterloo Sunset’. And then ‘Wichita Lineman’ and ‘Norwegian Wood’. Before he knew it, he had recorded 10 of his favourite songs, celebrating his childhood heroes – “they hit with such strength and power, there was really just The Beatles and then everyone else” – to the most recent song, ‘Driving With The Brakes On’ by Del Amitri, “a great Scottish band”.

Hay had been planning to release a new originals album, Now and the Evermore, in 2021 – he released the title track as a single last year – but his label, Nashville’s Compass Records, suggested delaying the release until he could tour post-COVID. Hay calls the covers collection “an interim record, something to keep you going while you’re waiting”. It’s aptly titled: I Just Don’t Know What To Do With Myself.

Colin Hay completists will also be pleased to learn that his solo debut, 1987’s Looking For Jack, is finally available digitally. “It took a long time for Sony to actually acknowledge they even had that record. I tried to buy it from them, but they made it financially impossible. But now they’ve made it available, which is good.”

Hay has also revisited his catalogue online, with “Men At Work Mondays” and “Tuesday’s Talk”, where he chats about each of the songs. It’s a fascinating insight into the Melbourne band that spent 15 weeks at number one in the US with their debut album, Business As Usual, which was released 40 years ago.

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YouTube also features Hay’s appearance on The Larry Sanders Show. “He was a genius,” Hay says when I ask about Garry Shandling, who played Larry Sanders. “I got to know him a bit. He came to see a show of mine at Largo. I was just about to go on stage and he said, ‘I’m not going to stay.’”

But at the end of the night, Shandling greeted Hay backstage. “I stayed. It was strong. I want you to be on my show.”

“I had a song called ‘Can’t Take This Town’ and he heard it that night,” Hay explains. “I think it fitted a Larry Sanders storyline, where he’s thinking about leaving because all the corporate stuff is driving him nuts.”

Hay remembers sitting nervously in the dressing room. “I was there for hours before I was called. The scripts were so brilliant, every single show was like a precious jewel. It was all scripted – except the bit where I sat on the set with Larry, that wasn’t scripted at all. And I was terrified.

“Garry kept walking into my dressing room, with his head in his hands, saying, ‘Oh, what are we going to do? … Oh, we’ll be fine.’ And then he’d walk out.

“The level of my terror was growing by the minute.”

Hay and Shandling ended up riffing for about 15 minutes, which was edited to a 45-second chat about Hay’s lazy eye. “I think it’s a gift,” the talk show host said. “I wish I could look away.”

As the Larry Sanders audience applauded, Shandling turned to Hay and said, “That was great. You’re hilarious.” And then he added, “Fuck you.”

“It was one of the highlights of my life,” Hay recalls.

Shandling, who lived in Brentwood, would occasionally visit Hay’s home in Topanga. Hay will never forget one visit. Shandling spotted the singer from the top of the driveway. “Are you sick?” he yelled.

Hay laughed. “No, I’m not sick.”

“I think you’re sick,” Shandling continued.

“I’m not going to come down, I think you have the flu.”

“I don’t have the flu.”

“Somebody told me you have the flu.”

And then he left.

“He was a one-off,” Hay smiles.

I Just Don’t Know What To Do With Myself is out now on Compass Records.

I JUST DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH MYSELF The songs that Colin covered … and the classic covers before Colin came along.

I Just Don’t Know What To Do With Myself – written by Burt Bacharach & Hal David, first recorded by Chuck Jackson in 1962. Classic cover: Dusty Springfield, 1964 Waterloo Sunset – written by Ray Davies, first recorded by The Kinks in 1967. Classic cover: David Bowie, 2003 Wichita Lineman – written by Jimmy Webb, first recorded by Glen Campbell in 1968. Classic cover: Johnny Cash, 2002 Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown) – written by LennonMcCartney, first recorded by The Beatles in 1965. Classic cover: Waylon Jennings, 1966 Don’t Let The Sun Catch You Crying – written by Gerry and the Pacemakers, first recorded by Louise Cordet in 1964. Classic cover: Rickie Lee Jones, 1989 Ooh La La – written by Ronnie Lane and Ronnie Wood, first recorded by the Faces in 1973. Classic cover: Rod Stewart, 1998 Driving With The Brakes On – written by Justin Currie, first recorded by Del Amitri in 1995.

Classic cover: Kasey Chambers, 2005 Across The Universe – written by Lennon-McCartney, first recorded by The Beatles in 1969. Classic cover: Fiona Apple, 1998 Can’t Find My Way Home – written

by Steve Winwood, first recorded

by Blind Faith in 1969. Classic cover: Alison Krauss, 2003 Many Rivers To Cross – written and first recorded by Jimmy Cliff in 1969.

Classic cover: Toni Childs, 1989

SUN CRIES

asing his storytelling skills

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Jakob Dylan resurrects The Wallflowers name for his latest album. By Brian Wise

J

akob Dylan is at home in Los Angeles when we catch up online to talk about the new Wallflowers album, Exit Wounds, released in early July. He is about to go out on a twenty-plus date tour that will take the latest rendition of the band through until the end of November.

“It’s 73 and sunny, like every other day of the year,” replies Dylan when I ask him what it is like there. Having lived in the city for almost all his life, apart from his first few years in New York and some time in college back there, he adds knowingly, “I haven’t even looked outside but I know that it’s that.”

In fact, for several years up to 2019 Jakob had been immersed in one of Los Angeles’ most famous music locations as executive producer, narrator and star in the acclaimed documentary film Echo In The Canyon. The film found Dylan as executive producer, collaborating or interviewing artists such as Neil Young, Brian Wilson, Beck and Fiona Apple as well as being part of the last on-screen appearance by Tom Petty.

“Bands are really

for kids to be in.

Once you grow up, they just don’t make a lot of sense for most of us.”

Dylan, was a logical choice as the focus for the film with his obvious feel for the music and his father’s affiliation with many of the artists.

“It was unexpected that it would take so long, to be honest but it kept me busy,” notes Dylan. “When you do a documentary, there isn’t a script really. It just unfolds depending on where you go and the interviews you get. So, it just went on and on. There’s not a lot of easy interviews to assemble one after the other. You can’t tell Brian Wilson and Eric Clapton when to be somewhere to film. You’ve just got to wait until they’re available and then there might be three months in between interviews. You just have to be patient.”

It’s lucky Dylan restricted the timeframe from 1965 to 1968, otherwise it could have been like a Ken Burns series. In fact, there is another twopart series, Laurel Canyon: A Place In Time directed by Allison Ellwood, that takes up the story into the ‘70s.

“Well, if you wanted to make a complete documentary about Laurel Canyon, Ken Burns should do that because it would be a long series,”

“I know that if

you’re in this band and playing with me, you’re probably going to have to accept that all of the energy and all of the output and the vision is going to come from me.

”

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agrees Dylan. “Ours was just really ‘65 and the bands there. I know some people were confused. Where was Joni Mitchell? Where was Frank Zappa? Where were The Doors? But that was never our purpose of the documentary. It’s an interesting time. It was just important that we really narrow it down to something specific.

I suggest that he could have equally made a film about another era that threw up a lot of bands he listened to and saw in his teenage years such as Los lobos, The Blasters, X and more.

“You just mentioned some groups I liked a lot when I was growing up,” says Dylan. “There was a lot of good stuff. Slash Records, almost anything they put out I bought back then. A lot of good music.”

“Well, I don’t think there is a bad era,” he replies when I say that it must have been a great era in the city. “There’s bad groups in every era, and if that dominates people’s memory, that’s unfortunate.

People think of the ‘80s, they think of hair metal. What about X and The Blasters? They were there, too.”

“Now, I tell you, you can make a great documentary about California in ‘6Os, in Laurel Canyon in 1968 if you wanted to. Or you could go up north, you go to San Francisco and you do the ‘68. You could go up to Los Angeles and you can do the scene with X and The Blasters.

“Every era, anywhere, I think you could probably make a really interesting documentary when it comes to music, but you do have to pick a scene. You can’t do all of it at once. You’ve got to narrow your ambition down to a particular place and maybe even a year. That’s what we tried to do.

“Even more specifically, all that talent in these groups. The people weren’t really stepping out and trying to be their own stars just yet.

You had Stephen Stills and Neil Young in the same group there. There was a lot of talent. The Byrds had a lot of talent. Which is also one of the reasons these bands didn’t last.

“People’s egos started to develop and then the reality that is true, which is bands are really for kids to be in. Once you grow up, they just don’t make a lot of sense for most of us. It’s too complicated. But that’s the line of work that I’m in and they were doing it first, very early on. It was new to them and they were all influenced by good stuff and we’re all fortunate that we can hear the stories. That’s all you can do, is learn from these things, and it allowed me to do that going forward.”

It has been nearly a decade since the last album from The Wallflowers but while Jakob Dylan had already released two solo albums he decided last year that it was time he got the band back together – or a version of the band anyway.

Despite the fact that he has recorded several albums under his own name, Jakob Dylan has decided that he prefers to release a new album under the Wallflowers’ moniker – nine years after the band’s last studio album. He already enjoyed hits such as ‘6th Avenue Heartache’ and ‘One Headlight’ from the band’s 1996 album Bringing Down the Horse (produced by T Bone Burnett) and five of the Wallflowers albums had made it into the Top 50.

Exit Wounds was recorded in Los Angeles at producer Butch Walker’s studio in a couple of weeks in early 2020 with a rotating cast of musicians. Acclaimed singer-songwriter Shelby Lynne – who recorded the album Not Dark Yet (titled after the Bob Dylan song) with her sister Allison Moorer – guests on four songs.

The album is full of songs with memorable hooks, great harmonies a swirling Hammond organ and Dylan’s smokey voice highlighted up front. There are also some great song titles like ‘I Hear The Ocean (When I Wanna Hear Trains)’, ‘The Dive Bar In My Heart’, ‘Who’s That Man Walking Through My Garden.’

“The Wallflowers, it’s me. It always has been,” explains Jakob when I ask him about the band. “There are times where it’s confusing to me but what people sometimes don’t realise is when they first saw us on TV with Bringing Down the Horse, that group you saw on TV, those weren’t even half the people that played on that record.

“I’ve always done it and approached it that way. I’m on the ride with people for as long as it makes sense. If it doesn’t make sense, we all go do something else. I don’t overthink it. I don’t think it’s a marriage.

I know that if you’re in this band and playing with me, you’re probably going to have to accept that all of the energy and all of the output and

the vision is going to come from me. If you need that and you want to be a part of that, you probably need a different group. I started this group. I’m allowed to do it in whichever way I want.”

Musically though, a Wallflowers album is quite different to a Jakob Dylan solo album with additional instrumentation, including keyboards and, as you’d expect, a much fuller sound.

“Well, it is,” agrees Dylan. “If it’s going to be a solo album, there’s no boundaries. I can do it. I can put a tuba on it if I want. I can do whatever I want. The Wallflowers has a sound, it has parameters. Sometimes it’s just noisier and it’s also something that I need to revisit at times when I want to keep it alive.

“At some point there can be too much time, but I’m also confused why I do a Wallflowers record or a solo record. Essentially, they’re the same, but The Wallflowers has a sound. I don’t think my solo records inherently have a specific sound.

“I think this record sounds as much like a Wallflower record as any record I’ve done. It’s because we’re following me, and my voice is up front and I’ve written the songs. If you just stay out of the way and listen to me and take direction, I can make almost anybody sound like The Wallflowers. It’s not that complicated.

“The sound itself is not reinventing the wheel. The sound of The Wallflowers is something that supports the songs that I write and suits my voice, which is a very broad, big voice, you can’t bury me, you have to serve it well, and if it’s in the center and we have a similar instrumentation, it’s going to sound like The Wallflowers. It’s not that hard for me to do with a variety of different people.”

One of those people is Shelby Lynne who features on the gorgeous ballad ‘Darlin’ Hold On,’ probably one of the best songs Dylan has written. I wonder aloud why Lynne has not had more success as a solo artist.

“I think success is dependent on what the person wants,” responds Dylan.“I won’t speak for Shelby Lynne, but I don’t think she plays well with others. I think she’s just a pure, genuine artist. I think her career suggests that. I think that her muse and her art is most important to her. That in itself, that makes her a maverick, and mavericks don’t generally succeed in a large scale if that’s what anybody wants them to do. You can’t fit that into a square peg. I would never speak for her.

I believe she could be a bigger artist if that’s what she had wanted. I have no doubt that she could do that in a heartbeat if that’s what she wanted to. I think she could do anything she wanted to do.”

Because I have just finished watching the final series of Bosch, the superb detective series set in Los Angeles I suggest that the album title, Exit Wounds, very much an LA connotation.

“Well, that title is very pliable, and it does lend itself to all the material on the record,” says Dylan. I look at songs that at the end of the day, end of the record, they’re going to add up to a larger picture. Not unlike scenes in a movie.

“We’re all changing, we’re all transitioning. We’re all going somewhere after what we’re all going through. We’re all different forever. Exit wounds, to me, does not mean something that is meant to be an albatross or bad. When you change, those are wounds that you take with you.”

Depending on what sort of bullet hits you, the exit wound can be bigger than the entry wound, can’t it?

“Well, you might know more about ballistics than me. I don’t know.

I also assume if you’ve got exit wounds, hopefully you’ve survived.

Otherwise, I think they call that death.”

The lead off song, ‘Maybe Your Heart’s Not In It Anymore’, could be about a relationship or it could be about Dylan’s career.

“Well, you just said it perfect,” he notes. “It could be about anything.

When you write these songs and you have a theme and an idea you want to express and explore, you often couch it in a relationship. Or maybe it’s your country. Or maybe it’s your friend, or maybe it’s your health. There could be numerous interpretations. If I’ve done the song correctly and I got over what I was trying to do, they’re all going to work.”

Exit Wounds is available via New West Records.

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FILLING THE

VOID

A visit to Nashville’s AmericanaFest helped David Garnham to feel he belonged By Steve Bell

I

t’s funny where life’s detours take you sometimes. Rising Darwin Americana outfit David Garnham & The Reasons To Live began its life 15 years ago as a fun, countryside-project in Garnham’s adopted Top End hometown (the singer having been raised in country Victoria and cut his teeth there playing “straight-up guitar pop”), but now it’s not only his main focus but has taken him to the epicentre of all things Americana: Nashville.

A couple of years ago Garnham and his bandmates were selected to showcase at AmericanaFest 2019 in Tennessee’s music mecca, which - as the name suggests - is a celebration of all things Americana, that glorious and often amorphous potpourri of roots, folk, country, blues and soul-based music. And despite the name of the genre having a distinctly geographical bent, Garnham’s crew discovered that once there you didn’t have to be from the US of A to be accepted into the fold.

“We had an incredible time,” he marvels. “Chatting to a few friends who’ve played there a lot, when you play as an outsider - or someone from overseas - it seems that the American crowds are on your side as soon as you’ve walked into the room. You don’t have to win them over - which can sometimes feel like it’s a thing in Australia - but in terms of the crowds we played to they just loved hearing the Aussie accent. We definitely felt a lot of love.

“And I think that was a great experience because like a lot of people - not just artists - I have suffered from the imposter syndrome, and sometimes with the band coming from Darwin it can sometimes feel like we’re not taken seriously on a larger perspective.

“Obviously that’s in our own heads, but going to Nashville and playing some shows and feeling the love from people over there - and actually just getting through it, getting to Nashville and playing well - made us walk out of the experience thinking, ‘Oh yeah, maybe I do belong in this game’.”

That newfound confidence - and the indubitable talent and songcraft that got them there in the first place - echoes throughout the band’s excellent new album Noise To Fill The Void, which they recorded with legendary local country figure Shane Nicholson producing at his Sound Hole studio.

Sonically, the album is genuine, authentic Americana - as much due to the song structures and arrangements as the traditional

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instrumentation (dobro, banjo, double bass and so forth) - but the lyrics (and vocals) carry a definite Australian essence, with plenty of references to footy, RBTs and distinctly Aussie TV shows. Which is not all that surprising when you realise the kind of artists which drew Garnham towards the genre.

“I love John Prine and Hayes Carll has been another one in recent times, and of course there’s Lucinda Williams,” the singer ponders of his alt-country influences. “In recent times I’ve become obsessed with The Bottle Rockets, but at the same time there’s been a lot of Aussie songwriters who aren’t considered country - not Americana anyway but who’ve put out albums that pushed that way that I really love.

“Probably my number one desert island album is Tim Rogers’ first solo album What Rhymes With Cars And Girls (1999) which has proved really important in my growth - I was listening to that before I was making Americana stuff - and I’m a huge Paul Kelly fan, I think his bluegrass album Foggy Highway (2005) with The Stormwater Boys is probably my favourite PK record.

“It’s those sort of artists who gave me the courage to sing in my own voice and tell my own stories, people gravitate towards authenticity anyway so the best thing is just to be yourself.”

New single ‘Holding Pattern’ exists at the rockier end of the Noise To Fill The Void spectrum, its refrain of “I’m smiling in a shit storm” also proving to be one of Garnham’s own stories, even if not originally envisaged that way.

“It was one of the those tracks where I started it and finished it in 20 minutes - I’ve only had a few of them ever,” Garnham admits. “I was actually in a holding pattern in a plane above Brisbane and as a songwriter you’re always in the back of your mind tinkering with ideas, and I ended up having a flash of inspiration and using the holding pattern as a metaphor for a shitty, destructive relationship - a mate of mine was going through one of those at the time - so I took that hurt and heartbreak and turned it into a not-quite-three-minute pop-rock song.

“But then on reflection afterwards I realised that I was probably really singing about one of my shitty relationships from years earlier, so there was probably a bit of therapy going on that I didn’t realise at the time”.

CONSEQUENCES BE

DAMNED!

It’s all love on Brit-powerhouse Joan Armatrading’s latest album. Making 70 sound like the new 35, Armatrading’s album is a pandemic tonic

By Meg Crawford

W

ith a title like Consequences, you might expect living-legend Joan Armatrading’s 20th album to be laden with heavy topics. It’s not. Fundamentally, Consequences is about love, ranging from the headiness of falling head over (‘Glorious Madness’) to patient, abiding love (‘Already There’). With lyrics like “while you were falling in love, I was already there”, the album’s destined to slay romantics. Which is true to form.

Love has been Armatrading’s topic in trade ever since her debut 1972 album, Whatever’s For Us. “Love is it really – it’s been my theme from day one of writing,” Armatrading says. “I think it’s the case for me and a lot of other songwriters, but love is why we’re here. We’re on this planet to eat bread with people. Yeah, we love nature, we love the trees and the flowers and the different seasons and we love buildings and architecture, but we don’t love them in the same way we love people. We can’t communicate with them in the way that we can communicate with people. We’re here to communicate, to care for, to love, to treasure. Every generation that comes along, that’s what they’re looking for. You see a little child wants the love of its mother, a teenager wants a love of his friends, a grown up wants the love of a partner. The world spins on this.”

Given the heartfelt nature of Armatrading’s songs, it’s tempting to assume they’re confessional. They’re not. For instance, ‘To Anyone Who Will Listen’ is categorically not a songwriter’s plea. Rather, it was prompted by a newspaper article about a man experiencing depression.

Again, on form. Armatrading has always been fiercely private. We know that she’s married to artist Maggie Butler, lives in Surrey where she owns and operates her own recording studio, Bumpkin Records, but not too much else on a personal note.

Something else that shouldn’t come as a surprise is the fact that Consequences is all Armatrading – go to whoa. “It seems strange to people, but it’s what I’ve been doing for years,” she explains. “People just don’t realise that. My first album came out in 1972, and I started producing myself in 1986, and I’ve been producing myself ever since. But even the albums before that – even though I didn’t get a production credit – I was producing those with the producer, and I’ve always written my own songs. To me, it’s not a huge undertaking. When I do my demos, I play everything myself anyway, so, I knew at some point I would do that on a record.

Then, I decided in 2003 that this was the time and from then on, that’s what’s happened. On a couple of the albums, I’ve had a drummer, but then I decided, ‘Well, I’ll just program drums’. But everything else you hear, it’s me.”

But then, Armatrading’s always done it her own way. Black, female, gay – Armatrading never compromised. Early days, a label executive made the error of suggesting that Armatrading should change her name and image – she never wore makeup and was happy wearing jeans onstage. Armatrading stood her ground. It paid off – she became the first Black British woman to make it in the US. How did she come to be so staunchly authentic? Armatrading makes it sound as easy as breathing. “Because that’s how I am,” she notes. “I don’t know any other way. I didn’t need to learn to be this, this is me. It’s very easy to not have somebody say, ‘be something else’, because I don’t know what that something else is. I have no experience about something else.”

Another point of distinction is that not once in her celebrated career has Armatrading ever experienced writer’s block. Is there a writer’s ritual or practice to shore it up? Nope, but there is one rule.

“If I start a song, I must finish it. Good, bad or indifferent, I must finish. That’s the only thing I do.

Otherwise, I wait for the muse. If I write for six months and I don’t write for a year, it doesn’t bother me. I don’t think, ‘Oh no, I need to write’, because I know how it works. One day, I’ll just think again, ‘I’ve got to write’ and then I’m writing, writing, writing, writing. When that’s finished I just wait. It’s almost like eating. You eat, you feel full, you stop eating, you’re satisfied. Then, I just wait for the next meal.”

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HIDE AND SEEK Snowy Mountainsbased duo Montgomery Church team up with an American producer

By Michael Smith couting around for the right producer for their second album, Where the Quiet Can Hide, the Snowy Mountains-based duo Montgomery Church – Cielle Montgomery and James Church fortuitously discovered that their choice was far more accessible than they’d expected.

“We recorded the album just as we all went into lockdown last year,” Church begins, “and so we ended up doing all of our parts at home and send them out remotely.” “When we first tried to make contact with Erick, he was still based in Nashville,” Cielle adds. “We were just admirers of his work, so we had intended to go to Nashville and record with him there and a few weeks out we sent an email to him and he replied ‘I’m actually moving out to Australia in a few months’ time and I’d love to work with you.’ He now lives in Victoria and so we got to record it here, though we didn’t expect to do it remotely of course.”

Born in smalltown Minnesota, the multiple Grammy nominee Erick Jaskowiak moved to Nashville in 1999, where he produced artists as diverse as Shooter Jennings, Crooked Still and Alison Brown, as well as The Waifs’ 2007 album Sun Dirt Water, Colin Hay’s 2009 album American Sunshine and, as he notes on his website, “In January of 2016 amidst a Nashville ice storm I produced and recorded this gorgeous album with Australian folk band The Mae Trio,” 2017’s Take Care, Take Cover.

While the rest of the musicians who came on board the recording are Australian, Jaskowiak hooked the duo up with 12time IBMA Fiddle Player of the Year, blind American bluegrass musician Michael Cleveland.

“When we spoke to him about wanting a fiddle player,” Church continues, “he actually gave us a list of people and we spent a fair bit of time going through them seeing who we liked. So it took a while to find Michael but he was easy enough to contact and was keen to do it. So he was the most remote remote! He played exactly what we were after.”

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Photo byAndreas Proesser.

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Also contributing fiddle and strings to one song – ‘The Cowboy Song’ – is Gabi Blisset, while Rachel Johnston plays cello, Paddy Montgomery mandolin and cittern, Isaac Gunnoo double bass and Syd Green, who produced the debut Montgomery Church album, 2018’s In the Shadow of the Mountain, added percussion. Together they provide really subtle musical textures to the shimmering, bittersweet sound of Where The Quiet Can Hide, a collection of songs “written in our little house of stone,” as they say in the liner notes, “inspired by our surroundings, our heroes and our little boy, Arlo.” Listening to the record, it’s obvious how deeply Montgomery and Church have imbibed of the deep well of contemporary Americana, but there’s one song that is obviously inspired by their Snowy Mountains home – ‘The Great Divide’.

“There are definitely some mountain themes and the wind, fields and seasons,” Cielle explains, “that are all very much part of where we live, but I guess they could relate to anywhere. ‘The Great Divide’ is very much about the Snowy Mountains scheme and ‘What I’ve Come to Know (Arlo’s Song)’ is about our life in our little house of stone. That was probably one of the hardest things we’ve written.”

“Most of the time one of us will get most of the way there,” says Church explaining the Montgomery Church songwriting process, “and then present it to the other person to approve of, and then hopefully edit it until both parties are happy. Sometimes things come together pretty much on your own, but

generally it’s so useful to have someone who hasn’t heard it and aren’t attached to come in and say yes or no.” “We both have our strengths and weaknesses as songwriters,” adds Cielle, “so it’s helpful. James can play a lot more chords on guitar than I do, so we bounce things off each other and that helps the process.”

“At this point I feel that females can access an emotion and can express it without having to explain it,” Church admits. “I’m a much more wordy songwriter and generally what Cielle will do with my songs is chip away at them and get rid of the things that don’t need to be there. She gets to the heart of it. Sometimes what I want to do to her songs is to make something more complex where the emotion is sitting right there for you,” he chuckles. “If that makes sense. That might just be us.

“I started ‘Louise’ and the path I was going down was a lot more like songs that had been written before about a guy who was sitting in a bar rueing his lost relationship, but Cielle heard a different angle on it which ended up being the way it’s drawn now. It’s not about someone we know, but we’ve drawn on all different parts of people we do know, so it ends up being someone that everyone knows.”

While Montgomery Church are as keen as any musical artists to get out there and perform Where the Quiet can Hide, they’re quite content to accept the strictures on live performance due to the pandemic to enjoy a bit of home life with baby Arlo – keep an eye on dates when life returns to some sort of normality.

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aint Sister’s Morgan MacIntyre and Gemma Doherty are ready, once this call is over to head up from Dublin to Doherty’s hometown of Derry for some outside-ofstores appearances (the inside of stores still off-limits in Ireland and the UK).

THE END IS N

Saint Sister’s new album Where I of their dest

More than ready actually. Consider them very eager.

“We’ve been doing a bit of singing and a bit of playing together but the first time we actually heard noise back for a long time was Friday when we sang on the street, busking basically,” says MacIntyre, the Belfast-born, singing/songwriting half of the team. “We got a few claps.”

It was a bit more than claps though for MacIntyre. “I knew that I missed gigs and I knew that I missed the band, but that little moment of actually hearing something back, after you’ve paused, was amazing.”

Just how out of practice the Dublin-based Northern Irelanders are becomes clear when I ask how much money they made from the busking and they confess that they didn’t put a hat or case down.

“We are the worst buskers ever,” says Doherty, the singing/harp playing/production half.

They can’t blame anyone else, and not just for the busking money failure either, the pair now fully responsible for the release of their new album, the second as Saint Sister, as their own label/management/artist/producer.

“The important thing for us is musically we get to make the decisions that we want, and it’s just between the two of us how things go,” says Doherty. “We are really grateful to be in that position, and that has to be where it all starts. Everything after that is a bonus.”

That is definitely where it all starts for the album, Where I Should End, as being in charge of their destiny has made a clear difference to the record, its diversity and expansion into areas not previously associated with their style of folk-meeting-electronics the kind of thing that might give pause to a suit at a label. This time around they’ve got outright pop for example in one song, and more complex arrangements and orchestration.

It was the freedom to sometimes cut against the stories being told, or to play against the innate attractiveness of their combined voices. This is an album that has anger and hurt in it but lyrically and sonically you could easily slide by it on an individual listen, just revelling instead in the gentle sweetness and deceptively simple surface.

“There is quite a diverse palette on the album, in terms of instrumentation and the way each song lives in its own world a little,” says Doherty. “It’s the freedom to go into the space in the studio and see how things go, in you’re not locked into anything before you go in there. We had no idea where we wanted to go but there is still that freedom in the room.”

“One thing that we didn’t know, and I don’t think we were consciously doing it at the time, but on reflection I think it’s something we got right, is the moments that I think are the angriest or the saddest in terms of the lyrics, are kind of actually the most stripped back in terms of the production,” says MacIntyre. “And then there are moments, in terms of the arrangement, and I’m thinking

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mostly of when the strings do their thing, there’s very little crossover in terms of the storytelling of the lyrics and the instrumental underneath.

“I think that helped us reach a little balance where neither one is overhanging the other into overdramatics. For example, ‘Manchester Air’, that’s probably the saddest, the verses at the end of that, but after that the strings do their thing as a response rather than building up the lyrics too early.”

One thing that doesn’t happen on the album is the obvious route - in lyrics, arrangement or sound, and ‘Manchester Air’ is a good example. It’s not just the deployment of the strings long after most would have brought them in to amp up emotion, or simply tell us

NOT IN SIGHT

I Should End finds them in charge tiny - By Bernard Zuel

Given the strong feelings held by the pair, and the long history of stories of thousands of young and not so young women forced to take such a journey, it could have easily gone into dark and angry territory. It certainly would have been justified.

Instead, while there is a haunting tenor to it all, the central character is not alone, her supportive partner there with her; it’s not entirely clear what happens as the song ends; and we are never really directed into how we are supposed to feel. You could say it works as a folk tale might, the story unfurling before us without comment.

“I think there’s a number of reasons why the song took that course,” says MacIntyre.

“First of all, I feel angry and frustrated about a load of different political things, and I try to write about them from that standpoint, but it’s never quite worked. There are a lot of amazing angry political protest songs but I’m not a very good angry political protest songwriter.”

While she says she would love to hear a song about the shameful history and the many modern stories around this done with the heat of anger “what I like to do is write from the personal and paint little vignettes rather than trying too broad strokes of a whole movement”.

“The people who are affected by the eighth amendment, and across the world the people who are affected by these kind of healthcare struggles, they are not always angry all the time,” MacIntyre explains. “They’ve led complicated lives and they’ve had moments of joy and moments of sadness and it’s all wrapped up, that’s what each person is, all those things, and that’s the way in for me.”

how to feel, but the way the story of crossing the Irish Sea to procure an abortion – a story familiar to generations of Irish women - does not hit the expected marks, nor is its anger and despair ever explicit.

It takes a bit of nerve to not do the expected, especially with a story like this.

“With ‘Manchester Air’, Morgan wrote that full set of lyrics and melody before there was any question of arrangement or anything like that,” says Doherty. “They were so beautiful and powerful and tell their own story and it’s in verse structure and a song like that, and like ‘The Place That I Work’ [which they sing with Irish singer Lisa Hannigan] that’s how they should be. They are folk songs

in structure and it felt really important to honour that, to give the words the space and then the music and the words don’t have to be shouting over each other.”

Another of the fascinating things about ‘Manchester Air’, and the choices Doherty and MacIntyre made, is the context in which it was created. The song was written in the period leading up to the Irish republic’s 2018 referendum on repeal of the eighth amendment of the constitution, which in effect barred abortion. Furthermore, Doherty and MacIntyre were intimately aware of the entrenched conservatism of their native Northern Ireland which had much more restrictive policies on things like marriage equality and abortion than the rest of the UK.

Long-time residents of the Republic since each moved to Dublin to study, Doherty and MacIntyre weren’t passive observers in 2018, and like the song and the album on which it appears, their experience went in unexpected directions.

“It was a strange time in the lead up [to the vote on the amendment] and we were feeling very angry, but there was also an amazing sense of community when we were out canvassing and going door to door,” MacIntyre says. “The week [of the vote] itself, we were on an island canvassing there and each of us had someone who was fluent in Irish, and that in itself there were some incredible moments of sharing.

“I don’t think [‘Manchester Air’] would have made sense any other way for me.”

Where I Should End is out now through ie.too 33

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“We’re just so happy with the musicians we picked for this record, they worked so well together.”

Vika Bull

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“I think we know what we will sing and what we won’t sing.

We’re very picky about the melodies and the words. We’re women in our 50s, we want to be relevant to ourselves.”

Linda Bull

THE WAIT IS OVER

– Vika & Linda deliver their first album of original material in 19 years

By Jeff Jenkins

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hen Linda Bull was asked to describe the past 12 months, she turned to Monty Python.

“Somehow we managed to shine out when all around was dark,” she said.

And it’s true. As the world crumbled around us in 2020, Vika & Linda soared to new heights. Their ‘Iso City Limits’ clip went viral, with more than five million views in two weeks. Then they scored their first number one album when their anthology ‘Akilotoa debuted at number one. Three months later, their gospel collection, Sunday (The Gospel According To Iso), landed at number two.

But Linda’s quote was no arrogant boast. Rather, it was a reference to Monty Python’s Oscar Wilde sketch, where Wilde, James McNeill Whistler and George Bernard Shaw are all trying to outdo each other and impress the Prince with their clever sayings.

When Wilde is congratulated on his latest play, he remarks: “There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.”

Whistler responds: “There is only one thing in the world worse than being witty, and that is not being witty.”

The one-upmanship continues until Whistler tells the Prince he is like a stream of bat’s piss. When the Prince is offended, Whistler blames Wilde, who manages to pass the blame on to Shaw, who saves the situation by saying, “I merely meant, Your Majesty, that you shine out like a shaft of gold when all around is dark.”

Vika & Linda’s voices have provided comfort in a time of crisis. As The Australian’s music writer Andrew McMillen noted, “Soon it would become apparent that 2020 was the year that many artistic careers slid to a pause, but not that of Vika & Linda, whose soulful vocal prowess became a radiant beacon of warmth.”

While they were compiling their anthology and recording the gospel covers, the Bull sisters were also busy gathering songs for their new album.

The record showcases Australian songwriters, with contributions from Paul Kelly, Don Walker, Kasey Chambers, Bernard Fanning, Mick Thomas, Ben Salter, Augie March’s Glenn Richards, The Living End’s Chris Cheney, Neil Murray and Matt Walker, as well as a gem called ‘Teeth’, written by Mark Seymour’s daughter, Eva. “That was a real surprise,” Vika says. “It was one of the last songs that came in. Making this record kept getting delayed – something kept holding us up and then COVID came along. Linda was talking to Paul Kelly who said, ‘Sometimes these things happen for a reason.’ And I think ‘Teeth’ was one of the reasons.”

In July, Vika & Linda released not one but two singles simultaneously – ‘Raise Your Hand’, written by Kasey Chambers, and Ben Salter’s ‘My Heart Is In The Wrong Place’.

‘Raise Your Hand’ is already a live favourite. “As soon as we sing ‘raise your hand’, the hands go up in the crowd,” Linda smiles. “This was one of the first songs that came in when we started making the record. We said to Kasey, ‘We haven’t got any songs in our back pocket, can you get the ball rolling?’ She responded straight away and sent five songs.

‘Raise Your Hand’, which she wrote with Brandon Dodd, was a rough hotel recording on her iPhone and I immediately thought, ‘Oh my gosh, this is a great start.’”

Chambers says: “Hearing Vika & Linda’s voices together is still one of my favourite sounds ever.”

Vika fell in love with ‘My Heart Is In The Wrong Place’ as soon as she heard Ben Salter’s demo.

The song starts: Bobbi messaged me and said I messed up again and I wish I was dead I’m growing older, I have so many doubts I said, I know what you are talking about “It’s one of those songs that everyone can relate to,” Vika says.

“Sometimes you feel like a bit of a loser, sometimes you feel like giving up, but something in you just makes you keep pushing through.”

And Toni called me on the telephone Said I’m tired all the time and I feel so alone And the world is falling down on my TV screen I said, hey Toni, I think I know what you mean “The music industry is such a tough business,” Vika continues. “You go in and out of fashion, everyone loves you one minute and they hate you the next; you’re groovy then you’re the biggest dag and you think, I just can’t be stuffed anymore. The thing about this song is you can’t give up.”

Even though sometimes your heart is in the wrong place Feels like you’re running in the wrong race Even though you feel like such a damn disgrace Just don’t give up the chase Vika & Linda didn’t write any of the songs on the album. “I tried really hard,” Linda reveals, “but I couldn’t quite get it over the line. I wasn’t happy and Vika wasn’t happy with what I’d written. But next record, Vika and I are determined to get in a room together and write a song.”

“I’m sure we could knock out a tune,” Vika says, “but these ones were so much better.”

No matter who’s written the songs, the sisters make them their own.

As Mick Thomas points out in the liner notes, it’s the voices that are the star of this show.

“These voices have the ability to make a new tune sound timeless, to make something personal and private seem universal and classic,” Thomas writes. “Like gospel music itself, comfortable and reassuring, at the same time inspired and elevated. These are the voices you need to get you through. And the songs can come along for the ride.”

Also, along for the ride – producers Steven Schram and Cameron Bruce, guitarist Ashley Naylor, bass player Richard Bradbeer and drummer Lachlan O’Kane, while special guest Davey Lane played on two tracks, ‘Since You’re Gone’ and ‘The Long View’. >>> 35

>>> “Aren’t they fabulous,” Vika says when the band is mentioned.

“We’re just so happy with the musicians we picked for this record, they worked so well together. Steve Schram was actually responsible for a lot of that. He suggested Lachlan and Richard.”

“We’d worked with Schramy on the last four Paul Kelly records, so he knew our voices,” Linda adds. “He knew the band that he chose would really support our voices as well as bringing in a bit of a different sound.”

It’s a beautiful record, both tough and tender. Do they do anything to create the vibe in the studio?

“The vibe is there when we start to sing,” Vika says. “The band picks up on our energy and how we approach a song and they come with us.”

Linda: The boys just set up and play. Vika and I go out and make tea and then come in and sing.

Vika: We sound like the tea ladies.

Linda: That could be the name for the band!

Vika: Yeah, the Tea Ladies.

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“These voices have the ability to make a new tune sound timeless, to make something personal and private seem universal and classic.”

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Mick Thomas

Vika provides an insight into how seriously the sisters take their craft when they talk about the song that Mick Thomas wrote for the record, ‘Hand Grenade’.

“Linda had to eat dry biscuits, so we couldn’t hear the saliva when she was singing all the words.”

“You can actually hear everything in my voice,” Linda explains. “It was a little bit confronting because I was so close to the microphone.”

One of the song’s many revealing lines is: “I’m getting better as I get older.”

“And you do,” Vika believes. “As you get older, if you’ve looked after yourself, you do get better. And you can tell stories much better. I love young people – they just go for it, they’re wild and you can hear it.

Even when I listen to our old stuff now, I don’t cringe anymore, I can hear that youthfulness, but I can also hear the inexperience. But I still enjoy that.”

‘Hand Grenade’ also has a reference to “over-thinking”, which made Vika smile. “Linda is the biggest over-thinker – she over-thinks everything, it drives me crazy. I don’t. I’m just, ‘love it, hate it, sing it once, I’m outta here’.”

“But Vika is willing to have a go at anything,” her younger sister says, “and that’s what I love about her. Even though there’s some things I’ll drive her crazy with, she’ll still have a go. And I think that’s important in creative partnerships – seeing it through to the end. We can play every version of it and then we’ll know that at least we’ve ticked all the boxes. I think that’s why we work well together – I want to try everything, while Vika just wants to do it like that [clicking fingers].”

The sisters highlight the role their manager, Lisa Palermo, plays in the creative process. “We sit down together every week, just the three of us, and have very long meetings. I think Lisa understands that I’m the couldn’t-give-a-fuck person, while Linda will say, “Well, actually, I do.”

Lisa will sit there and listen to both sides. She’s had a lot to do with this album – picking songs. She’s been our mediator. Otherwise, we would have killed each other.”

The waiting, as Tom Petty observed, is the hardest part. >>>

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THE WAIT LIST

>>> It’s hard to believe, but this is Vika & Linda’s first album of original material in 19 years, since 2002’s Love Is Mighty Close. Not that they’ve been idle. Since their last studio set, as well as the anthology and gospel album, they have released a live album, Tell The Angels, a Liberation Blue collection, Between Two Shores, toured Brazil with C.W. Stoneking, sang at the AFL Grand Final, been inducted into the Music Victoria Hall of Fame, and released their debut album on vinyl for the first time.

Vika also toured the world in At Last: The Etta James Story, and Linda starred in Stardust: The Songs of Willie Nelson. And Vika & Linda became key members of Paul Kelly’s band and appeared on his charttopping albums Life Is Fine and Nature.

Are 2021’s Vika & Linda very different to how they were in 2002?

“We’ve changed a lot,” Vika says. “For a start, I used to hate recording.

But I really enjoyed making this record. I think I’ve become a lot more patient and realised that songs take time to evolve. I actually want to get back in there and make the next one.”

“I think we’re more decisive,” Linda adds. “I think we know what we will sing and what we won’t sing. We’re very picky about the melodies and the words. We’re women in our 50s, we want to be relevant to ourselves.”

The record has a couple of allusions to waiting. There’s even a song called ‘Lover Don’t Keep Me Waiting’, which was written for the sisters

by The Living End’s Chris Cheney. Then there’s ‘Like A Landslide’, written by Bernard Fanning, which Vika says “is about being on the road and you can’t wait to get home and be with your loved one again”.

As the Chinese proverb says, Wait long, strike fast.

Despite the sisters’ easygoing nature, there was a heaviness surrounding the release of this record. Nineteen years between albums? It better be good.

The wait. The weight.

“It was actually our manager, Lisa, who came up with The Wait,” Vika reveals. “We ummed and ahhed for a long time about the title. It was Rabbit Hole, then Raise Your Hand, then The Long View. Then we looked through all the lyrics.”

Linda: We liked Towering Flowers for a while.

Vika: Not The Same Girl, maybe, Not The Same World. Then we were driving along in the car one day and Lisa said The Wait.

Linda: That said it all. It took us three times to make this record, it kept getting delayed. And we’ve been waiting 19 years.

Vika: Nineteen years between albums with all-new original songs.

That’s why The Wait was appropriate.

Linda: Waiting for more songs. Waiting for the right opportunity.

Hanging around for this long!

Vika: It was a good title for us.

The wait is over. The wait was worth it.

In that same Monty Python skit, Oscar Wilde compliments the Prince by saying he is “like a big jam doughnut with cream on the top”.

“I beg your pardon?” the perplexed Prince snaps at Wilde, who attributes the comment to Whistler.

“Well, Your Highness,” Whistler says, trying to clarify the comparison, “what I meant was that, like a doughnut, um, your arrival gives us pleasure and your departure only makes us hungrier for more.”

It might not be overly clever or your typical go-to line for a music reviewer, but it’s a neat summation of The Wait.

Album of the year? No doubt.

The Wait is released September 17 on Bloodlines. Vika & Linda are playing at Bluesfest 2022.

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RAISE YOUR HAND

(written by Kasey Chambers & Brandon Dodd) Linda: It’s anthemic – raise your hand, speak up, say what you want, don’t be ignored. With all that’s going on in the world, it’s relevant in so many ways.

LIKE A LANDSLIDE (Bernard Fanning)

Vika: To be able to sing a song, you have to have lived it. And we have lived this song – we’ve been on the road since we were 18 years old, so we totally understand what this song is about.

TEETH (Eva Seymour) Linda: Eva wrote it when she was 19. We wanted to sing a song from a young woman’s perspective but as older women.

We could relate to it because you can fall in and out of love at any age.

MY HEART IS IN THE WRONG PLACE (Ben Salter) Vika: The thing about this song is you can’t give up. I think that’s why Linda and I have had such a long career – we’ve never listened to the knockers. We just keep pushing through.

NOT THE SAME GIRL (Glenn Richards) Vika: Linda and Ash Naylor have a great connection. Ash on the 12-string and Linda’s vocal with the unusual harmony made it one of the most beautiful songs on the album, though it was the trickiest to get right.

SINCE YOU’RE GONE (Matt Walker & Neil Murray)

Vika: I said to Matt, “If you don’t want me to sing it, just tell me and I’ll get Linda to sing it.” And he said, “Well, actually, can Linda please sing it?” I was a bit offended! But I think Matt wanted to hear Linda rock out a bit. Linda is always singing the ballad, but it’s great to hear her just go for it.

PIGFACE AND CALENDULA (Glenn Richards) Linda: It’s an intriguing title. It’s about being in the shadows and then coming up.

I MISS YOU IN THE NIGHT (Don Walker)

Linda: What I like about this song is that normally when Vika and I sing together we can see each other, but with this one, we couldn’t. So, we were just relying on where our voices were going to go naturally. There was one point where it all went a bit crazy, but we like that.

LOVER DON’T KEEP ME WAITING (Chris Cheney) Vika: I just love singing it – it’s so fast and fun and exciting. And it’s a great lyric, too. “You better make your move before I go and change my mind.” A couple of strong women just going, make up your mind, I ain’t sticking around – if you can’t make up your mind, I’m outta here. We could relate to that.

HAND GRENADE (Mick Thomas & Jemma Rowlands)

Linda: It’s a beautiful ballad but it packs a punch with the lyric.

RABBIT HOLE (Kasey Chambers & Brandon Dodd) Vika: My favourite song on the record. When I sing it, I think about lots of different things: What am I doing here? What the hell’s going on? Why do I feel like this? Why is this happening to me? It has lots of different meanings, which is maybe why it sounds so chaotic. Getting down that rabbit hole and wondering how the hell I’m going to get out.

THE LONG VIEW (Paul Kelly) Linda: A song about temptation. Being torn. Paul writes those songs really well.

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HIT AND RUN

Having released his 50th album Joe Camilleri is hardly ready to retire.

He is working on album 51!

By Brian Wise

“I know how to get up on stage and make an idiot of myself.

I’ve been doing it for 58 years.”

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“It’s about everybody getting on the train and having a good old dance and forget what’s ailing you.”

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Photo by Tania Jovanovic 40

J

oseph Vincent Camilleri is one of the true legends of the Australian music industry. As a teenager in the ‘60s he played blues with the King Bees and later joined the Adderley Smith Blues Band for a year when Broderick Smith was conscripted. Later he played in the Pelaco Brothers, a collective that included Stephen Cummings who went on to form The Sports. In 1975, Camilleri founded Jo Jo Zep & The Falcons, becoming the band’s lead singer as well as co-writing songs and playing saxophone along with Wilbur Wilde. After six studio albums, two live albums and a mini-album (So Young) The Falcons ground to a halt in the early ‘80s only to have Camilleri almost immediately form The Black Sorrows to play zydeco, blues and R&B – all genres that Camilleri loved. (The Falcons had a brief reunion in 2003 for the album Ricochet and a tour).

After Sonola (1984) and Rockin’ Zydeco – albums that featured some great covers – it didn’t take long for Camilleri to find a song writing partner in Nick Smith, who had played with The Kevins and Stephen Cummings. It is a partnership that has lasted more than 35 years, has now produced 17 albums, hit songs such as ‘Hold On To Me,’ ‘Chained To The Wheel,’ ‘Harley and Rose,’ multiple ARIA Awards, and is one of the more remarkable song writing partnerships in Australian music history.

Camilleri explored other musical avenues through The Revelators, Bakelite Radio and The Voodoo Sheiks projects but his main squeeze has always been The Black Sorrows. Now, thirty-six years after the band’s formation, Camilleri has released its latest album, St Georges Road, and celebrated his 50th album.

“I’m doing it for a number of reasons,” says Camilleri when I ask him what motivates him these days. “First of all, I still love music. If I’m not playing my music, I’m playing someone else’s music. I’m trying to find something in that. I’m still trying to write things that have some value, or go places where I haven’t been before, still trying to do all those things.

“But what’s happened in the last ten years is I’ve become a music fan again, more interested in not so much other people’s music but just listening to music. I’m not a follower of anybody, really. There are people that my ears will prick up and it’s a broader net. I never would have thought that classical would enter my record collection, but it has. I’m still buying blues records, still trying to find something to say through some of the mediums that I really love and respect. I’m not a blues guy, but I play the blues and I love the blues and I like blues, but I’m not one of those purist guys.

“The other thing - it’s all I know. I know how to get up on stage and make an idiot of myself. I’ve been doing it for 58 years, you know.”

If you look at Camilleri’s touring schedule you would have to conclude that he is the hardest working musician in the nation. Even between bands and recording projects Camilleri has never been afraid of hard work. For a while he even worked at a café and at the Victoria Market, hauling crates of vegetables.

“That was pretty tough,” he recalls. “When I was at the Victoria Market that was pretty tough because there were a few bombings. “There was a bit of argie-bargie going on there, but that wasn’t for me.”

“Pretty much everything that I’ve done has been accidental,” he continues. “Meeting Nick Smith at AAV. He was in another studio. We were in the toilets. He introduces himself while we’re washing our hands.

Then it seemed years later we have written 300 or 400 songs and we’ve had a wonderful journey together. So, you wouldn’t think that. I was recording, ‘So Young’.”

Smith was playing in Melbourne indie band The Kevins when that fateful meeting with Camilleri took place. I have referred to Smith as Camilleri’s ‘secret weapon’, penning the lyrics to Joe’s melodies. The new album, St Georges Road is yet another example of the strength of the partnership with Joe providing some classic riffs and Nick providing lyrics, often populated by an array of interesting characters.

“He’s doing all the lyrics. I’m doing all the music,” explains Camilleri about the song writing partnership. “It never used to be like that, but it just became like that and it’s fine. I think that the really nice thing is we know our roles now. He’s helped me out with melodies a lot as well. He’s really good with that too. And the nice thing about me and Nick, like any writers I imagine, you’re really good friends.”

By the time the Camilleri-Smith partnership began the third Black Sorrows album there had already been two albums of excellent covers.

A Place In The World, released in 1985, had 11 co-compositions and only one cover (a nod to Joe’s love of New Orleans music in ‘Let The Four Winds Blow’).

“Then we made A Place in the World, and that got us back on our feet,” explains Camilleri, “because we had some really nice songs, but not a very great recording of the songs, but a really lovely little record. Then we made Dear Children in a proper studio and then we got away a little bit. We had some success and got a release with CBS. Of course, that gave us the wonderful Hold Onto Me album and then Harley and Rose.

Then we were playing all over the world.”

“Of course, music taste keeps changing,” he continues. “It keeps evolving, and here I am now. I’m not trying to recapture those days. The thing I’m trying to do is trying to write the best songs I can write and have a band that’s really joyful to play with and it’s not hard work. You’ve seen us play. It’s never hard. It’s all about entertaining an audience. It’s never about the songs even, even though you need the songs. It’s about everybody getting on the train and having a good old dance and forget what’s ailing you.”

For the new album Camilleri decided to revisit the past one more time by calling in his first producer, Englishman Peter Solley who not only had impressive credentials as a musician and producer but also ran a very successful gelato business after moving to America (something that would appeal to Camilleri’s entrepreneurial spirit).

“It was by accident because he just wanted room and board,”Joe says of the reunion with Solley, “because he had a world ticket and he wanted to come to Australia. “So, he stayed here for about three weeks. We got on really well and we always had. When we were doing Screaming Targets, we became really close. I went to Miami and recorded at Criteria Studios with him and he knows what he’s doing and that’s what I like about him and he believes in what he’s doing so that makes it even better. He said, ‘Okay, I’ll come down and we’ll make this record and it’ll probably be my last record’, he said as far as he was concerned. And so, he came down and we made this record and it was a real eyeopener. I know a lot more not that I want to be anybody’s producer anyway - but I’ve learned a lot about how to go about things in a different way than I thought.

“When you have a producer that you can trust, he can tell you to stop grazing. All of a sudden, I’m just a musician and he can tell me the same thing, which I really liked. I really thought that Saint Georges Road was better for it. So, it was fun to do. Nothing was hard. A couple of times I challenged him on something that I thought was really necessary for me, and he would try it and then say, “No. No, we won’t be having any of that.”

“The day we finished Saint Georges Road we just sat there and played it back, and it really felt like a record. ‘St. Georges Road’ was the last song we played and I realised I mightn’t see him again. So, the song had a bigger feeling all of a sudden to me. He said he’s now had his both shots and he’s playing tennis again, so I figure he’s got another 10 years to live so he’ll be a pain in the ass to someone.

“Like that moment was really sad for me because we’re really good friends and we love similar things and when you’re hanging around with someone, you don’t need to sort of say much, you just enjoy their presence.”

Why the title Saint Georges Road?

“It was to hang it on something I guess, and we had the cover and it felt like it was sort of just walking through your life,” says Camilleri. “It’s a sad song, a sad tale about death and how we embrace that and the fear of it. I just thought that was a good title. There was that time when we lost a lot of people and we started writing that song.”

Camilleri adds that the song was inspired by thoughts of the late Chris Wilson, an institution on the Melbourne music scene.

“Well, he instigated the song,” says Camilleri. “It all started because we all have a love for Chris Wilson. Then Nick’s mother passed away, my brother passed away. It was to tip your hat to the people that we loved the most, whether you knew them well or not, you knew of them, and Sweet Princes, you know. It just felt sort of right to call it that. I didn’t know where Chris Wilson lived really, but it was in that world, in that area. I had the music and it just felt like it was a good time for something like that from us.”

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WHAT, DO YOU KNOW

JOE?

Not many artists release five albums, let alone 50. To mark the release of his 50th album, Saint Georges Road, here are 50 things you might not know about Joe Camilleri.

By Jeff Jenkins 1. Joe was born in Malta in 1948. He is one of 10 children, with six sisters and three brothers.

2. He moved to Australia in 1950 and grew up in Port Melbourne.

3. He left school at the age of 13.

4. Joe lied about his age to get his first job, at a cutlery factory called Myttons. Joe was part of the polishing line.

5. He played bass in his first band, The Drollies, in 1964.

6. The Drollies’ second gig was a mod ball at Caulfield Town Hall. Also on the bill was The King Bees, featuring guitarist Peter Starkie (who became a founding member of Skyhooks) and bass player Dave Flett (who later joined the Captain Matchbox Whoopee Band). The King Bees didn’t have a singer, so they asked Joe to join.

7. Joe was 23 when he bought his first sax, for $32 from Clemens in Russell Street.

8. In the early ’70s, Joe was a member of the Adderley Smith Blues Band (with Kerryn Tolhurst, who later formed The Dingoes and produced The Black Sorrows’ Lucky Charm); Lipp And The Double Dekker Brothers (with Peter Starkie, Dave Flett and Jane Clifton) and the Sharks (with Eric Gradman).

9. In 1973, Joe was part of Roger Rocket And His Millionaires with Dave Flett and Peter Starkie, a band put together to back Paul Madigan’s stripper wife, Mary “Doody” Scott Pilkington, on a tour of WA mining towns.

10. Back in Melbourne, Joe joined The Pelaco Brothers, a band featuring Stephen Cummings, Peter Lillie and future Triple R identity Johnny Topper.

11. Joe’s mum called him “Zep”, short for “Joseph”, so he started calling himself “Jo Zep”. For a short time, he called himself “Jo Soap”. He then considered “Joe White”, before coming up with Jo Jo Zep. 12. Joe has also used the name “Joey Vincent”.

13. As Jo Jo Zep, Joe made his first Countdown appearance on their 1975 Christmas show, performing the first Jo Jo Zep single, a cover of Chuck Berry’s ‘Run Rudolph Run’, credited to Jo Jo Zep and His Little Helpers.

14. The first Jo Jo Zep and The Falcons album, 1977’s Don’t Waste It, was produced by Ross Wilson.

15. Original Skyhooks singer Steve Hill was a manager of The Falcons.

16. Joe produced The Sports debut album, 1978’s Reckless.

17. Elvis Costello covered The Falcons’ 1978 single, ‘So Young’.

18. Joe played sax on Skyhooks’ ‘Hotel Hell’ on their 1978 album, Guilty Until Proven Insane.

19. Joe estimates that the Falcons made more than $1 million in 1979. He received $15,000.

20. The Falcons toured the US in 1980. At their biggest gig, a festival at the Oakland Coliseum with Journey, Black Sabbath and Cheap Trick, the crowd threw missiles at Joe. He said: “Is it any wonder your parents lost the Vietnam War – you can’t even shoot straight!” The crowd was not happy.

21. Joe played sax on ‘My Baby’, Cold Chisel’s first US single.

22. Joe co-produced the first Paul Kelly and the Dots album, 1981’s Talk.

23. After Jo Jo Zep finished, Joe got a job at the Footscray fruit market. “In those days, there were no comebacks,” he said. “I thought I was done.”

24. The original Black Sorrows lineup featured Daddy Cool’s Gary Young and Wayne Duncan. The band started at a Melbourne café, Café Neon.

“I was working there, pouring coffees,” Joe explains. “My friend, Chris, who owned the place, said, ‘Why don’t you come and play on a Sunday afternoon?’ I was ‘Joey Vincent’, while Chris was ‘Johnny Coal’. We shared the same taste in music and The Black Sorrows were born.”

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25. Joe started two record labels in the ’80s, Mighty Records and Spirit Records. Spirit released records by Billy Baxter, Steve Hoy, Nick Smith and Jane Clifton.

26. Joe made the first Black Sorrows album, Sonola, for $1300. The opening track was a cover of Van Morrison’s ‘Brown Eyed Girl’.

27. Elvis Costello bought a copy of Sonola at Gaslight Records.

28. Joe didn’t write any of the songs on Sonola.

29. Joe played a miner in Richard Lowenstein’s first feature film, Strikebound.

And he had a cameo (as “Terry Towling Man”) in Dogs In Space, alongside Michael Hutchence.

30. Joe mortgaged his house to make Dear Children, the album that led to his deal with CBS/Sony.

31. Vika and Linda Bull joined the Sorrows for six weeks in 1988. They stayed for six years.

32. Initially, Joe didn’t want to put ‘Chained To The Wheel’ on the Hold On To Me album. “It wasn’t until I found Vika Bull and realised I could make it a male-female thing that I knew it could work.”

33. Hold On To Me and Harley and Rose hit the Top 10 in Norway.

34. John Denver recorded three Black Sorrows songs – ‘Chained To The Wheel’, ‘Hold On To Me’ and ‘The Chosen Ones’. Joe never met him.

35. Joe played on the Icehouse hit ‘Don’t Believe Anymore’.

36. The Black Sorrows won Best Group at the 1990 ARIA Awards.

37. ‘Stir It Up’, the single from the Sorrows best-of album, The Chosen Ones, was a Top 40 hit in Germany.

38. More than 50 people have been members of the Black Sorrows.

39. Joe played a busker in the 1990 movie Return Home, starring Frankie J. Holden and Joe’s then wife, Mickey.

40. When a record executive told Joe to do a radio edit of one of the Black Sorrows songs, saying that six minutes was too long for a single, Joe came back, tossed the CD on his desk and said: “There’s your radio edit – it’s three minutes and 180 seconds.”

41. Joe was inducted into the Victorian Rock Foundation’s Hall of Fame in 1994. Jo Jo Zep and The Falcons were inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame in 2007.

42. Joe produced Tiddas’ second album, 1996’s self-titled set.

43.

Joe and Paul Kelly produced Renée Geyer’s 1999 album, Sweet Life.

44. During his 45-year career, Joe has had just one Top 10 single – ‘Chained To The Wheel’ (number nine in 1989).

45. Ubiquitous drummer Peter Luscombe is Joe’s son-in-law.

46. Joe has released albums with five different acts – Jo Jo Zep and The Falcons, The Black Sorrows, The Revelators, Bakelite Radio and Joe Camilleri/Nicky Bomba.

47. Joe has never released a solo album.

48. Bakelite Radio’s first album was called Bakelite Radio Volume II. Their fourth album was called Bakelite Radio Volume I. 49. Despite releasing 50 albums, Joe has never had a number one album.

His highest-charting album was 1990’s Harley and Rose, which reached number three.

50. Joe has had 13 Top 50 albums and 14 Top 50 singles.

Saint Georges Road is released September 10 on Ambition.

By Jeff Jenkins

THE ENDLESS ROAD Joe Camilleri celebrates his 50th album – with a little help from his friends.

THE BLACK SORROWS

SAINT GEORGES ROAD Ambition

When Joe Camilleri was starting to think about his 50th album, an old friend landed on his doorstep.

It was Peter Solley, the Englishman who produced Camilleri’s first big album – Jo Jo Zep and The Falcons’ Screaming Targets in 1979.

“He came to Australia via Vietnam,” Camilleri explains. “It was just before the world changed (with COVID). He had a world ticket and he wanted to hang out. He thought he could get a couple of weeks accommodation for free.”

So, Camilleri put his old friend to work, producing The Black Sorrows’ new album, Saint Georges Road. “It was lovely, really,” Camilleri says of the experience. “It gave me the opportunity to just be a musician and let him take care of everything else.”

Solley – who now lives in America – was not afraid to tell the band: “I think you’re grazing.”

“That meant we were playing just for the sake of playing, and there’s always a lot of that because we’re a jamming band. And he wanted us to stop that nonsense.”

Had Solley – who also produced Hats Off Step Lively, Dexterity and Cha – changed much since the Jo Jo Zep days? “Well, he’s older and a little bit shorter … I can say that, because he’s back in America and can’t hear me.

“He told me he lost part of his hearing when he was producing Motörhead, because they played so loud. But I didn’t know that until after he finished the record – no wonder it’s all one-sided.”

When they entered Melbourne’s Woodstock Studios, Solley asked Camilleri: “What kind of record do you want to make?”

He replied, “A good one.”

“I made a mistake,” Camilleri laughs. “I should have said, ‘I want a hit record.’”

But the album – the Sorrows’ 19th studio set and Camilleri’s 50th album – is a joy from start to finish.

“Reassemble the old crew,” Camilleri sings in ‘Livin Like Kings’. And some old favourites are along for the ride, including Falcons sax man Wilbur Wilde and Sorrows founding member George Butrumlis on piano accordion, while Camilleri wrote all the songs with his long-time “partner in crime”, the enigmatic Nick Smith, who comes out of hiding to add some backing vocals to ‘Another Blue Day’.

The title track is a moving tribute to the “fallen soldiers”.

“I’m one of 10 kids, and I lost one of my brothers, Tony, to cancer a bit over a year ago,” Joe explains. “Chris Wilson had also died and then Chet (Stuart Fraser), Martin Armiger and Greedy (Smith). And Nick lost his mum, and Michael Gudinski died. The song is about the sadness of going to a funeral and celebrating someone’s life and then looking at your own mortality.”

“So we raise a glass or three to our true lost friend,” Camilleri sings.

“Though nobody wants to face it, we’ll all meet up in the end.”

“If there is a God,” he adds, “we’ll all reunite in rockabilly heaven or whatever you subscribe to.”

Solley – who also added his Hammond B3 and keyboards to the record – loved being reunited with Camilleri. “We’re like brothers,” the Grammy-nominated producer says, “and to this day, we love each other.”

During the making of the record, the producer remarked to Camilleri: “You never do the same thing twice, you really shit me.”

“Aren’t I doing it the same?” Camilleri responded.

“No … Stop jamming!”

The result is a classic Black Sorrows record, with the playful ‘Chiquita’ a throwback to the band’s early zydeco days, while ‘Holy Man’, a celebration of getting lost in the moment, recalls the band’s hitmaking era at the end of the ’80s. “I want to see the light, feel it touch your soul,” Camilleri sings. “Need to catch the fever and surrender control.”

“Every song you write is a Maserati,” the singer smiles, “and it turns out to be something from Russia. But as a famous guy once said, you can’t lose ’em all – occasionally you get a fistful of songs that are worthy of making a record.”

The Black Sorrows aren’t chasing hits, they’re just making top-shelf music. As Camilleri sings in ‘What’s Taken Your Smile Away’, “You could get lost in the search for perfection and end up with nothing at all.”

Music, Joe Camilleri says, is all about embracing the “beautiful mistakes”.

Long may he graze.

Saint Georges Road is released September 10. The Black Sorrows are playing at Bluesfest 2022.

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BEHIND THE

CONSOLE

Renowned producer Peter Solley returned to Melbourne to produce the latest Black Sorrows album.

Peter Solley is a renowned producer, one time member of Procol Harum, TV jingle writer and hugely successful gelato maker! He also played with Chris Farlowe & The Thunderbirds, Los Bravos, The Crazy World of Arthur Brown and Terry Reid. Then he went on to produce and his international production credits include Motorhead, Ted Nugent and Peter Frampton while his Australian credits include Don’t Throw Stones for The Sports and Screaming Targets, Hats Off Step Lively and Cha for Jo Jo Zep and The Falcons.

Solley returned to Australia to produce the new Black Sorrows album St Georges Road and Brian Wise caught up with him while he was here.

What brings you back to Melbourne? It must be Joe Camilleri.

Well, I first worked with him in about 1980, I think was probably the first and the last was probably ‘84, something like that. Then in 2019 I did myself a little trip, kind of round the world trip, just for fun. I went to Europe and then I went to Vietnam, did some teaching in Vietnam at a music school. Then I came to Australia, hooked up with Joe, and he was like, ‘Hey, why don’t you do my next record?’

It’s going to be his 50th record, and it’s like full circle. The original producer that made him famous, so to speak, and then his 50th record. We’re both getting up there. I thought it’d be nice.

Solley’s first notable production was Mickey Jupp because Procol Harum’s manager was working with Jupp and asked Solley to help produce a couple of tracks.

“That was probably my first serious production, trying to make a record. And that did quite well. It wasn’t a smash, but it did quite well.

We went into the Pink Floyd studio. We did it in about three weeks, a month, mixed and everything and it came out pretty good. It was all right. It did well, out of all the Stiff records at that time. After I’d finished it, Dave asked me to remix, or redo a few of the records that other people were doing for him at that time. So, I worked with Rachel Sweet, redid her record.

And from that Michael Gudinski from Australia was in England looking for a distributor for his Mushroom label, talking to Dave Robinson.

Michael said, ‘I’d love to get an English producer come out and work with some of my bands.’ Dave called me up. To cut a long story short, I said, ‘Sure, I’ll come over.’

“So, I came over, did The Sports. I recorded it here, at Armstrong’s, which is no longer here, I understand. Took it back, mixed it in England, and it was a smash. While I was here, [Michael Gudinski] took me to see Joe. Would you like to work with him? I said, ‘Yeah, that’ll be good.’ So, I think after The Sports, chronologically, I think what happened was I did The Romantics. Huge hit. [‘What I Like About You’].

That was kind of by chance. Then after that I think I came back and did Joe, the first Joe album.

44

You did three albums with him, back in those days too, starting with Screaming Targets.

With Joe, I hit it off on a personal level straight away. He’s just a lovely man, he’s just outgoing, he’s flippant. One-on-one we just... we were like brothers from another mother from the word go. So, that was different in that sense. We had a great relationship, we hung out together. I understood what he was doing from the beginning. I totally got it, and I took what he was doing, and I just took it to a place where it was more accessible for the world. And it was monster hit, their first one, ‘Hit and Run’. That was just me really pulling it from R&B, good R&B, into a more cohesive pop thing. But it was not difficult, it was fun, it seemed very natural. All the stuff I did with Joe, and even this thing here, it’s just it seems very natural.

So, it’s over 30 years since the Cha album came out and now, you’re back working with him again.

It’s weird, but it doesn’t seem like a year has passed. Honestly, it’s just like just picking it up. It feels exactly the same as it did then. It’s extraordinary. I can’t explain it. We have a personal chemistry. It’s the best chemistry. Honestly, after 30 years, or whatever, it just feels the same as it did then. It’s easy. I can tell him what I think. I don’t have to worry about hurting his feelings, vice versa. It’s a grown-up relationship, but it always was. It’s the same as it was back then. It’s amazing.

It might seem unusual that someone like Joe, with his wealth of experience, might call you back to do it. He obviously values your opinion and your input very highly to do that.

He says I’m the only person who’s ever made him better than he is, or better than what he can do. That’s what he says, and it’s probably true. I make him better than he is. How do I do it? I’m not quite sure, but the way I work, I bring out the best in him, and I elevate him, and I elevate the other people around. I think as a producer that’s my best quality. I can elevate the level of the drama to the writer, to the singer, whatever it might be. I think that’s what I do, and he sees that.

S TUART C O UP E P R ESENT S MATT GLASS Crackling with wit and infectious melody - Melbourne’s smouldering, cool, inner-urban contemporary folk savant, Matt Glass is a craftsman: writer, performer, multiinstrumentalist, and producer.

Sparkling with hooky exuberance in his new EP, Slow Fireworks, a mission statement of Glass’s inner-city, pop-folk sensibility, his songs are unique in their impressionistic style - warm-hearted and infectiously catchy snapshots of time, place, and feeling. Glass explores the complex landscape of contemporary relationships - writing from personal experiences as a father, son, lover and friend.

Often brutally honest, non-romanticised little fragments of modern Melbourne life, Glass draws in the listener with strong urban-Australian, chill-folk mastery. Matt was the winner of the Roddy Read Songwriting competition at the Maldon Folk Festival and the winner of the online busking competition at Snowy Mountains Music Festival. mattglass.com.au LOOCH LEWIS FREE DIRT (SINGLE) FROM THE FORTHCOMING EP “WHISKY HELPS THE SUN GO DOWN” Nebraska Records / MGM Following on from the critical success of his first EP ‘Apathy & Empathy’ in 2019, Sydney based solo artist ‘Looch Lewis’ releases his new single ‘Free Dirt’ through Nebraska Records / MGM. The single is a cover of the ‘Died Pretty’ classic tune, written by Brett Myers and features an all-star recording band including Peta Caswell (vocals), Matt Galvin (guitar) and Drizabone D (Bass, Vocals).

The tune also features the amazing piano work of Jadey O’Regan who has paid homage to the incredible original piano track performed by Cold Chisel legend Don Walker, whilst adding her own inimitable flourishes. ‘Free Dirt’ is the first single from the forthcoming RP ‘Whisky Helps The Sun Go Down’ which is slated for release in Dec 2021. facebook.com/Loochiboy/ ELLA POWELL Rising Pop Country artist Ella Powell has had a great amount of success in her early years. After taking out People’s Choice Award at the Tamworth Country Music Festival in 2019, it was clear Ella had a promising future in the music industry. Ella’s powerhouse vocals and emotive lyrics has created her pure, unique sound which resonate with a wide variety of audiences. Last year, her sold-out single launch concert followed by the release of her debut single saw a large amount of success, being streamed in numerous countries and radio stations nationwide. Ella’s new single ‘Somebody’ is an energetic and uplifting song, encapsulating the story of being proud of where you are in the present and rising in the face of adversity. It can be found on all streaming platforms along with the music video. With more music on the way, Ella Powell is one to keep an eye on. facebook.com/ellapowellmusic

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S E N O E D L I W THE ear, album of the y d n o c e s ir e th ase ds he Wildes rele T y Denise Hylan d B n ’ a t. n c a je ry ro B p e Lachlan writer’s scienc a ‘singer song

W

hen I spoke to a hopeful Lachlan Bryan about the year ahead and everything coming back to life things were looking for the live scene. But just a few days later we were in and out of lockdowns with only a glimmer of hope.

Lachlan Bryan and his band The Wildes, who we featured just a couple of months ago with a new live album, have just released a new studio album recorded just before the craziness, appropriately titled As Long As It’s Not Us. “We recorded most of it and wrote most of it in 2019, and the very start of 2020,” says Bryan. “In fact, we finished tracking a few days before COVID became a reality. We’ve since messed with it a bit, so some of it is actually very recent. The good thing is, we had a break from it and coming back and listening to it in the mixing and mastering process, it feels fresh to us. Some of the songs have kind of taken on new meaning.”

Is it like listening back in time?

“Yeah. I hate to lean on the cliche,” he replies, “but this was a record that was kind of written, or at least my contributions to it, were written when I was kind of going through some stuff. And in a way, having a year and a half of standing still, it’s helped deal with personal things. But there’s some hopeful things in there as well. Out of all the records that we’ve made, this is probably the most hopeful and the most hopeless” Bryan has called this album, ‘a singer songwriter’s science project’.

46

“There’s some things that we experimented with, that we haven’t before,” he explains. “It’s been a bit of a ‘get in the room and play the songs’ kind of album band. Whereas this one, I think the arrangements are a little bit more complex: we’ve used drum machines, drum loops, and we’ve explored the depth of our effects pedals a little bit more than we have before. I love country music, but I think that we’ve sort of stretched the definition of country music or Americana music or whatever we do, with this one, for sure.”

Bryan has also said that he is “inviting people to experience the highs and lows with us.”

“When I say I want the listener to share the experiences, I certainly don’t want to depress them,” he says. “There’s got to be a little bit of hope or a little bit of humour in there somewhere, otherwise I wouldn’t get through those waves myself, and I think most of us are like that.

“It’s a really strange phenomenon too, as a listener, that when you feel sad, putting on happy music doesn’t work. When you’re low, you have to listen to other people. I don’t know. Maybe we just want to know that other people have felt as bad as we feel right now. And at the same time, the other thing works as well when you’re on a high.

When you’re feeling something, you kind of want a soundtrack to match it. It’s not to change what you’re feeling, it’s to kind of heighten it. Introduce us to The Wildes.

“The one person that’s been with me the whole time, is Shaun Ryan on the bass. So, he’s kind of like my rock, in the band. He’s the greatest guy to be in a band with. He’ll sleep on anyone’s floor. He’ll drive through the night. He’ll stay up, working on ideas for all hours, weeks in a row. I can’t speak highly enough about him. Damian Cafarella, who produces the records and sometimes plays drums for us. He’s mostly a guitar player. He and I run a studio together, which has been a godsend in these times, that we’ve been able to keep making music. Damian plays for a bunch of different people.

He’s a great multi-instrumentalist. And, Riley Catherall is the other permanent member of the band now, who is a great young emerging artist in his own right.”

For this new album, The Wildes have been incorporated in being able to make contributions to the songwriting.

“Riley and Shaun wrote a song together,” notes Bryan. “They have a real songwriting partnership within the band. Then, I write with Damien and I write with Shaun as well. So, the writing process has become more democratic as time’s gone on, which is really nice. I really enjoy bringing in other people’s ideas. And I guess, because I get to sing it, it always comes down to how closely I relate to it. But I think we’re all moulding into the same person now, so it’s not hard to relate to these songs at all.

Yet another songwriting partner in Tim Rogers co-wrote the title track with Bryan.

“Well Tim is, in my experience, one of the great gentlemen really, of Australian music,” says Bryan. “I don’t know if he wants people to know this, but he’s very generous with his time and his talent. And we wrote that song in kind of several stages. We’d kind of made the decision to write a song together, but both realised that we don’t really have a technique to make that happen. So, we kind of sent voice messages back and forth. And I had kind of just started that song, and then I’d wake up in the morning and he’d written a verse in the middle of the night and sent it to me, and it kind of came together like that.”

As Long As It’s Not Us is the name of the new album that marks 10 years as Lachlan Bryan and The Wildes.

“Well, we actually have a weird plan,” adds Bryan. “We’re not going to tour. We’re doing, Out On The Weekend, Dashville Skyline, if it happens, hopefully. We’ve got our fingers crossed. We’re actually going to be filming our record launch at the Palais, to no one. It’s going to be a crowd of zero. When people buy the album, they get the concert. I’m kind of a wannabe short filmmaker, so I’m writing and directing a little short film around that, but not really about us.

It will be more about my friends trying to survive as musicians at the moment in an uplifting way, something that’ll mark these times.

I hope that this is not something that we ever go through again, but I think it might be an interesting thing to look back on and go, “Wow, that weird thing happened for a couple of years, that was totally different. Hopefully, I can capture that in a way that is nice to look back on, rather than feeling like we went through a war or something.”

SONNY BURGESS SONNY BURGESS SONNY BURGESS ROCKS SONNY BURGESS ROCKS

CD digipac • 36-page booklet • 29 tracks • BEAR FAMILY BCD 17629 CD digipac • 36-page booklet • 29 tracks • BEAR FAMILY BCD 17629

SONNY BURGESS

● The first cross-label CD compilation of Sonny Burgess' SONNY BURGESS ROCKS ● The first cross-label CD compilation of Sonny Burgess' recordings from the fifties to the new millennium! recordings the fifties new•millennium!

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by James Flores, Is Achin' For You, rarities a chart hit for Rosiewith Intveld.

Alvin – a virtual time travel through several exciting rock eras.

Intveld. ● Featuring, Finally as amost bonus track, a rare US 'Live On Stage' recording with ● importantly, Sonny's terrific version of My Heart ● Finally as a bonus track, a rare US 'Live On Stage' recording with Larry 'Honey Bun'aDonn 1950s/early '60s) – a perfect example written

by James Is Achin' For You, chart(late hit for Rosie Flores, Larry 'Honey Bun' Donn (late 1950s/early '60s) – a perfect example of the pioneer rocker’s pure energy!

Intveld. of the pioneer rocker’s pure energy! ● Finally as a bonus track, a rare US 'Live On Stage' recording with Larry 'Honey Bun' Donn (late 1950s/early '60s) – a perfect example of the pioneer rocker’s pure energy!

CLEVELAND CROCHET & THE SUGAR BEES CLEVELAND CROCHET &AND THESUGAR SUGARBEES BEES HILLBILLY RAMBLERS HILLBILLY RAMBLERS AND SUGAR BEES

2-CD digipac • 36-page booklet • 38 tracks • BEAR FAMILY BCD 17598 2-CD digipac • 36-page booklet • 38 tracks • BEAR FAMILY BCD 17598

CLEVELAND CROCHET & THE SUGAR BEES

Complete recordings 1954-1963 of the cajun fiddler.

HILLBILLY RAMBLERS AND SUGAR Complete recordings 1954-1963 of the cajun fiddler. BEES Featuring solo tracks from Sugar Bees band members Shorty 2-CD digipac • 36-page booklet • 38 tracks • BEARmembers FAMILY BCD 17598 Featuring solo tracks from Sugar Bees band Shorty LeBlanc and Jay Stutes.

LeBlanc and Jay Stutes. ● Includes a recordings 36-page booklet with liner notes by Cajun expert ● 1954-1963 thenotes cajunby fiddler. ● Complete Includes a 36-page booklet withof liner Cajun expert Michael Hurtt with further input from Chris Strachwitz. ● Featuring solowith tracks from Sugar Bees band Shorty Michael Hurtt further input from Chris members Strachwitz.

LeBlanc and Jay Stutes. ● ● ● ●

● Includes a 36-page booklet with liner notes by Cajun expert Michael Hurtt with further input from Chris Strachwitz.

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LIVING COLOUR

Shane Nicholson’s new album was recorded in his home studio over the past two years. By Brian Wise “I can’t think of any worse situation it could be for musicians at the moment,” says Shane Nicholson when we meet on Zoom to talk about his new album, Living In Colour. Nicholson, who is based on the central coast of New South Wales, was commiserating with me about the lockdown in Melbourne but just a few days after our conversation he was in the same position. “There’s just nothing you can do. It’s good that everyone was trying to be positive and hope for the best, book in more tours in the last six months when it looked like it might open up a bit. But it’s just a mad scramble now to cancel, postpone, reschedule all that stuff. I feel bad for all the managers around the country right now. I know my manager’s just about to have a nervous breakdown.”

Nicholson was supposed to be hitting the road from August to December for a string of headline shows, playing at festivals including the North Queensland Rockin’ Country Festival, Gympie Music Muster and Deni Ute Muster. When we talk, all of that is still up in the air.

“I’m still swamped. I just don’t have clients here,” adds Nicholson about his production work. In fact, as we talk, he is sitting in his home studio where he can work on musicians’ files sent to him in their 48

absence. “I had one here from Queensland and she had to quickly down tools and fly home before she got locked out of the State. There are no clients here at the moment obviously, but I’ve still got three or four albums underway with other people and we’re just working remotely now.

“I’m in it now. It’s on the bottom floor at the rear of my house, where I live. It’s connected to the house. It’s just one large space at the moment - one large room, I have everything in there which is how I like to work, with everything set up. I try and eliminate the technical side when I’m working. Everything is set up and turned on and I can just record anything at any one time. It sort of looks like a music store.

It’s just got everything, everything all in one room.”

“There’s some really cool stuff happening,” he adds, mentioning that he has been listening to a lot of music sent to him and that he has found online. “I guess that everyone’s maybe at home writing. I’ve found that just about every producer I know is completely swamped and it’s a really good sign that it’s all being made. It just worries me about how it’s all going to be sold.”

“It was just pretty much done in isolation, and I couldn’t really have a lot of people come into the studio.”

Things have certainly changed since Nicholson’s career started in the late 1990s with his first band in Brisbane. Since starting his solo career in 2002 with the album It’s a Movie, he has released another eight albums, including 2015 ARIA Award winning Hell Breaks Loose and two ARIA Award winning albums with Kasey Chambers -Rattlin’ Bones and Wreck and Ruin. He also has eleven CMAA Golden Guitar awards and ‘The High Price of Surviving’ (on the new album) has also won an APRA 2021 Song of the Year award. Nicholson has also gained two nominations at the Americana Music Association awards. The other side of his career is as a producer and Nicholson has been busy working with Michael Waugh, Alex Lloyd, Tori Forsyth, Beccy Cole, Jason Walker, Ben Leece and Camille Trail.

Nicholson recorded his new album at his studio and when his band members, (most of whom are also in his touring band The General Waste), couldn’t make it into the studio they would send files which he would add to the mix. The isolation gave him time to write and there was the added pressure of the Song Club, the online writing community set up by Nashville-based expat Sam Hawksley, where songwriters had to produce and post online a new song every week.

“It was just pretty much done in isolation, and I couldn’t really have a lot of people come into the studio,” he explains. “I worked on it, got it finished and then right at the last, the end of the last quarter of the match, I sent it all to Matt Fell who’s produced my last few and just got him to finish it, to mix it, because I think at that point I kind of lost objectivity. I just got his fresh ears on it to do the mix and let him do whatever he wanted really at the end.

“I kind of accidentally just did it myself and produced it myself because it was just done in little fits and bursts. Because I was doing other sessions and other artists, it would be usually a matter of knocking it off after 14-hour session. Artists would leave and then I would get an hour or something before I’d hit the wall. And I would do a little bit. It sort of became a bit of an accident, the record. It just slowly built over time and I just chipped away at it. Which is kind of cool because I’ve never made a record in that sense of mind. I’ve usually like devoted a block of time to it and focused hard and just done it. This was interesting, just spacing it out over the course of nearly two years.”

The first single from Living In Colour was the great ‘Harvest On Vinyl,’ an ode to Neil Young’s classic album and other music that affected Nicholson in his youth. The album ranges across a wide range of concerns. ‘Simple Man’ is a reflection on fatherhood. ‘A Million Angels’ deals with mortality and lost friends. ‘The High Price Of Surviving’ could be applicable to the present pandemic and the effects it has on our mental state but was written earlier. ‘This Is War,’ the most uptempo song on the album, sees Nicholson rocking out while dealing (maybe) about politics and talkback radio. There is even a song about cookie-cutter songs emanating from Nashville and the musicians who write them in ‘That’s How You Write A Song’. (‘You can write in a room and torture yourself/Or head off to Nashville like everyone else/Rip off your heroes/Keep playing dumb/ Until you get enough for a whole album’).

Of course, most of the songs are about relationships: as on ‘And You Will have Your Way,’ ‘Life Ain’t Fine’, ‘Ain’t Been Loved, ‘The House Burns Down’ and ‘Helena.’

All the while, Nicholson has the knack of adorning his songs with memorable riffs and melodies. It is hard to imagine a better local ‘country rock’ album being released this year.

“Nearly all of them were written before the pandemic,” says Nicholson. “Or just at the start of it, because of the song club thing that we were doing. The song club threw up a bunch of songs and that was just before it all kind of happened. I think the songs were pretty much written before we were really impacted at all. It’s not a Covid record in any sense.”

‘The Hard Price of Surviving’ sounds as though it was written during the pandemic and contains the line, ‘It’s better than taking the other way out.’

“Well, that actually is the oldest song on the record,” responds Nicholson. “That was released in 2019 or something but it was written really early 2019, maybe the year before. I was at this place, the sheep station in Nundle called The Dag. I go there every year as a songwriting tutor and tutor young, or even older, budding songwriters. Myself and a few other artists, Kevin Bennett, Felicity Urquhart, Jeremy Edwards and Luke O’Shea. We all go up there. Every year. It’s like a little family thing.”

Another song on that same topic, ‘A Million Angels’,was inspired by some recently departed friends.

“A Million Angels is a collection of people I know that were going through a bunch of pretty full on, different things at the time,” explains Nicholson, “and I remember that song being a bit of a summation of that situation. Feeling surrounded by people who were experiencing some really big losses in their lives. I’m not sure whether it was me trying to understand it or just sending a message to them.

I’m not sure. I remember this weird period when it seemed like every week somebody close to us had a major life changing tragedy. It was just one of those things when you start getting so weighed down and the only way through it is to write about it.”

Living In Colour is available now through Lost Highway Australia.

49

Charley Crockett confounds expectations once again on his latest album, Music City USA.

By Denise Hylands

MADE IN 50

“

“

“I have never lost my love for writing songs, learning songs, and playing at places.

There’s nothing else I’d rather be doing except I’d like to have some horses.”

THE

C

harley Crockett is the man behind his guitar with a musical education that came from playing on the streets, busking in subways, hopping freight trains, hitchhiking across the country travelling from New York to New Orleans to Paris, France. He plays real country music, reviving it and keeping it alive.

“Country music to me is folk music, American folk music that expresses the struggle, the toil of everyday Americans,” says Crockett, the 37-year-old of mixed black, Cajun, Creole and Jewish heritage who was raised by a single mother in a Texas trailer park. “When I was on the street, I came to be known and associated with country music because of the storytelling. Where people can hear I’m telling my story and people can relate to that. Hard issues of love and loss, of tragedy.

I guess that’s part of what I like about country music is the tragedy and the longing, or the struggle that those stories tell.”

E USA

The struggles of life come up many times in Crockett’s songs. He has endured the collapse of the recording industry, no money, petty crime, COVID 19 pandemic, open-heart surgery, one-night stands, long distance rides in a van, loud truck stops and diners serving stale lukewarm coffee to get to where he is now.

“Yeah, Hank Williams said in his short life, ‘You’d have to have surveyed a whole lot of countryside on the back of a mule to know something about country music and being able to sing it’,” remarks Crockett. “They told me the whole way that, ‘You can’t sing like that,’ ‘You can’t put out records like that,’ ‘You can’t play guitar like that,’ ‘You can’t work with these independent agents.’ I was just told the entire way that my style of doing things wasn’t going to work. But I was largely being told that by people who had never done any of it.

“I found myself with a guitar on a street corner, that looked to me like the only way to go. I would never have it any other way.

The business is hard, the music business is shady and it’s difficult. It’s full of hucksters and shysters and a lot of people in positions of power who think they got a magic wand, and they don’t. I have never lost my love for writing songs, learning songs, and playing at places. There’s nothing else I’d rather be doing, except I’d like to have some horses.

I just don’t really have time to take care of them.”

“I’ll tell you my secret,” he continues, “My secret is I’ve never been able to afford to say no. I don’t see that changing. You got to make hay while the sun is shining, and God led the people that have come before us in music, and America, and in the soul circuit, and the blues circuit, in the country world.

They work hard, and those folks came from nothing, and if they could work as hard as they did, I can too.”

Unfortunately, last year, Crockett’s friend James ‘Slim’ Hand, another Texas singer songwriter, passed way and he recorded the album 10 For Slim as a tribute album to him.

“In my eyes, he was the king of Texas honky tonk music,” says Crockett of his friend. “I first heard about him, I just started seeing posters of him around Texas, this mysterious cowboy that had a hunched over gait like Hank Williams. There was a quote on these posters by Willie Nelson, it said, ‘James Hand is the real deal.’ I thought, ‘Who is this guy that looks like Hank Williams that Willie Nelson is signing off on?’ He really set me on a path of identifying more and more with country music that I’ve been associated with from time to time. Being a street guy that was trying to come into the bars, I only really knew how to identify myself with the blues.

I never saw a performer really in my life that struck me, that affected me the way that James did.

“I saw him, as a street guy, as a self-made person, that wasn’t getting any favours done in my name. He was somebody that I looked

at as truly the real deal, like Willie said.

He became my friend and we got to play together, and I promised him I was going to record his songs. He had decided that he was going to come out on the road with us last year, and let the band back him up, and then, the world shut down, and then he went on up to the house, and it affected me so heavily.”

When we think of Music City USA we tend to think Nashville, but for his album Crockett went down to Georgia to record with his good friend Mark Neill, who also produced Welcome to Hard Times and the great videos that accompanied the songs.

“It’s kind of strange,” says Crockett. “Mark Neill, in a similar way to James Hand, was this elusive character, that the deeper I went into touring in the South, the more his name mysteriously would come up. And, you’d hear the name and people would act funny, or look at you sideways, like he was some kind of secret. Then eventually after years of hearing about him, he just reached out to me and he said, ‘Would you like to shake up the country music world and make a record with me?’

“I was so deeply impacted by the high art that country music had achieved in the sixties, that it was as if he could see it in my mind. So, I took that dive with him and now I’ve recorded something like 35 songs, 40 songs with him down there. My experience with Mark Neill is, that in a lot of ways he represents what it would have been like to work with the old school, classic country engineer, producers of that great era. For better or worse than the insanity of maybe Nashville, and Bakersfield, and the Texas sound and stuff. He had that effect on me, and I’m sure glad that I’ve had the opportunity to make these records with him.

He’s a fascinating individual, and you’d have a hard time finding somebody that cared more about country music than that guy right there.”

Neill has co-written many songs with Crockett for the new album.

“When you work with Mark Neill, he’s a wild character, but he has a childlike excitement about making music that is really rare in people,” notes Crockett. “And, we have that thing. Writing with him was just a good time. He’s kind of a hillbilly Shakespeare in his own way. I’ve never been interested in the Nashville chop shop model of these co-writes that they do up there. I’ve never had any interest in that. But I have started to write more with my friends, and several of my good friends have co-writes on Welcome to Hard Times, and on Music City USA. So, it goes without saying that I consider Mark Neill a very good friend and, for that reason, I’m very comfortable writing with him. For example, the song ‘Lies and Regrets’. The verses are just me remembering these things he says every day. Every day he’d joke and say, ‘You know Charley Crockett, there isn’t no right way to do a wrong thing’.”

51

HIGH VOLTAGE Son Volt’s new album Electro Melodier takes its title from two vintage amplifiers – a reflection of the sound within.

W

By Brian Wise

hen the history of the Americana movement is written Jay Farrar’s name should be prominent. As a member of Uncle Tupelo with Jeff Tweedy he was one of the prime movers of what became the No Depression movement. The name was taken from a vintage Carter Family song that became an Uncle Tupelo album title within the alternative country (or alt.country) genre that was eventually subsumed into Americana. With the demise of Uncle Tupelo, Tweedy formed Wilco and Farrar went on to form Son Volt, a band that has probably kept closer to alt.country throughout its now 26 year history. Apart from some solo albums in the early part of this century and several collaborations, Farrar has been happy to record over the past 15 years under the Son Volt moniker with a shifting cast of other musicians.

Electro Melodier, named after two vintage amplifiers from the ‘40s and ’50s, is the tenth

52

album from Son Volt, and while it continues some of the political preoccupations of its predecessor Union in 2019 its musical scope is wider with echoes of folk, country, blues, soul and rock. Trainspotters will find the Moog line from The Who’s ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’ in ‘The Globe’ and a Led Zeppelin homage in ‘Someday Is Now.’ Farrar cites the Mississippi delta blues of Lightnin’ Hopkins in ‘War on Misery’ and ‘The Levee On Down.’

There is plenty of social commentary on songs such as ‘Living in the U.S.A.’, ‘The Globe,’ (about the Black Lives Matter movement); but there are also songs drawn from Farrar’s relationships, personal experiences as well as his reading and observations. Farrar’s songs can also be complex. ‘Arkey Blue’ is a reference to a honky-tonk in Bandera, TX, where Hank Williams, Sr. allegedly carved his name into one of the wood tables but also contains references to a speech by Pope Francis on environmental change!

The past year has given Farrar time to focus on his writing and recording and, when we catch up, he is at home in St Louis, Missouri, preparing to (hopefully) go out on tour to promote the new album.

“Normally we just record in between playing shows,” explains Farrar, “but this time with the lockdown and the pandemic I was allowed to just devote a singular focus, I think, to the writing of the songs all the way through to the recording and each part of the recording. It spanned over a couple of months, which is somewhat unusual for Son Volt.”

“It hints at that duality that’s always been there with Son Volt’s sound, acoustic and electric both,” he replies when I ask him about the album title’s reference to vintage amplifiers. “Melodier is not a real word, it’s not in the dictionary actually, but I’ve always been drawn to the names of amplifiers from the 1950s. There was that timeframe that saw convergence of space exploration terms like a rocket and Saturn and Stratotone and things like that. But also, it just seemed like they would really just slap any interesting word on an amplifier back then. But Melodier struck me as maybe a word that should be a word. Someone or something that puts out a melody. I felt like Electro Melodier would be emblematic and representative as a title of this group of songs. Focusing on melody’s something that I wanted to do, and I felt like the end result reflects that.”

In his recent memoir, Unstrung, guitarist Marc Ribot writes about the joy of playing

loud through smaller vintage amps, saying that he much prefers ‘the subtler but less predictable distortions of the ‘40s and ’50s (e.g. Charlie Christian, Hubert Sumlin, Pee Wee Crayton, Ike Turner), a time when amp designers weren’t such wiseasses’.

“Those are the amps that are the most sought after - the smaller amps from the ‘50s,” adds Farrar. “Someone asked me the other day why that is, and I still don’t have a great answer. It’s a visceral thing. I think that technically the answer must be that there’s a natural compression that occurs when that amp is turned all the way up. It just sounds good. It’s also probably a little easier to capture and control than having a Marshall stack blasting away.”

Farrar mentions that for years he played wide bodied guitars but due to an operation on his shoulder he has found some older, thinner guitars such as the Kay Speed Demon.

“They’re just a one pickup model,” he notes, “but I’ve modified it by putting in an acoustic guitar pickup on there and blending those sounds. I have two of them. I’ll be using those live. The physical therapist I was working with said, ‘No more wide body guitars for you pal’ and I said, ‘Okay’.”

There are a lot of different elements to the sound on Electro Melodier, including a soulful element, on the song ‘Lucky Ones,’ due to the organ. There’s also the bluesy element on ‘War on Misery’.

“I think you’re right about both of those,” he agrees. “I’ve always been drawn to where there were crosscurrents of R&B, soul, and

country music, whether it was Dan Penn or Charlie Rich, or The Flying Burrito Brothers.

They dabbled in some R&B soul. I guess I finally decided I wanted to try that, and out came ‘The Lucky Ones’. Mark Spencer had a nice organ solo on that one.

“The other song you mentioned, ‘War on Misery’, I was going for more of a Lightnin’ Hopkins sound. There’s a couple of his songs he recorded with a low tune guitar that I thought were really great. I have a baritone acoustic guitar which does a similar thing. So, I gave it a shot with that.”

“I felt like Electro Melodier would be emblematic and representative as a title of this group of songs.

Focusing on melody’s something that I wanted to do.”

The acoustic ‘Rebetika’ may have a title that refers to a Greek style of music but it does not feature bouzouki and the lyrics refer to hard times ahead.

“It piqued my interest,” says Farrar of the term. I just wrote it down, something I wanted to investigate and that for whatever reason didn’t get around to it, but I hope to, before I die. Because it was described as like a Greek form of blues music. Anyway, I stuck with the title and a song came out of that.”

Son Volt’s last album, Union, was a powerful political statement and the new record also contains a lot of social commentary but does he think it is as overtly political?

“I don’t think so,” replies Farrar. “At least I started out with the mindset that it wouldn’t be overt. I think that’s typically the way I work is that I’ll start off with an idea and run with it for as long as I can until I start. So, my original idea was to pretty much to keep politics out of it. I got so far with that until I just started reading the news again and topical ideas started finding a way back into the writing of a song, like ‘The Globe’, where I was just seeing parallels of people here out on the streets protesting for the Black Lives Matter movement and then seeing on the news folks in Belarus or Russia just out protesting on the street for basic freedoms. I felt like there’s a sort of solidarity across the world and that’s what I was getting at with the song. Then with a song like ‘Living in the USA’, the pandemic was the backdrop, but also again Black Lives Matter, and I guess some of the social inequalities that exist in America are pretty stark and some of that made it into that song.”

“Also, in the song ‘Arkey Blue’ there’s actually a few lines that were directly from Pope Francis, who had put out a statement saying

that he felt like the pandemic was potentially the Earth’s way of fighting back, and I can relate to that.”

Somehow, Farrar was able to link the Bandera, Texas, legend Arkey Blue and his Silver Dollar Bar – famous for a visit by Hank Williams Sr – and The Pope!

“I just took a trip there one time and checked out the place,” he explains. “Definitely dripping with ambience and history. There’s a little wooden table that they kind of roped off where Hank Williams Sr, carved his name into it, because he used to play there. It still seemed like it was a scene straight out of the 1950s or ‘40s. Jukebox stocked with old records. There’s some early cross-pollination of music that occurred in Texas. The Germans and Czechs moved in and some of that polka type stuff still carries on there and an interest in that type of music.

Could this be the first song ever to link Hank Williams Sr. with a speech by a Pope?

“All right. I think you might be right,” laughs Farrar. “The first and the last, probably.”

‘Living in the USA’ is quite different in sentiment to the phrase used by Chuck Berry in the song ‘Back in the USA’ or Steve Miller’s ‘Living in the USA’ from 1968.

“I think so. Yes,” agrees Farrar. “I was taking more of a critical eye, more of a critical view of what’s going on in the United States. We’re potentially headed in the right direction, but there’s some real serious problems, I would say, as you probably well know.”

The last album of course came out in a particularly turbulent time. Have things got better this year? Farrar would have written the songs for the new album last year while the whole election process was taking place and probably even recorded it before the election.

“A lot of it was recorded before the election, that’s right,” he says. “Even before the election, there was a sense that maybe the tide was turning in the right direction. So, I just felt like there had to be the hope that people will start to see the collective right path. Fortunately, at least I feel like we’re on the right path right now.”

Electro Melodier is available now through Cooking Vinyl Australia.

53

HEY YOU! Tré Burt’s new album is released on John Prine’s Oh Boy! label - a testament to his talent.

By Denise Hylands

J

ust a year after his full-length debut was re-released by John Prine’s Oh Boy! label Sacramento singer-songwriter Tré Burt has released his second full-length album. You, Yeah, You was recorded in Durham, North Carolina with producer Brad Cook (Bon Iver, Waxahatchee, War on Drugs) and features contributions from Sylvan Esso’s Amelia Meath, Phil Cook, and Kelsey Waldon.

Burt’s 2020 protest anthem, ‘Under The Devil’s Knee’ featuring Allison Russell, Sunny War and Leyla McCalla, was written in response to the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Eric Garner. It caught the attention of scholars and activists such as Dr. Cornel West and garnered an invitation to speak on a panel with the latter two at Harvard’s Kennedy School through Dr. Muhammad’s Institutional Antiracism and Accountability Project.

Burt’s humble roots involved working menial day jobs; as a maintenance technician, servicing airplanes at SFO International, taping boxes as a UPS worker. His literary songwriting and lo-fi, rootsy aesthetic, was honed busking on the streets of San Francisco and traveling the world in search of inspiration. In fact, he spent some time in Australia, living and busking in Melbourne for several years.

“I lived there for two years, in Preston. From 2015 to 2017,” recalls Burt. “I was busking in front of Woolworths and I played all over, I guess. I love it there. I want to come back.”

“I dropped out of college the first year I went to San Francisco state,” he continues when I ask him about his early years, “and I figured the streets were the classroom and I just kind of went driving and busking and meeting people and playing where I could. Pizza shops, cafes, street corners, train stations.

Went to Australia, came back. But they were also fun times and I wouldn’t trade them for anything. Put some grit underneath my nails.”

Burt’s ‘60’s style folk and singing has inevitably been compared to Bob Dylan.

“Obviously a fan, so much so you snuck into a concert to see him once,” says Burt. “Yeah.

I was living in my car in Portland, and it was a 54

rainy day. I was reading the newspaper, sure enough, Bob Dylan was playing not too far from where I was parked. I was very broke, couldn’t buy a ticket if I wanted to. It’s probably sold out. I went to the venue and there’s a security guard who I watched for about 30, 45 minutes, their routine. Every five minutes they’d light a cigarette and every time they’d go to the bathroom. When they were gone, this little girl and her grandma were walking towards the door, so I just tapped on the window and asked if she’d let me in and sure enough, she did. I kind of just pushed my way through and they just let me walk to the front. I got to the front and Dylan was in the middle of a harmonica solo, and he kind of looks down and to see what all the ruckus is, and we just kind of locked eyes for a second. I’m just starstruck.

“I think he was just kind of surprised to see this scrappy looking black kid in an ocean of old white deadheads.”

Tre self-released his first album, Caught It From The Rye, in 2018 which later was picked up by Oh Boy! Records.

“Well, Jody Whelan, John’s son, reached out and said he liked my record,” explains Burt.

“It came up in my other inbox on Instagram, and I didn’t check it for a couple of weeks.

Finally, I saw I had a message from Jody Whelan saying he likes my record. I said,

‘Thank you. That’s a huge honour, John Prine is one of my biggest influences.’ And I asked him if he’d like to re-release it. And he said, ‘Yeah, actually I do.’ It’s bizarre.”

“I feel their love and support and I got to meet John and play for him,” says Burt when I mention that he has joined the Prine family.

“So, yeah, I’m blessed.”

You, Yeah, You then emerged from some low times for Burt and was written in a little cabin in North Forks, California, that Burt escaped to for a while as he dealt with Prine’s death and in the midst of the pandemic, Black Lives Matter protests and wild fires.

“It’s hard to separate, I guess, this record from last year,” he says. “I felt like I had a lot bottled up and I didn’t know how to get it out. I didn’t particularly feel like writing.

But Sacramento was on fire literally and figuratively, protests and the smoke from the forest fires and the pandemic, and I just had to get away. I went up there and got to talk to myself for the first time in a long time. Dealing with the loss of John and police murders and the world.

“Brad Cook’s a kind of a genius figure who I was listening to when I was in high school,” says Burt of his producer. “Different capacities, his work with ‘Megafaun’, his band or with Bon Iver. I loved the records he produced. When he said that he wanted to produce this record, I instantly was thrilled to meet them. But then again, I’ve never had a producer before so I was pretty nervous giving someone else that much control. I went to North Carolina where he lives, and we spent a day just talking and getting to know each other. It was definitely a relationship that built a pretty special one that led us to the finished product of this album. Our relationship is very much involved in the creating of that record, which I wasn’t expecting.”

“I guess it’s a little violating at first. I’m not a very precious person,” he continues, “but I do have a way I wanted the song to sound, so I was a little nervous. But through me and Brad hanging out and talking and I guess, bonding, we ended up getting on the same page of how we wanted the record to sound and that was pretty minimal. He just

wanted to let my voice and guitar playing be the highlight, I guess. Be on spotlight.

His brother Phil Cook plays on it, Matt McCaughan from Bon Iver plays drums on it. Amelia Meath from Sylvan Esso sings, and my label mate, Kelsey Waldon. All of us together, they’re just such a genius set of people and I’m just glad they cared about the songs enough to be part of it.”

Kelsey Waldon features on the song ‘Dixie Red’ which is dedicated to John Prine “Well, Dixie Red is a type of peach that grows south of the Mason–Dixon,” explains Burt, “and John’s from Chicago but spent a lot of his time in the south. I thought it’d be fitting to take this peach, which he uses in a song called ‘Spanish Pipedream’ and use that as kind of symbolism for his body of work.

Burt has said that his ultimate ambition was to write 50 albums, front the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival and buy some land. Two albums down, only got 48 to go.

“Well, I have one that I recorded in Preston actually,” he notes. It’s Takes From the Dungeon, phone memo demos. I recorded that in a little granny flat on my cell phone. I’ll count that as a record. I was supposed to play Hardly Strictly this year, but unfortunately, I’m on the road, so I couldn’t. I’m constantly on the prowl.”

You, Yeah, You is available now via Thirty Tigers/Cooking Vinyl Australia.

AS LONG AS IT' S NOT US BRAND NEW STUDIO ALBUM

“Some of the most insightful, poignant and heartfelt songs you'll hear this or any other year” - Stuart Coupe

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Photo by Charlie Pearce.

“I personally think it’s the strongest one I’ve done and I’d like to think I am growing as a writer and I’m really proud of it.”

Erika Wennerstrom, now based in Austin, Texas, is the musician behind the Heartless Bastards, who have just released their sixth album.

By Brian Wise

I

don’t think I could ever forget the first time I saw Erika Wennerstrom’s group The Heartless Bastards. It was in the small town of Marfa in far West Texas - an artistic community that has become increasingly popular - during my first visit to what has become one of my favourite festivals, Trans-Pecos. Normally taking place at the El Cosmico campground a kilometre or so out of town, proceedings had to be moved into the town centre and held under a huge shelter next to the railway tracks after a savage rainstorm washed out the camp site.

As The Heartless Bastards launched into ‘Simple Feeling,’ from their 2012 album Arrow, a freight train roared past with all of its 130 or so box cars making a deafening racket. After it passed and the song finished, Wennerstom revealed that the same thing had happened a week earlier when they played in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Spooky!

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“It was literally the same song and a train going by during that song,” recalls Wennerstom, who sings, plays guitar and writes the songs. “We played somewhere in New Mexico. I want to say it was in Santa Fe, and a train went by during the same song. What are the odds of that happening?”

That was nine years ago, and it still lives in the memory. Since then, Wennerstrom has moved from Ohio to Austin, released a solo album, Sweet Unknown (2018) and recorded two more albums with the band - the latest of which, A Beautiful Life, the first since 2015, is the finest and most accessible to date.

Co-produced by Wennerstrom and Kevin Ratterman (Strand Of Oaks, Jim James, White Reaper), A Beautiful Life finds Wennerstrom with a line-up consisting of guitarist Lauren Gurgiolo (Okkervil River),

drummer Greggory Clifford (White Denim), multi-instrumentalist Jesse Chandler (Mercury Rev, Midlake), keyboardist Bo Koster (My Morning Jacket), guitarist David Pulkingham (Patty Griffin), and longtime Heartless Bastards bassist Jesse Ebaugh.

“I’ve been through a couple of iterations of the band,” explains Wennerstrom, “but I had this same team for the last 10 years and when we all talked about taking a hiatus, I thought, ‘Well, that’s fine and it makes sense that people would want to do that here and there.’

But I got really inspired and I did this album under my own name called Sweet Unknown. Then just as the way things have been unfolded, it’s just working out a little different.

Like Jesse wanted to concentrate on some of his own songwriting and a solo project. He’s wonderful, but our styles are so different, and I think that it wouldn’t have meshed together, trying to combine in the same band. Really, I guess I just want to keep it that way, at least as far as directing the sound. Just things are working out a bit different.

The door is open, but it’s just timing, and because it’s always been my project. I felt that I can reach a lot more people with this name I’ve worked with for so long. I guess it’s going on 20 years actually.”

The album title, named after the song ‘A Beautiful Life’, is rather optimistic given the turbulent times we have been going through.

“That was the first song I wrote after I finished my solo album,” says Wennerstrom. “I had been playing it in an acoustic version for a couple of years here or there, even during my solo sets so these songs weren’t composed during COVID, and in all honesty, I’ve barely written anything in the last year and a half.

“I mean, I usually take a little time to decompress but I guess I’m just not feeling inspired in a way. As far as ‘A Beautiful Life’, I feel like life can be challenging sometimes and I think just one thing that I try to be conscious of is the glass is empty, the glass is half full, that concept of perspective and how to look at things. I think I can get in negative thinking patterns sometimes.

“A lot of that message in that song is just a reminder of that because, I don’t know, sometimes if I’m in a time or phase or period of my life or a day or moment, I forget that. I just have to remind myself that if I can look for things to be grateful for and the positive sides of things, it can really rewire my just general thinking patterns. I’m aiming for that.

I still have my days.”

Some people obviously see the glass as half full and some see it as half empty. I tell her that I like to ask how much is in the bottle next to the glass!

“Oh, yeah,” she laughs. “Depending on the perspective, how much is in it is a good or a bad thing. Either somebody’s having a really good time or tomorrow might hurt.”

The new album starts with the song ‘Revolution,’ with references to Big Brother. Was it inspired by recent events?

“I don’t feel as much as it’s political,” replied Wennerstrom. “Really, a lot of the words in the song are more just about being a good human being. It’s just about commercialism and how we’re sold the idea constantly that we need these things that we really don’t. We’ve got some real issues with our environment right now. I think if we don’t rethink the constant consumption of things and we just exhaust our resources, what that’s going to mean in the long run. It’s not really a political song. I feel like, well, in America, whether you’re a Democrat or Republican, these issues are a bit more universal.

“It was sort of trying to remember that idea of pure love and try to maintain that sense of inner child in ourselves. Actually, when I wrote ‘A Beautiful Life’, I was in Wisconsin. I went up there to this old monastery that some friends of mine happened to take over. I went out to this little event that was in the town and there was this band playing and there was this little girl standing in front of the stage. She was dancing and spinning around in circles and falling down. I was thinking there’s a point where you get to a certain age and you worry that people are watching you or something.”

A Beautiful Life also has a lot of musical contrasts. There seems to be two musical sides to Wennerstrom’s personality. Certainly, it seems the most accessible album that the band has made.

“I personally think it’s the strongest one I’ve done,” she agrees, “and I’d like to think I am growing as a writer and I’m really proud of it. That makes me feel good that you said that because maybe you and other folks will feel the same way. With this creative thing, I just do my best to write songs that I believe in and then I just hope other folks do too.”

‘The Thinker’, a slow burning song that closes the album, is another of the songs that get under your skin and invites repeated listening. Its haunting atmosphere is matched by equally ethereal lyrics. “I did it all for love and I’d do it again,” intones Wennerstrom.

“Well, ‘The Thinker’, it summed up a lot of the album,” says Wennerstrom, “and there’s more of that message of just following your heart. It was like summing up my life in a sense, and a bit of the journey so far. I’ve done a lot of work on rejecting that feeling with that consumerism and just working on how to make myself happy from the inside versus external sources. That goes for writing songs and just taking leaps and doing things. I went down to the Amazon and I did some plant medicine. I just have taken some leaps to connect with myself in that way.

“Then I sing in there, “I did it all for love, and I’d do it again, and I’m not like the pharaohs or rulers of kingdoms. I just need love.” I don’t think money is what drives me. I think I realised that we’re never exactly where we want to be because then we wouldn’t have anywhere to go. It’s like you can set goals for yourself, whether it’s for something you’re wanting to achieve or whatever it is, but whenever you get to wherever that may be, then there’s just a new goal. I realised that as far as material possessions and things like that. Because of that, I don’t think we, as humans, are made to be just satisfied, if that makes sense. There’s a point where when we have our needs of basic needs, the real happiness goal is more something I internally strive for.”

“I also sum up that in ‘A Beautiful Life’,” continues Wennerstrom. “To me, that statement of the name of the album was this idea that we should all ask ourselves that question like, ‘What does it take? What do we need to have a beautiful life?’ I think, ultimately, we know it’s not the external material world. I just want to continuously remind myself of that. It’s nice to be comfortable too. I don’t mean that I wouldn’t have certain things I would like or comforts, but they just won’t ever define me or my value as a human being.”

A Beautiful Life is available from September 10 via Sweet Unknown Records/Thirty Tigers/Cooking Vinyl Australia.

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Photo credit Neil Wallace 58

You possibly know Barry Divola’s name from the countless reviews, interviews and feature stories he’s written as a music critic and journalist. For many years his byline has appeared in The Sydney Morning Herald, Rolling Stone and many other magazines. Barry is also the author of nine books, and his latest is a music-infused novel, Driving Stevie Fracasso. It’s the story of two brothers who haven’t seen each other in 30 years – they’re thrown together in a stolen 1985 Nissan Stanza on a road trip from Austin, Texas to New York City in the days leading up to 9/11.

Younger brother Rick is a jaded Manhattan music journalist; older brother Stevie is the former frontman with 1970s cult band Driven To Distraction. Fellow music writer Stuart Coupe said “Driving Stevie Fracasso reads as great as the fifth Replacements album sounds.” And John Birmingham (He Died With A Felafel In His Hand) called it “the super f****ing gnarly lead break of rock-lit novels.” On the following pages we bring you an extract from the book.

DRIVING Y

Stevie Fracasso

ou’ve never heard the name Rick McLennan.

Why would you?

Okay, if you’re a sad, middle-aged guy who used to read certain niche music magazines out of New York in the nineties, maybe my name will be vaguely familiar, like the B-side of a single by a second-string indie band you bought a couple of decades ago and only ever played once because it was put there as a total afterthought.

That’s me. I’m B-side material.

They say bad things come in threes. I’m not sure who ‘they’ are exactly, but I would like to meet them and shake their hand and congratulate them on being right.

And then I would like to punch them in the face. Hard. Twice.

The day everything turned to shit started with Train’s ‘Drops of Jupiter’ and the first thing I said was ‘Fuck!’

I maintain that this was a perfectly reasonable reaction.

It was my birthday. I was turning forty.

So, thinking about it, maybe bad things come in fives – Train’s ‘Drops of Jupiter’, turning forty and the three things I’m going to tell you about if you feel like sticking around.

Turning forty was not something I was looking forward to or something I wanted to acknowledge, let alone celebrate. Up until thirty – maybe thirty-five at a stretch if you have good hair – you can still pretend to be young. You can still behave in a vaguely adolescent manner and get away with it as long as you’re not too much of a dick about it.

For the five years leading up to my big four-oh, I’d been hanging on to the shreds of my extended adolescence like a man clutching a tattered airplane seat in the middle of the Atlantic. I was afloat, but things were not looking dignified.

Not long ago, I saw a guy who must have been pushing forty riding a skateboard through Tompkins Square Park. I actually scoffed out loud in disgust. What a douche. Didn’t he have any self-awareness? Couldn’t he see how ridiculous he looked?

Just five minutes later, I caught a glimpse of my reflection in a store window. Messenger bag slung over one shoulder, hair shaggy, unkempt and greying at the sideburns, faded WFMU T-shirt, battered suede Converse One Stars. And here’s the kicker. I was heading to the L stop on First Avenue to get a train to Williamsburg to meet— But wait, I don’t want to get into that just yet.

So, the day I turned forty, I slapped the clock-radio hard when ‘Drops of Jupiter’ came on. I hated Train.

And Matchbox Twenty and Sugar Ray and Lifehouse and Staind and 3 Doors Down and Crazy Town – all shockingly bad bands that were inexplicably huge and omnipresent at the time.

Grunge had begotten alternative rock which had begotten something that was the alternative to good. Bands with preening lead singers who over-emoted about nothing. Guitarists who claimed to hate eighties metal bands but sounded exactly like they used to be in eighties metal bands. Songs that were full of ridiculous brooding, terrible high school poetry and production that was the aural equivalent of a wind machine.

All these bands were slightly different from each other, but they all shared one trait: they were terrible.

The day could only get better. It didn’t.

I looked at the clock-radio. It was noon. It was always noon when I looked at that clock-radio. I was not a morning person. I used to be. I used to be at my desk at 9 am without fail, even if I didn’t have a deadline. I used to

be ambitious. I used to be happy. At least, I think I was. It’s getting harder and harder to remember now.

Jane, my girlfriend, had a morning routine that never varied. She’d be out the door at 8.15 am in her running gear. And when I say running gear, I mean an old oversized T-shirt, whatever leggings happened to be lying around and a pair of fake Nikes she’d bought from one of those cheap Chinese places on Canal Street. She was no fashion-conscious gym junkie.

She took the same route every morning – west on St Marks and down Second Avenue, along the length of Sara D Roosevelt Park below Houston, then she’d cut across to the Bowery at Hester, run through Chinatown and make a stop at City Hall Park. There, she’d buy a coffee – small, black, no sugar – and sit on a park bench for fifteen minutes to catch her breath and gather her thoughts for the day; then she’d return along the same route. Those morning runs were more for her brain than her body. She relied on them to sort out her thoughts and her life.

Back to the apartment by 9.15 am, shower, dress and out the door by 9.45 to take the short walk get to work by 10. She was like clockwork.

Barring torrential rain or snowfalls, she never missed a day.

I even knew what she listened to on those runs. Old mixtapes in a Walkman. Yes, she had a Discman and she owned CDs. But on those runs she liked to listen to cassettes. It was one of the things I really liked about her from the start. She’d pick one at random from the kitchen drawer where she filed them, then head out the door, pressing play without knowing exactly what she was going to hear.

I used to love the idea of her sitting on a bench in the park halfway through her run in the middle of the Financial District, feet tapping along to The Replacements or the Pixies or H�sker D�, sipping coffee and making her plans while the suited worker ants of New York business streamed around her, rushing to get to their glass towers and spreadsheets.

Jane thought I got up at 10 am. The reason she thought this was because I told her I got up at 10 am.

I lied. I’d been lying to Jane quite a bit over the last couple of years. I’m not proud of this. It’s just what happened. You start off being painfully honest with each other, you tell each other everything and you share all your hopes and dreams, and then slowly the infatuation wears off and the animal attraction fades and you settle into a routine and the two of you become like a pair of well-worn boots that have lost their lustre but you can’t quite bear to throw away. And before you know it, you’ve been together seven years.

That’s the story of Jane and me.

The night of my birthday, she took me out for dinner to one of my favourite places in the entire city, Vlautin’s on the Lower East Side. Ronny Vlautin, who owned the place and was its only chef, was a big man. His magnificent girth was no doubt the result of sampling every item on his menu, which covered two sides of an A3-sized laminated card in small, single-spaced type. There were something like 750 dishes on there, and he could make every one of them on demand from his closet-sized kitchen out the back.

I’d been regularly going to Vlautin’s for close to a decade, and I’d never once heard Ronny tell a customer that something was off the menu. The guy was a magician.

He did, however, have rules. Strict rules.

No parties of more than four. He was adamant about this. I once asked him why and he let out a weary sigh and gave me a look like I’d just asked him to do my taxes. >>> 59

>>> ‘What can I tell you?’ he said. ‘I just don’t trust groups.’

In some kind of inverted form of snobbery, he also turned away men in suits and ties and anyone carrying a laptop bag.

‘We’re closed!’ he’d yell at them before they’d even made it inside, despite the fact people were quite obviously sitting in the place, ordering and eating.

If any of them managed to get in before he had a chance to close the door in their faces, he would shout, ‘Ichigensan okotowari!’

The sight of a large white man from Queens roaring in Japanese would always mystify them, but it was invariably successful in getting them off his premises. For a long time I thought it was just some nonsense phrase he was yelling, but one afternoon he explained that he’d seen the words on signs out the front of restaurants he’d visited in Tokyo in the seventies.

‘The loose translation is “We respectfully decline first-time visitors”,’ he told me. ‘So basically it’s saying, “I don’t know you, I don’t need you, so get the fuck off my property.” The Japs are always so polite when they’re telling someone to get fucked. Except for Pearl Harbor, of course.’

Ronny’s final rule was this: you weren’t allowed to order a dish that someone else on your table was ordering. Sometimes a hapless firsttimer, stymied by the sheer scale of what was on offer on the menu, would become frozen in a state of indecision, and in a panic they would utter those dreaded words ‘I’ll just have what she’s having’.

This would enrage Ronny. If he was in a good mood, he’d say, ‘No duplications. Decision time. Twenty seconds.’

If he was in a bad mood, he’d simply yell, ‘Out! Out!’ I loved Vlautin’s and I loved Ronny. It was my kind of place, and we regulars felt like we had membership to a club that only admitted people who didn’t piss off Ronny too much. It was a privilege to be counted among that number.

The night of my birthday, I ordered one of my old favourites – Pete’s Priapic Pork Peanut Penne. Ronny was unorthodox in both his cooking and naming methods. That dish was named after a writer from The New Yorker who was a regular customer. Pete had always wanted to write a story about Ronny, but after years of countless failed attempts to get him to talk, he finally gave up.

‘What do I need publicity for?’ Ronny asked him. ‘Besides, I got nothing to say. I cook, you eat, you pay. End of story. Go find something interesting to write about, for Christ’s sake. Isn’t there a war on somewhere?’

Ronny actually liked Pete, so imagine how he spoke to people he had no time for.

So, I ordered Pete’s Priapic Pork Peanut Penne, Jane ordered Funky Chunky Chow Mein Soup and Filthy Rice, and later, on the walk home, on First Avenue somewhere between East 5th and 6th Streets, she broke up with me.

Jane always had great timing.

We’d been together seven years. It took about seven seconds to bring it to an end.

‘I think we need to talk,’ she said.

Nothing good ever comes after those six words. ***** We were both drunk when we got together. Of course.

It was 1994, at Irving Plaza. I was there to see a horrible band from LA that Sony had signed because at that point they were signing anything that sounded like a second-rate Nirvana rip-off.

This band was a third-rate Nirvana rip-off.

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I recognised the singer. Three years earlier, he’d sported a blond mane stiffened with hairspray, a stars-and-stripes bandana around his neck, tight spandex pants and he was in a band called Nite Cheetah.

They never went anywhere, and few remembered them, which I’m sure he was grateful for, as he’d now dyed his hair black, replaced the spandex with ripped jeans, wore a checked flannel shirt that looked way too new and was singing about some indefinable brand of existential pain in a voice like a drunk musk ox. His new band was called With Nails.

Kurt Cobain didn’t mention him in his suicide note a couple of months later, but he should have.

I thought With Nails were preposterous, but I also needed to pay the rent, so I agreed to write a story about them. I met with their illustrious frontman in a backstage dressing room after sound check, where we sat on a vinyl couch that was held together by duct tape and smelled of stale beer.

I waited until the end of the interview before bringing up the past.

As soon as I mentioned Nite Cheetah, he gave me a look like I’d just announced I’d found child porn in his possession and the police would be arriving imminently.

‘Look, man,’ he said. ‘That was another time. I’m a totally different person now. This is the real me. Before I was just playing a part, you know? With Nails is all about honesty. Our music is honest. The lyrics are honest. This album we’ve just recorded is the most honest thing you’ll hear in 1994.’

All this honesty was making me want to gag. Honestly.

I had a rule that the moment I saw the word ‘honesty’ in a band bio, I would immediately stop reading and it went in the trash quicker than I would normally throw those things in the trash.

When did honesty become so important in rock music anyway? And what’s wrong with dishonesty if it sounds good? ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ wasn’t any more honest than ‘My Sharona’. Both songs had killer riffs, great hooks and they rocked. Wasn’t that enough to qualify as something great without bringing honesty into it?

But as I was writing a story, I felt obliged to stay for the show to get some extra colour.

And there she was in the photo pit with a Hasselblad around her neck.

She had pale skin and black-framed glasses and her hair was up in a loose bun with a pencil stuck through it. She wore an old Boston T-shirt – not Boston the city, Boston the band that had one monster hit back in 1976 with the bombastic ‘More Than a Feeling’.

It was a very uncool shirt to wear, especially in 1994, so I knew the person wearing it must be very cool.

I spent the first three songs staring at her from my vantage point at the side of the stage until she looked my way. Then I would quickly redirect my gaze towards the band again, feeling myself blush. I was hopeless at picking up women.

I kept playing this staring/looking away game for a while until she finally caught me, held my stare and then deliberately went cross-eyed and poked her tongue out.

I laughed. She laughed.

I swear it was like I’d been administered a jolt of electricity directly to my heart.

Of course, there was an afterparty. Of course, I had absolutely no intention of going. Of course, I did go, because I hoped the girl with the camera and the Boston T-shirt would be there.

She was. And so was her boyfriend. He had carefully tousled hair and wore a tight three-piece suit and skinny tie, like he was in a new wave band from England in 1979. He had an arm loosely thrown around her shoulder while he talked to someone else. She looked bored and sipped a drink through a straw.

I wanted to immediately turn around and leave, but it was not a big backstage area and she had already seen me.

She waved. Lifted the boyfriend’s arm off her shoulder. Said something in his ear. Started walking towards me. No escape.

‘So, With Nails certainly rocked the house, didn’t they?’ she said.

‘I’m pretty sure the house remained unrocked.’

‘Indeed, it was the most unrocked of houses. Jane.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Jane. It’s my name.’

‘Right. Jane. Hi.’ I thought of three witty things to say, and while deciding which one to use, I stood there blankly, saying nothing.

‘So, how’s the witness protection program working out for you?’ she asked.

I had no idea what she was talking about. ‘Come again?’

‘Witness protection program. You can’t reveal your name.’

‘Sorry. Rick. I write for The Amp.’ ‘Rick from The Amp,’ she said in a grand tone that dripped with sarcasm.

‘And they sent you to cover this? You drew the short straw at the office then, my friend.’

‘Well, I can’t help but notice that you’re here too. Who do you work for?’

‘Whoever will take me. I freelance.’

‘I could talk to my editor. He might need something.’

‘You have no idea if I can take pictures. And anyway, I don’t even have film in the camera.’

‘You don’t?’

‘Nah. Just practising, getting the angles.’

‘You’re kidding.’

‘I am. And thanks for the offer, but Rolling Stone want the pictures.’

This wasn’t going well. But then, all of a sudden, it was. ‘Want to get out of here, Rick of The Amp?’ ‘What about your boyfriend?’

‘My boyfriend?’

‘That guy you were with over there.’

She looked where I was pointing. ‘God, he’s not my boyfriend. I’m a lesbian.’

‘Oh. Right. Great.’

‘It’s great that I’m a lesbian?’

‘Yeah. It is. Great.’

‘You should see the look of disappointment on your face.’

‘That’s not disappointment. That’s just how I look most of the time.’

‘I’m not a lesbian, Rick. I’m just fucking around with you.’

‘Right. I knew that.’

‘Sure you did. Let’s go get a real drink in a real bar with a jukebox that will cleanse the sound of With Nails from our memories forever.’

We were sitting on a couch at the back of Max Fish in the Lower East Side. That place was always lit too brightly and as soon as we walked in, I wished we were somewhere darker and more intimate. A guy in a cowboy hat worked his way through a series of wannabes at the pool table in front of us. We were two drinks down. Our knees were touching. I didn’t want to move a muscle.

‘So what cliché brought you to New York, Rick of The Amp?’ Jesus. How much time did she have?

There was an origin story, just like there always is with these things. And this one involved being eleven years old, being in the city with my brother and sharing a moment that has stayed with me ever since.

But I wasn’t ready to tell Jane about that then. And I’m not ready to tell you about it now. Maybe soon. Maybe later.

This is an extract from Driving Stevie Fracasso, a novel by Barry Divola, published by HarperCollins and available now in paperback and e-book.

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Kevin Borich is one of our greatest musical champions. The indefatigable master guitarist has weathered all sorts of challenges – including surviving cancer in the late 2000s – and is still raring to go! – By Ian McFarlane

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t’s a Saturday afternoon and I’m down at my local watering hole in rural Victoria. I’m sitting next to legendary guitarist Kevin Borich, and I’m struggling to hear him speak. Not that there’s too much extraneous noise going on, it’s just that he can barely talk above a hoarse whisper. His road crew is busy setting up the equipment and he’s due to hit the stage in a couple of hours to sing and play a gig.

In between COVID lockdowns, he’s been on tour with the Kevin Borich Express, the current line-up being KB, John Carson (drums) and Chris Gilbert (bass). Gilbert, in particular, is concerned about Borich’s resilience in the face of possibly having to pull the gig at the last minute. Rest assured, after he’s mentally and physically prepared himself for the task, KB and his sterling rhythm section take to the stage for two fine sets.

The crowd is small, in comparison to past glories – I guess you take what you can in these times – but every person there is thrilled to see one of our very best players up so close. There’s no issue with KB’s playing ability, but what about his vocals? He’s swigging straight Manuka Honey from a pot to sooth the vocal cords and he makes it through the night, possibly a little worse for wear, but triumphant.

The set list incorporates the likes of ‘Lonely One’, ‘Soapboxbitchinblues’ and ‘Rollin’ & Tumblin’’ in the acoustic set, then ‘The Place’, ‘Heart Starter’, ‘Gonna See My Baby Tonight’ ‘Goin’ Downtown’ and more in the electric set... with maximum slide the order of the night. I’ve seen KB play so many times over the years – going back to the La De Das at Festival Hall in 1974 as an impressionable 14-year-old – and his performances never fail to impress me.

To try and explore his career authoritatively is a difficult task, there’s so much to cover. A couple of weeks later, I catch up with KB over the phone. We jump around all over the place in our conversation so here is a semblance of the Kevin Borich story.

It was great to see you guys play recently at my local. You got to do a tour in May. I think everyone was just champing at the bit to go and see bands play live again. You were really struggling with your voice; how did you go with the next show at Archie’s Creek?

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That was tough but somehow, I won the crowd and they really enjoyed it. I was so eager to play I didn’t think about the match fitness. It was four shows in a row. I don’t do that much anymore, no one does; three if you got the weekend. It shocked me and the thing I forgot about the week before I did 2,000 kms to play a Newcastle gig and I hadn’t fully recovered from that drive. Then driving down to Melbourne, I thought ‘what a fuckin’ idiot’ but because the gigs were there I thought ‘what a blast! Let’s go, let’s do it!’.

You’ve got a great rhythm section, with John and Chris.

Yeah, they’re great. They’ve been with me for many years now. Chris plays the upright bass too which is really something.

How do you pick the songs? You’ve got so many songs in your own repertoire, plus all the blues tracks you can pick from. You did ‘Rollin’ and Tumblin’’, you could have done ‘Little Red Rooster’, ‘Stormy Monday’...

Well, I pick the ones that go over well, and then I try and introduce new ones as I go along. I do 98% my own stuff. Obviously, you pick the ones that work but you can’t keep doing that all the time, so then you try and introduce other ones with a similar feel basically. You can do that when you’ve got regular gigs. It’s all a shambles at the moment, there’s no regularity of work. ‘Rollin’ and Tumblin’’ is great because of that oompah-oompah feel and so I just have to write something else with that feel. I’ve done ‘Little Red Rooster’ a lot.

People love to hear ‘Gonna See My Baby Tonight’, which you still play. The song I really enjoy is ‘Morning, Good Morning’ and also your version of ‘All Along The Watchtower’. Would you consider revisiting some of those older La De Das songs?

I’d do ‘Morning, Good Morning’ but ‘Watchtower’ I played so often at the time... it’s a great one to get people up to take a lead in a jam and that’s what usually happens. I’d pull it out if I was doing something special with someone. But that just takes up time for something of my own. When I was doing a lot of Hendrix stuff, I got canned for doing that, a Hendrix copier. I thought ‘bugger that I’ll leave that behind’ because they kind of find a way to pick at you. >>>

Photo by Ian McFarlane

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>>> People do still want to hear you.

Well, I’m still breaking through, it’s a really tough cocoon. I’m trying to get out of this cocoon. I’ve got an antenna out, that’s why you’re talking to me. But I’ve been around that long there’s not that many of my age still doing it. I must be one of the oldest. Someone like Mossy, he’s a bit younger. So really, I’m the old dude, I’m the dinosaur!

Tell me about your new album, which you’ve been working on steadily for some time. Will it be out by September or October?

It’s been on drip feed. We tried to do a song every couple of months, a new single with somebody different each time. That sounded like a good idea but then COVID came along and then we had to stall releasing stuff because everyone’s in a pickle. Things have slowly settled down because it’s become the norm. Next song will come out in October. It’s already done, the flip’s done and then I’ve got about four or five other people already recorded. The idea is to get the highest profile person last. It’s somebody pretty famous so that will turn heads because everyone’s sick of me. You know what it’s like, ‘ah, not you again Kev, you’ve been around for so long’ (laughs).

I’ve got a song called ‘Down In The Bunker’, that’s a good one. Also, a new version of ‘Soapboxbitchinblues’, which was originally on Totem.

I played the National on that and I had Doc Spann on harp and that’s a beautiful version. About a year later the bank tried to do a shifty on me so I thought I’ll do a heavy metal version of that, really saying I’m angry. So, who do I get to sing it? The lyric is ‘I’m angry’, I’ll get Angry Anderson to sing it!

You released ‘Call A Friend’ with Russell Morris last year. That’s a great song.

Yeah, it was really timely. The roadie thing was going on and I was thinking of doing this album. A lot of roadies and other people are doing it tough and they need to talk to each other. I was thinking ‘who am I going to ask to do this?’. To break the ice, like the lyrics go, so it turned it into a more detailed thing than I started off thinking. The way it grew as far as meaning and being related to the current situation, it turned out to be quite strong.

I think Russell was the perfect person to do that with, it really struck a chord. Russell is one of those guys who’s been able to reinvent himself, so the two of you together was a fantastic combination. Did you know Russell from back in the day?

Well, he was always a Melbourne guy, and I was a Sydney guy so we wouldn’t have been that close at the time. I’ve got a great story that points out Russell’s humanity. I went to LA in the late ’70s, alone, just to go and see what was going on. Michael Chugg was managing me at the time and he gave me a list of about four people over there, Aussies. So, I rung them all and the only one who turned up was Russell in his BMW and he drove me all around LA (laughs). He was just that sort of guy. When I asked him, he said ‘sure, no worries Kev’, no big deal.

Now that he’s moved up to the Gold Coast, I just went down there.

I had the track finished and my vocals were on, so we cut his vocals in, and it was done in his lounge room. I watched him go through the song and put his vocals on, over a few takes. It showed his talent of how he gets into a song. It was quite neat to watch.

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Photo by Ian McFarlene So, the title is Duets?

It’s gonna be called The Duets Album. That explains everything. We’ll follow up with another album because we’ve been recording as much as we can. I’ve found an engineer / producer right near me, 10 minutes away, Nick O’Donnell. I’m up in the hills and I had all this gear because my guy was from Brisbane, and he moved to Melbourne. There I was stuck with all this great equipment, a manual in my hand and it just didn’t work did it! I was telling my woes to the guy at the computer shop and he said, ‘why don’t you give a couple of tracks to Nick, he’s a musician and he fixes computers, so he knows all about that stuff’.

So, I got the two tracks back and it sounded fantastic and I went ‘hallelujah!’ (laughs). We’ve been working ever since; he comes over every week and we put down another track, or work on what we did last week. So, it’s just growing and growing. I come up with so many bits so having another person to go ‘well, why don’t you do that one and maybe this one’ is great. Arranging stuff really has helped me immensely because I get a bit bored with myself trying to do things, so bouncing off is really fantastic.

Going back to the late ’70s, when you did a lot of overseas touring with the Kevin Borich Express in the US and Europe... did you find people were accepting of you in that environment?

Unbelievably so, that’s what was so good about going away at that time. I came back heaps in debt but mentally it did me great because people were asking me, ‘where’s all your music, where can we get it?’.

I was getting good reactions, after they’d heard it three or four times.

Some of the big shows if they didn’t know you, you’d get stuff thrown at you. I turned them round and they were getting into it. That was good for me because it wasn’t just Australian audiences, it was people who didn’t know my history but they were genuinely loving what I was doing. Even though there was no great commercial breakthrough, it was a breakthrough in my mind.

When I was 18, one of the very first big outdoor gigs I went to was Rockarena at Calder Park Raceway, with Santana and Fleetwood Mac. Tell me about jamming with Carlos Santana?

Yeah, that was pretty amazing for me, when you think about it. I didn’t know that was going to happen. We’d done the Sydney show the week before and he must have heard me but there was no contact then. I was watching from side stage at Calder Raceway. A roadie grabbed me and said, ‘Carlos wants you on’. I’m going ‘wow, really?’. So, I’m getting shoved over to the other side of the stage near where he was, and the roadie plonked one of his guitars over me and plugs it in and there you are. So, the drum solo was going on which was a good time for the swap over. Then I turned around and when Carlos made it obvious, I was gonna play, the crowd went nuts! They were acknowledging a local.

He pointed to me and motioned ‘go for it’. I played some of these lines, quite unusual, and he just jumped on with the harmonies and I thought ‘wow, this guy knows what he’s doing’. It just showed how

much of a good musician he was because he heard me, not just what you can do with a blues scale. I wasn’t on for long, but it was long enough to really spark the audience because the music that was going on was amazing anyway, that was the icing on the cake.

How did you enjoy playing with Joe Walsh when he came out to Australia to tour with The Party Boys?

It was amazing, fantastically beautiful because he’s such a character.

We’d started rehearsals and we’d put Joe up in this swish hotel, but he rings me up and says (adopts Texan accent), ‘hey Kevin, you got a couch?’. I was living in Bondi then and I had a spare couch and he slept there. Playing ‘Rocky Mountain Way’ with him was great. He’d showed me what he wanted to do. I’ve listened to a lot of his stuff but he showed me a few things that I hadn’t caught on to properly. Later, he came out and did a gig with me in Taree. Down the track after that he came and visited us here. He’d just done this 50th anniversary gig in London and he flew out and stayed with me in the ‘Joe Walsh Suite’ in my studio.

I wanted to mention and commiserate with you on the recent passing of Ronnie Peel, such an important part of the La De Das. Yeah, he was, a wonderful character and a real great supportive dude to have in the band. He had his own persona. Ronnie was great, a great bottom end bass player, he put a great bed on the sound which is what you want from a bass player. I first met him in New Zealand when he was in The Pleazers, the Australian Pleazers. There was also an NZ Pleasers. They had two singers and we saw them at the Galaxy club, a great venue with two stages. One band would play one end and then they’d change over to the other band up the other end. I’d see Ray Columbus and the Invaders, the ‘She’s A Mod’ guy, and they had two great guitar players, two different styles. Then you’d see Max Merritt and the Meteors on the other stage, a sensational band. It was educational to go and see them.

The classic track from the early La De Das was ‘How Is The Air Up There’. Then you changed with things like ‘Morning, Good Morning’. On to Rock And Roll Sandwich which I still think is one of the great albums, an absolute classic. Funky as all get out, with tracks like ‘The Place’, ‘To Get Enough’ and ‘Searchin’’.

That was my first three-piece stuff with Ronnie and Keith Barber, a wonderful drummer. My first Express album I suppose, being a swap over from the four piece when Phil Key had left. I was doing more writing. It’s been successful.

You always played that tough style of blues rock, but it was also very commercial. You had the hits with the La De Das, ‘Too Pooped To Pop’ and ‘Honky Tonkin’’. Then you had a hit in the Celebration! era with ‘Goin’ Somewhere’, another classic song. My absolute fave KBE track is ‘Celebration!’. I love that, the way it changes up.

Thanks man. There’s a version of ‘Celebration!’ I recorded at the Basement with my son Lucius on drums and Clayton Doley plays organ, he was in a band before us and I said ‘you wanna get up and play?’. Also, Leo Sayer was in the crowd and we were doing an encore and Harry the bass player goes ‘Leo wants to get up’ and I was going ‘Leo De Castro?’. The great Maori singer who was incredible. So, he goes ‘no, Leo Sayer’, so he got up. I tune a semi tone down and that usually kills half the harp players because they don’t have a flat harp but Leo had the right harp and he went for it. It was really fun. we did ‘You Got Me Running’ and ‘KB’s Boogie’ which is a real up-tempo one.

I saw you at the Continental in the late ’90s when Lucius was playing and you had Ben Rosen on bass. You got Ross Wilson and Wendy Saddington up to sing. So, you did the rocking blues stuff and Ross got up and you did the R&B stuff with him and then Wendy just did jazz blues fusion; it was a lovely night.

We only had an afternoon rehearsal and she’d just come off from being in the Hari Krishnas and it was her first performance. She hadn’t been singing for a long time and she was going ‘should I do it?’. She died a few years ago too. She was so unique, there was no one else who approached anywhere near how she sang, with the force of her voice.

Janis Joplin had that thing but Wendy had her own style, not just like Janis. >>> 65

La De Das, 1972

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“Being on the road takes it out of you, so I’ve gotta get back into my routine.” >>> Jumping back again to Rock And Roll Sandwich, what do you remember about recording it? The album credits say it was recorded live at the Doncaster Theatre?

Right, we’d gone into EMI studios and in those days the studios didn’t really have any live reflection rooms and that’s half the battle. In those days they sucked everything up by dampening it. We set up and we heard it back and we said, ‘that’s not us, we don’t sound like that’. We wanted to go to a place and put the beds down and put the vocals on later. We went to this rock venue called Greensleeves, somewhere in Sydney, the Doncaster Theatre. I can’t remember where it was (Ed note: formerly a cinema, in Kensington, City of Randwick). It had a high roof and we took in a 16-track tape machine and there was a room off to the side of the stage. We miced everything up like playing a live set and we went right through our songs. I think the only one done in the studio was one I wrote on piano, ‘No Law Against Having Fun’.

You were such a great performance band in those days and you had Renée Geyer and Bobbi Marchini on backing vocals on the album.

Yeah, Renee was on Lonely One too and we did a whole album with her, Blues License. We did that mini album Shy Boys/Shy Girls and she was singing on that too. She’s an amazing singer. She’s a tough lady.

I toured with her, in those days she never picked on us though. We almost came to blows one time, but we worked that out. I’m writing a book at the moment and I’ve got a bit about that in it.

Tell me about your book; do you have a title yet?

Um, I’m still fishing for that. It’s gonna have ‘Without Prejudice’ underneath (laughs). I’ve just been jotting down my recollections and I’m starting to have trouble remembering things. I also went through radiation treatment for cancer and I must have done something wrong. I’ve now married an angel, Melissa, she’s a meditation and yoga teacher. She got me on the right path in about 2005 and she said you should do what I do, so I’ve been practising that since then. Being on the road takes it out of you so I’ve gotta get back into my routine.

For more on Kevin Borich, visit www.kevinborich.com.au 67

NEW ALBUM Saint Georges Road OUT SEPT 10 Limited Edition Vinyl : Deluxe CD : Digital

By Martin Jones FREAK POWER

DRIVE THRU BOOTY 4th & Broadway/Island

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t was that unforgettable 1995 Levi’s commercial. Remember? The one where the cab driver picks up a hot girl in Levi’s 501s only to discover she’s not what he presumed… the tag line twist, ‘Cut For Men Since 1850’. The sultry soundtrack sounded like nothing else at the time, a mixture of classic soul and modern production with a psychedelic edge. The track, ‘Turn On, Tune In, Cop Out’, was a major hit for Freak Power, from their debut album, Drive-Thru Booty. The song and the album were about to sink into oblivion before the commercial catapulted it to Number Three on the British charts.

I dug out Drive-Thru Booty the other day and it still stands up. Essentially a collaboration between Norman ‘Fatboy Slim’ Cook and trombonist/vocalist Ashley Slater, Freak Power kind of emerged with the mid-‘90s British trip hop scene but was so much more fun and irreverent.

Cook, who is credited with most of the songwriting on the record, had a wealth of music experience as an influential DJ in Brighton, as a member of indie outfit The Housemartins and founder of the collective Beats International. The latter’s hit, ‘Dub Be Good To Me’ almost sent him bankrupt via unauthorised samples/copyright infringements and it was soon after that that Cook formed Freak Power (hopefully the Levi’s ad campaign got him back on his feet).

There’s some confusion over how the band was formed and who actually played on the first album, so it was great to track down original bass player Dale Davis for his side of the story. Davis, who was credited as ‘Davies’ on the album, went on to become Amy Winehouse’s Musical Director.

“There’s a bit of backstory to it because I worked with Norman in Beats International, his band before which turned into Freak Power. I went to a club night that Norman was doing one night and the stuff he was playing was amazing. When I actually got around to meeting him I was on the same trajectory as far as musical styles, when I got to join the band.

“So, there was Norman, there was Ashley Slater the lead singer and the other writer in the band, and he had a band called Microgroove and Norman used them as his backing band when they went out on the road.

“So Beats International finished at the end of 1992 and then six months later I got a call to see if I would work with Freak Power, because he’d just put this new project together out of the two bands. And Norman had written ‘Turn On, Tune In, Cop Out’ and he was already recording, so I joined after that.”

Davis recalls that Drive-Thru Booty was recorded over a year in batches between touring. The playing and production are Steely Dan level. A joyous blend of Sly Stone, Curtis Mayfield and Funkadelic, its grooves are formidable and it’s a treat through headphones with phasers and panning rendering a psychedelic swirl. Drums (Jim Carmichael), keys (Cyril McCammon) and guitars are all finely sculpted and work around judicious samples and Slater’s Isaac Hayes vocals (indeed ‘The Theme From Shaft’ could have been the basic blueprint for the album).

Drive-Thru Booty is a well plotted journey too, blooming gradually through opening bass groove of ‘Moonbeam Woman’ before erupting into a full funk workout and wasting no time getting to first single ‘Turn On, Tune In, Cop Out’. The album even has its own band theme ‘Freak Power’, crackling with wah wah guitar and lush backing vocals.

There are few weak moments on the album, even the barest, single chord bass and drum grooves delivered with disarming flair. The highlights are generous; the almost delicate melody of ‘Running Away’, paired with the two-chord, flute-augmented drive of ‘Change My Mind’; the slow build climax of ‘Waiting

For The Story To End’ and the intricate samples and Bootsy Collins psych-funk of ‘Big Time’.

Dale recalls how the grooves were created.

“Well Norman, because he was a bass player in The Housemartins, and he’s a great musician even though he doesn’t give himself credit, he had the bass lines in his head so it would be a combination of his bass lines and what I threw into the project.

So ‘Waiting For The Story To End’ I was just mucking about and came up with the high riff and Ashley sort of just said, ‘okay repeat that’. ‘What Is It?’ And ‘Freak Power’, they were already Ashley’s tunes. So, I had played them beforehand with Microgroove. But it was a crazy time because that’s how I got my break!”

The bonus remix album, Fried Funk Food leaves the past way behind in favour of modern space exploration… widescreen dub instrumental versions that would stand up against anything contemporary like Khruangbin and demonstrate the project’s depth and offer glimmers of Cook’s past in Beats International, and unforeseen superstardom as Fatboy Slim.

“It’s interesting to watch his transition through Freak Power into Fatboy Slim,” says Davis, “because he’s genuinely a real talent in the studio so when you listen to You’ve Come A Long Way, you could see the direction he was going in. He used to enjoy himself on the weekends and then he’d go into the studio and transfer all of that into the music. He parties hard and works hard. Works harder than anyone I’ve ever seen. So, I’ve got a lot of respect for him.”

About a year into Freak Power, Davis left the band for a lifestyle change after he was stabbed outside his house. Clearly it was a traumatic time and though he’s since re-joined the latest Slater-led incarnation of Freak Power, he laughs that he somehow got written out of the band’s history.

“The guy who wrote up the new Freak Power website, he put everyone’s bios on there and they were massive. And I got three lines (laughs). And I had to tell him I was an original member, he didn’t even credit me because he just didn’t know. So, it did get to the point where I thought, I really should let people know that I played in the band (laughs).”

The reborn Slater/Davis Freak Power released a 2018 EP, United State and continue to collaborate and tour. To read Martin jones interview with Dale Davis visit rhythms.com.au 69

DADDY COOL

Billy Pinnell

SEX, DOPE ,ROCK ‘N’ ROLL: TEENAGE HEAVEN

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Original Label: Sparmac Records - Released January 1972

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hen Ross Wilson’s musically adventurous Sons Of The Vegetal Mother metamorphosised into Daddy Cool late in 1970, the plan was to shelve their ‘head music’ in favour of ‘feet music;’ and have fun.

Comprised of Wilson (guitar/lead vocals,) Ross Hannaford (lead guitar/vocals), bass guitarist Wayne Duncan and drummer Gary Young, Daddy Cool released Daddy Who? Daddy Cool on July 2, 1971 hot on the heels of their number one single ‘Eagle Rock.’

The album was full of good time exuberant Wilson songs such as ‘Eagle Rock’, ‘Come Back Again’, ‘At The Rockhouse’, ‘Bom Bom’ and a sprinkling of doo-wop and R&B favourites that included Chuck Berry’s ‘School Days’, The Ray’s ‘Daddy Cool’, The Chordettes’ ‘Lollipop’ and Skip & Flip’s ‘Cherry Pie’.

The album would top charts around the nation on its way to selling more than 80,000 copies. By year’s end Daddy Cool were Australia’s most popular band. Never before had Wilson achieved this level of commercial success; in fact, his only previous visit to the charts was in 1965 when his first band The Pink Finks scored a moderate hit with their cover of Richard Berry’s ‘Louie, Louie’ If Wilson had decided to repeat the formula on Daddy Cool’s follow-up release it would have surprised no-one; however, he wasn’t prepared to paint himself into a corner by recording another album of vintage rock and roll.

Smart enough not to risk alienating his massive new audience he settled on a compromise drawing on influences that shaped the first Daddy Cool album on some songs, referring to innovations he’d put into place in his earlier bands The Party Machine and Sons Of The Vegetal Mother for others.

With an additional member - saxophonist/pianist Jeremy Kellock aka Jerry Noone (ex Company Caine) - Daddy Cool released the controversial Sex,Dope,Rock ‘n’ Roll-Teenage Heaven in January 1972.

The first single ‘Hi Honey Ho’, an ‘Eagle Rock’ soundalike that would have fitted comfortably on the first album kickstarted the new release on its way to a top five hit. Driven

by Hannaford’s guitar (he uses every second of the song’s 3.40 duration to riff, solo and harmonise with Noone’s sax) the song offered no hints to the direction later songs would take. Ditto the second track ‘Daddy Rocks Off’ a boogie highlighted by the infectious vocal harmonies from both the Rosses.

The doo-wop influence on the previous album makes its first appearance on ‘Please, Please America’, Wilson’s satirical comment on the band’s relatively unsuccessful tour of the U.S. West Coast in 1971 when they played a week of dates at Los Angeles’ famous Whiskey A-Go-Go and later supported acts that included Linda Ronstadt, Captain Beefheart, Little Feat and Fleetwood Mac. The R&B covers chosen for the new release were somewhat ‘meatier’ than those on the first album.

Billy Ward And The Dominoes’ ode to a long distance lover, ‘Sixty Minute Man’, with a lead vocal from Hannaford, and The Penguins’ raunchy ‘Baby Let Me Bang Your Box’ (about a piano), featuring the multi-talented Noone tickling the ivories, were both U.S.hits in the ‘50’s but unknown in Australia. Courtesy of the Daddy Cool restoration service they found a new audience, albeit one who, in many cases, mistook the songs for Wilson originals.

While the first half of the album found the band travelling a familiar path, the remaining tracks saw them make a sharp left turn. Unwilling to pursue the same theme to its conclusion, Wilson cleverly fused adventurous musical elements and dynamic arrangements with the rock and roll ingredients of the album’s earllier songs.

When the new album’s title was initially revealed, moralists, politicians and church groups were outraged.

I can only imagine their indignation had they hung in long enough to hear the nine-minute suite ‘Teen Love’.

‘Drive-In Movie’ and ‘Love In An F.J’. A musical mosaic about teenagers coming of age, Wilson merged an American Graffiti theme (the film wasn’t released until the following year) with falsetto vocals, doo-wop harmonies, honking sax and a Frank Zappa styled vocal delivery on the first song, a tough repetitive guitar line for the second and an exhilarating finale featuring Noone’s electric piano filling in the gaps between Hannaford’s guitar parts.

‘Donna Forgive Me’, a teen ballad with more doo-wop vocals, sustains the subject matter a little longer before Wilson charges off in another direction to tackle the title’s remaining theme, drugs, with the cheeky ‘Make Your Stash’ previously recorded in 1971 by Spectrum on their Spectrum Part One debut.

Borrowing once again from Frank Zappa, Wilson’s arrangement pushes the brilliant Jerry Noone headlong into the spotlight, allowing for high powered interplay between his sax and Hannaford’s guitar.

This musically innovative track clocking in at over six minutes emphasises the vision and scope of Wilson’s songwriting, a talent he’d kept under wraps to a degree on the first Daddy Cool album.

Mention should also be made of the contributions provided

by Young and Duncan who had worked with Wilson in at least one of his pre-Daddy Cool bands.

Their discipline on the R&B songs and flair on the more complex material is exemplary.

While ‘Eagle Rock’ and Daddy Who? Daddy Cool are the high points of the band’s commercial success, Sex,Dope,Rock ‘n’ Roll-Teenage Heaven, one of the great rock albums of its time is undoubtedly the band’s creative zenith.

BY KEITH GLASS STRING DRIVEN THING

KEEP YER ‘AND ON IT.

Charisma 636992 UK / 20th Century T 503 USA In the 60’s/70’s/80’s major record labels worldwide maintained a massive album release schedule. Only a comparatively few artists scored a hit, others became ‘cult’ classics. Beyond that exists an underbelly of almost totally ignored work, (much never reissued) that time has been kind to. This is a page for the crate diggers.

By the mid 70’s the worldwide record company juggernauts were pushing recorded product like never before. Chains such as Virgin and Tower were making hay (no matter the sunshine) and many UK bands were constantly touring the lucrative US market. How else could a minor league Scottish ‘folk/prog rock’ group with a number of low selling albums behind them (and now with an almost totally non original member line-up) still be ‘viable’ or gain a release on US label 20th Century?

The original SDT were formed in Glasgow by husband/wife team Chris and Pauline Adams and heavily featured the electric violin of Graham Smith. However, only Smith remained by the time of this album

and he was joined by Kim Beacon (vocal) Alun Roberts (guitar) James Exell (bass) and Colin Fairly (drums). Gone was any real trace of folk but the new members proved to be very capable songwriters with a mix of all three supplying all but one of the songs – the album finale being a near seven-minute loping rhythm interpretation of the Lennon and McCartney composition ‘Things We Said Today’.

Their own songs do not pale in comparison, the opener ‘But I Do’ is a fine roughhouse proggy pop workout and that and the third cut ‘Ways Of A Woman’ (both written in entirety by bass player Exell) more or less prove him to be the dominant writer with shares in all but one other original. That one fell to lead singer Kim Beacon to provide and as a relaxing second up ballad ‘Old Friends’ doesn’t disappoint. Beacon went on to provide lead vocals for Genesis keyboardist Tony Banks’ first solo album A Curious Feeling shortly afterwards. Alas, Beacon’s subsequent two solo albums remain hard to find even for his admittedly few dedicated fans.

The fascinating thing is a full-time musical career was pretty much hardscrabble for all involved. It was an era when bands were most reliant on their record labels to get somewhere and the magic elixir of success in the world market; especially the USA was an absolute crapshoot. Adding to the enigma

and salt to the wounds is that founders Chris and Pauline Adams and fiddle player Smith re-united some time afterwards to more or less write this somewhat poppier version of ‘The Thing’ out of the history books. To die-hard fans this would then appear to be treated as a band version of mid-life crisis rather than what it most always is…simply a good group looking for a hit.

For the not so dedicated this album, produced by the redoubtable Andy Johns comes across as pretty much a breath of fresh air. It has a timely but still curious ‘glam’ aspect but with some serious musicianship and none too shabby songs much more could have been achieved if someone/somewhere really believed. Time capsule wise it arrived in an era where Metal was making a mark, pure Pop was rife and Punk was just around the corner. The folk/prog vanguard (Jethro Tull for example) had secured their positions – so in essence there was just no room left at the inn.

The greatest shame seems to be main songwriter / bassist James Exell became next to invisible with nothing significant song writing-wise appearing to come from him past this work, when there obviously could have been so much. While hardly a unique case in the world pantheon of music, the adventures of String Driven Thing provide a textbook example of “there but for the fickle finger of fate” was a great world famous highly individual musical combo.

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By Christopher Hollow THE LIMIÑANAS & LAURENT GARNIER

DE PELÍCULA Because Music

I love a good cross-genre musical collaboration. Say, Joni Mitchell and Jaco Pastorius on ‘Coyote’ or ‘Portland, Oregon’ by Loretta Lynn/Jack White or Lil Nas X + Billy Ray Cyrus with ‘Old Town Road’, that kinda thing. De Película is a union of two of my fave but disparate French artists – club DJ Laurent Garnier and flower punkers The Limiñanas. Garnier came to prominence in the early 90s at the iconic Manchester club, The Haçienda, and has done a myriad of excellent records including 2010’s Alaska. The Limiñanas have also been super-consistent for more than a decade. You could say they’ve been in this past-meetsfuture territory before – eg. the late Andrew Weatherall doing a great remix of ‘Garden of Love’, their 2016 track with New Order’s Peter Hook. But De Película is a partnership from the ground up rather than an afterthought remix and it’s a kaleidoscopic powerhouse – very cinematic, very French. I’m told it’s a concept LP, following a romance road trip through France and Spain between two teenagers called Juliette and Saul. The lyrics get lost due to my lack of French, but the feeling conjured puts it right up there with my favourite records of the year.

When acting, it was all about the eyes with Karen Black. It turns out she had a unique singing voice too.

Black was the off-centre star at the heart of the New Hollywood movement of the late 60s, early 70s American cinema. She played the absent-minded country-singing waitress Rayette in one of my best films ever, 1970’s Five Easy Pieces co-starring Jack Nicholson. She also made strong appearances in big films like Easy Rider, The Day of the Locusts, The Great Gatsby and Nashville, where she wrote, sang and received Grammy nominations for two tracks (‘Memphis’ and ‘Rolling Stone’) for the soundtrack.

While other actresses of the time like Goldie Hawn and Peggy Lipton were getting record deals, it appeared Black wasn’t interested.

Turns out, she was recording tunes as idiosyncratic as her acting. Cut to 2009 and Black collaborated with American indie artist Cass McCombs on ‘Dreams-ComeTrue-Girl’ off his Catacombs album. During this time, McCombs promised to go through Black’s songs. However, it was only after she died of cancer in 2013 that McCombs pulled together Karen’s various demos and studio recordings from the 70s plus another they wrote together from one of Black’s poems called ‘I Wish I Knew the Man I Thought You Were’ (basically Rayette’s character motivation notes from Five Easy Pieces). ‘I wish I knew the man that I thought you were,’ she sings in her private press voice. ‘He’d tell me not to trust the man you are.’ The only shame is that Karen Black isn’t here to enjoy another dimension to her fabulous career.

DREAMING OF YOU (1971-1976) Anthology

Musos often find inspiration from their record collections.

Some bands take their names directly from lyrics from another

SUGAR CANDY MOUNTAIN

IMPRESSION

Org Music / PIAPTK

JEM RECORDS CELEBRATES BRIAN WILSON Jem

SYLVIE Terrible

or arrangements. Most of the artists are content to ape the originals rather than expanding them – granted, ‘Warmth of the Sun’ and ‘Please Let Me Wonder’ don’t need improvement/embellishment, but it’d be interesting to hear them presented in a new form.

Pick up the bunch include the Grip Weeds ripping through my very favourite Wilson creation, ‘Heroes & Villains’, and blending it with another SMiLE number, ‘Roll Plymouth Rock’ aka ‘Do You Like Worms?’ while kudos to Nick Piunti for taking on ‘Hang Onto Your Ego’ rather than ‘I Know There’s An Answer’. The most creative venture is Lisa Mychols pairing a cut-up method mash of words to the instrumental, ‘Pet Sounds’.

VARIOUS ARTISTS

SYLVIE

KAREN BLACK

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artist. One such act is Sylvie out of Los Angeles. They belong to the list of bands named after songs (Death Cab for Cutie, Ladytron, Radiohead and the Rolling Stones). Sylvie took their name from a number by ex-Fairport Convention singer, Iain Matthews, who recorded the folky ballad ‘Sylvie’ with Matthews Southern Comfort in 1970. But because Sylvie have also recorded ‘Sylvie’, they join the list of groups that have a track with the same name as the band – think, Bad Company, Black Sabbath, They Might Be Giants and The Monkees. But who has named themselves after a song and then recorded that song? Sylvie might just be in a club all their own. Come to think of it there’s ‘Motorhead’ (originally by Hawkwind). And ‘Talk Talk’ (initially done by The Reaction). Can you think of others? Anyway, check out Sylvie and ‘Sylvie’.

My fascination with Brian Wilson and his Beach Boys comes in waves. I can go forever without hearing their music, then suddenly I’m listening to nothing else but outrageously creative harmonies and dodgy lyrics (eg. ‘I’m fat as a cow - how did I ever get this wayyyyyyyyyyyyy?’). This power-poppin’ tribute album has sent me back under the spell of America’s band. The positive is it’s super tight, well packaged and a joyous celebration.

The negative? Not enough surprises in the song choices

If you’ve read George Orwell’s Animal Farm, you know that Sugarcandy Mountain represents animal heaven - a mythical promised land perpetuated by Moses the raven, where it’s ‘Sunday seven days a week’. In rock music form, Sugar Candy Mountain is a duo from Oakland, California, who are aiming for a similar 7-day weekend euphoria. The new album, Impression, is the band’s fifth and, once again, slices and dices some very cool ’60s style influences. What impression does it make? That SCM are clever, and they have taste. ‘Running From Fire’ lays out all the strengths – persuasive rhythms, intriguing vocals and, as Orwell’s raven says, ‘situated somewhere up in the sky, a little distance beyond the clouds.’

By Trevor J. Leeden THE J ANN C TRIO AT TAN-TAR-A

Modern Harmonic/Planet

in trying times. A new Jim Lauderdale makes the world seem a better place.

Blues Music Awards on the mantelpiece.

NICK LOWE

THE BOLIC SOUND SESSIONS

THE CONVINCER

Yep Roc/Planet

This impossibly rare private press release from 1966 finally gets a deserved general reissue. Led by sassy bass playing vocalist Ann Delrene, Carl Russell (guitar) and Jerry Dugan (drums) complete the dirt busting Missouri trio as they embark on a roller coaster ride taking in rockabilly, bossa nova, jazz, folk and lounge. Whether covering Astrud Gilberto or Hank Williams, Delrene irreverently scratches and purrs like a playful Wanda Jackson, breathing unexpected life into chestnuts like ‘If I Had A Hammer’ and ‘Moon River’, and lighting a fire under classics like ‘Hey Bo Diddley’.

JIM LAUDERDALE HOPE

Yep Roc/Planet

He needs no introduction, his place in contemporary music as songwriter and performer is already assured. Arguably the high point of his storied canon, this 20th anniversary (can it really be that long ago) reissue of his crooning masterpiece includes several unused demos, all diamonds previously gathering dust. With a 10th anniversary edition of The Old Magic, plus vinyl reissues of Dig My Mood, The Impossible Bird, and Labour Of Lust all in the pipeline, there has never been a better time to revisit the soulful pop brilliance of Nick Lowe.

MIKE ZITO

RESURRECTION

IKE & TINA TURNER Sunset Blvd/Planet

The early part of the 1970’s was the Turners’, in particular Tina’s, most dynamic period and aligned with the establishment of their Californian recording studio Bolic Sound. The 36 tracks included here are drawn from these sessions and include both studio and live recordings.

The absolute highlights here are the live performances of numerous Beatles, Creedence, and Stones songs that became a staple of their stage show.

The intoxicating power of Tina’s voice is cause for multiple replays; what an instrument.

ALEJANDRO ESCOVEDO LA CRUZADA

Yep Roc/Planet

The prolific blues/rock guitar ace’s latest is yet another flint hard statement of positive intent. Most of the eight originals are flashy slices of soul/ blues featuring Zito’s trademark molten licks, but he still finds space to wind it back a notch for texture on a couple of tasty acoustic numbers. Three spirited covers (JJ Cale, Willie Dixon, Eric Clapton) round out the album, the pick being an impassioned wah-wah assault on ‘Presence Of The Lord’. One suspects Zito needs to make room for more

MEMPHIS MOONLIGHT VizzTone/Planet

Originally hailing from Chicago, Ryder has the blues in her blood. Her fifth album showcases her burgeoning skills as both a songwriter and a powerhouse singer. The sound of Memphis can be heard through the horn flourishes and gospel/ soul undertones as Ryder howls and moans her way through Delta and Chicago blues, as well as some tasty Tejano-flavoured blues (with help from Los Lobos luminaries David Hidalgo and Steve Berlin). Ronnie Earl lends a hand with some shredding licks, but this is all about the newest blues shouter on the block.

SILVER SYNTHETIC SILVER SYNTHETIC

Third Man Records

Gulf Coast Records/Planet

Seeing the Americana icon perform is a truly uplifting experience and it is entirely appropriate that his new release should strive to inspire through messages that celebrate the resilience of the human spirit. Blessed with an innate songwriting ability to seamlessly traverse country, rock, soul and bluegrass, Lauderdale’s gentle drawl exudes both warmth and considerable pathos. Songs titled ‘The Opportunity To Help Somebody Through It’, ‘The Brighter Side Of Lonely’, and ‘Here’s To Hoping’ bring comfort

DEB RYDER

Collaborating with Italian rockers Don Antonio in 2018, roots rock legend Escovedo released the outstanding The Crossing, a concept album that dwelt upon the American Dream from the perspective of Mexican and Italian immigrants. Now comes the same album recorded entirely in Spanish, and it is a triumph. No matter what the language, the music is totally compelling, from the furious punk-inspired outpouring of ‘Sonica USA’ to the brooding intensity of the title track.

English…Spanish…you need both.

The eponymous debut by the New Orleans quartet belies their punk rock upbringing.

Instead, they deliver a carefree exploration of rock’n’roll with heavy overtones of late 60’s/ early 70’s country-rock. The Byrds, Neil Young and Tom Petty spring to mind, and the harmonised vocal treatment bears the hallmarks of The Association or America. There are waves of jangling 12-string, infectious melodies and an overriding sense of feelgood. It works a treat.

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By Chris Familton

T

his issue I thought I’d take a look at a selection of my favourite Americana albums released so far in 2021.

Some you may have heard, others you may not have comes across or had a chance to investigate yet. One thing is for sure, all of them are quite superb, ranging from hypnotic folk, to cosmic country, a fresh take on the Texas troubadour sound and some of Australia’s finest alt-country releases.

Reviewed elsewhere in this issue, Suicide Swans’ latest, Reservations, is their most cohesive and concise album to date. Hailing from Toowoomba and Brisbane, the band are my favourite Australian altcountry act of the last few years. Always approaching their song-craft from a different angle on each album, they’ve found a way to frame their songs with a sublime mix of country, folk and ragged rock ’n’ roll, all under the watchful eye and astute songwriting of Kyle Jenkins.

Keeping things local, Katie Brianna’s journey has been a really interesting one over the last decade. From being ‘discovered’ by Paul Kelly, time at The Academy of Country Music, hours spent honing her craft on the stages of Sydney bars and clubs, through Golden Guitar nominations and her first two albums – it’s felt like a path of discovery.

Figuring out what best complements her songwriting, personality and goals. Her latest album This Way Or Some Other is the closest we’ve got to experiencing the real Katie Brianna. Eschewing the expectations of the local country scene, she’s added indie rock and pop flavours to her soulful country sound. It’s deep but it’s also fun. Above all it’s honest and wonderfully enhanced by a band that includes members of The Cruel Sea, Front End Loader, The Clouds and Spurs For Jesus.

Heading further out into the cosmos, Rose City Band have again recorded a hypnotic set of songs built on the uber-laidback, languid sound of Ripley Johnson’s guitar and melancholic voice. He’s also a member of Wooden Shjips and Moon Duo so psychedelia and drone are in his bloodstream. On Earth Trip he channels it through a country filter of back porches and coastal drives, while summoning the vibe of JJ Cale and West Coast country rock. The perfect balm to ease the stress of lockdowns or life in general.

Matt Sweeney & Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy became firm buddies after collaborating on their first Superwolf album back in 2005 and though it’s taken 16 years to get round to the follow-up, the wait for Superwolves has been well worth it. Sweeney’s guitar and the lyrics and melodies of Will Oldham’s spectral voice make for a mesmerising and poignant sound, replete with African, American Primitive and backwoods folk flavours.

East Texas songwriter Vincent Neil Emerson is causing large ripples of interest with his self-titled debut album, out now on La Honda Records.

You can draw a line of influences down through the decades, from Willie Nelson to Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark, John Prine and Steve Earle. Rodney Crowell produced his album, a sure sign of his growing reputation and the quality of his songwriting. He sings of the wide open plains and wild mountains, the hardships of life and past injustices to his indigenous roots (‘The Ballad of the Choctaw-Apache’). Crowell has ensured there is plenty of space in his sound, perfectly augmented with strings, organ and more.

Those are just a few of my highlights of the year so far and we’ve still got plenty to look forward to, including the long awaited new album from James McMurtry, what has been touted as a potential final album from Sturgill Simpson, the new Felice Brothers record, which has already provided three exquisite singles, and the impressive debut album by Riddy Arman which we’ve been lucky enough to hear.

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By Denise Hylands

A

s we swing in and out of lockdowns it’s good to know the music keeps coming.

Let’s talk anniversaries, reunions, encores and much, much more.

The Queen of Rockabilly, Wanda Jackson has just released a new album appropriately titled Encore. She announced her retirement from performing back in 2019. In a career that has spanned 64 years, 83-year-old Jackson is stepping up for her Encore. Working with Jack White on The Party Ain’t Over in 2011 and Justin Townes Earle, Unfinished Business in 2012, as producers, she keeps it interesting again brings in fellow Rock and Roll Hall of Fame members Joan Jett and Kenny Laguna to oversee production and collaborate. “Right around the time I retired from performing and what I thought was the end of my career, I found myself back to writing songs with some of the great writers in Nashville. The songs you hear are truly my life story. This is the first time I have ever inserted so much of my personal life into my music.” This is Jackson’s 32nd album.

Legendary 88-year-old, Willie Nelson is participating in a multi-part docuseries which will focus on his life and career titled Willie Nelson & Family. Emmy and Grammy awardwinning filmmakers Oren Moverman and Thomm Zimny are co-directing the project, “We are celebrating the music, the career, the long road, the family, friends and history,” Zimny and Moverman said in a joint statement.

“But, more than anything, we are piecing together a narrative — one never before seen in its entirety — about an extraordinary man with a unique ability to bring people together; folks of all races, orientations, genders, political ideologies and musical leanings. These days, we sure could use the healing powers of Willie Nelson.”

And while we’re on Willie, his good buddies Asleep At The Wheel will be celebrating their 50th Anniversary with a new album, Half A Hundred Years. Since their beginning longtime front man Ray Benson and band were inspired by Western Swing and Honky Tonk with the aim “to bring the roots of American pop music into the present”, which they have done and continue to do. Earning themselves 10 Grammys, 25 plus albums, countless collaborations, and tributes. AATW are joined on the new album by many good friends including of course Willie, Lyle Lovett, Bill Kirchen, George Strait, Emmylou Harris, and old band mate Lucky Oceans just to name a few.

The reunion of Robert Plant and Alison Krauss has us all looking forward to the release of their follow up album to their brilliant 2007 album Raising Sand. Yet again produced by T Bone Burnett the new release is titled Raise The Roof. Featuring 12 songs and an A list of guests

including drummer Jay Bellerose, Buddy Miller, Bill Frisell, Marc Ribot, and David Hidalgo amongst others.

While we’re talking about Alison Krauss, it was surprising to realise that Krauss wasn’t yet a member of the Bluegrass Hall of Fame after it being announced that she is a 2021 inductee recently. It’s been a long time coming for an artist whose first Grammy win in 1991 is among her 27 in total.

The Country Music Hall of Fame announced their 2021 inductees. Ray Charles joins as the annual Veteran Era artist, who as a kid grew up tuned to the sounds coming out of the Grand Ole Opry, he tried his hand at ‘hillbilly’ music and gave us the brilliant album Modern Sounds in Country & Western Music in 1962. The Judds will be inducted as the Modern Era Artist. The rags to riches story of the mother / daughter duo, Wynonna and Naomi, who provided one of the most outstanding success stories in country music and some damn fine music too.

In the Recording/ Touring musician category is Eddie Bayers, 14-time ACM Drummer of the Year, studio drummer for such greats as Dolly Parton and Willie Nelson and honoured a decade ago as one of the ‘Nashville Cats’. Another ‘Cat’ is Pete Drake who becomes the first Recording/Touring musician inducted for his pedal steel playing.

Arriving in Nashville in early 60’s, his steel can be heard on recordings by Johnny Cash, Charley Pride and Tammy Wynette but it was playing on Dylan’s Nashville Skyline that saw him as a musician bridging the connection between country and folk.

And talking about folk, Home In This World: Woody Guthrie’s Dust Bowl Ballads is a tribute album to Woody Guthrie’s 1940 concept album Dust Bowl Ballads, featuring Watkins Family Hour, John Paul White, Chris Thile, Waxahatchee,The Felice Brothers, Colter Wall and more. Did I say concept album? Sturgill Simpson has released his 5th album called The Ballad of Dood & Juanita, a concept album. “I just wanted to write a story— not a collection of songs that tell a story, but an actual story, front to back. (This album is) a rollercoaster ride through all the styles of traditional country and bluegrass and mountain music that I love, including gospel and acapella. It is a simple tale of either redemption or revenge. Dood & Juanita are his grandparents.

Due in early November is Highway Butterfly:The Songs of Neal Casal, a tribute to the life and music of singer, songwriter and musician. A 41-song collection featuring a wonderfully diverse collection of artist, Steve Earle & The Dukes, Beachwood Sparks, Dori Freeman, Hiss Golden Messenger, Shooter Jennings, you get the idea.

Wanda Jackson in the ‘50s.

New and forthcoming releases to look out for…

Sierra Ferrell - Long Time Coming The Felice Brothers - From Dreams To Dust Dori Freeman - Ten Thousand Roses Bela Fleck - My Bluegrass Heart Alison Krauss & Robert Plant Raise The Roof Mike & The Moonpies One To Grow On Legendary Shack Shakers Cockadoodledeux Bela Fleck - Bluegrass Album My Bluegrass Heart Margo Price EP - Live From The Other Side Various Artists - Broken Hearts & Dirty Windows Vol. 2 (John Prine Tribute) Tre Burt - You, Yeah, You Charley Crockett - Music City USA Lachlan Bryan & The Wildes As Long As It’s Not Us Summer Dean - Bad Romantic Eric Shicotte - Miss’ry Pacific Wanita - I’m Wanita The High Heaven - Outlaws Vol. 1 Jesse Daniels - Beyond These Walls Dallas Burrows - Self Titled Asleep At The Wheel - Half A Hundred Year Sturgill Simpson The Ballad Of Dood & Juanita 75

By Ian McFarlane textures on guitar and Barton on drums. It’s a weird mixture of Eastern and Western, ancient and modern so it’s not just electric guitars with reverb and echo, overtones and undertones, and it’s not all perfect.”

Koch’s slide and acoustic guitar playing is elegant and refined. Price’s drumming is subtle and sympathetic, given that he’s predominantly been known as one of the country’s hardest hitting players. Mason contributes everything from piano, organ, cello, dulcimer and mandolin to nyckelharpa, hurdy gurdy, synthesizer, percussion and Mellotron strings.

Mason certainly brought a lot to the table. “Because I have an array of eclectic instruments, I like to push the boundaries,” he says. “I’m not a master of any of them but I’ve always been inspired by the different colours they provide. So that was my particular style I brought to the album. Steve has his eccentric poet style and Gareth has his classical style. Steve would come in with his song ideas and it was the philosophy of rough and ready, pure inspiration, for better or for worse. It’s completely different from how I do my soundtrack work.

We’d start something and I’d say ‘okay, can we do another take?’ and Steve would say, ‘no, we’ve got it’. The whole thing was driven by his mad, eccentric energy.”

STEVE KILBEY & THE WINGED HEELS

THE HALL OF COUNTERFEITS

Musically, the album takes in acoustic rock, jangle pop, dream pop, art pop... call it what you will, and there is a lot to take in. The tracks range from the ethereal opener ‘Arcadia’ (“Arcadia you look so sweet / kings of this world are falling at your feet”), the up tempo ‘Brass Razoo’ which is typically Kilbeyesque, ‘I’ve Been Here Before’ with its Arabic modes and ‘Karnack’ with its droney cello and clattering percussion redolent of ancient melodies, on to ‘Anglesea’ featuring more of Mason’s cello, ‘Tantric Hammer’ which is close to The Church’s

Foghorn

T

he Hall of Counterfeits is the latest instalment in the brilliant recent run of Steve Kilbey albums. The long-standing Church main man makes a strong statement with his other band here, The Winged Heels. Stylistically, it follows on from his 2019 ‘ancient musics’ album with guitarist Gareth Koch, Chryse Planitia, his 2020 solo album, Eleven Women, which also featured Koch plus multi-instrumentalist Roger Mason and drummer Barton Price (both ex-Models) and his tenth album with Martin Kennedy, Jupiter 13. On top of that he’s already got a new album with The Church in the can.

This is a 22-track, 77-minute epic of varying moods, deep musical revelations, and intriguing possibilities. Effectively, it’s a double album in the old vinyl currency. Kilbey himself dubbed it his “sprawling masterpiece” but he’s canny enough to realise it’s up to listeners to make that connection. It’s the work of a genuine band, as opposed to a strict Kilbey solo effort. The Winged Heels (Koch, Mason, Price) have gelled as a formidable unit of great proficiency and genuine connectedness. Despite the often-sumptuous musicality on offer, its creation was swift with little deliberation or attention to perfection.

You get the sense of its spontaneity without losing sight of the intent of the musicians.

Kilbey says the band worked well together, within the concept of getting everything down quickly. “I provide the structure for these guys to do their own thing,” is how he puts it. “And within that Roger Mason is the best thing I’ve ever had at my fingertips because he can play so many different instruments and he’s willing to go out on a limb. He’s the guy with all the talent, I never tell him what to play. I say ‘I think we need some sort of off-kilter piano here, or a cello there’ and he’ll come up with the right musical thing for the song. So, you’ll have the sound of a scraping cello combined with Gareth’s ancient music

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Steve Kilbey - Photo by Rachel Poh

“

life would be a mistake...”

Friedrich Nietzsche

“

Steve Kilbey and his band make life affirming music.

“

The title The Hall of Counterfeits references Kilbey’s approach to the recording. “I believe I have the ability to channel songs and voices and words,” he explains. “Here are 22 versions of me pretending or imitating or appearing as if I’m something else. Singers have always had that ability. In a song you can be whatever you want to be and people can either go with it or not. You are being a character, I’m presenting these faux-people that I’ve dreamed up and they’re all different. With the aid of my wonderful musicians we’re trapping situations in a musical cup.

They’re not real. So, it’s like a hall full of stories and lies and fibs and confabulations and imaginings and reveries and visions all mixed up.”

As a double album, it is a lot for the casual listener to contend with. I’ve listened through fully on several occasions now and it does work as a whole. Yet does it work piecemeal? Does Kilbey have faith in his listeners to fully indulge themselves and absorb all on offer? Or is he happy for them to take it as an “as it comes” proposition? Kilbey says, “I didn’t expect people to take it all in at once, it is densely packed. It depends on people’s attention spans. If they don’t like the ‘ancient songs’, I’m happy for them to just make their own playlist of the ‘song songs’.”

For a final stamp on the album’s modus operandi, Kilbey includes a Friedrich Nietzsche quote (from Twilight Of The Idols) in the album credits: “Without music, life would be a mistake...” What does that mean to Kilbey? “I remember when I was young my father asked me what was most important in life? I said ‘music’ and he said ‘and don’t you ever forget it’. I was so grateful to him, he taught me that and he always had a lot of faith in my love for music. So that’s why that Nietzsche quote resonates with me. I’m a dilettante when it comes to philosophy but that quote summed up a lot of things for me.”

“Without music,

“

occasional eccentricities and ‘I Wish’ with its playful melody and vocal delivery.

Roger Mason - Photo by Jo Forster 77

By Denise Hylands

HIGH SIERRA

Working with a producer for the first time Sierra Ferrell makes an album that reflects her full musical personality.

SIERRA FERRELL

LONG TIME COMING Rounder

S

ierra Ferrell has just released her debut album for Rounder Records. Appropriately titled Long Time Coming, this is one that’s definitely been worth the wait.

“Yeah, I never thought I was going to be a part of this amazing family. It’s all just so exciting and I’m just happy to be here playing music,” says Ferrell about her signing to the prestigious Rounder label.

Ferrell spent time as a travelling musician, making music with other travellers on the streets, busking, hopping freight trains, and hiking all over the country, learning many styles of American music first-hand.

“A lot of the people I’ve met have had a huge impression on me: just playing music and taking in what they’re giving me with their powers and their music and allowing me to get goosebumps and inspired,” says Ferrell about her background.

Ferrell is hard to pigeonhole, given her oldtime vocals and the range of music that she incorporates into her sound, from gypsy, bluegrass, jazz, country, and Latino. The new album certainly highlights who she really is musically.

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“I wanted to let people know that you don’t have to be one thing. You can be as many as you want.

Just love it and present it,” she says. “I’ve had some of the songs for some years. We started the recording in January 2020. I’m so scared to say that year, but it was like January, and we went in for three days. And I was really happy with all the people I got to work with and see, and just watch them work their magic.”

Ferrell was very fortunate to be making the album with some very experienced personnel, such as Gary Paczosa, who does A&R for Rounder and is also a producer who has worked with artists such as Alison Krauss, Dolly Parton and John Prine.

“Working with Gary is awesome,” enthuses Ferrell. “He’s really easy to get along with.

He’s a great hang. I feel like I can be more myself around him and he keeps me striving to go back in and do another take. He’s like, just do one more, just do one more.

I kind of liked that because I feel like I can take different approaches to hear what differences I can do to make the song what it is.”

“I’ve never actually done it like that,” replies Ferrell when asked if this is the first time she has worked with a producer. “I would just record it when I wanted to. When I first came to Nashville, I was hanging out with my buddy Eric McConnell, and we would just hang out and go see some music, go and jam, and just randomly record stuff. And so that’s kind of how I was used to recording, just recording a little bit every once in a while. So, it was definitely an experience.

Now we’re doing this right now. Three days.

Let’s go.”

Paczosa was also very helpful in bringing in some amazing musicians to lend their skills to the recording sessions: Tim O’Brien, Jerry Douglas, Dennis Crouch, Sarah Jarosz, Chris Scruggs, and Billy Strings.

“I’m so glad that they like my music enough that they’re willing to lend in their hands and voices,” says Ferrell. “Unfortunately, I didn’t really get to hang out with them because they came in after we recorded the main vocals. It was during COVID times.

Normally, we would’ve all been hanging out, like I would have been in the studio too, but it was during the crazy protocols. They didn’t want an extra body in there. But I did get to recently meet Tim O’Brien. I just love his music. I listen to Tim O’Brien’s music all the time.”

“I’ve seen him around town because he’s played downtown a bunch on Broadway,” says Ferrell when asked about another of the musicians, multi-instrumentalist Rory Hoffman. “Gary knew him and he wanted to bring him in on this project. He’s amazing.

He can pretty much play any instrument that you could probably think of. And he’s pretty much the blood in this record, because he’s just on everything, he’s doing everything.”

Ferrell was also excited about being on the same label as Dolly Parton. Is it possible that someone at Rounder could pass on Long Time Coming to her?

“Well, I’ve been thinking about trying to write some songs for her,” laughs Ferrell, “and maybe she’ll like one and sing one sometime.

By Brian Wise

ZZ Top’s guitarist releases his third solo album in six years.

BILLY GIBBONS

HARDWARE Concord Records

B

illy Gibbons is in Las Vegas, Nevada, when I call him to talk about his latest solo album. He appears to be in party mode and admits to ‘throwing dice’ and ‘waiting for seven and eleven.’

A month later the mood would change with the news that ZZ Top’s bassist Dusty Hill had died in his sleep on July 28. Hill had played several dates on the current tour but returned to Texas to ‘address a hip issue.’

Gibbons and drummer Frank Beard decided to pay tribute to Hill (who had requested the show to go on) by continuing the tour and enlisted long-time guitar tech Elwood Francis as bassist. But this was not before Gibbons admitted in several interviews turning on the ‘waterworks’ after learning of Hill’s death.

When we spoke about his new album Gibbons was understandably upbeat and, in fact, we never even got time to talk about his main band ZZ Top. Apart from being known for his membership in ZZ Top, Gibbons had an incredible musical upbringing. His mother took him to see Elvis Presley, he got a guitar lesson from Jimi Hendrix and he was in the Moving Sidewalks who shared a residency with Roky Erickson’s The 13th floor Elevators (in fact, Gibbons is on the new tribute to Roky).

“I can add one element between saying Elvis and Jimi Hendrix,” laughs Gibbons. “My dad had some business at a recording studio where he marched me into the studio, put me in a chair and he said, now there’s an orchestra coming in going to make a record and you might find it interesting. He said just sit here and take it all in. And as soon as he left the room, the opposite door opened up to allow in none other than B.B. King and band. So, we’ve had a rather remarkable backdrop of really, really inspiring elements.

It’s been good.”

Hardware, as you might expect, has the signature Gibbons sound forged by decades of rocking with his main band. It also has some guests in the form of the duo Larkin Poe and some surprises.

“This was kind of unexpected, in the midst of doing not much of anything,” says Gibbons about the recording of Hardware, adding that his band members, guitarist Austin Hanks and drummer Matt Sorum phoned him and

asked, “Are you ready to get out and do something?” Then they told Gibbons about a studio they had discovered near Joshua Tree.

“Of course, I had worked with my buddy Josh with the Queens of the Stone Age out there,” says Gibbons, “and they said, ‘No, it’s right across the street from that studio.’ I said, ‘Oh great, I kind of know the area.’ What Matt and Austin overlooked telling me was the fact it was across the street and 20 miles into the desert.”

The resultant album ended up being quite different in style to its two predecessors.

“We were surrounded with nothing, but sand, cactus, a few rattlesnakes and a lot of rock,” explains Gibbons, “and I said, ‘You know what? Let’s take that as the way to aim.’ So, there’s a lot of rock in this one.”

Hardware is dedicated to producer Joe Hardy, with whom Gibbons worked in ZZ Top and on his solo recordings, who died in 2019.

“It says, ‘In righteous memory of Joe ‘Party’ Hardy.’ I lean on that word ‘party’. Joe ‘Party’ Hardy was maybe not with us physically, but I think he was tiptoeing around spiritually.

There wasn’t a day that went by when we didn’t feel his presence somehow, some way.

Joe was lending some good energy into those tracks. It was a great, great, great excursion.”

While Gibbons is a member of one legendary Texas band, he pays tribute to another on this album with his version of The Texas Tornadoes classic, ‘Hey Baby Que Paso,’ co-wriiten by Augie Meyers. (Gibbons also appears on a new tribute to Roky Erickson).

“Once we had organized most of the songs, we were gathered in the studio and each of us were taking turns playing DJ, picking out a favorite song here and a favorite song there,” explains Gibbons. “I decided to dredge up the original demo of ‘Hey Baby Que Paso’, which is different than the Texas Tornadoes, different than the Sir Douglas Quintet.

This was actually the very first recording and everybody got kind of excited until we attempted to peel the onion and figure out the words to the second verse, which was leaving us a little bit perplexed. So, I picked up the phone and fortunately I got Augie Meyers on the line and asked him. I said, ‘Augie can you help us out with the second verse of ‘Hey Baby Que Paso’?’ And he said, ‘Well, if you’ll take a stab at recording, I’ll give you a hint.’ I said, ‘Okay’ and he said, ‘It’s actually fake in Spanish and if you can dream up a line that sounds rather Tex-Mex that rhymes with San Antonio, I’ll let you record it.’ So, you have to listen closely.”

79

By Chris Lambie like an extension of his mindset over long restless nights. Pastoral instrumental ‘L’Angelus’ highlights Bernasconi’s lightness of touch on 60’s Harmony Sovereign Guitar. ‘Trigger Me’ takes a wry laugh at the black dog. Inspired by Randy Newman, ‘Bygone Blues’ shuffles jauntily towards a shiny future. An exceptional artwork.

JUSTIN BERNASCONI

SLEEPING LIKE A MANIAC INDEPENDENT

M

elbourne musician Justin Bernasconi deftly mined the riches of Americana, blues and bluegrass across his first two solo albums Winter Pick (2014) and Barefoot Wonderland (2017). His ‘pan-pandemic’ collection Sleeping Like A Maniac (S.L.A.M.) marries those influences with 20th century British folk stylings, largely under-referenced on contemporary roots repertoires. Bernasconi’s guitar mastery (from complex to cannily understated) is but part of his triple-threat status.

His subtle, easy on the ear vocals suit the new slant. Songwriting plumbs new depths, both in musings and melody. Showing his classical study of form and structure, tracks present one surprise after another. It’s an inspired balancing act between the abstract and the accessible. Dissonance that never jars. Free spaces in just the right measure.

Opening track ‘Blank Page’ laments the scourge of writer’s block.

Ironically, something many composers experienced while having nothing but time on their hands during lockdowns. Justin Olson’s drum work is a bebopping masterstroke of scattershot jazz rolls. Cello by Anita Hillman underlines the malaise. Bernasconi doesn’t shy away from self-examination. Portrayed as the angry ‘Dancing Elephant In The Room’, he strives to clean up his personal act. Bittersweet folk tale ‘Lady In The Field’ evolves to a Donovan-esque coda, benefitting from the less twee vocal. ‘The Right Height’ celebrates his relationship with partner Cat Canteri, also a respected singer-songwriter, who plays drums on several tracks. With repeated listens, my pick for favourite track has spanned the whole list. The rhythm and vocal on cracker single ‘Flags Upon This Hill’ are urgent and affecting. Ben Franz on bass and ethereal vocals from Mandy Connell cast shadows across the strident rhythm. ‘Lady In The Field’ is garnished with a subcontinental flavour by producer Jeff Lang on the Indian shruti box.

Bernasconi plays Martin HD 7-string on the instrumental title track

80

JUSTIN BERNASCONI British-born singer-songwriter and guitarist par excellence, Justin Bernasconi first attracted local attention as a founding member of alt-Country group The Stillsons. Bandmates Ben Franz (The Waifs) and Cat Canteri (Kutcha Edwards, Mick Thomas) re-join him on his third solo release. The Melbourne musician gained unanimous praise for his first two albums but should knock critics and fans for a six with his latest, Sleeping Like A Maniac (S.L.A.M.) Old and new influences (from Ali Farka Touré to Segovia) colour his take on UK ‘folk impressionism’, providing a rewarding challenge to the discerning listener. Covid aside, Bernasconi’s year has been marked by grief and joy, with the passing of his father and the arrival of a second child. Of the delay to his album launch (also being released in the UK), he says, “It’s inspiring to see how tough the music community is… re-scheduling gigs, so much work.” He credits the recording of his deeply personal stories to “working with a team you can trust. If you’re crashing in confidence [during recording], they help you navigate through, plus their great playing.” Meanwhile, “If I can snatch a few moments here between baby routines to still play and write I’m happy. The simple joy of picking up a guitar and noodling, expressing the moment, is sometimes enough.” Some notes on the new songs…

Blank Page - The first track I recorded with Jeff [Lang]. Things in my life weren’t going so well, and the turmoil in this track is real. It wasn’t recorded to a click, so my guitar tempo is racing as my heart was pumping with so much anxiety. Justin Olsson added his amazing drum part the following week with Anita Hillman (ex- The Mae Trio) performing the cello later that evening.

Lady In The Field – A family member told me a story of how he’d walked away from the only woman he truly loved, because of fear.

He saw her on the street 20 years later and wondered what life they would have had if he hadn’t run away. I imagined this song to be set in Newstead. The video was shot there with William Alexander and Mabel Eve (Charm Of Finches).

Sleeping Like A Maniac – This tune is exactly how many of my nights will be; Slow descent into sleep, then intrusive thoughts would wake me. Finally, fall asleep from exhaustion only to wake around 3:30am startled or in terror, staring at the ceiling and often stay awake until the sunrise.

Flags Staked Upon This Hill - Written in G minor open tuning. I discovered this tuning by learning the Tallest Man On Earth song, ‘Where Do My Bluebirds Fly’ for a friend’s wedding. Sans the vocals, this was tracked live with Ben Franz (bass) and Cat Canteri (drums). I wanted a folk guitar with jazz drums vibe. I invited Mandy Connell in on vocals, thinking of the ‘Gimmie Shelter’ vocal effect. She was the only person I thought capable of that haunting sound.

Dancing Elephant – This started as a four-minute triplet improv piece, inspired by the tune ‘Asturias’. The lyrics descended into a paranoiac, surreal public relationship bust-up story. The random dissonant guitar runs represent uncomfortable flashbacks of the person in denial, whose anger issues are apparent to everyone.

L’Angélus – Growing up in the Cambridgeshire Fens, I’ve always been drawn to pastoral poets like John Clare, R S Thomas and artists like Millet, who inspired this tune with his painting of the same title.

Golden Leaves – This tune emerged at the end of the recording sessions; discordant harmony is appealing to me. I wanted the verses to sound like a ship pushing through a blizzard, then suddenly blue skies before running aground.

81 Tour dates and more info at www.justinbernasconi.com “Like Leo Kottke and John Fahey on the instrumentals and John Prine on the songs.” fRoots Magazine (UK) “One of the country’s most interesting new acoustic guitar talents.”

Australian Guitar Magazine

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By Michael Smith people. But then my guitar teacher said, ‘Don’t do that. Just pick what you want to write about and write about it. People who really like that thing will really like it.’”

‘When It Gets Hot’ is a perfect example of a song that seems to be about one thing – a relationship – but turns out to be about another – a plant! Of the 11 songs on the album, as well as ‘When It Gets Hot’, Bonnie wrote four others – ‘Lovey Dovey’, ‘You’re The One’, ‘Row Your Boat’ and the title track, ‘Handyman’.

“I think it is collaborative in a way,” Bonnie suggests of Rigby’s contribution to the songwriting. “I’ll have the lyrics and a vocal melody, but it’ll just be verse, chorus and maybe a bridge, and we’ll usually arrange the songs together. Certainly, Wayne and Claire – or whoever is the other horn player at the time – always come up with their own lines. Calvin just comes straight up with the feel from me strumming on an acoustic guitar.”

“We hadn’t released an album in about four years,” Rigby points out – when it was released in December 2017, their debut album, Fake It ‘till You Make It, went to the top ten in the Australian Blues and Roots charts for three months – “so for me anyway recording Handyman was more about getting this band together in the studio. The individual lineup is probably the strongest we’ve ever had, with people like [drummer] Calvin Welch and [guitarists] Hilary Geddes and Illya Szwec, [trumpeter] Claire Hollander and [double and electric bassist] Catherine Golden. So, I thought we had to get this recorded. In Calvin, we’re pretty lucky to have someone who played with Sonny Stitt in 1975 playing festivals and gigs with us.”

BONNIE KAY & THE BONAFIDES

HANDYMAN INDEPENDENT

D

rawing from right across the palette of American genres, from roots rock’n’roll to country, ragtime jazz to the blues, when Sydney six-piece Bonnie Kay and the Bonafides hit the stage, it’s instant party time. So, capturing that live energy was very much part of the brief for expat American Sydneysider Craig Calhoun when he took the band into the studio to produce their second album, Handyman. Michael Smith investigates.

“I know Craig from back in the day,” saxophonist Wayne Rigby explains. “I’ve been pretty lucky. He’s been a bit of a mentor helping me through the industry and I played on one of his albums. He’s just been a great soundboard. He brought a little bit more freedom to play.

We did it in two short sessions at a big studio in Artarmon and Craig was always great to bounce ideas off. He had a lot of confidence in us, and he did spend a lot of time with Bonnie, one on one.”

“Every time I’ve recorded before,” adds singer, songwriter and acoustic guitarist Bonnie Kay, “it’s just been a big marathon session starting with the drums and ending with the last two hours sticking the vocals in. Craig said, ‘No, we’re going to do the vocals and all.”

I mean, we did a guide vocal of course, but we did the vocals at his studio in Palm Beach, just he and I, and he just kept saying, ‘Mm, that was nice, but you’re just saying words. Now I want you to really tell me the story.’ And I think I hadn’t had a chance to really focus on that before, so he just helped me with my vocal craft and my actual telling of the stories.

“Most of them just come to me, topics that I want to talk about – usually that comes first. I try to think of something that is universally interesting, a subject that most people can identify with, although what I used to do, I used to think about something that could not be misconstrued; it could be identified as several different things or

82

After a prestigious international recording and performing career in jazz and funk, American Calvin Welch relocated to Australia in 1988, while it was the late Don Burrows who invited bass player Craig Calhoun to Australia to perform at the Sydney Opera House nearly 30 years ago – Welch and Calhoun have worked together in Calhoun’s funk band Brothers of Oz – so in a way there’s a certain patina of authenticity to Handyman that comes of the participation of three Americans – Bonnie was born in Philadelphia and arrived in Australia via Tokyo twenty-odd years ago.

The other thing about the Bonafides is the even gender split – live, the lineup has always featured at least three female musicians – four on the album – alongside three males. “I think that’s fantastic,” Rigby says. “A memory came up on our Facebook page yesterday where a clip of us playing a winter festival on YouTube in 2019, this image had four women – it was just me and Calvin and four amazing women. And that’s really because they’re amazing musicians.”

“And to have Hilary Geddes absolutely shredding on electric guitar,” adds Bonnie, “you’ve got some guys up front with their arms crossed and you can see they’re thinking, ‘Okay, let’s see what this Sheila gonna do’ or whatever and she just ripped it out and everybody loved it.”

By Tony Hillier

AUSSIE JOE’S AMAZING RUN Tawadros sticks his neck out again!

JOSEPH TAWADROS

HOPE IN AN EMPTY CITY PLANET

If there’s a more prolific or prodigious Aussie musician strutting his stuff on the world stage than oud maestro Joseph Tawadros, I’d like to know his name. With his latest waxing, the flamboyant Cairo-born, Sydney-raised, and now London-domiciled virtuoso has extended his astounding run of new album releases to 18 years in succession.

And, like pretty well each previous release, the latest offering from this utterly fearless musician, who’s only in his late-30s, is significantly different from the preceding one.

Tawadros’s 2020 album Live at the Opera House, which had him out front of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, netted this serial high achiever on the Arabic lute his fourth ARIA World Music award in seven years.

Hope In An Empty City, which will assuredly become his 18th consecutive ARIA nomination, is arguably an even bolder undertaking than its predecessor or indeed the 2016 tour de force World Music, on which Joe played no fewer than 50 different instruments. Or, perhaps more pertinently, three consecutive albums that Tawadros selfproduced, composed, arranged, and recorded in a New York studio with giants of US jazz.

It’s worth briefly revisiting the aforementioned amazing self-financed hat-trick — if only to give perspective to Tawadros’s latest American project. The trilogy started with 2010’s The Hour of Separation, a set that was graced by triple A-teamers in John Abercrombie, John Patitucci and Jack DeJohnette. Chameleons Of The White Shadow, which followed three years later, had Tawadros dexterously duelling with banjo demi-god Bela Fleck and venerated veterans Joey DeFrancesco, Roy Ayers and Howard Johnson. 2014’s Permission To Evaporate captured the oud genius in harness with US jazz’s double bass supremo Christian McBride and guitar gun Mike Stern.

Joseph’s latest enterprise in inexorable pursuit of musical adventure and excellence took him back to the Big Apple, before COVID-19 raised its ugly head. Tawadros ventured into a New York studio with four innovative but relatively unknown musicians — at least here in Australia — and emerged with what he describes as “some solid and quite surprising tracks flavoured with Middle Eastern, world and jazz elements”. The upshot is an album unlike any other in his bulging back catalogue.

In the artist’s own words, the set is “very eclectic, with fast-paced numbers, blues and jazz grooves, slow and meditative pieces and some of the more contemplative solo oud improvisations, which I developed during lockdown”.

Tawadros says it has been a real journey of emotions and genres but adds he’s delighted with the way each musician has interpreted his

new pieces and added their spirit into each work. “It’s an adventurous recording for me and I hope it will add a little something to the musical landscape,” he remarks.

That it most definitely does. You wouldn’t know that the five players were coming together for the first time. “Each player has brought his own experience and nuance to pieces written specifically by me for the album,” the leader expands.

Joseph’s rapport with Jordanian violinist Layth Sidiq is especially strong, not entirely surprisingly given that they were both brought up immersed in Arabic music. Together they bring an authentic Middle Eastern strength, emphasising Tawadros’s innate sense of melody drawn from those traditions, particularly so in their moving duet ‘Heart To Heart’. Sidiq also more than holds his own in the jazzier tracks. In the terrific ‘Tit For Tat’ — an album standout for this reviewer — his playing brings to mind that of the legendary Stéphane Grappelli.

Elsewhere, most notably in ‘The Empty City’, his glissandos lend Indian inflection.

Classy jazz underpinning offered by four-time Grammy nominated double bass player Scott Colley earths artistically throughout, while the versatile and imaginative drumming of Dan Weiss offers a different direction for Tawadros, who hitherto has relied on traditional Arabic percussion provided by his kid brother James.

David ‘Fuze’ Fiuczynski, an “iconoclastic innovator and a rebel with a guitar” says Joe, adds funk, rock and fusion elements via a unique fretless guitar, which also enables him to match the glissando phrasing of Tawadros and Sidiq.

As we have long come to expect, Joseph Tawadros’s playing and feel is exemplary, whether in thrilling ensemble works like ‘Devils Advocate’, ‘Smoke And Mirrors’, ‘An End Without Chance’ and the playful ‘Man Plans, God Laughs’ or reflective solo studies such as ‘Von Brandy’, ‘Happier Times’ and ‘Everything Is You’.

The 17 tracks that comprise Hope In An Empty City take listeners on an evocative, emotional and richly rewarding musical journey.

It’s a shoo-in for an ARIA gong!

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By Chris Lambie years ago, ‘Almost OK’ was written at the retreat with Jeremy Edwards.

“It was the turning point of how I approached songwriting. The song grabbed the attention of Lou Bradley and Rod McCormack and instigated this album. A very important moment in my career. Since then, Lou’s advice has changed my approach to music, PR and socials.

Writing the album with Rod and Lou was a magical experience. Rod invited Max Jackson, Gina Jeffreys and a bunch of Gina’s long-term students to contribute. We focused on my own stories, which has given the album a conceptual feel. Rod produced the album and played many of the instruments. His attention to the overall feel of the album was masterful. He also sent files to Nashville and Ireland to the likes of Andy Leftwich (fiddle/mandolin), Jeff Taylor (piano/accordion) and Pat Crowley (piano/accordion) for certain tracks.” Spirited murder ballad ‘Better Not To Know’ takes the Americana feel to the outback.

PAULA STANDING

THE MORE I GIVE INDEPENDENT

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aula Standing knows that some things are worth waiting for. A series of turning points paved the way to her release of ten lovingly crafted songs on new album The More I Give. It all began with a music-filled childhood in the Atherton Tablelands before Standing left home to study voice at university. Later, while raising a family of her own, she took a leap of faith to pack up and move them all south to Adelaide.

From belated guitar lessons to a songwriting retreat, she took the next steps toward realising her musical dreams.

The singer-songwriter remembers long Saturday sessions sitting under the piano while family and neighbours danced, sang and partied. The simple joy is captured on the video for ‘I’d Go Back Again’ in a nostalgic slideshow of revelers from those times. “It was music from the era of WWII and after,” she recalls. “‘Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy’, ‘Those Were The Days’, ‘Yellow Submarine’, ‘Some Girls Do’ and anything in between. Then growing up with my older siblings’ pop records, ‘Countdown’, studying music formally and singing in a country rock covers band - I couldn’t have asked for a more complete musical education. It did make it hard to settle on a genre, but the earthy directness of Americana really appealed to me.”

“I made a few feeble attempts to teach myself guitar, but I began really focusing on it in 2009. I mainly played old folk tunes and songs by John Prine, Iris Dement, Gillian Welch, Lucinda Williams. When I decided I wanted to [sing my own songs], improving my guitar skills became more important. My guitar teacher, Emily A. Smith, became a close friend who played with me on stage and in the studio. Participating in The DAG Songwriter Retreats (Nundle, NSW) opened a lot of opportunities for me. It was the first time I’d ever co-written anything.

I made a lot of great friends [who] I still work with where I can. One of them, Miguel Rios, makes a lot of my music videos. I recommend these retreats to anyone taking their career seriously.” Released two

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Standing’s lyrics speak from the heart. ‘My Heart Goes With You’ describes a mother’s love. “No matter how old or how far away they are, they are still your kids. My sons have both been moved by the song, especially our youngest now living in Canada. My husband and I had to cancel our trip to see him last year. I was so grateful to my lovely artist friend, Sue Norman, who created the beautiful Mandala for the video.” The title track celebrates life’s evolving stages: ‘The longer that I live, the better that it is…’ She’s optimistic that upcoming festivals (including Nimbin and Fleurieu) and launch gigs will go ahead. In the meantime, she continues to enjoy wide airplay, including the support of community radio. “I am forever grateful to community radio. These stalwarts of Australian music work tirelessly to give independent artists a platform. You know if the DJs are playing your music, they must like you as there’s no-one to dictate the content of their shows.”

By Michael Smith bring home, playing her his day’s work and bouncing ideas off her, asking her opinion. “I was lucky enough to meet a lot of great artists who recorded in the studio, and one was Ed Kuepper. He spent some time showing me some great open-tuning chords. He really loved the songs that I was starting to write and he got me to support him at some of his shows.” In fact, Paula ended up contributing backing vocals to Kuepper’s 1992 Black Ticket Day and 1993’s The Butterfly Net albums. She also contributed to Hans Poulsen’s 1997 Wonderchild’s In Town album.

For all that, it wasn’t until she finally finished her fulltime job and her boys had grown about six years ago that Paula was able to focus on her creative side. She then assembled The Fireflys – keyboards player and accordionist Marko Simec (ex-Waiting for Guinness), drummer Reuben Alexander from The Liz Martin Band and Melody Pool, bass player Mike Rix, who features on the album but logistics have seen him step aside for Andy Newman and the most important component in terms of how Paula finally became a recording artist in her own right, guitarist Robin Gist.

“He was with a band called Girl Overboard with [the late] singer Lisa Schouw,” she explains. “He and Lisa were very encouraging to me for many years. He would invite me over to their place every Tuesday to record songs to see where they would go, and that became the first album [2018’s Don’t Look Down], which was recorded in his lounge room. Then [husband] Philip started weighing in, which was ironic.”

SONG TO THE TREES PAULAPUNCHMUSIC.COM

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n another age, an album like Song to the Trees positively bursting with superbly crafted songs perfectly produced would not only have gained solid mainstream airplay but would have been released by a major label. So, it’s doubly impressive that Sydney singersongwriter Paula Punch should have recorded and released it entirely independently. But then, she’s had a little help from some pretty impressive friends.

“I’ve left it a bit late in life to really focus on it,” she admits of her songwriting, “because I’ve had to bring up a family, but I just love it so much. I always sang and there was always this push for me to go into classical music, into opera, because I had a strong mezzo soprano sort of voice when I was young, and I was in the Philharmonic Motet Choir, but I always loved the artists like Linda Ronstadt and Janis Ian and The Pretenders though I didn’t have confidence in my voice in that regard.”

All that changed after Paula met her future husband, recording engineer and producer Phil Punch. “I was going to do a demo thinking I might start to get some session singing – I needed to get some money on the side – and went up to Honeyfarm Studios in Terrey Hills. I did some demos and just fell in love with the studio. That really started a partnership with my husband which has lasted many years.

After I started really getting into more folk rock pop, my classical side drifted away. Even though I’d written poetry I didn’t really start writing my own songs until I started having my own family.” The song ‘Tender Moment’ on the album comes directly from her experience as a mother to two young boys.

The result of that was that Paula got to record Song to the Trees in the fully professional Electric Avenue Studios with Gist and Punch coproducing. “Marco Simic had some great thoughts on a couple of songs which I then put him as coproducer on because he just added so much to them.”

Like all the best songwriters, Paula follows the spirit of the song rather than try to push them into any particular direction or genre, so there’s a nice diversity across Song of the Trees – there’s even a nod to that most French of genres, the chanson, in opening track ‘Lost at Sea’.

“That one I wrote straight after seeing a friend of mine Liz Martin. She does three sets and the first set is full of songs that have that Euro-folk feeling and I just love that. I hadn’t really heard anything like that for a while and I think it just permeated me and went home and wrote it straightaway! I texted her and said, ‘I’ve got a song for you if you’re interested,’ and she said, ‘No, no, no, you do it.’ And that’s why it’s quite different to any of the other songs, I think. And though Robin wasn’t quite convinced about ‘Coming Round’, I added it to the album for balance. I didn’t want it to be too sombre, too melancholic, to add a little fun in there.”

The first single lifted off the album, ‘Full Moon Rising’, reached #4 on the AMRAP Metro chart. Since Gist, who gets a chance to unleash his inner “rock guitarist” on ‘Coming Round’, is committed to a variety of recording projects, when lockdown hopefully allows Paula Punch & The Fireflys to tour the album through September, his place will be ably filled by guitarist Paul Berton.

Along the way, without realising it, Paula was learning the craft of recording and producing courtesy the recordings her husband would 85

By Michael Smith how you can get sucked into that and that addiction is different for every different person. Some people it’s food, some people it’s drugs.

‘Low Tide’ is the songwriter’s depression song. I set out to write a song about depression and that’s what came out. Not that I’m depressed, and I wasn’t at the time. I just thought a good songwriter has to have a good depression song under their belt.” Olding leavens the song with a sprightly segue into the traditional jig ‘Drowsie Maggie’.

“That’s a traditional Irish fiddle tune. I could hear it in the chords Sherri was playing. We weren’t setting out to put a tune to the song – it just came naturally. It’s probably the best known Irish reel out there.

I learned classical violin from the age of seven to seventeen and my teacher’s husband was a fiddle player and when I was about fourteen he taught me some fiddle tunes and ‘Drowsie Maggie’ was the first Irish tune that I ever learned. I absolutely loved them and I played Irish music for several years and then ended up in Australian bush bands, which incorporate that Irish music as well. So it’s been a big influence in my life, all the Celtic styles.” One of those bush bands, Parmy’s Woolshed Band, saw the couple working together, and they’ve continued working together over the past 30 years or so, both in bands and as a duo and sometimes trio.

FROCK N TROLL

STREETS OF LIFE INDEPENDENT

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inger-songwriter Sherri Olding plays acoustic guitar, mandolin, flute, whistle and percussion. Husband Gus sings and plays violin, and together as Frock N Troll they play traditional folk with a dash of rock – which explains their decision to include a version of Pink Floyd’s ‘Time’ on their latest album, Streets of Life, as Sherri admits.

“Well, that’s how I learnt to play guitar. I sat locked in my dorm room for about twelve months with Pink Floyd’s The Wall – I had the book with all the chord charts – until I could play that thing” “But not bluegrass-style,” Olding chips in with a chuckle.

Of course it’s the original songs that Streets of Life are all about for the couple. The covers – Roy Orbison’s ‘Blue Bayou’, the Charlie Daniels Band’s ‘The Devil went Down to Georgia’, Gillian Welch’s Caleb Myer’ and ‘Amazing Grace’ join ‘Time’ – while performed with equal gusto in their own style are included as much to make the album more accessible to a wider audience as for just the sheer fun of playing them. Sherri wrote seven of the dozen songs on the album, though it turns out the story behind ‘Pioneer Woman’ is all Olding’s – so he sings it.

“The pioneer woman is Gus’ Auntie Tina,” she explains, “so he just felt that real personal connection. She’s his only family in Australia he has any connection with – the rest of his family’s in England – so he felt that personal need to tell her story.” “Sherri was going to sing it herself,” adds Olding, “so it took me a little work to get her to let me do it. It was nothing to do with me. She just wrote the song and then I begged her to let me sing it.”

‘Monsters’ is actually the better vehicle for Olding’s voice, images tumbling over themselves as they do. “Absolutely,” he admits as Sherri chuckles. “I struggled a bit with ‘Pioneer Woman’.” Sherri adds that “every songwriter writes a song about tragedy, about depression, about love – not that I’ve written a love song…” “I just have,” Olding points out. “‘Monsters’ is just about that addictive nature of people,

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Sherri was also classically trained, initially in pedal organ and flute, but meeting Olding saw her picking up guitar to accompany him. “We were playing in bands together long before we were actually together as a couple,” she points out. “So not always a singer-songwriter but have come to it through the different journeys that we’ve taken through music together.”

You wouldn’t know it from the vibrant feel across the album, but over the time it took the pair to record Streets of Life in the cottage home studio up on the Monaro, they went through drought, fire and flood.

For all that, perhaps the most lyrical song on the album, ‘River’, is very much a celebration of where they live. “Gus and I are very fortunate that we live on a beautiful property half an hour out of Bombala; we’ve got the river fifty metres from our front door, and when we were searching for our property, it needed to have running water, and the river provides us with so much.”

By Denise Hylands

NASHVILLE BOUND Rhode Island isn’t really a place that you’d associate with country music. Raised on Patsy Cline and horses, Charlie Marie took on the challenge to become a New England country singer.

CHARLIE MARIE

RAMBLE ON Charlie Marie/Soundly Music

Raised in Providence, Charlie Marie fell in love with country music at ten years old, after a music teacher compared her voice to the timeless croon of Patsy Cline. By sixteen, she was fronting her own country band, playing songs like “Crazy” and “You Ain’t Woman Enough (To Take My Man)” at fairs and festivals across New England.

After relocating to Nashville for college, Charlie wrote songs about her own experience.

Ramble On is Charlie Marie’s full-length debut, recorded in Nashville with an all-star band whose members have performed with Margo Price, Emmylou Harris, Rodney Crowell, and others. It was produced

by Tyler-James Kelly (the front man of Providence-based blues-rock band The Silks) with assistance from Brian McKinnon and Ben Klise.

“I actually lived there for six years,” says Charlie when asked about living in Nashville. “I wanted to become a country singer, so I thought I had to go move to Nashville to do so, but then it’s funny because I feel like more stuff’s happened since I moved back home. Go figure.”

“I think that it was a great place for me to go,” she continues about Music City. “I learned a lot about the music industry. I learned how to write songs, that was the biggest take away and I made some really good friends. It was a positive thing, but it was also tough living

there. It’s just a completely different vibe, but again, like it’s a cool place.”

“Well, I went to vocal lessons and my teacher said that I had a quality in my voice that sounded like Patsy Cline’s,” replies Charlie when asked about when her love for classic country emerged. “And my grandmother would always come to the lessons with me and so afterwards, she took me to the store, and we bought a Patsy Cline CD. I just became obsessed, and I just started learning all her songs.

Then, I started getting introduced to other classic country artists like Loretta Lynn and Hank Williams. At the time, I started horseback riding, and I think all of that just went together for me.

I played a bunch of fairs and festivals with just tracks. I headlined some fairs, just singing covers.

As I got older, I played with a band called Nashville Bound. I would sing with some older guys, because in Rhode Island, I couldn’t really find any kids that liked country music. It was fun, it was nice. I’ve spent a lot of years hanging out with older people, but I feel like they’re the wisest to hang around.”

“I recorded it at the Tracking Room,” she says of the new album, “and it was one of the last records recorded there because I think it ended up getting sold off and now it’s probably becoming condos. I got to play with a bunch of all-star players from Nashville and it was just great. It was an enlightening experience, in that studio and I’m happy I got to record it before all this baloney. It was in January right before COVID happened. So, I was really lucky that I got to go in and record.

The album has been sitting around for well over a year. Has she been waiting for the right time to get this out to the world?

“Yeah. It feels weird,” she replied. “It’s hard to hold onto something like that because it starts to drive you nuts. I listened to it so many times, then you start to pick it apart, but it helped me because I got to really polish up the record and make it as good as I could.”

“Alec Newman played on bass,” continues Marie talking about her ‘all-star’ band on the record. “Michah Hulscher played keys, he plays with Margo Price (and Emmylou Harris), Eddie Lang (Joshua Hedley), he played steel guitar and I know that he plays with a bunch of people and he plays Downtown all the time, he’s ridiculously talented. John McTigue (Raul Malo), is the drummer, he actually told me about most of the people that ended up playing on this album.

So, that’s how I got a lot of these folks. Josh Minyard helped out with percussion, and Brian McKinnon, which is my guitar player who plays with me all the time, played electric guitar. Local musician, Tyler James Kelly, played electric guitar and acoustic and he also helped me, Brian, and Ben Klise produce the record.”

The first track on the album ‘Soul Train’, is a favourites with the line, “It’s all about the country, not the fame.”

“Well, I feel like sometimes people get confused on why they’re doing something,” says Marie. “ I know that I have. I just came to the conclusion, chasing this dream, that I’m not doing it for the fame or for the money, I’m doing it because this is what I’m supposed to do.

When you take a step back, you can see that life is actually beautiful and amazing. Sometimes it’s difficult, you get confused. It’s just an experience. It’s a ride. So, ‘Soul Train’? You’re on this quest, but it’s really about the peace and the love and just trying to figure out who you are and trying to become the best person you can be.

And that’s what I’ve been trying to do with myself and I just try to convey that in my songs as well.”

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ALBUMS: General RILEY CATHERALL WHEN I GO Independent

SEAN CHAMBERS THAT’S WHAT I’M TALKIN ABOUT Quarto Valley Records/Planet

crunching riffs power Willie’s ‘Sitting On Top Of The World’, and strings are bent right out of shape on the steamrolling ‘Howlin’ For My Darling’. Like Sumlin, Chambers’ vocals are good without being great, but, hey, that’s not what this is about. As a celebration of one of the greats of electric blues guitar, this comprehensively ticks every box.

TREVOR J.LEEDEN

One of the standout features of Melbourne-based singersongwriter Riley Catherall’s debut album is that it is the sound of an artist in consummate control of his craft.

Born and raised in Yass Valley (NSW), Catherall’s story includes tenures playing jazz and blues before he attended the CMAA Academy of Country Music and received invaluable writing experience with some of the industry’s best. When I Go has a clear streak of country running through it, but it also has a folk patina - of the wistful, reflective kind. It’s a blend that sounds like Neil Finn, Jason Isbell and Elliott Smith workshopping songs in Laurel Canyon.

Most songs are mid-tempo, yet they rarely dissipate into the soft strumming void that many fall prey to. Catherall’s gentle musical approach might initially distract from the depth of reflective writing and poignancy in his lyrics – most of which are self-questioning or dissections of affairs of the heart, yet dig deeper and he’s guilty of many a cutting and memorable turn of phrase, particularly on ‘Germany’. Elsewhere, ’Leave Me Out To Dry’ has a heavenly chorus with a magic chord change, ‘No One’s Saint’ is a shimmering ballad laid bare, like the best of Wilco, while ‘Vacant Lot’, straightens up into a gently shuffling rock beat and some wonderful electric guitar tones. A quietly achieving and impressive debut album.

CHRIS FAMILTON 88

Hot shot Florida blues/rock guitarist Sean Chambers’ latest release is sub-titled Tribute To Hubert Sumlin, something he is better qualified than most to perform. Sumlin, of course, needs no introduction to blues afficionados; as Howlin’ Wolf’s guitarist from the mid1950’s until his death, he was instrumental in the Chicago blues sound. From the late 1990’s, Chambers performed a similar role in Sumlin’s touring band and is clearly well versed in the nuances of the Sumlin catalogue. Ten of the songs here formed the backbone of Sumlin’s shows, and the only original, ‘Hubert’s Song’, is a barnstorming nod to the diminutive guitarist “you taught me how to play the blues…..”.

Like his mentor, Chambers is an incendiary guitarist, prone to flourishes of cascading, white hot notes, and the tempo rarely drops below full throttle. Whilst numerous songs are from the mighty Willie Dixon and Chester Burnett canon, there are several exemplary Sumlin compositions, kicking off with ‘Chunky’, a churning instrumental with Chambers trading licks with keyboard ace Bruce Katz. ‘Do The Do’ is a floor stomper with vocals closely emulating Howlin’ Wolf, Chambers blitzkrieg notes pour down over a swirling B3 on ‘Goin’ Down Slow’, gut

KUTCHA EDWARDS CIRCLING TIME Wantok Musik/Planet

Just occasionally, coming across an album without any pre-conceived idea of what is enclosed or even who the artist is, has its own rewards. On first listening to Circling Time, one is completely immersed in the beauty of Kutcha Edwards voice. On second listening whilst perusing the booklet, the depth and meaning within Kutcha’s lyrics ignite a cultural awakening. Listening for the third time, the gracefully subdued ensemble imbues the music with rhythmic spirituality; it is glorious. These are songs that reflect upon the highs and lows of Kutcha’s life, a journey that encompasses injustice as well as jubilation. These songs are incandescent, sung not with an air of belligerence but with a spirituality that reaffirms a sense of love for family and for country; if “We sing for love/We live for justice/

We long for freedom/We dream of peace” does not touch the soul then perhaps the heart is made of stone. These nine songs, uniformly excellent, need to be heard as one, and yet, there are some that shine like diamonds. ‘We Sing’ (chorus above) floats on a massed choir of voices that renders the song an anthem, the elegiac tribute to his mother ‘Mrs Edwards’ is swathed in Dean Roberts’ atmospheric electric guitar, and ‘Singing Up Country’ is an exultant celebration that goes to the heart of indigenous cultural connection to the land.

Circling Time is a magnificent, life affirming triumph, and Kutcha is quite possibly the finest contemporary Indigenous singer of his generation.

TREVOR J. LEEDEN

JACK HOWARD’S EPIC BRASS LIVE AT THE GERSHWIN ROOM Independent

Call it The Great Australian Hornbook.

As a member of Hunters & Collectors’ Horns of Contempt, Jack Howard is no stranger to Aussie songs featuring a horn section. As he mentioned in his memoir, Small Moments Of Glory, R.E.M’s manager doubted the validity of brass sections in rock ’n’ roll – until he heard the Hunnas.

A couple of years back, Howard came up with the idea of a gig

ALBUMS: General showcasing Australian brass songs. It’s a great concept.

And the reality is immensely entertaining – Epic Brass should be a fixture at festivals around the country.

This gig, at St Kilda’s Esplanade Hotel, certainly had an eclectic set list, with a diverse array of vocalists. Howard says it’s “like an Addams Family line-up of singers, full of quirk and character”, with Howard joined

by Tex Perkins, Penny Ikinger, Steve Lucas, Fiona Lee Maynard, Helen Cattanach and Paulie Stewart.

During ‘Soaking In It’, the Painters & Dockers frontman remarks, “When I look around and see the talent on this stage I think, ‘Paulie Stewart, you’re a fraud.’ These are great musos.”

As well as the horn section – Howard and Travis Woods on trumpet, Paul Williamson on tenor sax, and Chris Vizard on trombone – there are not one but two bass players on stage – Steve “Never Play Badly” Hadley and Hunters & Collectors’ John Archer. “It’s like having Beyoncé and Kim Kardashian in the same band,” Stewart notes.

“I think we peaked too early,” Howard says after he and Ikinger deliver a stirring rendition of the Wet Taxis’ ‘Sailor’s Dream’.

But there are plenty of thrills to come, including Stewart’s terrific take on Jo Jo Zep and The Falcons’ ‘Shape I’m In’, Tex Perkins tackling The Birthday Party’s ‘Nick The Stripper’ (with Mick Harvey on guitar), a ripping version of the Oils’ ‘Best of Both Worlds’ sung by Steve Lucas, Fiona Lee Maynard’s incendiary ‘Beds Are Burning’, plus Howard’s own underrated solo gem ‘Let Me Live’.

Howard also adds some horns to Skyhooks’ ‘Living In The 70’s’ (dedicating it to Michael Gudinski) and Divinyls’ ‘Boys In

Town’. And the album concludes with a 13-minute version of an unreleased Hunters & Collectors song, ‘Rendering Room’, the first song Howard played live with the band, just down the road from the Espy, 40 years ago.

At a time when most live albums are lifeless and super-slick, this is everything a live album should be – rough and raw and real.

As bold as brass.

JEFF JENKINS

GARETH KOCH SALADIN’S DREAM Foghorn/MGM

The first thing to make clear about Saladin’s Dream is that it’s a truly beautiful recording – evocative, sublime, exquisitely performed and produced by its creator, multi-instrumentalist and composer Gareth Koch, won himself an ARIA for Best Classical Album back in 2003 when he was part of guitar quartet Saffire, which featured Antony Field, Slava Grigoryan and Karin Schaupp.

More recently he’s released three albums with the increasingly unstoppable Steve Kilbey, most recently The Hall of Counterfeits. I make these points because, according to the press release that came with my copy of Saladin’s Dream, the music is inspired by the “Scourge of the Crusaders”, Saladin (AlNasir Salah al-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub, 1137-1193), or more

specifically, what Saladin might have dreamed, and so, each of the dozen pieces on the album is ostensibly Koch’s musical interpretations of those dreams, as ancient gods and other apparitions are conjured up from the Sultan’s imagination. Koch does this by playing several instruments unique to the Middle East – the Oud, the yayli tambur (bowed long-neck lute) and the cümbüş, which looks a bit like a banjo, the latter pair from Turkey – alongside the more familiar acoustic, electric and bass guitars, keyboards and percussion. As you listen, the exotic “Arabic” elements begin to appear in the music in track 3, ‘Hurlyburly’, and then more obviously track 6, ‘Bazaar’. Track 9, ‘Harp of Anubis’, is subtitled ‘Tombeau Phillip Houghton’, a tombeau a musical composition “commemorating the death of a notable individual”, in this case the aforementioned Australian classical guitarist and composer who passed away at the end September 2017 at the age of 63. While Koch may have known Houghton, another connection might be the fact that Karin Schaupp was the first artist to record a complete version of Houghton’s composition, Stélé.

Again, the press release tells us that track 4, ‘Graymaklin’s Knell’, references an imagined “surreal journey into the future, encountering Macbeth’s witches and their cats.”! Which is all very well, but apart from the titles of the dozen pieces on Saladin’s Dream, and of course the title itself, not a word of any of these “dreams and apparitions” appears anywhere on the record – not as lyrics – it’s purely instrumental – not as liner notes.

So, since you, dear reader, won’t be receiving an accompanying press release, just sit back and let your imagination be carried away by the music.

MICHAEL SMITH

MARGARET ANNE AND THE ROCK IT MAN SOUL LAID BARE Foghorn

The opening song, ‘Don’t Look Back’, may have been cowritten with Shane Nicholson, while Luke O’Shea may duet with singer, songwriter and keyboards player Margaret Anne on the song they cowrote, ‘The Ones You Love’, and the title track might bring Steve Earle to mind, but Soul Laid Bare is no straightforward Americanainfluenced Australian country album. There’s the slinky funk of ‘Cabin Boy’ for a start, the brooding, driving rock of ‘Prison Day’ and the chugging ‘Free Tonight’, which allows The Rock It Man, multi-instrumentalist, producer and, as it happens, the music producer for the TV series Mythbusters, Doug Weaver to let rip with some tasty wah-wah guitars. You’ve heard his work on records by David Mason-Cox and Chris E Thomas among others, so he’s no slouch and brings some really creative arrangements and diverse, multi-layered sonic textures to Soul Laid Bare. Lyrically this is, in part, a break-up album, though there are stories drawn from happier times and also from other people’s stories (‘Prison Day’ – I hope!), which allows for those broader stylistic strokes and textures that stretch from the subtly sparse ballads ‘From You To Me’ and ‘My Mumma’, the latter featuring the guitar playing Margaret Anne’s brother Russell Fletcher, to the airily vast rock of ‘White Haze’.

MICHAEL SMITH 89

ALBUMS: General SUICIDE SWANS RESERVATIONS Near Enough Records

CHRIS FAMILTON VARIOUS ARTISTS SEPARATE PATHS TOGETHER: Grapefruit Records/Planet

Capaldi (Traffic)….and many more. It is, by any measure, a dazzling array of talent; four hours of buried treasure and the perfect complement to its distaff predecessor.

TREVOR J. LEEDEN WOMEN OF THE NIGHT SUB ROSA Declared Goods/Heavy Soul

The latest album from the prolific Queensland alt-country band led by singer-songwriter Kyle Jenkins continues their stunning and world class run of releases.

Each of their albums takes a different dusty back road or inner-city laneway through confessional songs of people and places. Here they frame their songs with tough and tender instrumentation. One minute there are gnarled electric guitars, the next a mournful violin or a tapestry of piano notes.

Stylistically, think Dylan and Paul Kelly jamming with the Felice Brothers and you’re close to the mark as the band blend nervy, wordy analysis and introspection with woodsy, lilting folk and melancholic, ragged alt-country.

Reservations feels like the most balanced of their albums, a sonically and poetically consistent set from start to finish. At its mid-point is the thrilling and taut scattershot country shakedown of ‘13th Floor (Alabam)’, It’s followed by the exquisite and churning ‘Wish Bone’ a song that seems to search for identity and one’s place in the world. Opener ‘You Should’ve’ is a raw assessment of a friend or lover at fault, while ‘Breathe’ flips the coin from blame to encouragement over a beautiful cornucopia of plucked strings and the heady, swaying rhythm section. This is an album that seems to question and accept the contradictions of the world and affairs of heart, and keep moving on, eyes to the horizon with a soul full of good intent.

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Milk Of The Tree was Grapefruit’s quite superb 2017 3-disc compendium of British female singer/songwriters from the late Sixties/early Seventies. Now comes Separate Paths Together: An Anthology Of British Male Singer/Songwriters (19651975), a beautifully annotated companion piece also spread liberally across 3-discs. Caught between the initial flushes of folk-era Dylan and the punk era, ‘singer/songwriter’ defined a wildly eclectic array of artists that ranged from those steeped in folk to others who would forge stellar careers in bands.

The 66 featured artists follow a tried and trusted format.

Instead of the hits, there are left field selections from household names and key figures such as Richard Thompson, Bert Jansch, Donovan, Al Stewart, John Martyn, Ralph McTell, Peter Sarsdtedt, Gerry Rafferty and Gilbert O’Sullivan. There are contributions from the ‘under the radar’ folkies and cult figures such as Bill Fay, Mick Softley, Steve Tilston, Wizz Jones, Michael Chapman, Kevin Ayers and Kevin Coyne.

Songs from the hit writers are represented by 10CC’s Graham Gouldman (‘For Your Love’) and Tony Hazzard (‘Fox On The Run’, as in Manfred Mann, not Sweet!). One hit wonders are included, such as the superb ‘Days Of Pearly Spencer’ by the Northern Irish troubadour David McWilliams, and then there’s Ray Dorset (Mungo Jerry), Dave Cousins (The Strawbs), Jim

Women Of The Night might be based in Brooklyn, NYC, but at their heart is an expat Australian from Adelaide, singer, songwriter and guitarist Jordan D’Arsie, who moved there nine years ago, and that fact really does underpin the sound of this three-piece. Primarily a poet who’d fronted the odd punk and R&B Mod band after arriving in NYC, D’Arsie formed Women Of The Night four years ago and though their previous release, Pastel Colors, featured 13 songs, they dubbed it an EP and consider the 14-song Sub Rosa as their debut full-length album.

On the more aggressive rockoriented songs D’Arsie’s vocal delivery has a lot of the Mick Jaggers about it, informed by the anger of late ‘70s US punk, as is the trio’s basic proto-garage sonic footprint. Truth be told of

course, those American protopunks derived a lot from the sounds and swagger of the early Stones, whether they’ll ever admit or not, so it makes sense that songs like ‘Money’, with its snaky, almost Ronnie Lane bass lines, and ‘Open All Night’ should recall the UK ‘60s rather than mid-‘70s US punk. If anything, Women Of The Night sound like they could have comfortably emerged from a basement or garage in Carlton or Balmain in 1966 and slotted into the scene alongside The Missing Links and The Purple Hearts. ‘Lonesome Love’ reaches forward to, say, something like The Pelaco Brothers – certainly the indie inner-city sounds of Carlton and Darlinghurst of the mid-‘70s.

Not that any Australian places or names appear anywhere. It’s just there’s an Australian sonic sensibility about it all. There are gentle, introspective moments too, in the ballads ‘Lonesome Love’ and ‘Everywhere Everyone (Now You’re)’. In writing Sub Rosa, D’Arsie reckons he noticed “the voices within the stories were often flickering between a sinister voice and a much lighter and optimistic voice.” That’s just what you get.

MICHAEL SMITH

ALBUMS: Blues

BY AL HENSLEY MISSISSIPPI JOHN HURT MR. HURT GOES TO WASHINGTON Sunset Blvd. Records/Planet Co.

MICK FLEETWOOD & FRIENDS CELEBRATE THE MUSIC OF PETER GREEN AND THE EARLY YEARS OF FLEETWOOD MAC BMG

NEW MOON JELLY ROLL FREEDOM ROCKERS VOLUME 2 Stony Plain/Only Blues Music

CHRIS CAIN RAISIN’ CAIN Alligator/Only Blues Music

Discovered in 1928 in his hometown hamlet of Avalon, Mississippi, John Hurt that year made his first recordings for OKeh Records which became exemplary country blues cornerstones when re-issued on the album Avalon Blues after his re-discovery during the early 1960s folk music revival.

In the intervening years Hurt worked as a labourer around Avalon. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Hurt was not a rambler who sang in noisy Delta juke joints. A self taught finger-picking guitarist with a soft baritone voice of grace and beauty, Hurt’s style was unique without lacking dynamic rhythmic impetus. His repertoire combined fluid original compositions and pre-blues folk ballads performed with a high level of syncopation and finesse. This massive 40-song compilation was recorded for the Library Of Congress in 1963 during the resurgence of Hurt’s musical career that followed his relocation to Washington DC. It has an intimate ambience as Hurt paints stark musical portraits narrating tales of love, violence, working life, salvation and redemption. One of the great storytellers of folk-blues, by the time he died in 1965 aged 74 Hurt had enjoyed at least four years of deserved acclaim.

Peter Green, founder of Fleetwood Mac as a blues band in 1967, died in July 2020 aged 73. Often referred to as “The Green God”, Green was regarded by many as without equal in the pantheon of British blues guitar.

Band drummer Mick Fleetwood brought out the big guns of Anglo-American blues and rock to pay homage to the ailing musician in February of 2020 for an all-star concert at the London Palladium. The who’s who of musical household names who performed is a testament to the esteem in which Green was held. The house band led by Fleetwood included blues-worthy singer/guitarists Jonny Lang, Andy Fairweather Low and Rick Vito. Matching of guest artists to respective selections was well allocated.

From Billy Gibbons’ ‘Doctor Brown’, John Mayall’s ‘All Your Love’, and Christine McVie’s ‘Stop Messin’ Around’, to Steven Tyler’s ‘Rattlesnake Shake’, Pete Townsend’s ‘Station Man’, and David Gilmour’s ‘Oh Well (Pt. 2)’ and ‘Albatross’, the reverence of Green was visceral. Danny Kirwan’s ‘Like Crying’ by Noel Gallagher was exceptional, while Jeremy Spencer returned with Bill Wyman on bass for two of his Elmore James staples.

The New Moon Jelly Roll Freedom Rockers project brought together two generations of elite blues musicians in 2007 in an informally convened blues jam with the tape rolling at the Mississippi hill country ranch of pianist/producer Jim Dickinson.

This title is a companion to Volume 1 of the the sessions’ recordings which remained in the vaults until their release last year. Harmonica virtuoso Charlie Musselwhite, guitarist/mandolin player Alvin Youngblood Hart and guitarist Jimbo Mathus sat in with Dickinson and his North Mississippi Allstars sons guitarist Luther and drummer Cody, together with their bassist Chris Chew. The music has an air of spontaneity that puts the listener right in the moment.

Musselwhite, Hart and Mathus brought two songs each to this session, while the elder Dickinson sang the lion’s share, Luther contributing the fiery Earl Hooker instrumental ‘Blue Guitar’. Original compositions resemble vintage juke joint classics and Hart’s take on Doug Sahm’s ‘She’s About A Mover’ is down-home gut-bucket blues.

Dickinson senior’s Mississippi Sheiks, Junior Wells and Jimmy Reed covers and his reading of Charles Mingus’ cold war anthem ‘Oh Lord, Don’t let Them Drop That Atom Bomb On Me’ are inspired.

It’s no coincidence Chris Cain’s full-bodied baritone voice and masterful guitar chops evoke the sound of B.B. King. The late blues icon was a major influence on Cain during his early childhood years growing up in San Jose, California. Jazz greats Wes Montgomery and Grant Green also informed Cain’s signature playing style along with Albert King and Albert Collins. In the same manner as Collins and the Kings, since his 1987 debut album Cain’s sound has been fattened by including horns in his backing band, giving his music a sophisticated uptown vibe. This album, Cain’s fifteenth overall and first for Alligator Records, continues on the same path. Like his self-titled 2017 release, it was recorded at Greaseland studios in San Jose with owner Kid Andersen producing. The alloriginal program is a melting pot of recognisable blues structures from west side Chicago shuffles to funky R&B and Memphistinged soul blues. Cain’s songs, mostly narratives on relationship problems and life’s struggles, are steeped in insistent grooves. The slow-burn of the autobiographical ‘Born To Play’ gives way to high voltage swing on ‘Out Of My Head’, while five sides also showcase Cain’s accomplished keyboard skills.

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ALBUMS: World Music Folk

BY TONY HILLIER SARAH-JANE SUMMERS & JUHANI SILVOLA THE SMOKY SMIRR O RAIN Eighth Nerve Audio

There’s considerable charm and undeniable classicism as well as a sense of playfulness in the playing of Scottish fiddler Sarah-Jane Summers and her partner-inrhyme, Finnish guitarist Juhani Silvola, on their third album together. Based in Norway, the instrumentalists share a rapport that reflects a decade’s worth of gigging together. The thrill of exploration is tangible in their exquisite music making, which sashays across a spectrum of emotions — from radiant joy to quiet despair — while mixing traditional tunes from their native lands with four original compositions. Recorded live, a stunning set traverses various styles within the framework of acoustic folk music. Although guitar is his primary instrument, Silvola shows flair on piano, injecting the ancient ballad that kickstarts The Smoky Smirr o Rain with modal-jazz and Ethiopian undertones. The selftagged “baroque techno” feel of ‘Number 81’, a lively 5-bar reel from the 1600s that follows, contrasts with the meditative ambience of the title track. ‘Polskat’, a medley of 17th century Finnish tunes, has more of a classical ring. In the spaced-out middle section of ‘Borrowed Days’, Summers’ high-pitched fiddle impressively simulates bird song.

Elsewhere, she employs pizzicato for effect. ‘The Herring Reel’ has her in full Highland fling mode, albeit with a hint of Nova Scotia.

KHASI-CYMRU COLLECTIVE SAI-THAIÑ KI SUR Naxos World As unlikely as the combination of a Welsh bard and musicians from the hill country of Meghalaya state in northeast India sounds on 92

paper it actually works pretty well in practice. A Methodist mission planted the collaboration’s roots in the mid-19th century.

With Sai-thaiñ ki Sur, Welsh singer, songwriter and multiinstrumentalist Gareth Bonello, Khasi songsmith Desmond Sunn and fellow Indian artists resuscitate this unique liaison via a blend of language and music. While Bonello’s lilting vocals in Cymraeg, Khasi and English and his acoustic guitar fingerpicking hold centre stage in the set’s most accessible pieces, elsewhere spoken-word poet Lapdiang Syiem takes listeners into Meghalaya territory. A Welsh hymn, a bawdy drinking ballad and other songs receive Indian intonation courtesy of duitara (a traditional stringed instrument) and besil (native bamboo flute).

EVA QUARTET MINKA Riverboat/Planet

Those enchanted by the a cappella excellence and exquisite 4-part harmony singing emanating from the extraordinary Bulgarian intervals and polyphonic music of the all-female Eva Quartet at the 2018 WOMADelaide festival will relish this release. In Minka, originals written by the quartet and others sit snugly alongside beautifully arranged traditional pieces from various regions of Bulgaria, all

immaculately pitched by the group’s soprano, mezzo-soprano, alto and contralto voices. From soulful songs prompted by marriage and maternal love to playful ditties about indolence and a girl’s discourse with a dove, the set illustrates the timeless beauty of Bulgarian folk song, first exposed to the world at large by Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares during the world music boom of the 1980s.

KONGERO LIVE IN LONGUEUIL Nordic Notes

The Nordic lands also have a strong tradition of female a cappella singing. In Sweden, Kongero have notched-up 15 years experience in that realm and it shows in their first live waxing, which features immaculately delivered and imaginatively arranged folk songs from their homeland and poems set to music. Playful pieces like ‘King Klang’ and ‘Gökpolska’ are offset by more sombre numbers such as ‘Fjärran Han Dröjer’ and ‘Vila Stilla’ — the last-named a FrenchCanadian song aptly included in the set-list at their Quebec gig during a tour of Canada. The breadth of their repertoire is matched by the pristine quality of their 4-part harmony.

BELCIRQUE LA GRANDE FÊTE ARC Music

Belgian musicians tend to punch above their weight on the world stage, and Belcirque’s international reputation as an entertainingly eclectic and cosmopolitan sextet can only be enhanced by a new journey that takes their tight trademark female harmony vocals and penchant for swing on a trip to South America, where gentle cumbia, rumba and Andean inflected rhythms rub shoulders in songs in French and accented English. La Grande Fête — the big feast — is appositely titled, with Belcirque tucking into a smorgasbord of well-crafted songs and stories that explore and reflect on love, life, adventure, and the need for compassion and understanding. The band’s brass section gets to stretch out in tracks like ‘The Musketeer of Love and Fear’ and ‘Hora D’ora’. The female vocal harmonies are exquisite throughout, particularly so in the short and sweet ‘All My Love’.

FADHILEE ITULYA SHINDU_SHI Naxos/ARC Music

Although he’s adopted a fingerpicking guitar style that evolved in his native Western Kenya back in the 1950s, Fadhilee Itulya’s music is predominantly modern pan-African acoustic pop.

That much is implicit in several of the song titles on his latest album, which is infectiously upbeat. In between a spiritually charged opener in his native tongue and a punchy closing song in English, however, are several reflective socio-politically informed ballads, as well as a genuflection to the late Kenyan legend George Mukabi. Fadhilee Itulya’s a worthy successor to Mukabi and Ayub Ogada, whose premature passing in 2019 robbed Kenya of an international flag-bearer.

ALBUMS: Jazz 1

BY TONY HILLIER SONS OF KEMET BLACK TO THE FUTURE Impulse Records

Hutchings’ Barbadian ancestry as well as his philosophical outlook and positivity, are for this reviewer the pick of a hypnotic record that might well be viewed as a landmark release in years to come.

SLOWLY ROLLING CAMERA WHERE THE STREETS LEAD Edition/Planet

DAVE McMURRAY GRATEFUL DEADICATION Blue Note

Saxophone and clarinet supremo Shabaka Hutchings is not only one of the leading lights of London’s thriving nu-jazz scene, but a mover and shaker in world jazz. His latest enterprise with the Mercury Prize-nominated Sons of Kemet, one of a handful of diverse outlets for his talents, epitomises the buccaneering spirit of this bold musical adventurer. With Black To The Future, Hutchings puts down a powerful new template for 2020s’ jazz, virtually eschewing soloing in favour of a rhythmic, melody-hugging wall-of-sound concept driven by just his own instruments in tandem with the thumping tuba of Theon Cross and a couple of percussionists and, on selected tracks, caustic commentaries from vocalists and rappers from both the UK and US that address issues of socio-political oppression articulated by the ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement.

A sense of menace generated by sustained tuba notes and rattling drums underscores poet Joshua Idehen’s assertion that white supremacy stifles black imagination. The general sense of despair is echoed elsewhere in lines like: “Black is tired/ Black ‘s eyes are vacant/ Black’s arms are leaden”. It’s not all vitriolic, though. In the relatively upbeat standout song ‘Hustle’, English toaster Kojey Radical applauds the indomitable nature of the human spirit. It counters the ferocity of tracks like ‘Pick Up Your Burning Cross’. Coloured with Caribbean calypso and soca strains, axis instrumentals ‘Think Of Hope’ and ‘To Never Forget The Source’, which reflect

Both Jazzheads and Deadheads will find plenty to like in tenor saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist Dave McMurray’s 21st century Detroit take on repertoire penned by the Grateful Dead, those postwar 20th century San Francisco champions of counter-culture.

While primarily instrumental, ironically it’s the set’s two vocal tracks, ‘Loser’ and ‘Touch Of Grey’, that stand out — courtesy of respectively stunning and soulful performances by Bettye LaVette and Herschel Boon, the former backed by the Dead’s co-founder/guitarist Bob Weir, pedal steel maestro Greg Leisz and Blue Note boss Don Was. Some of the Grateful Dead’s more extended jam-oriented pieces, such as ‘The Eleven’ and ‘Dark Star’, in which McMurray leads his core band (on keyboard, flute and percussion as well as muscular sax) take on a sharper and jazzier shape, compared to the Dead’s LSDinduced meandering of yore.

‘Estimated Prophet’, however, retains the original’s compelling reggae groove (and wah-wah guitar), while ‘Eyes Of The World’ and ‘The Music Never Stopped’ are arguably more funkadelic and spirited than the earlier renditions. In a nutshell, Greatful Deadication is an album suffused with groove-based modern jazz and great sax playing.

Where The Streets Lead sustains the lush aural trajectory of Slowly Rolling Camera’s lauded 2018 album Juniper, which marked the Cardiff-based collective’s growing reputation as bold fusioneers. Their seamless blend of jazz, trip-hop and cinematic soundscapes is consolidated on a bolder endeavour that takes surprise twists and turns on epic tracks such as ‘Widest Possible Aperture’ and ‘The Afternoon Of Human Life’ without forfeiting lucidity or melodic values.

With an 8-piece string section and a stellar guest list that has Scandinavian trumpeter Verneri Pohjola and double bassist Jasper Høiby and American saxophone supremo Chris Potter augmenting the core line-up led by pianist Dave Stapleton and guitarist Stuart McCallum, SRC unselfconsciously push the parameters of their intoxicating amalgam.

DANIEL HERSKEDAL HARBOUR Edition/Planet

Like so many top-drawer Nordic jazz composers and instrumentalists, Norwegian tuba player Daniel Herskedal draws on the breathtaking geography of his homeland

for inspiration. The rugged coastline of Norway is tangible in the lyrical beauty and rhythmically charged latitudes of his latest collaboration with the renowned pianist Eyolf Dale and one of Scandinavia’s finest percussionists, Helge Andreas Norbakken. Between them, the trio generate the sonority of a much larger band, with Herskedal displaying a versatility of sound not normally associated with his instrument.

Harbour might have been recorded at a studio on a remote ocean-side island, but the music radiates warmth as well as reflecting the unconquerable power of nature just beyond its confines.

SIGMAR MATTHIASSON MERIDIAN METAPHOR Reykjavik Record Shop

Iceland is not exactly synonymous with jazz, but Sigmar Matthiasson is doing his level best to change that perception. The New Yorkeducated bassist and composer’s second album — recorded in a Reykjavík studio — offers an intriguing melange of music that includes Balkan and Arabic as well as modern jazz influences.

Matthiasson’s collaboration was hatched in the Big Apple, where he hooked up with guitarist Taulant Mehmeti from Kosovo and Tunisian percussionist Ayman Boujlida, who make guest appearances in a track apiece on Meridian Metaphor.

The core band, though, comprises fellow Icelandic compatriots, whose lead work on oud, clarinet and piano blend symbiotically with the leader’s bowed and plucked double bass, a drummer and intricate arrangements that offer twists and turns aplenty.

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ALBUMS: Jazz 2

BY DES COWLEY MIRKO GUERRINI AND ANDREA KELLER GENIUS LOCI: LIVE IN FLORENCE Independent, digital release

LILLIAN ALBAZI AFTER-IMAGE Independent, Vinyl & Digital release

AUSTRALIAN ART ORCHESTRA CLOSED BEGINNINGS AAO 007, CD & Digital release

LOUISE DENSON GROUP NOVA NOVA Dengor 003, CD & digital release

Since moving permanently to Australia in 2013, Italian saxophonist Mirko Guerrini has been a regular fixture on the local jazz scene, fronting his own ensembles and making up one third of Torrio!, his bona fide supergroup with Paul Grabowsky and Niko Schauble.

Genius Loci, his duets with pianist Andrea Keller, was recorded live in September 2019 in the magnificent Basilica de Santa Croce in Florence, the city of Guerrini’s birth. He acknowledges it was his first performance in Florence since his father’s death, and, affectingly, he chose to perform playing his father’s 1966 Selmer Mark VI, thereby stamping a deeply personal character on the concert. The album opens with Keller’s ‘Sleep Cycles’, which originally appeared on her Transients recordings. With its melancholic pianistic yearning, over which Guerrini beautifully improvises, it bears comparison with the music of Keith Jarrett’s legendary European Quartet. Next up is Keller’s ‘Broken Reflections’, her pensive meditation on her own father, taken from her solo album Journey Home. Guerrini’s sax, barely more than a whisper, is saturated with a deep romanticism, full of longing. Guerrini’s ‘Elegy for Stefano’, dedicated to the late saxophonist Stefano Bartolini, and composed the day his friend died, is a gorgeous lament, his sax invoking pain and loss. The standout piece is Keller’s ‘Missed Opportunities’, its near-classical piano theme underpinning Guerrini’s slow-burn solo, full of winding passages, as it steers its way toward resolution.

Throughout this performance, Guerrini and Keller demonstrate a perfect simpatico, navigating these delicate compositions at a leisurely and unhurried pace. The results are like small jewels, polished to perfection.

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Vocalist Lillian Albazi has been making waves on the local jazz scene ever since debuting her quintet at the 2016 Melbourne International Jazz Festival. With After-Image, she has delivered her first album, a solid workout comprising mostly jazz standards, rounded out with a genuine outlier – Rowland S. Howard’s broodingly intense ‘Autoluminescent’. The elevenminute opener ‘You don’t know what love is / Lullaby of Birdland’ highlights the album’s strengths: deceptively simple arrangements, ever-so-cool vamps, and Albazi voice, mature and sultry, gliding effortlessly over a minimal percussive beat. Oscar Neyland’s ostinato bass provides a subtle urgency, while drummer Luke Andresen propels the music with a light and busy touch. Saxophonist Shaun Rammers, meanwhile, blowing equal parts cool and hot, channels the warm, lyrical tones of Stan Getz. On ‘Gentle Rain’, Albazi dips into the laconic sun-drenched world of Luiz Bonfá’s Bossa Nova, her vocals languidly cruising to the gentle rhythms of Henry Davis’s Jobim-like guitar.

Albani’s rendition of ‘My Funny Valentine’ features guest pianist Tony Gould, whose unadorned notes strive for the simplicity heard on Chet Baker’s classic version. Like Chet, Albazi inhabits every inch of the song, her vocals dreamy and fragile. Jimmy Van Heusen’s ‘Come Fly with Me’ is taken at a gentle clip, Neyland’s swinging bass shadowing Albazi’s lilting voice as she bends and stretches her words to fit the melody.

Albazi concludes the album with a stark reading of ‘Autoluminescent’, a genuine Australian classic, digging deep inside the song’s despairing lyrics. While early days, this haunting finale suggests one future direction her work might take.

Jazz and poetry boast a long tradition, from the Harlem Renaissance to the Beat poets, from Amiri Baraka to Cecil Taylor’s performative recitations. While the Australian Art Orchestra has previously incorporated texts – found or otherwise – into its compositional practice, Closed Beginnings represents the AAO’s first collaboration with a poet, in this case Zimbabwe-born Australian poet Tariro Mavondo.

For this recording, AAO trumpeters Reuben Lewis and Peter Knight, employing a range of pedals, percussion, electronics, tape loops and synthesizers, have designed dense soundscapes as a backdrop for Mavondo’s four extended poems. ‘We too, Roar’, with its enigmatic refrain ‘deep down in the belly of the beast’, was composed in response to Melbourne’s 2020 COVID-19 lockdown. Mavondo’s words, augmented by a string trio, invoke something of the isolation and fear generated by a global pandemic: ‘can you hear in the / distance / a large steamboat / and as it nears / arms reaching out to a / sorry world’. Throughout Closed Beginnings, the AAO’s approach to jazz and spoken word sets it apart from much other jazz poetry. Rather than melding improvising bass or saxophone with spoken rhythms, Lewis and Knight have instead opted to contrive atmospherics that render closely the prevailing mood or tenor of the poems. As such, this music is more Eno than jazz, a series of minimalist and ambient soundworlds that psychically, rather than rhythmically, mirror Mavondo’s words. It makes for an intriguing - and in this case successful – experiment, further evidence of the AAO’s on-going interest in breaking down musical barriers.

Before migrating to Australia in 1999, Canadian-born pianist and composer Louise Denson studied with heavyweights Paul Bley and George Russell in Boston. That’s some education. Since then, she’s carved out a successful career in Brisbane, lecturing at the Queensland Conservatorium. Nova Nova, her fourth release as the Louise Denson Group, serves up eight new compositions performed by her trio of Helen Russell on bass and Paul Hudson on drums, expanded with saxophonist James Sandon and trumpeter Lachlan McKenzie on several tracks. The album kicks off with ‘You Said’, ushering in one of those classic Blue Note riffs beloved by Freddie Hubbard or Joe Henderson.

Denson’s piano is cool and muted, while McKenzie’s trumpet skips in and around the beat. With its buoyant feel, driven by Hudson’s measured percussion, it sets the tone for the album. ‘Parting’ sees the piano trio rolling out a delicate refrain, the lines of Denson’s piano searching and contemplative, calling to mind early Keith Jarrett.

‘Samba Lucia’ introduces an upbeat Latin feel, the mellifluous and dancing quality of McKenzie’s sax echoing Stan Getz’s classic Bossa Nova sides. The title track could be a soundtrack to a film noir, evoking streetlights, wet pavements, and shadows, its haunting theme playing out like a doomed love affair. ‘Moving On’ finds the band back in Blue Note territory, recalling the boldness and fluidity of Wayne Shorter’s mid-sixties sound. While there is nothing ground-breaking about Denson’s album, it reflects the maturity and confidence of a pianist and composer whose lyricism and melodic import is always front and centre.

ALBUMS: Vinyl

BY STEVE BELL LUCINDA WILLIAMS SOUTHERN SOUL: FROM MEMPHIS TO MUSCLE SHOALS & MORE Cooking Vinyl

There’s finally a vinyl release for the second covers set that the great Lucinda Williams live-streamed in late-2020 as part of the Lu’s Jukebox series, featuring all-band sets recorded live at Ray Kennedy’s Room & Board Studio in Nashville which were broadcast to the world with the aim of raising money for venues and staff who’d been adversely affected by forced closures during the pandemic.

In this second instalment of the altruistic endeavour Williams took the opportunity to run through a stream of classic soul tunes from the ‘60s and early-‘70s, as well as throwing in her own ‘Still I Long For Your Kiss’ and Bobbie Gentry’s country staple ‘Ode To Billy Joe’ (a song I now know inside out courtesy the Cocaine & Rhinestones podcast). They’re relatively faithful renditions - cast in Williams’ figure by both her inimitable voice and her hardened road band - with the focus being on the songs themselves, showcasing artists like Al Green (‘Take Me To The River’), Tony Joe White (‘Rainy Night In Georgia’), Anne Peebles (‘I Can’t Stand The Rain’), Joe South (‘Games People Play’), Barbara Lynn (You’ll Lose A Good Thing’) and William Bell (‘You Don’t Miss Your Water’). Her expressive vocals naturally suit the timbre of these songs and the wonderfully curated set was recorded superbly, making this a welcome addition to the already wonderful Williams canon.

REIGNING SOUND A LITTLE MORE TIME WITH REIGNING SOUND Merge Records Memphis-bred musician Greg Cartwright has been at the rock’n’roll coalface for more than 30 years, racking up garage rock miles (and kudos) with The Compulsive Gamblers and The Oblivians, and even spending a short stint playing guitar with The Detroit Cobras.

When about 20 years ago he’d stockpiled a group of songs too “moody and melancholy” for The Oblivians a new R&B-tinged outfit Reigning Sound was born, a band with still relatively raucous roots but which has itself matured and refined with the passing of time. Their new seventh album offers a restrained brand of garage with undeniable roots in Memphis Soul, but with constant and consistently excellent detours into R&B, rockabilly and country realms. It was recorded with the Memphis version of the band which Cartwright last convened for 2005’s Home For Orphans (as distinct to the NYC version he’s favoured on more recent records) and produced by Scott Bomar using vintage analogue equipment, resulting in a warm and inviting sound perfect for the album’s vibe. As with all good Cartwright compositions songs like the organ-infused ‘A Little More Time’, the ‘60s pop peddling ‘You Don’t Know What You’re Missing’ and barroom stomper ‘You Ain’t Me’ all come off like long-lost AM radio classics, while ‘A Good Life’ and ‘Moving & Shaking’ both use pedal steel for warmth and colour and a rocking cover of Adam Faith’s mid-‘60s hit ‘I Don’t Need That Kind Of Lovin’’ is thrown into the mix for good measure.

QUIVERS GOLDEN DOUBT Spunk Records

Golden Doubt, the second album from the Melbourne-via-Hobart four-piece - not including 2020’s reworking of the entire 1991 R.E.M. album Out Of Time as part of the vinyl subscription series for US culture vultures Turntable Kitchen - once more radiates an innately accessible vibe, in part due to the omnipresent guitar jangle, which places them firmly in an Antipodean construct. Yet while reminiscent in places of Flying Nun indie pioneers from across the ditch like The Chills and The Verlaines, and elsewhere doling out more Australian sounds and sensibilities akin to acts like The Go-Betweens, The Church and even Dick Diver, it’s frontman Sam Wilkinson’s smooth vocals and heartfelt, emotive lyrics which define Quivers and give them their own distinct identity. This is showcased succinctly in opener ‘Gutters of Love’, both in its lovelorn theme and cruisy, hook-laden spirit, as well as highlighting the band’s addictive female harmonies courtesy bassist Bella Quinlan and drummer Holly Thomas (guitarist Michel Paton also has a strong voice allowing for epic group vocals where required). There’s barely a misstep throughout, highlights including the doo wop-inflected ‘Nostalgia Will Kill You’, sentimental traipse ‘Videostore’, the super-catchy ‘Chinese Medicine’ (which subtly utilises a nine-person choir) and the way ‘Hold You Back’ gracefully introduces strings into the mix. There’s a loose theme of loss holding things together, but just as ‘Overthinking’ salves with its repeated refrain of “everything will be fine”, Golden Doubt deals with grief in a way that’s couched both musically and philosophically to ensure a fun and uplifting listen, safe in the knowledge that there’s light coming over the horizon.

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By Des Cowley

Beeswing

By Richard Thompson (Faber / Allen & Unwin, h/b)

T

he music of British folk-rock scene of the late sixties and early seventies rarely caused a stir on the UK singles charts, aside from perhaps Steeleye Span’s all-too-catchy ‘All Around My Hat’. But it’s clear, with hindsight, that the best of it has stood the test of time.

What more evidence do we need than the never-ending stream of historical releases and box sets that periodically surface? Their continued arrival corroborates a simple truth: the leading bands of the period – Fairport Convention, Pentangle, the Incredible String Band – remain beloved by a coterie of die-hard fans.

Richard Thompson’s memoir Beeswing is subtitled ‘Fairport, folk rock and finding my voice’. All up, it accounts for just eight years of the singer’s life, from the birth of Fairport Convention through to his earliest recordings with wife Linda. The fact that it leaves out the succeeding four decades – and some thirty albums – is beside the point. The years 1967-1975 were the formative chapter of Thompson’s career, during which time he went from shy and awkward schoolkid to leading guitarist, singer, and songwriter.

What struck me reading Thompson’s account is how easily things fell into place at the outset. He met bassist Ashley Hutchings and guitarist Simon Nichol in his final year at school. After adding drummer Shaun Frater (soon to be replaced by Martin Lamble) and singer Judy Dyble, the newly formed Fairport Convention began working up a repertoire of covers, chief among them hits by The Byrds and Lovin’ Spoonful.

Barely four weeks in, they were booked to play the famed UFO Club, opening for Pink Floyd. Within two months, they were offered a record deal. That’s some career trajectory.

Although the band’s debut release predominantly adopted an American west coast sound – even embracing several Joni Mitchell covers – a new direction was ushered in when singer Sandy Denny was brought onboard to replace Judy Dyble. Fairport began to increasingly add more folk songs to its repertoire. The rationale made sense: instead of relying on American influences, why not instead tap into the rich traditions of British folklore. After all, the band had been stopped in its tracks upon first hearing The Band’s Music From Big Pink, which fused ‘rock and roll, country, gospel, Appalachian, soul, jazz and blues’.

Could Fairport achieve something of the same by digging into their own roots?

Fairport’s 1969 albums What We Did On Our Holidays and Unhalfbricking flagged where they were headed, boasting both originals, such as Denny’s ‘Fotheringay’ and Thompson’s ‘Meet Me on the Ledge’, as well as traditional songs, like the eleven-minute opus ‘A Sailor’s Life’. Even before Unhalfbricking was released, however, disaster struck when the band’s van, returning from a gig in Birmingham, ran off the road, killing drummer Martin Lamble and Thompson’s girlfriend Jeannie Franklyn. It was a harrowing incident – detailed in the memoir – that left deep scars on Thompson, still only nineteen, and the rest of the band. No longer wanting to perform the songs associated with Martin, Fairport threw themselves wholly into their new direction, intent on making an entire album of traditional music. The result was Liege & Lief, for many their masterpiece, arguably the definitive statement of the British folk-rock scene.

It was just as well they gave it their all. Liege would be Sandy’s last album with the band, before leaving to front Fotheringay. Founding member Ashley Hutchings, likewise, left to form Steeleye Span.

Richard Thompson, it transpired, had just one more album in him, prior to announcing his own departure in 1970, after recording Full House. Fairport Convention would roll on for years, but Thompson’s critical role in the band was over.

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Without a plan, and for the first time unemployed, Thompson threw himself into session work. As a veritable hired gun, he took whatever work came his way: Sandy Denny’s first solo album, recordings with Gary Farr, Iain Matthews, John Martyn, Badfinger and others. He sums up the experience thus: ‘I did so many recording sessions in 1971 that memories of them blur and overlap, or seem to form one long, confused hallucination’. At the same time, Thompson ‘found time to write and develop the strange, surreal songs I was collecting in my notebooks’. These would form the basis of his first solo album Henry the Human Fly, released, as he says, to ‘universal indifference’.

Thompson first met Linda Peters during the Liege & Lief sessions. By 1972, they were living together (they would eventually marry), and regularly playing the small folk clubs that had sprouted up all over the country. As much as he enjoyed the experience, he admits to being on a downward career trajectory. A year on, he engaged manager Jo Lustig, headed into the Sound Techniques studio with Linda, and cut I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight. Staggering as it seems, he delivered Joe Boyd’s Hannibal label a genuine masterpiece for just £2,500.

Throughout Beeswing, Thompson comes across as a congenial character, modest to boot, emanating goodwill and positive spirit.

He writes generously about those he has known, whether Sandy Denny or Nick Drake. His book touches upon his growing interest in Sufi practice, including a pilgrimage to Mecca. For a year, he ran an antiques store. And although he elects to bring down the shutters in 1975, the year he and Linda recorded Hokey Pokey and Pour Down Like Silver, a brief coda projects ahead to the end of his marriage, which coincided with 1982’s remarkable Shoot Out the Lights. Since then, Thompson has carved out a singular career, recording prolifically, and touring a few months out of each year, either solo or with his trio, dipping into his vast back catalogue. In this, he resembles nothing so much as the ancient troubadours, as they travelled from village to village, entertaining folk, singing songs, and telling stories. Nearly half-a-century on from the period he writes about, he shows no signs

By Stuart Coupe

MYPONGA: SOUTH AUSTRALIA’S FIRST POP FESTIVAL

By Lindsay Buckland (Lindsay Buckland, PB $49.99)

W

hat happens when you combine a love of history, a magnificent obsession, and the chronicling of popular culture in Australia?

You get a book like Myponga by Lindsay Buckland. And I for one am so happy it exists.

This country has a rich and varied history of music festivals going back to Odyssey/Wallacia, Sunbury and Myponga, then continuing through Narara, Tanelorne, Byron Bay Bluesfest, Port Fairy, Woodford, and sooooooo many others. In fact, I often – in a pre-COVID world – used to think that every time I woke up there was another Australian festival announced.

But let’s go back to the formative festivals. The Sunbury festivals have already been beautifully chronicled in Peter Evans’ lavish 2017 hardback, large format Sunbury: Australia’s Greatest Rock Festival, and now comes Myponga: South Australia’s First Pop Festival which runs to almost 500 pages of text and photographs.

Author Buckland was there as a youngster. As he writes: “As a thirteen-year-old kid, I ventured down to the Myponga ’71 progressive pop festival. I remember after watching Black Sabbath’s mega explosive performance, becoming partially deaf with ears ringing over the next three days. It was an experience never forgotten, a seminal occasion for my eventual journey into the professional world of music several years later. Three years ago, after emerging from a Vipassana meditation retreat, the idea suddenly dawned on me to write a book about Myponga. This is a definitive account of South Australia’s first pop festival Myponga ’71.”

Buckland’s book contains everything you could ever want to know – and then some – about the festival which was held over the weekend when January rolled into February 1971. The promoters are profiled, as is the poster designer. There’s almost 25 pages devoted to Master Of Ceremonies, Adrian Rawlins.

Then there’s detailed run downs on everyone who played the festival.

That’s well and good for the big names such as Black Sabbath, but at times slight overkill for some of the lesser names.

Sabbath came to Australasia for the briefest of trips – the schedule being New Zealand on January 29, to Sydney for a reception the following day, down to Myponga, and then out and on to Tokyo, but before they left London the New Zealand and Japanese components were cancelled.

Buckland captures times and place superbly: “Meantime Ozzy Osbourne was fretting about the never ending thirty-hour plane flight he was about to endure. The anxiety riddled Osbourne ended up coping by consuming no less than fifteen bottles of in-flight champagne before the plane touched down at Mascot Airport, Sydney on Friday January 29. During their four-hour layover, Sabbath held a press conference, then boarded a mid-afternoon Ansett flight

touching down at Adelaide Airport late afternoon. The ‘Paranoid’ single was sitting at number three position on the Adelaide 5AD singles chat. When Sabbath arrived, there was already sensationalised press about how loud the band were. ‘Don’t be surprised if you might hear them in inner suburban Adelaide when they play.’ Bill Ward, Black Sabbath’s drummer, appeared on Channel Nine’s Saturday morning music show Move. Interviewed by the show’s host Vince Lovegrove, Ward would later affably put out the call to any young ladies wanting to join the band at their hotel for a bit of partying later that evening, proceeding to provide the name of the hotel and the band’s room numbers.”

The Australian contingent of headliners included Spectrum, Fanny Adams, Daddy Cool, Margret RoadKnight, Chain, Billy Thorpe And The Aztecs, Fraternity, Jeff St John (with Wendy Saddington and Copperwine), and Healing Force. Significant pages of the book are also devoted to the lesser lights on the bill – Uncle Jack, Storyville, the Coney Island Jug Band, Fat Angel, Octopus and so forth. Each entry for all artists functions as both a mini biography of the band, their appearance at the festival and their pre and post Myponga activities.

Buckland even details information about artists who were booked for the festival but didn’t appear. Red Angel Panic caused a mini storm for pulling out due to claims of underpayment for local artists, and New Zealand’s Flying Biplane cancelled.

As music historian and Rhythms contributor Ian McFarlane writes on the back cover: “This book will appeal to anyone interested in the history of Australian rock music. “I love this book. It’s every bit of more-than-we-really-need-to-know information that music nerds like you and I love delving into – plus the photos, handbills and illustrations are wonderful. It must be time for the 500-page book on the Odyssey Festival at Wallacia. Or the Narara book?”

For copies go to: freestylepublications.com.au 97

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20th ANNIVERSARY EDITION

Fiona Boyes Blues In My Heart

www.onlybluesmusic.com *in over 25 years

BY MEG CRAWFORD

I’M WANITA Listen to the album, watch the

film – you won’t come out the same person and, guaranteed, you’ll be thinking about Wanita for days

O

ff the back of I’m Wanita – a successful feature-length documentary about Australia’s Queen of Honky Tonk – and an album of the same name, Wanita Bahtiyar is finally, belatedly and deservedly in the spotlight.

Let’s start with the album. It’s an absolute belter. Better known by just her first name, Wanita knocks it out of the park. Her voice, the songs and lyrics (all hers) put the album in the category of a country great.

Contrary to popular opinion, Wanita didn’t crown herself Australia’s Queen of Honky Tonk – other people said it first and it stuck, for good reason. When she sings, you can see jaws drop. She’s mesmerising.

But she’s also an anachronism. As Wanita says in the doco many times herself, she’s from a different time. However, with a world-wide release of I’m Wanita (it premiered at HotDocs, the Canadian International Documentary Film festival, and will screen shortly at MIFF, Sydney Film Festival and CineOz Film Festival in Perth before getting a run in Nashville) and what should be a solid-gold album, it’s looking like her time is now.

So, why hasn’t Wanita made it sooner?

The answer’s complex, and the doco gives some insight as to why. It seems unfair to put anyone’s life in a nutshell, let alone Wanita’s, but she’s experienced significant

trauma, there’s a question-mark diagnosis putting her on the autism spectrum, liquor’s been an issue and she eschews more marketable flavours of country, preferring honky tonk. Add to that flame-red ringlets and being a woman of a certain age, and she just can’t fit neatly into a PR box. But the best and most special things never do.

The unconventional firecracker is as authentic as it gets. What you see is what you get. And sometimes, that makes for difficult viewing. Fiercely loving, charismatic, compassionate, kind and insightful, she comes with chaos. Take the scene where Wanita records at Mephis’s fabled Sun Studio, gets plastered and the recording goes off the rails. It is car-crash viewing. But it’s also not the full story.

“The movie portrays me fucking up at Sun Studios, then doing the other things and then prevailing in Nashville,” Wanita says.

“That was terrific for narrative, but I said to Matthew Walker [the filmmaker], ‘You know, you can put me in an auditorium of 100,000 people and make it look like this. But if asked the question, you know what I’m going to do. I’ll tell the truth.

So, Nashville was the first stop. That’s where the album was recorded. Then Sun Studios, then New Orleans.”

Also, it was a snap shot of her life.

“It’s worth bearing in mind that the documentary was filmed mostly in festive mode and out of ordinary circumstances,” Wanita reflects. “So, that mania and the alcohol consumption and all of the things that come with that was what was happening at the time. It wasn’t a representation of how things are all the time.”

So, what inspired her in the first place to give a camera crew warts-and-all access to

her life? “I’ve been misinterpreted all my life, misunderstood,” she explains. “So, this was one sure, absolute way of giving everyone the best available information, and just them know the truth. Express myself exactly how it was at the time.”

Indeed, the film touches on her sex work, her estrangement from her daughter and the difficult, consuming love between her and her husband, who died, tragically, last year. It’s raw, revealing and there’s just so much heartache.

Naturally then, it was confronting for Wanita to watch it. “When you know your shortcomings, which I do, and you know you’ve fucked up, to actually see it blatantly in front of you is still a shock,” she notes. “But then, I trusted my integrity and honesty will prevail and people will be able to sift out details and see through to my heart and good intentions.”

On the flip side, Wanita has also experienced vindication and triumph.

When it happens in the movie, we cheer.

Take for instance when the Grammynominated Nashville singer-songwriter Billy Yates, who co-produced the album with Larry Beaird, says, “she’s so consistent, she doesn’t know how good she is”.

“That was one of my favourite bits in the movie. I went to America thinking that they’d think I was some country hick and amateurish compared to that elite Nashville sound. Particularly at Beaird Studios. You know, you’ve got bloody pictures of Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson and Loretta Lynn on the walls. But they were saying to me things like, ‘you sang the hell out of that song’. I think they were really happy to just have a strong, honest, genuine singer.” wanitathemovie.com.au 99

Ellen McIlwaine

Dusty Hill

Chuck E Weis

Andy Glitre

Byron Berline

Count M’Butu

COMPILED BY SUE BARRETT

After a COVID-difficult winter, more hugs to everyone adversely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Australian music charity Support Act (www.supportact.org.au) has scheduled a mental health conference, Head First, for Thursday 7 October 2021 – aimed at helping current and future music community leaders “face the challenges of the past, while looking to a future where psychological safety, mental health and wellbeing are at the core of everything we do”.

With Christmas just around the corner, now is a good time to purchase lots of music (and other goodies) direct from Australian musicians at their online store and sites such as Bandcamp (https://bandcamp.com).

For musicians seeking airplay, the Community Broadcasting Association of Australia has a list of members on its website: www.cbaa.org.au/about/our-members Another way for musicians, publicists and record labels to make contact with DJs is through FOLKDJ-L (an electronic discussion group for people interested in folk-based music on the radio): www.folkradio.org/about-folkdj-l Cookin’ On 3 Burners is one band looking forward to more normal times. The soul funksters – Jake Mason (Hammond organ), Dan West (guitar), Ivan Khatchoyan (drums) – have a new album in the works. Until then, some gigs are scheduled and plenty of their spirit lifting music is available: www.cookinon3burners.com Folk Federation Australia’s Australian Folk Music Awards are due to be announced and livestreamed on Thursday 14 October 2021: www.folkalliance.org.au . And a new date has had to be worked out for the postponed National Indigenous Music Awards: www. nima.musicnt.com.au RUOK? Day 2021 takes place on Thursday 9 September. The website has tips to help you ask other people RUOK? Related items for sale include stubby holders, shoelaces, aprons, notebooks, pens, tea bags, beanies, golf balls: www.ruok.org.au

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Ellen McIlwaine (75), American slide guitarist, died Canada (June) Welsh musician David Edwards (56), of Datblygu, died Wales (June) Burton Greene (84), American jazz pianist, died Netherlands (June) American trumpeter and composer Jon Hassell (84), died in June Reba Heyman (84), folk music promotor and patron, died Washington DC, USA (June) American soul singer Dean Parrish (79), died New York, USA (June) Fane Flaws (70), musician and singer/songwriter, died New Zealand (June) American folk and Celtic singer Grace Griffith (64), died Maryland, USA (June) www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lq5F0jABhZk&t=7s Clark Weissman (87), folk musician and organiser, died California, USA (June) American bassist Juan Nelson (62), died in June Justin Cosby (50), of Inertia Music, died in June Cameroonian singer Wes Madiko (57), died France (June) David Cutler Lewis, keyboardist with Ambrosia, died in June Songwriter Winsford Devine (77), died Trinidad (June) Byron Berline (77), American fiddler, died Oklahoma, USA (July) British-born Andy Glitre (64), former presenter on ABC’s triple j, died in July Jeff LaBar (58, guitar) and Gary Corbett (keyboard), of Cinderella, both died in July Songwriter and vocalist Chuck E Weiss (76), died California, USA (July) Sam Reed (85), American saxophonist, died in July American rapper Biz Markie (57), died Maryland, USA (July) Dusty Hill (72), ZZ Top bassist, died Texas, USA (July) South African singer and songwriter Steve Kekana (62), died South Africa (July) Robby Steinhardt (71), singer and violinist with Kansas, died Florida, USA (July) American jazz bassist Juini Booth (73), died New York State, USA (July) Count M’Butu, American percussionist for The Derek Trucks Band, died in July British guitarist John Hutchinson, died in July John Lawton (74), singer with Uriah Heep, died England (July) American musician Joey Jordison (46), died in July

Grammy Award-winning singer, songwriter, performer and musician Billy Strings releases his highly anticipated new album.

Produced by Jonathan Wilson & Billy Strings (Conor Oberst, Roger Waters, Father John Misty)

“Long Time Coming is an amazing debut for a talent so young.

Ferrell navigates the emotional and musical terrain before with thegrace and purpose of an artist typically further down the road of their creative journey. Here’s hoping this is just the beginning of a long and fruitful career for Ferrell; Americana and roots music will be better off for it.”

Americana Highways

“…it’s clear that no one, and I mean no one, is doing what Ferrell is doing, be it in her songwriting, arrangements, or delivery.”

No Depression

Acclaimed Songwriter

GRETTA ZILLER Releases New Album

Featuring the singles Unlikely Believer, Fan the Fire and Stockholm

ALBUM OUT NOW Go to grettaziller.com for updated tour info. abcmusic.com.au