Rhythms Magazine November-December 2020

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BEN HARPER

ALBUMS,FILMS, MUSIC, BOOKS! END OF YEAR ISSUE

Fiona Boyes Elvis Costello Chris Hillman James Williamson & Deniz Tek Low Cut Connie Matt Berninger Natalie D-Napoleon Emma Donovan Fleet Foxes Songbirds Project Vika & Linda

“I don’t know any guitar player who’s not committed their life to tone and sound…”

HISTORY: Mike Rudd Joni Mitchell Chris Frantz

$12.95 inc GST NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020 ISSUE: 302

JOSH TESKEY & ASH GRUNWALD

EASTER WEEKEND

THU 1ST - MON 5TH APRIL . TYAGARAH TEA TREE FARM . BYRON BAY . NSW where the rainforest meets the sea

FLEET FOXES ANTI.COM

OUT NOW

Volume No. 302 November/December 2020

UPFRONT 09 10

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The Word.

Rhythms Sampler #9.

Our Download Card!

Only available to subscribers!

Music News

Bluesfest Update. Sam Fell reports on the latest news.

Nashville Skyline

13 14 15 16

Justin Townes Earle. By Martin Jones.

Max Merritt. By Stuart Coupe.

Tim Partridge. By Ian McFarlane.

Mark Simmonds. By Andra Jackson.

Stuff Happens! Anne McCue.

GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN

COVER STORY

BEN HARPER’S WINTER IN AMERICA

The revered musician releases an album of lap steel guitar tunes.

By Brian Wise.

NEW RELEASES 18

COUNTRY COMFORT

19

RECOVERING

20 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 32 34

TWO TO ONE

44

PUNCHING THE CLOCK

Living on Borrowed Time. By Brian Wise.

17

40

38

Zepheniah Ohora’s music on Listening To The Music harks back to Merle Haggard with a modern twist. By Bernard Zuel.

Molly Tuttle’s new album is a selection of eclectic covers made during the pandemic. By Brian Wise.

BLUES IN HER HEART

Australia’s most decorated blues player Fiona Boyes celebrates 20 years of a classic album. By Sam Fell.

LOW FI & HI ENERGY

Adam Weiner fronts Low Cut Connie – the best band you’ve never heard (but not for long). By Brian Wise.

CROSSING OVER

Emma Donovan channels personal stories into her new album with The Putbacks . By Meg Crawford.

WELCOME TO HIS WORLD

Dan Flynn crafts a folk-rock classic. By Jeff Jenkins.

FREEDOM SONG

Kutcha Edwards’ new single shines a light on injustice.

By Meg Crawford.

COINCIDENTAL INSTRUMENTAL

A surprising new collaboration between Joe Matera and Martin Cilia. By Samuel J Fell.

STORYTELLER

It’s a more multifaceted story than most with some glorious music.

By Chris Lambie.

AFTER THE AFTERSHOCK

Mike Elrington’s new album emerges from personal pain.

By Samuel J Fell.

LIONHEARTED

An album born from friendships by James Ellis & The Jealous Guys. By Denise Hylands.

ALL ASHORE

The new Fleet Foxes album came from happenstance rather than design. By Steve Bell.

BREAKING OUT

The National’s Matt Berninger teams up with Booker T Jones for a debut solo album. By Brett Leigh Dicks.

REDEMPTION SONGS

Samuel J Fell talks to Murray Cook about the Songbirds project that is paying social dividends.

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Two guitar legends, James Williamson and Deniz Tek, team up for an action-packed new album.

By Ian McFarlane.

Elvis Costello releases a new album, Hey Clockface, and delves into the archives. By Bernard Zuel.

PUSHING THE BLUES AWAY

Josh Teskey and Ash Grunwald team up to explore the blues.

By Brian Wise.

HISTORY 50

BOTH SIDES NOW

52

TALKING HEAD!

56 58

Joni Mitchell looks back to her formative years with Archives Vol.1 (1963-1967). By Warwick McFadyen.

Chris Frantz talks about his memoir Remain In Love. By Brian Wise.

AN OUTSIDER’S INSIDER

Paul Gorman chronicles the life of Malcolm Mclaren.

By Jonathan Alley.

‘I’LL BE GONE’ LIVES ON

Craig Horne’s new book tells how Mike Rudd’s ‘I’ll Be Gone’ remains an iconic song 50 years on. By Ian McFarlane

COLUMNS 62 63 64 65

Top Gear. By Brian Wise.

Technology. By John Cornell.

Musician: Jordan Brodie. By Nick Charles.

33 1/3 Revelations: Ralph Towner & Gary Burton.

By Martin Jones

66 Lost In The Shuffle: Jim Pulte. By Keith Glass 67 You Won’t Hear This On Radio: By Trevor J. Leeden 68 Underwater Is Where The Action Is.

69 70 71

By Christopher Hollow

Waitin’ Around To Die: Western Dreams. By Chris Familton Classic Album: Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out. By Billy Pinnell Twang! Americana. By Denise Hylands.

REVIEWS 72

FEATURE REVIEWS: Vika & Linda, Jaime Wyatt, Little Wise,

Melody Moko, Bruce Hearn, Brennen Leigh, Dirk Powell, Cat Stevens, Robert Wyatt, Arna George, Natalie D-Napoleon and Angul Gill

89 World Music & Folk: By Tony Hillier 90 Blues: By Al Hensley 91 Jazz: By Tony Hillier 92 Jazz 2: By Des Cowley 93 Vinyl: By Steve Bell.

94 Film: Slim & I. By Denise Hylands.

95 Books: Kendrick Lamar, Pearl Jam. By Des Cowley.

97 Books Too! By Stuart Coupe 98 Books 3! Greg Appel’s memoir. By Michael Smith 4! Chris Hillman – Time Between: My Life as a Byrd.

99 ByBooks Brett Leigh Dicks.

100 Hello & Goodbye By Sue Barrett.

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CREDITS Managing Editor: Brian Wise Senior Contributor: Martin Jones Senior Contributors: Michael Goldberg / Stuart Coupe Design & Layout: Sally Syle - Sally’s Studio Website/Online Management: Robert Wise Proofreading: Gerald McNamara

CONTRIBUTORS Sue Barrett

Denise Hylands

Steve Bell

Andra Jackson

Nick Charles

Jeff Jenkins

John Cornell

Martin Jones

Des Cowley

Chris Lambie

Stuart Coupe

Warwick McFadyen

Meg Crawford

Ian McFarlane

Brett Leigh Dicks

Trevor J. Leeden

Chris Familton

Mark Mordue

Samuel J. Fell

Anne McCue

Keith Glass

Iain Patience

Megan Gnad

Billy Pinnell

Michael Goldberg (San Francisco) Michael Smith Al Hensley

Jo Roberts

Tony Hillier

Bernard Zuel

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Christopher Hollow

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LIVING ON BORROWED TIME

nce again, I must thank all our subscribers and advertisers for keeping us sustained over the past few difficult months. Thanks also to Creative Victoria and the City of Melbourne for their support. We continue in the face of an unprecedented situation and without your support this would not be possible.

One way subscribers can ensure Rhythms stays healthy into the future is to convince one other person to subscribe. If you were able to do this we would be entirely self-sustaining! We still have our special offer whereby if you give someone a gift subscription you both get the Bakelite Radio CD, Rosary of Tears. So, put on your salesperson hat or give someone a special gift.

A Rhythms subscription would also make a brilliant present for the festive season.

I am expecting the world to be different – and, hopefully, a lot better - by the time you receive this edition. We are delighted that Bluesfest is going ahead at Easter and we eagerly await to learn if Womadelaide will happen in March. Until then we remain starved of gigs.

If the past six months have been a shock and changed the way we live, then I am not sure how to describe the past four years.

I must admit that I have never been so engaged in the news. I guess that has been one benefit, even if most days I just shake my head in wonder. I recently re-watched the documentary The USA vs John Lennon and was struck by the fact that what he was saying back in the ‘70s is even more applicable today. In December it will be 40 years since Lennon left us but his spirit lives on. He remains an inspiration. (In fact, I have a framed print of the photograph shown on this page, looking over me as I write).

Austin’s ACL Festival went online in midOctober and replayed a performance from Paul McCartney, who was 76 at the time, from the 2018 event. One could only speculate as to whether Lennon, who was

a year and a half older than his former bandmate, might still have been performing into his late seventies. One suspects that, given what has been happening in the world politically, he would have been still been making a noise.

John Lennon, Tokyo 1966.

Photo by Robert Whittaker (1931-2011) Interestingly, while the world has been in turmoil and the live music industry here has been devastated, there seems to have been more music available than ever. Artists such as Paul Kelly have not only released albums through the traditional formats but have also used Bandcamp to release sessions for fans. Vika & Linda’s new album, Sunday: The Gospel According to Iso, was actually inspired by online sessions done during our recent lockdown.

I remain one of those stubborn Luddites who still prefers to get music in a material form rather than online. As I mentioned last issue, I have rediscovered my vinyl collection and when you buy vinyl these days you also get a download code. However, I have also been exploring Bandcamp where you can buy CDs or vinyl and get a download card when you do so. The fact that we have not had any

gigs to go to has meant that I have been able to support local musicians by buying their albums, singles and EPs. That brings me to the latest Rhythms download card which I am very happy to have been able to bring you as part of our commitment to bring you new music.

Recently, after receiving some subscriber emails I had the brilliant idea that we could make a cover, tray insert and liner notes available to also download so that you can print them off and, using a case, create your own CD. I promise to try this out in future.

I must also tell you about two further developments. I have been curating some music for a Rhythms online radio station which you will find on our website. There is a player there that you can click on to hear many of the latest releases mentioned in the magazine, as well as interview excerpts and selections from my infamous Cellar of Sound. There has been so much released that there is no problem finding some great music for you.

We have also been updating the Rhythms podcasts, so if you go to iTunes or Apple’s Podcast app and you will find plenty there to keep you entertained. If you haven’t got an Apple product you can find the podcasts on podbean.com (just search for Rhythms Magazine). The podcasts draw on interview material from the past year and I will also delve back into the archives to select some classic interviews to replay for you.

It is also time to start thinking about your favourite albums, books and gigs of the year for our annual Readers Poll which will be online for your voting from mid-November.

Winners will be announced in our January/ February issue.

This issue is noticeably bigger than the previous few because of the flood of new releases and we expect the New Year’s issue to be a bumper one as well.

Until then, stay safe.

Brian Wise Editor 9

CELEBRATE THE FESTIVE SEASON WITH OUR

NEW SAMPLER! THE NOVEMBER/DECEMBER SELECTION!

Welcome to our Rhythms Sampler #9 this time with 21 superb new tracks of musical goodness in the handy download card format.

SIDE A

1. A CHANGE IS GONNA COME (S.COOKE)

Kerryn Tolhurst A classic tune for the times – and , we hope, a new world. From the superb new instrumental album Shagpile by local guitar legend. Available at kerryntolhurst.com

2. HEART & CROWN

3. THAT HOLDEN SAVED MY LIFE

8. WANDERING MAN

4.

Natalie D-Napoleon From You Wanted To Be The Shore But Instead You Were The Sea. (nataliednapoleon.net) James Ellis & The Jealous Guys From Country Lion. A ‘slippery song’ telling us about ‘the sometimes melodious but always incorrigible wandering man.’

9.

JUST LIKE A SHAKER A Silver Sound A new outfit, partly inspired by Pink Floyd (get the reference in the band name?).

Andrew Tanner, Shane O’Mara, Leroy Cope, Stu Thomas with special guests Loretta and Tracey Miller.

Ben Harper An exclusive track provided by Ben himself, playing a very generous Santa to Rhythms readers! Thanks, Ben. (This track is not on Winter Is For Lovers, Ben’s brilliant new album).

10. 5AM

3. SHALLOW GRAVE (K.CHAMBERS & H.

Rhode Eyes Roots? Blues? Country? Folk? Americana?

Rhode Eyes are a little bit of all these things.

Debut album is launched this month.

HOOKEY) Vika & Linda From Sunday: The Gospel According To Is (courtesy of Bloodlines Records). A new song written by Kasey Chambers and Harry Hookey especially for the duo.

4. THINKING ‘BOUT MYSELF

Josh Teskey & Ash Grunwald From the brilliant Push The Blues Away (Courtesy of Bloodlines Records), the duo’s first album together but surely not their last.

5. CHARYSE

(Adam Weiner) Low Cut Connie From the album Private Lives by the best band you haven’t heard – yet! ℗ 2020 Contender Records under exclusive license to MidCitizen Records

6. I’M ON FIRE (BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN) Rich Davies From Born In Nebraska, a loving reimagining of Bruce’s Born In The USA. (richdaviesmusic.com) 10

7. THUNDER RUMOR

Caitlin Harnett & The Pony Boys A new single released in September and recorded live with Joseph Ireland (The Middle East, Joseph Liddy and the Skeleton Horse)

11. CAUGHT ME AGAIN

12. GETTING SOBER FOR THE END OF THE WORLD Darren Watson The title track of Darren’s latest album. “If Ry Cooder had a long-lost New Zealand cousin, it would be Darren Watson.” – Tami Neilson (darrenwatson.bandcamp.com)

SIDE B 1. PRELUDE

The Weeping Willows They missed their mates in isolation and asked some of them to join an iso-jam for the new single. (theweepingwillowsduo. bandcamp.com)

2. EULALIA

Lisa Richards Inspired by the memory of her grandmother of the same name from the Indie Folk Nouveau Chanteuse. (lisarichardsmusic.com)

Alan Caswell Celebrating the iconic car that won Bathurst this year in its last appearance! (alancaswell.com) GOOD TIMES Frecko Australian alt.country band comprising Jason and Jack Freckelton who create music that celebrates the simple moments in life. (frecko.com.au)

5.

THE LONELIEST BOY IN THE WORLD D Henry Fenton A new Covid recording from the singersongwriter originally from Sydney Australia who is now based in the USA. (facebook.com/dhenryfenton1)

6. WOLF

Hannah Frances The first single from her Silverleaves EP showcases her melodic sound that has gotten critics and fans raving.

7. LOVE IS GREAT

Marvellous Hearts The first song written for the new project from Craig Lyons of Sydney duo the Blues Preachers.

8.

NARCISSIST Miguel Rios Born in an alternative community in the Far North Queensland and now based in Melbourne, this is the first song from his forthcoming album Slaughterhouse Road. (miguelriosmusic.com)

9. THIS TRAIN IS BOUND FOR GLORY (WOODY GUTHRIE) LIVE Bruce Hearn & The Machinists From the album Live at the Athenaeum: A Tribute to Woody Guthrie (℗ 2020 Bruce Hearn) with a plethora of special guests including Eric Bogle, Margret RoadKnight, Mic Conway, Kerri Simpson & Jan Wozitzky.

10. DON’T GIVE ME A DIME

Mike Elrington The 2nd single from Mike Elrington’s new album Aftershock. Best played LOUD. Featuring guest rappers Where Is Leroy and Maelstrom. (mikeelrington.com)

DOWNLOAD CARD 90x55mm ORDER: 114012 FINISH: STANDARD BOTH SIDES

SIDES

#9

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020 RHYTHMS SAMPLER

NOVEMBER DECEMBER 2020

Subscribe to Rhythms Print or Print & Digital today and we’ll send you our EXCLUSIVE SAMPLER FULL OF GREAT MUSIC....AVAILABLE ONLY TO SUBSCRIBERS

THE RHYTHMS SAMPLER! EXCLUSIVELY FOR RHYTHMS SUBSCRIBERS:

GO TO: rhythms.com.au/subscribe

Ben Harper, Kerryn Tolhurst, Josh Teskey & Ash Grunwald, Low Cut Connie, Rich Davies, Natalie D-Napoleon, James Ellis & The Jealous Guys, A Silver Sound, Caitlin Harnett & The Pony Boys, Rhode Eyes,Darren Watson, Marvellous Hearts, The Weeping Willows, Lisa Richards, Alan Caswell, Frecko, D Henry Fenton, Hannah Frances, Miguel Rios, Bruce Hearn & The Machinists, Mike Elrington

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BY SAMUEL J FELL

2021 UPDATE

Still yet to receive government approval to return next year, Byron Bay’s potentially AllAustralian Bluesfest will be ready to go anyway, as festival director Peter Noble tells Samuel J. Fell.

The phrase that Bluesfest director Peter Noble uses at least twice during a quick conversation six months out from the festival’s proposed 2021 return is, “If there’s been a better lineup of Australian talent, I challenge people to state what it was.”

He’s done his research, looking back over the decades across not only his own festival, but others that have run in the past thirty years, and to his mind, there’s not one that can touch what he’s looking to do next year – that is, in the event international travel is still off the cards, Bluesfest’s very first line-up comprised of Australian-only acts.

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The arts industry as a whole, the globe over, has been crippled by the spread of COVID-19, and Bluesfest, despite its size, hasn’t been immune. This year, for the first time in its 31-year history, Bluesfest didn’t run. Four days after the cancellation announcement was made, however, the festival picked itself up off the mat and declared that it would be back next year, although, as the world still works out how it’ll live with this virus in the longterm, even a 2021 event isn’t assured.

“We are still waiting for the government to tell us we’re fine to go,” Noble says. “[7500 capacity, seated, outside] was the most recent announcement, but that’s months old now. The Events Taskforce, we’re waiting for them to produce. We’ll be ready [though].”

As they wait then, Noble and his team have put together a home-grown lineup, which serves to show, even at a glance, the depth and strength of the Australian roots music scene. Jimmy Barnes, Kasey Chambers, Kev Carmody, The Church and The Angels are but a taste of the established acts, while Tash Sultana, Ziggy Alberts, The Teskey Brothers and Hiatus Kaiyote represent the new guard

as part of a bill that acts as more than just entertainment; indeed, this is about an industry picking itself up, and showing how strong it truly is.

“If there’s a better Australian bill out there, I say, ‘Please show me!’,” Noble smiles. “And I’m not finished yet.”

As announced back in July, there are in fact international acts still slated to play. The likes of Bon Iver, Patti Smith, George Benson, Kool & The Gang, a plethora of others are all still, technically, on the lineup. Of course, whether they’re able to travel, will determine if they actually end up at Tyagarah Tea Tree Farm come Easter next year.

“They are on the bill, we’re just not featuring them,” explains Noble. “When we cancelled this year, I went to the international artists and a number of them wanted to reschedule, a great show of faith. So, those artists are still being advertised, but with the border controls we have, it’s pretty evident that they won’t be able to come. So, that’s why I booked an Australian bill to the level I did.”

Noble goes on to talk about the faith the public has in Bluesfest, saying that if the cap remains at 7500, then they’re already sold out. “Yeah, we’ve already gone past that number, the faith the public has shown in the event has been incredible.”

He’s also quite vocal on the government’s reaction to the plight of the arts, voicing his concerns as to whether or not his industry is held in the same esteem as, say, sport. He is quietly confident however, that if Bluesfest is indeed able to run in 2021, it’ll then be able to act as a voice loud enough to get governmental attention paid towards people in the arts.

In the meantime, this is what it all boils down to – if Bluesfest will be able to operate next year. Until that question is answered however, you can be assured that Noble and his team are working tirelessly behind the scenes – the moment the light is lit green, Bluesfest will be back, whether all-Australian or including internationals, upon this you can count.

Keep up to date with all developments at bluesfest.com.au

BY MARTIN JONES

JUSTIN TOWNES EARLE 1982-2020

S

uddenly there he was, stretched to ceiling, filling the whole room. Filling the whole world. Hopping about like a barefoot kid crossing a scorching beach, sucking down joints in a vain attempt to keep his metabolism at a mortal level, as if trying to arrest his lanky frame’s reaching for the stars. Never have I seen such an embodiment of the term larger than life. When he smiled down at you it was like the sun had just come out from behind a cloud.

I’d interviewed Justin Townes Earle just a few weeks before meeting him on his first Australian tour, back in 2008. Researching for the interview revealed a formidable character – drugs, punk rock, jail, being fired from his own father’s band. All by his mid-twenties.

“I had big plans on being a massive drug dealer for many years, you know that was kind of my first ambition in life,” he casually mentioned five minutes into our first interview. “But music’s a lot easier.

You gotta actually work for your money, but you don’t gotta worry about going to jail all the time. I mean I haven’t been to jail in four years, it’s pretty nice.”

“I’ve lived a life and done a lot of things that most people would never even fathom doing,” he surmised.

Professionally what this meant was that by the time he released his first solo album, Justin had lived enough life and played enough music to begin to discover his own voice as a musician – something it can take a lifetime to achieve. Listening to him play and talk about music revealed

the depth and breadth of his experiences.

He played Replacements covers but cherished Webb Pierce. He developed a complex right-hand guitar technique with thumb picked bass lines, finger strummed chords and picked single notes and pull offs all in the one fluid motion. I’ve argued with many educated musicians who accused him of using a loop pedal.

Justin was a punk rocker at heart, but he had a deep love and respect for tradition that informed his music. Punk rock quickly bored him. He naturally gravitated to the art of writing something timeless.

“I’ve never had to try to write old sounding songs,” he told me. “It’s just the way they come out of me. Some people in the press have said that I was born in the wrong era and, you know I think in some ways that’s right and in some ways maybe I was born in just the right time… I mean shit if I was making records like that fifty, sixty years ago I’d be just another guy.”

So, our band somehow ended up the support for Justin’s first Australian show in Brisbane that night. We’d already played a show at a festival and driven three hours. We were tired. One member was perhaps more inebriated than he should have been. Justin’s words about onstage “unprofessional behaviour” rang in my ears as we butchered some songs and then sat down to watch Justin take the stage alongside only a handful of people, none of us with really any idea of what to expect.

Offstage Justin was aloof, hunching a little as some tall people do to try and

avoid stares and whispers. On stage, he was transformed. He dressed sharp. He stood tall. He paced around like a panther.

He knew he had something worthwhile to say, he knew he had a gift and he couldn’t wait to share it. You could hear jaws hit the ground as he began playing that first song, long bony fingers prying the sound of three guitars out of a tiny parlour guitar. Did we see sparks fly?

Maybe. In my mind that’s how it was.

And I’ll never forget it. As he performed The Replacements’ ‘Can’t Hardly Wait’ I wanted to jump up and play the guitar riff (but I’d already disgraced myself once).

Word spread quickly. And Justin worked hard. He returned to Australia every year, sometimes twice a year, each time to bigger and more appreciative audiences. He released eight albums in 11 years. He was utterly determined to be professional; to write better songs, play better shows. The last words he ever said to me were: “I want to be a better singer every time I make a record, a better guitar player, a better writer.” But temptation was, I suppose, always lurking to lead him astray from that goal.

I had a dream that Justin walked into my store, folding himself onto the little sofa in the corner and sung, ‘Can’t Hardly Wait’. I didn’t know Justin well, I’m envious of the few who did. But that line sums him up to me. Even though that song might be about road weariness, Justin claimed it as an attention deficit anthem. Whatever was next – whatever it was – he couldn’t hardly wait.

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BY STUART COUPE

MAX MERRITT

(April 30, 1941 – September 24, 2020)

I

never met Max Merritt but I loved him. I don’t need to tell you how much I was – for decades – completely enraptured and thrilled by his singing. He was blessed with one of the great soul/R&B voices and could – as the cliché goes – sing the telephone book and I would have been all ears.

Merritt – who died recently in Los Angeles after a long illness – was one of my Facebook buddies. No big deal there beyond the fact that our occasional exchanges belied that he was a warm, humble and genuine person, something no doubt endorsed by those who actually counted him as a friend.

In my Roadies book I wrote about the hideous road accident Merritt and The Meteors were involved in on June 24, 1967 – one that resulted in Merritt losing an eye and drummer Stewie Speers being hospitalised for four months and never walking properly again.

Recalling that period reminded me not only of how hard bands like the Meteors – and their crew – worked, but what a phenomenal thing to come back from that was. And, indeed, both Merritt and The Meteors did exactly that.

The Max Merritt story in biographical terms is well known and easy to find. Look no further than Ian McFarlane’s essential Encyclopedia Of Rock And Pop. In essence, Merritt was born in New Zealand, and had formed his first band at age 15 to play in youth clubs around Christchurch. By 1958 (yes, you read that right) he’d already had his first local hit with a song called ‘Get A Haircut’.

After building an enviable reputation in New Zealand, The Meteors relocated to Sydney in 1964. As McFarlane writes, “The Meteors swiftly became the band to experience live on the eastern states discoteque and club circuit. Few Australian bands could match The Meteors’ peerless mix of rock, soul and R&B.”

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The Meteors toured with The Rolling Stones (and The Searchers) in 1966 and had a string of big selling and magnificent sounding releases. After establishing themselves in Australia, towards the end of 1970 Merritt and the band headed to the UK, and in 1975 recorded the best-selling A Little Easier album, followed a year later by Out Of The Blue.

Come 1978 and The Meteors were no more. Merritt recorded an album (Keeping In Touch) in Nashville and then based himself in Los Angeles which he continued to do for the rest of his life, continuing to sporadically release new music and make regular forays back to Australia for touring commitments, including being part of the Long Way To The Top concert tour in 2002.

In 2008 Merritt was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame.

But let’s talk about that voice and the music. Merritt was an astonishing interpreter, and unquestionably a world class one who deserves to be talked about amongst the great voices of this or any other generation.

Listen to him getting inside and living and breathing the lyrics of Otis Redding (‘Respect’), Sam Cooke (‘Shake’), Holland/ Dozier/Holland ( ‘I Can’t Help Myself’) and Gamble/Huff/Butler (‘Western Union Man’) – or, something like Walter Becker and Donald Fagen’s Steely Dan classic ‘ Dirty Work’.

Those, and many others, were interpretations but given their magnificence it’s easy to forget that Merritt was also an astonishing talented and consistent song writer. The hugely successful ‘Slipping Away’ was written by

Merritt, along with ‘Midnight Man’, ‘Good Feelin’,’ ‘A Little Easier’, the sublime ‘Home Is Where The Heart Is’, ‘Let It Slide’ and ‘Ain’t You Glad You Came’ – to list just some of the gems.

Australasia produced some mind-blowing singers in the 1960s and 70s – let’s think Normie Rowe, Wendy Saddington, Jeff St John, Doug Parkinson, Barrie McAskill, Leo De Castro and many, many others – and right smack bang in the middle of them all was Max Merritt. He felt, lived, breathed and oozed soul and R&B and delivered those songs – his and those of others – with intensity and passion. And deep down inside he had a rock’n’roll heart.

We’ve lost a great.

Photo by Andra Jackson

BY IAN McFARLANE

TIM PARTRIDGE R.I.P. W

e’ve heard the sad news of the death of veteran bass player Tim Partridge from a heart attack (12 September). He was aged 70 and was well respected by his fellow players and friends. The gregarious Partridge has been described as “larger than life” and “a force of nature”.

Throughout his career he played in all manner of styles but he was a master in the field of funk rock. He started his professional career in the late 1960s with Tasmanian bands The Clockwork Oringe, Old Sax Blues Band and 1812. Moving to Melbourne he found work with a succession of bands, including Company Caine, The Sect, King Harvest and Ash. In 1973 Ross Wilson selected him for his postDaddy Cool band Mighty Kong, playing on the album All I Wanna Do Is Rock. He joined Johnny Rocco Band, a fearless Sydney combo who delivered funk and soul when boogie, blues and glam rock ruled the Australian scene. Partridge’s incisive sense of groove provided the solid base along with drummer Russell Dunlop.

The Johnny Rocco Band backed Grahame Bond and Rory O’Donoghue (aka Aunty Jack and the Gong) for a successful national tour in 1974. With lead vocalist Leo De Castro on board, the JRB recorded the album Rocco which featured the first version of the gorgeous soul ballad ‘Heading In The Right Direction’ – written by guitarist Mark Punch and Garry Page – later made famous by Renée Geyer. In 1977 Partridge joined the Kevin Borich Express playing on the albums Celebration! and Lonely One. While he next worked

with De Castro in Heavy Division and in the Renée Geyer Band he returned to the Express in 1979, backing Geyer on the album Blues License. The Express toured Europe and recorded Angel’s Hand in London.

In the early 1980s Partridge worked in Tasmania with De Castro’s funk bands Toots and the Legmen, The Early Kookas and The Kingpins. He also played with The Fabulous Blue Cats and soul funk band South Street. He had a long running partnership with musician / entertainer John Brownrigg having first worked together in The Sect. Brownrigg wrote on his Facebook page “Lost a lifelong mate yesterday. Close like a brother. I always felt a closeness a connection to him that came from mutual trust love humility humour and time spent. In fact, over 50 years mates. I loved this man. I’ll miss him.

I’ll also live as long as I can so his memory stays alive within me.”

Partridge’s session work included albums with Doug Parkinson (No Regrets, 1973), Doug Ashdown (Leave Love Enough Alone, 1974), Mike McClellan (Until The Song Is Done, 1975), Ross Ryan (After The Applause, 1975), Kevin Johnson (Man Of The 20th Century, 1975), Jeff St John (So Far So Good, 1978), Mark Gillespie (Sweet Nothing, 1981) and the Daryl Braithwaite with Tommy Emmanuel single ‘Higher Than Hope’ (1994).

We extend our condolences to Tim Partridge’s family and friends.

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BY ANDRA JACKSON

MARK SIMMONDS (1955-2020) S

axophonist Mark Simmonds hardly played publically for the last twenty years, but such was the force of his musicality, his playing is remembered as if heard just yesterday. Simmonds, a prodigiously talented performer and composer, died in Sydney in September.

Award-winning improvising trumpeter Scott Tinkler who played in the Freeboppers with him in the 80s said: “Even though I’ve not seen him for 20 years, I feel a great loss both for myself and our artistic community.”

The saxophonist was in the vanguard of a new generation of jazz musicians who burst on the Australian jazz scene with new ideas, innovative approaches and formidable technique in the 1970’s.

He remained an influential force on the Australian jazz scene throughout the 70s, 80s and 90s.

Simmonds performed a number of times for the Melbourne Jazz Co-op. Its Artistic director Martin Jackson said: “Simmonds’s contributions to Australian jazz were a broad approach of incendiary intensity –reflected in his large and distinctive sound – which inspired a generation of his peers, together with a very contemporary style of composition based on `hip’ rhythmic complexity. Mark had a thorough grounding in, and love of the jazz tradition, but utilized this to create within, an Australian style of contemporary jazz.”

Tinkler said: “The impact Mark Simmonds had on my musical life was immense. He totally transformed my understanding of how, what and why a musical life could be explored. His knowledge of history was deep, way beyond the popular jazz heroes, he was obsessed with blues and roots as well as folk and pop as well as

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the more obscured artists in improvised music. But for me his intellectual approach to the development of harmony, sound, articulation, rhythms and form in improvisation was mind-altering.”

The saxophonist took him under his wing.

“We’d spend hours upon hours practicing for days, weeks, months, him kicking my arse around the cycle of fourths, using substitutions, rhythm cycles and modulations. It was the most intense mentorship I could have imagined.’’

Simmonds was “an absolutely intensely passionate person but had a huge intellect and a beautiful sense of humanity, which added to his deep internal pain and struggle, I’m sure. I owe so much to this man and continue to attempt to live up to the artistic standards he set.’’

The saxophonist was born in New Zealand but raised in Sydney. He played bagpipes, trumpet and soprano sax early on. While at high school he joined trad jazz bands. He and fellow students formed the Keys Music Association 1973. It started out a trad jazz band but evolved into a bebop outfit and later staged concerts.

Still at school, he enrolled in the Sydney Conservatorium of Music’s inaugural Jazz Studies course under American saxophonist and educator Howie Smith. He took up tenor sax. The late Don Burrows also taught him.

During a fertile time, he played with or sat in with the modern jazz Dave Martin group, the Jazz Co-op, Phil Treloar’s Quintet, Bernie McGann, The Last Straw and pianist Serge Ermoll.

However, for Simmonds there was never just one style of music and at the same time he was playing and touring with rock

bands such as Ol’ 55, Jeff St John, Doug Parkinson and The Dynamic Hepnotics.

Through sit-ins he hooked up with pianist Bobby Gebert and drummer with Phil Treloar. As the Australian Art Ensemble, they recorded and received a study grant to New York. For Simmonds it was a chance to develop further. He spent time at the World Music influenced Creative Music Studio in Woodstock and had lessons with jazz saxophonist George Coleman in New York.

Returning to Australia, he formed the Freeboppers playing open-minded and original music. Among the musicians passing through the Freeboppers were pianist Chris Abrahams, Tinkler, bassist Steve Hunter, Michael Sheridan, and with drummer Will Guthrie.

Sheridan recalls after hearing Simmonds with the Keys Music Association and the Freeboppers in Sydney, he was blown away. “I went back to Melbourne for my guitar and suitcase of vinyl records and flew straight back to Sydney.”

Sheridan formed Great White Noise, played with Simmonds and the two shared a place in Kings Cross for a few months.

“During 1982 & ’83 Mark was playing at a frightening velocity, sometimes cutting the band out to circular breathe ‘Trane meets Pharoah’ like solos (five to ten-minute cadenza). Mark met musical heights I have never experienced again except listening to Coltrane’s live recordings.”

The last time he saw Simmonds was when he came for dinner around 2008 and they jammed. Simmonds, the wide-ranging musician loved playing Delta blues guitar and used a slide. “He sang an improvised lyric.’’

PHOTO CREDIT: Stacie Huckeba

ANNE MCCUE

WHAT’S GOIN’ ON

STUFF HAPPENS

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merica has perhaps never been so divided since the Civil War, although this is just pure speculation on my part.

I hear that it was pretty bad during the American War on Vietnam. Many say it is worse right now. I have faith that the majority of people are not fans of ultimate greed and stupidity - but that, too, could be deemed as pure speculation. The one thing that makes this whole situation troublesome is that one side - which I believe to be the minority - is heavily armed. Some of them have hundreds of weapons and thousands of rounds of ammunition. This is not recommended.

During the previous Presidency they used to have musical concerts at The White House. Do you remember those?

Amazing performances from people like Mavis Staples, Alabama Shakes, Paul McCartney, Burt Bacharach, Stevie Wonder and Alison Krauss. You can find them online by googling ‘Obama White House concerts.’ Needless to say, there have been no musical concerts at The White House for the last four years. In fact, no cultural events of any kind. Perhaps this is a small part of why our hearts and souls are bereft.

Nashville is gradually coming back. People are venturing out more. But I think I’m just going to wait it out a little bit longer - or maybe a long bit longer, if necessary. *******************

Stuffy Shmitt is an authentic eccentric transplanted from New York City. He has won his recent battle with manic depression since moving to Nashville long enough to record a new album - Stuff Happens.

Originally from Milwaukee, Shmitt bounced between L.A. and New York recording with such legends as Levon Helm and David Johanson (New York Dolls.) As most have found, it’s hard to keep a band together, so Stuffy eventually decided to go solo acoustic. This new album blends all of that, incorporating the rock and the roll and mixing it with a more acoustic lyricism.

I’m reminded of Warren Zevon but I’m also brought back to a late 70s CBGBs kind of vibe at times. That kind of good honest rockin’ band kind of feeling. And the band is great, featuring guitar work by producer Chris Tench who really has one of the best tones I’ve ever heard. He is a regular sideman around town - or should I say was, when the gigs were happening.

There is a New Orleans rhythm play on ‘The Good Land’ which feels like it is a stream of consciousness vocal/lyric performance. The record takes some left and right turns, which I find refreshing.

‘Something Big’ has more of a folk feel in the writing a la Bruce Cockburn and a Daniel Lanois feel in the production. And

then, suddenly, we are suspended in a Calypso ambience with the song ‘Sleeping On A Wet Spot’. One gets the feeling that some of the lyrics may be based on drug induced psychosis or perhaps just plain old psychosis or then again, perhaps it is just a royal sense of the absurd. Anything is possible.

“I had a drunk drummer mother who wrote poetry in her sleep, and a dad who played guitar and had a thing for fast cars,” says Shmitt. “We read a lot of books, listened to a lot of music and protested social injustices. Our home was loud and nasty and violent.”

Part reckless beat poet, Shmitt is not afraid to say anything, really. He has stories to tell and he tells them in whatever language is available. He’s also a great live performer - hopefully one day you will get the chance to see him and his band.

“Rock & roll is supposed to be live,” he says. “You’re supposed to turn up the bass and listen to a person’s guts. If you play the new record loud enough you’ll definitely get some of that, but I’m holding out hope for when we can all get back out there in the flesh, pile into a club, order two shots of Jack, a pint of Kahlua with a side of Pop Rocks, and just go wild. Let the bass echo in our chests.”

Good luck to all of us!

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COUNTRY CONNECTION

Zepheniah Ohora’s new album, Listening To The Music, links us to country music’s classic sounds.

FEATURE

Z

By Bernard Zuel

ephaniah Ohora doesn’t sound like a 21st century country singer. And he’s fine with that.

His songs mix a bit of swing and a good dose of smooth mid ‘60s countrypolitan with, if you look closely even a truck driving song or too. Not only does he not sing about babes and beer but the voice is gentle and easy and has the tone of his guiding stars like Lefty Frizzell, Merle Haggard and Tommy Duncan of Bob Wills’ Texas Playboys.

“I get a little bit of flak for being the Merle Haggard guy but I was drawn to it because in some way maybe our voices sit in a similar spot,” Ohora says. “I wish I could sing as well as he did, he is one of the greatest of all time, but I strive towards that.”

And, for the final touch, Ohora grew up in America’s northeast, in a deeply religious household with little time for secular song, and only came to country music after moving to New York in his 20s.

He left the church - “I was asking too many questions for them, you know” – but not all the philosophy you suspect. Take for example the song ‘All American Singer’, on his recently released second album, Listening To The Music, where he argues if you’re not going to judge people on their skin colour or length of hair, don’t judge them on their political and religious persuasion, where they grew up or what music they grew up with. A bit of a personal perspective there Zeph?

“Yeah, I think so,” he says on the phone from his Brooklyn home. “The heart of the song is judging someone’s humanity or their worth or their moral worthiness based on [those things]. That’s just not the way I view life in general, especially coming from an extremely religious upbringing, then taking a bunch of psychedelics and drugs and living a ‘worldly’ lifestyle, which I was raised not to do.”

Does he really have faith, if that word can be used in this context, that most people can be brought to where agreement doesn’t mean division?

“I don’t really know but I think in my personal life, the way that I like to conduct

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myself,” he says. “If I’m gonna make those statements, broad statements about whole lists of people, in this income bracket or this class or this racial group, there might be somebody in there who is going to write me off and they’re not going to listen to anything I have to say in my music.”

“I spent a really long time writing that song, ‘American Singer,’ and it never came to where I really wanted it to get to 100%, but I really had to think about it because, unlike a tweet or a social media post that you can delete, it’s permanent, it’s a recording, it’s a statement.”

It’s a quirk of history’s repetition that these divisions and assumptions within the country and culture, these judgments based on hair, hometown or voting intentions, are reminiscent of the 1960s, when people making country music like Ohora were thick on the ground and in the pews, and long hairs from East and West Coasts automatically were dangerous atheist, minglers of the races, and fornicators.

The irony, or hypocrisy, is that Merle Haggard – who wasn’t averse to a jazz cigarette, happy pills, maybe even a tumble in the hay and would later be one of the original outlaws of modern country - could create a right wing standard bearer like Okie From Muskogee with lines such as “We don’t smoke marijuana in Muskogee/ We don’t take our trips on LSD” and “We don’t make a party out of lovin’/ We like holdin’ hands and pitching woo”.

“That’s true, but look at Willie Nelson’s famous

quote where he said something like he realised the reason he really liked Austin, Texas was that when he got there they had the bikers and the cowboys in the crowd along with the hippies,” says Ohora, who in the past decade has turned himself from country music novice to student of the form.

“People know that I’m a huge Grateful Dead fan and that’s what I think is so awesome about them: they were so antiauthoritarian that they never told anybody what to do. They had so many different types of people of those concerts: you had Hells Angels, you had hippies, you had Cambridge University types. That to me is way better because then it’s about the music and the collective, common ground that everybody has expressed in music.

And that’s sacred and really special.”

With that, having travelled from Lefty Frizzell to the Grateful Dead, from religious texts to acid tabs, and finding the distance is not that much at all, Zephaniah Ohora bids farewell.

Listening To The Music is out now, on Last Roundup Records.

Photo by Zach Pigg

COVERUP

FEATURE

Molly Tuttle releases an eclectic selection of interpretations

By Brian Wise

W

hen Molly Tuttle visited here last year to play Out on The Weekend and other gigs around the country, she blew everyone away with her performances. Everyone was raving about her guitar and banjo playing as well as her singing. Here was a star of the future, if her multiple awards didn’t suggest she was a star already: The International Bluegrass Music Associations Guitar Player of the Year (twice) and the Americana Music Association’s Instrumentalist of The Year. fter releasing her solo debut album, When You’re Ready, Tuttle decided to use the lockdown caused by Covid-19 to record an album of covers at home, in what was somewhat of a watershed prior to being able to get back into a studio proper for an album of new songs. …but i’d rather be with you collects ten eclectic cover versions, recorded with Los Angeles-based producer Tony Berg (Phoebe Bridgers, Andrew Bird). The album also includes songs from Karen Dalton (‘Something On Your Mind’), Cat Stevens (‘How Can I Tell You’), The National (‘Fake Empire’), Rancid (!) (‘Olympia, WA’), Arthur Russell (‘A Little Lost’), Harry Styles (‘Sunflower, Vol.6’), the Yeah Yeah Yeahs (‘Zero’), the Grateful Dead’s ‘Standing On The Moon’ (whose lyrics provide the album title) and one of the best covers ever of a Rolling Stones song (‘She's A Rainbow,’ which also has a video featuring many of her friends).

“Going back to the songs that I really love, and I had the time to record,” says Tuttle when I ask what the inspiration for the new album was, “and it was a really fun experience. Just getting to share this other side of these songs that I love and hope that someone else will love them too. Maybe they'll help someone who's struggling right now.”

Tuttle set up a simple home studio with several microphones and a laptop with ProTools. “I don't think I ever mastered it,” she admits of the technology, “but there was a bit of a learning curve just with the basic stuff. I've recorded using other software before, so it wasn't incredibly foreign to me or anything. But I had people to help.”

Tuttle met up with Berg in January to talk about recording a new album and she says that “we had a really strong connection right away.” Berg organised to produce the files that Tuttle sent him and enlisted his daughter to help on harmonies and Taylor Goldsmith from Dawes to assist, while Tuttle was friends with Ketch Secor from the Old Crow Medicine Show who also appears on the album.

“The title, ….but I'd rather be with you, just summed up how I was feeling,” explains Tuttle. “I've never been one to really cover super well-known songs. I think ever since I was first learning other people's songs as a kid, I always searched for the deep cuts and

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the ones that really resonated with me on a super personal level. I guess that's just part of my personality that I'm always digging for the hidden gem that people might have overlooked. So, I think that what I wanted to do with this album is find songs that I could put my own spin on and that maybe people haven't heard before and just bring a new perspective to some of my favourite songs that might've been overlooked.”

“I listened to all sorts of music. I listen to old music, new music,” responds Tuttle when I ask her if it was important to her to include a mix of older and contemporary songs.

“I wanted to just include a broad array of different artists and span different decades of music that I love. But I was happy with the mix of old and new on the album.”

When I say that I bet nobody ever thought they'd hear Molly Tuttle doing a version of a Rancid song she says, “Yeah, nobody except my middle school band teacher probably.”

One notable selection is Karen Dalton’s ‘Something on Your Mind,’ a reminder of an extraordinary talent.

“I think I heard about her from reading an interview with Bob Dylan,” says Tuttle. “He mentioned her as one of his favourite singers. So, I listened to her stuff a lot, right when I discovered it. I tried to learn that song, ‘Something on Your Mind’, but I just couldn't really get the hang of it, but it still remained one of my favourite songs, especially when I think of her music. That one really stands out to me. It felt a lot more natural after all these years of not playing it. I finally felt like I could get my own voice with it.”

Perhaps the other notable song choice was ‘She’s A Rainbow,’ from 1967’s Their Satanic Majesties Request. Tuttle’s rendition is superb and endows the song with an energy that reinvents it. It is also a reminder that there is a treasure trove of (non-misogynist) Stones songs from that early era. (Patti Smith has already covered ‘Play with Fire’).

“I love that song,” she says. “I hadn't heard that song until trying to choose songs for this album, but Tony is a really big Rolling Stones fan. So, I was just going through a bunch of their songs and I heard that one and I really liked the lyrics and it seemed like a fun one to throw on the album. The piano part I thought was really cool and playful and it's not like my normal style of playing. So, I tried to learn the piano part on guitar, and it was a really fun one. I liked turning this one into like a female perspective.” …but I‘d rather be with you is available through Compass Records.

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FEATURE

Fiona Boyes & Dutch Tilders: Photo by Samra Teague

I HEART THE BLUES

Twenty years after releasing her seminal solo debut, Fiona Boyes celebrates the milestone with a reissue, that looks back at all she’s achieved, writes Samuel J. Fell “Blues singers were part of the total scene, no more to be remarked on than were the mules that drew the wagons to the cotton gin, or the watermelons ripening on the vines in the spreading patches.

“There’s a certain appropriateness in this for it’s in the nature of a folk music that it is the creation of the people and not separate from the whole fabric of living” – Paul Oliver, Blues Historian.

Over the course of its revered tenure, the blues has informed many and much. A blueprint not just for a time and place, but for countless musical forms for decades afterwards, its time-honoured traditions have crossed borders and social divides, and so today it’s not just a part of the American make-up, but the make-up of the world; it’s music that brings people together, no matter who they are, or where they’re from.

Fiona Boyes knows this, and she knows it well. “This is something that I think the blues does well: simplifying things to an essence that can make a very personal story instantly recognisable and universal.”

Boyes, whose career spans over thirty years, wrote this poignant statement in the liner notes of her latest release. It’s not a new album, but it’s an important one.

This month, Boyes celebrates her past by reissuing her solo debut, Blues In My Heart, twenty years after its original release. By the time she recorded the album, over two days in September 2000 direct to analogue tape, she’d been a part of the Australian blues fabric for a decade and a half, but it was this album with which she took the plunge, branching off on her own, laying the foundations for a career that truly cemented her as one of those blues singers who, even today, are a part of the total scene.

It’s a trip down memory lane for sure, but it’s also a celebration of all that’s come, and indeed, all that’s yet to come.

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The Past – A Potted History…

It’s 1985, and a 26-year-old Fiona Boyes is driving (in a borrowed car) west from the Melbourne suburb of Glen Waverly to Fat Bob’s Café, a small coffee shop in South Caulfield, over towards the sweeping edge of Port Phillip Bay. She’s on her way to an open mic night (with a borrowed guitar), for her first performance in front of an actual audience. She’s nervous. Her plan is to play the blues. She just wants to do it well.

“I was really scared, but the compulsion to get on stage and play was like some form of possession,” Boyes writes in the Blues In My Heart reissue liner notes. “I remember thinking that I might just stop breathing, and that someone in the audience might have to apply resuscitation techniques to my prone person. I did play, although I can’t tell you what, and at the end of the night I was told, ‘Congratulations, you’ve won tonight’s gig, and you’ve made the finals!’.”

Unbeknownst to Boyes at the time, the Fat Bob’s open mic was a competition. She’d won her heat, and was invited back for the final, an event she also won, receiving for her efforts a Maton CW80 acoustic guitar, an instrument which, almost fifteen years later, she used on her solo debut, 2000’s Blues In My Heart.

“That was really where I started, playing acoustic country blues,” Boyes laughs today, on those two short sets at Fat Bob’s Café. After her win, she was invited back to play actual sets, augmenting that with gigs at other coffee shops about town. “I’d play about once a month,” she recalls of the time, “and it was like a cycle. I’d be normal for a week, a bit anxious for a week, then ‘Oh my God, I’m playing a gig next week’… then I’d go to the gig a bundle of nerves, I’d somehow get through it and then be on top of the world, a week of euphoria.”

This was her education, her initial forays into life as a working musician. Her love of the blues deepened as she discovered different styles, different players (the late and legendary Dutch Tilders was an inspiration, as well as an enthusiastic supporter), different ways of purveying this ancient style of music.

Switching to electric guitar, Boyes became involved with seminal allfemale blues band The Mojos. “The Mojos came about because we identified a group of us gals who were obviously blues fans, going to gigs a lot,” she explains on the origins of a band who, through the late ‘80s and well into the 1990s, released at least five records.

“Kaz Dalla Rosa, the harmonica player, was really the motivator, the instigator. We realised one day, at a party, that we all had fledgling abilities on different instruments, so we should get together.”

The Mojos became a mainstay on the Melbourne scene, gritty and tough, yet another course in the continuing education of Fiona Boyes and her blues. The time came though, for her to branch out on her own, and so switching back to acoustic, she recorded her solo debut, Blues In My Heart, over a two day period in September 2000, straight to analogue tape at Soundhouse Studios in Melbourne – this was the record that was to kickstart a new phase in her continuing evolution.

Most importantly, the album laid a foundation. It’s like it enabled Boyes to properly find her niche. Two years later, in Memphis, Tennessee, she entered and won the International Blues Challenge, the first woman and the first non-American to top this prestigious competition. From there, the sky was the limit. Tours here at home, in the US, through Europe. Regular collaborations and stage time with the likes of Hubert Sumlin, Bob Margolin, Gaye Adegbalola and Pinetop Perkins. A slew of both live and studio records.

World-wide blues recognition – a long way from Fat Bob’s, from stages with the Mojos, from that two-day session recording Blues In My Heart. All the way to 2020, where Fiona Boyes is still going strong.

The Present – Coming Full Circle…

In 2018, Boyes was in Florida, touring the US as she’s been doing ever since she won the IBC back in 2003. She was having dinner with an old friend, and during the course of the meal, her hostess put on Blues In My Heart.

“I think what happens for most longterm touring musicians, is you keep exploring, you write new songs, you make new albums… and some songs stay in the repertoire and some go on holiday and never come back,” she muses. “And I thought, I haven’t listened to this album for so long, there are some interesting qualities to it, [as well as] where it happened in the timeline to me as a player.

“That was a few years ago, but that sowed the seed of working towards a 2020 anniversary edition.”

“It is incredibly hard to believe,” she then laughs on the fact it’s been two decades since she initially recorded her solo debut. “I reflected on the point of re-releasing [the album], or the focus, and I saw it as an opportunity to reflect on what happened to get me to [this] point.

And then, how that informed all the adventures that were going to happen in the next two decades.”

“And I thought the best way to give context to that, was to have really extensive liner notes,” she says. “So, one of the first things I did while in lockdown, was to take time, to really think about it and put together the 24-page booklet.”

The reissue edition of Blues In My Heart was remastered (by Joseph Carra at Crystal Mastering) in late 2019, but it was during the early months of Covid this year, that Boyes set about constructing the accompanying notes. “A labour of love,” she calls it, and it really does give context to a two-decade period, a period in which Boyes moved from relative obscurity, to the well-known purveyor of country blues she is today.

The Future – The Ethos Remains The Same …

“You’re always learning,” Boyes smiles, “and you’re hopefully always engaged and exploring your music. So when I look back on all the different styles of blues I’ve explored, and the musicians I’ve had the opportunity to play with, some of the elder statesmen of the blues, all those experiences have led to new adventures and new songs and new styles of playing.”

Right now, based on the northern NSW coast, Boyes has been unable to tour. When we speak, in early October, if not for the coronavirus, she’d have just returned from Norway, and America earlier this year. But she’s teaching, as she has done for years, and there are of course plans in place for getting out there once more, global health permitting.

But in the meantime, it must be nice for a musician as prolific as Fiona Boyes, to just sit quietly for a little while, as part of that total scene, and contemplate what the 20th anniversary reissue of Blues In My Heart truly means, and how it sums up the past two decades. “ I feel so grateful,” she finishes, adding that her ethos today is just the same as it was back at Fat Bob’s.

“To get to the next gig, to explore the music that you love and are passionate about, improve your musicianship, and get going.”

The 20th anniversary edition of Blues In My Heart is available now through Blue Empress Music / Only Blues Music (Australia).

Photo by Jason Rosewarne

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THE LOW (CUT) ROAD FEATURE

Adam Weiner’s Low Cut Connie might be the best band you’ve never heard (until now)!

By Brian Wise.

Photo by Skylar Watkins

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t the conference during the Americana Festival a couple of years ago, my friend Roy sidled up to me and whispered as if telling me a secret he didn’t want anyone else to hear, “Low Cut Connie, Brian.

The High Watt tonight. Don’t miss it.” This was the same person who had confessed to me just the night before that he had been to so many gigs in the past week that he was ‘tired’ of the music. But nothing would keep him from seeing Low Cut Connie and he was right on the money. Everyone was raving about them as one of their highlights of the entire event.

At that stage it was also somewhat of a secret and has remained so since. But after five high energy albums the secret is out. Barack Obama included one of their songs on his playlist and Elton John is a fan, but the new double-album Private Lives is set to thrust Low Cut Connie into the spotlight – or there is no justice in the world at all.

Low Cut Connie is the brainchild of singer-songwriter Adam Weiner, a New Jersey native like Bruce Springsteen, who formed the band in 2010, playing bars and restaurants in New York City. The band’s name came from a character Weiner created after meeting a waitress in New Jersey and seeing her struggles as a metaphor for his band which has had a constantly shifting line-up since its inception.

When I catch up with Weiner via Zoom he is in his home in Philadelphia where he is now based, sitting in front of a piano that has pictures of Fats Domino, Little Richard, Celia Cruz, Dion and Charley Patton on the keys.

That image is also a good summary of Weiner’s music. Think of a young Jerry Lee Lewis who might be living – as someone suggested – “at the crossroads where the church house meets the roadhouse, or where the Dew Drop Inn meets CBGB.” Private Lives moves easily between bombastic rockers worthy of the E-Street band to touching ballads featuring just Weiner and his piano. It is what ‘rock’ albums sounded like in the ‘60s. Some of the songs, such as ‘Charyse’ which pops up towards the end, are spectacular.

You can watch Weiner’s online show, Tough Cookies, to sample his high energy performance and he tells me that if it wasn’t for the pandemic, he would be doing at least 150 shows this year.

“I've done 52 episodes,’ says Weiner of Tough Cookies, which had over 125,00 people watching by just the second episode. “When I started it in March just like everybody else, I was depressed because I had gigs cancelled and the entire live music industry crumbled, with friends losing their jobs, and people getting sick. It was very dispiriting, and I had some fans here in the U.S. who said, "Do you think you can go live on Instagram and Facebook and just do something?" I'm not a big

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selfie kind of guy, I'm used to being on stage with lights, and sound, and production values, and the whole band. I'm not the type that's going to sit there with a phone in my underwear in my house, you know what I'm saying? But the fans wanted it and I thought it'd be good for me as well.”

“More than that though, Brian, and I want to say this,” he continues adding that he received huge support from those working on the frontline during the crisis: nurses, doctors, social workers and others.

“When I saw coronavirus patients, and doctors, and nurses watching my live stream and dancing in the hospital like this with the phone, I said, ‘I have to do this. As long as this is going on, I have to do this’."

Private Lives was started at the legendary Ardent Studios in Memphis, where Weiner recorded the previous album Dirty Pictures but then it was finished on the road. “I recorded in hotels, and in sound check, and in the dressing room, and the Airbnb where I was staying,” recalls Weiner. “I had over 30 people playing on it at different times. It was a mess, Brian. I'm not going to lie. Last year in 2019, I just focused my eyes on this big pile of songs and I realised that within that big mess there was one powerful, concise, but messy album. I basically created the album by editing. I'm proud of it.”

Weiner says that he is itching to get to Australia, given that he has some die-hard fans here and the latest album is getting released.

“I would say about 99.999% of Australians have never heard of me,” he laughs, “but we're going to fix that. That's what we're here to do.

This is a little rock and roll band from South Philadelphia. I don't know if any of you have seen Rocky, but this is the neighbourhood where Rocky grew up, where Rocky is from. It's not a beautiful neighbourhood, but the people that live here, they're tough. They got heart, they got soul. The band started and we were playing rock and roll and soul music without irony, we would throw these crazy parties and people would just lose their minds.”

“We never got signed to a big label,” replies Weiner when I note that he remains fiercely independent. “We never got signed to a small label. The music industry aspect of it never caught on and so I basically tried to do this Rocky thing where I tried to build my own little thing with this band, without any money, without a label, with no infrastructure. Slowly, slowly over this nine years, we have built it, and built it brick by brick, by brick, by brick, still with no label until finally here in the U.S. we have a beautiful extensive fan base that has become a 365 day a year business and relationship with my fans.”

Private Lives is available now through Contender Records. A longer version of this feature is available at rhythms.com.au

FEATURE

CROSSING OVER

Love, loss and family make for meaningful funk on the new album from Emma Donovan & The Putbacks.

By Meg Crawford

I

t feels like we’ve been waiting forever for another soulpowerhouse collaboration between Emma Donovan and Melbourne-based, five-piece outfit The Putbacks. Their last spin together was on their 2014 debut-album Dawn. It probably feels like a long wait for the band too. “We’ve been sitting on it for a while,” Donovan says. It turns out that the tracking and vocals have been in the bag for some time, but then along came Covid-19.

bamboo rods with a throw out line. Long bamboo sticks that she’d keep on top of the old shed. They were the golden fishing rods.

Everyone loved the Ned Kelly rods. You’d have to go out a little bit, knee deep in the river, and they had these little bobby corks on the end of a small line. You had to flip the fish back and you could hear it, like, ‘whoosh’. One year, my Grandpa flipped the rod back and a turtle landed in my lap. I could sit here all day and talk about this.”

Realistically, a lot of other stuff, both professional and personal has gone down since 2014 too, edging the project out for a time.

Amongst other things, Donovan relocated, her dear Mum passed away, she had another daughter and there was a slew of solo and other projects. “It was a lot,” Donovan admits.

Of course, this is a weird year to release an album. Donovan was just about to go on tour when the pandemic pulled the pin. “The first week it all happened, I was meant to be on tour with Uncle Archie, for his – I shouldn’t say last tour for him, because he always has another bloody album or something happening,” Donovan says, laughing. “Anyway, Covid struck.”

However, with a bit of space and settling time, Donovan’s been able to reflect on some of these events and feed them into a new album.

In particular, family features strongly on Crossover, including on the album’s title track – a moving tribute to Donovan’s mum. “I lost Mum two years back, which is why I think it’s taken me forever to put out music again,” she says. “She had cancer and I was caring for her. I couldn’t believe how much of an honour and a privilege it was.

I wanted to honour her in a song and use that word ‘matriarch’.

“It’s thrown around a lot, but my Nana passed away really young, so Mum took on the Nana role, because she was the only Aunty.

She had five brothers, so when Nan died, she became this other big Nana. Talking about those roles was important to me. By the time Mum’s brothers had kids and grandkids, Mum was the big queen. I was so lucky. She held everyone. The big Mumma Bee.”

While gigging might have been out of the question for a while, Donovan jumped on other projects. For instance, she’s working with schools on music programs, including one that’s part of the Solid Ground initiative run by Carriageworks and Blacktown Arts Centre, which provides education, training and employment pathways for Indigenous Australian youth (including through an artist-inresidence program at secondary schools). It’s resulted in one of those unexpected Covid moments she never could have foreseen.

Donovan’s been fortunate to have a number of big Muma Bees in her life, including her lovely Nan, the subject of ‘Pink Skirt’. While the song talks about her Nan’s keen style, it was a less glamorous pursuit that prompted it. “I always wanted to write a song about my Nana, and I think there’s still more songs to write about her,” Donovan explains. “But in this song, I’m yarning about the fishing.

“I got up and sang at the school assembly on Thursday morning.

Oh, I had the best time. I miss my gigs. The school principal and the deputy principal came up, and they were like, ‘Em, feel free every Thursday to get up’. I said, ‘I’m not a a little songbird that just sings when everybody wants me to.

Don’t do that to me’. But you know what, I’d be actually be happy to do it. Honest."

“She had these rods, and I don’t know where she got the name from, but she’d call them her Ned Kelly rods. I didn’t want to put Ned Kelly in the song, I thought, ‘nuh, that’s not going in the song’ – people’d be thinking, ‘what the hell is this about?’. But they were

Crossover by Emma Donovan & The Putbacks is available now via Hope Street Recordings.

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DREAM WORLD

Melbourne’s Dan Flynn has crafted a folk-pop classic with his new album.

FEATURE

By Jeff Jenkins

W

hen a group of Melbourne musicians named Dan did a ‘Stand By Your Dan’ gig a few years back, Dan Lethbridge opened up about his name. “I wish I was still called Daniel because I definitely like it better,” he admitted. “Even Danny is better than Dan, in my book. Daniels are quiet, intelligent and sensitive. Dannys are cute teenagers with a hint of acne, and Dans are rednecks from Texas who wear a baseball cap and drive a pickup.”

Dan is definitely the name du jour in Melbourne music. In a state where a Dan is Premier, the music scene has Dan Lethbridge, Dan Sultan, Dan Kelly, Dan Warner, Dan Parsons, Dan Brodie, Dan Waters and Dan Flynn.

“I love all the Dans of Melbourne, never met a bad one!” smiles Flynn, who released four albums as Major Chord before putting just his name on the cover.

Like Lethbridge, Flynn was born “Daniel”.

“Many of my old friends and family call me Danny, but to everyone else I’m Dan. I like Dan.” Call him what you want, Dan Flynn is one of our finest exponents of folk-pop. I’ve never actually met Flynn, but I’m a big fan. So much so that when he applied for a Creative Victoria grant to make his new album, I volunteered to write a letter of support.

“As a music journalist for the past 30 years, writing almost exclusively about Australian music, I have heard hundreds of Australian singers and songwriters,” I wrote. “Many of them are good, some are very good, but only a few are truly special – and I put Dan Flynn in that category.”

He didn’t get the grant.

But Flynn made the album, Welcome to the Making of the World, with producer Greg Walker at his studio, The General Store in South Gippsland. Flynn had long admired Walker’s work as Machine Translations. “I was driving to work one day when I heard a Machine Translations song on Triple R and I instantly knew I needed those sonics on my album. He has a way of making things sound perfect but without too much polish.”

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As well as producing, engineering and mixing, Walker played drums, bass, guitars, strings, piano and recorder. “He’s a oneman band!”

The title track came to Flynn in a dream.

“I literally woke up one morning and it was playing in my head, lyrics and all.” He rushed to the piano and recorded it on his phone before it slipped away. “It’s never happened before or since. I felt like Paul McCartney. The story goes that he wrote ‘Yesterday’ in exactly the same way … songwriting is a very mysterious thing.”

Before his dream, Flynn was thinking about ‘world making’ through art. “Many of my favorite artists – Neil Young, David Lynch, Haruki Murakami –all create these ethereal ‘worlds’ that I want to live in. So, I thought about creating an album that would

entrance the listener, invite them into my little world for half an hour or so.”

The album opens with the overtly political ‘On My Watch’. “On my watch, the population is fractured and on my watch it’s all going backward,” Flynn sings.

“I guess, for me, the song is about taking some responsibility for how messed up this world has become – hence ‘On My Watch’.

I got tired of blaming somebody else for how things have turned out and realised that I’m not going to change anybody’s mind by shouting at them on social media.”

Flynn also chatted with his wife about American feminist Donna Haraway’s idea of ‘staying with the trouble’ and not feeling like we have to solve the world’s problems in one conversation. “I think we need to talk more, have less fixed ideas, while also advocating for what we believe,” Flynn says. “It’s a tough balance.”

Even when the message is heavy, Flynn’s songs are dressed up in magical melodies that float effortlessly into your subconscious.

“What I also learned from Greg was to approach recording with less anxiety. It’s common for performers to get ‘red light fever’. When the record button is pressed, they get nervous about the ‘perfect take’.

Greg spoke about recording being ‘just like pottery’. He really invited me to just enjoy myself and have faith that we would make something great.”

FREEDOM SONG

Kutcha Edwards’ latest single

FEATURE

brings hope and shines a light on injustice.

By Meg Crawford

Photo by Susan Carmody

W

hile the world’s experiencing various states of lockdown and disconnect, beloved singer-songwriter Kutcha Edwards has released an antidote, namely his uplifting, powerful anthem, ‘We Sing’.

The first single from his forthcoming album Circling Time (due out early next year) hits all of the feels, and the film clip (created by Seagrass Films) only takes it up a notch. You’re guaranteed to sing along, and, most probably, have a little cry. “Yesterday, I showed it to extended family and both my wife and the cousin who lives around the corner fell into that same emotion, and they’ve seen it plenty of times before,” Edwards says.

Squaring up to the issue of racism, the song couldn’t be timelier.

Responding to the inequities wrought upon Australia’s First Nations peoples – Edwards is a member of the stolen generation and proud Mutti Mutti man – the song applies equally to the experience of black, indigenous and people of colour in the States and elsewhere.

That said, it turns out ‘We Sing’ was in the works for a few years.

Its seeds were planted in November 2016 – the night Edwards was awarded the Melbourne Prize for Music and the Distinguished Musician Fellowship (Victorian College of the Arts and the Melbourne Conservatorium). Also, Trump won the election.

“I’d been up in our room, shaving my head and dolling myself up, so to speak, and we’ve got the TV on and it’s becoming apparent that Donald Trump has won the election in the States,” he recollects.

“I think our spirit was dented. In the back of mind was this knowledge of a businessman, and a tyrant at that, becoming the United States President, after a great moment in time where Barack Obama had been President in his own style and had given hope to Americans, and, in a sense, black Americans. It was daunting.”

The result is a rallying call – “We sing for love, we live for justice, we long for freedom, we dream of peace” – sung by 100 voices from across the globe, spanning everyone from Paul Kelly and Judith Durham to Emma Donovan and Archie Roach. “I asked all my brothers and sisters to sing for that hope, that possibility.”

Originally, the plan was for ‘We Sing’ to be recorded with a choir

at ABC’s Southbank Centre. Instead, Covid-19 interrupted, forcing everyone involved to participate in isolation. What came next was a pandemic and logistic miracle. For instance, senior songman Joe Geia (writer and performer of Aboriginal anthem ‘Yil Lull’) recorded and filmed at home on Macleay Island in Brisbane. “He said, ‘Kutcha, I won’t be able to email it to you, because the internet is absolutely shocking’, so he put it on a USB and sent it down by snail mail.” Ray Dixon, who lives in the Marlinja community in the Northern Territory, 700km south of Darwin, timed it to coincide with the Desert Harmony Festival in Tennant Creek so that someone could record it for him. Donovan laid her track down in a youth club in Mt Druitt after work, while Roach did his in his kitchen at Killarney.

The next feat was for producer Andy Stewart to pull it all together.

“I said, ‘how many channels have we got up there so far?’,” Edwards recalls. “He said, ‘we’ve just clocked past 160’, and the computer was glitching. In the end, he needed to mix down ten vocals at a time, compress it into one, so that the computer could relax a bit.”

As proud as he is of “We Sing”, Edwards issues a caution. “I’ve got to be careful not to hand everything over to this one song, because there are songs even more powerful on this new album,” he says.

Indeed, ‘Mrs Edwards’, one of the nine songs on Circling Time – nine representing his place in a family of 12 kids – is heart wrenching.

The song details Edward’s Mum visiting him in the Orana children’s home when was six. “I was scared of her – can you imagine what went through her spirit that day knowing that her little baby was scared of her?”

While there’s likely a bit of time before we can catch Edwards touring the album, he’s already eagerly anticipating the event.

“I hate sitting in my lounge room, even though I’m doing the interview from here. I’d prefer to be onstage. It doesn’t matter how many people are in attendance. I’ve sung at the Dreamtime at the G twice. The reality for me is that I’m not there to impress the 80,000 people in attendance. I’m there to inspire the 300 Aboriginal kids who have lined the boundary line. That’s my role.”

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COINCIDENTAL INSTRUMENTAL A seemingly surprising collaboration between Joe Matera and Martin Cilia, results in something that was meant to be, writes Samuel J. Fell

FEATURE

W

hat’s that old aphorism? That adversity makes for strange bedfellows? Indeed, a phrase that rings true in any number of circumstances, our current global predicament being no exception.

So, it’s produced - in this instance - a two-song collaboration between two players, both of differing styles and backgrounds, brought together in times when things are strange and oddity is just how it’s all playing out. Joe Matera, a journalist and guitarist (most notably for Double Vision, and the reincarnation of Geisha), and Martin Cilia, renowned six-stringer for The Atlantics and Mental As Anything – two gifted players, but from different spaces and places; odd bedfellows to be sure.

And yet there’s a thread that binds them, and which became the catalyst for the tracks the pair have recently released together – a strong love for UK instrumental band, The Shadows. “When I picked up the guitar, when I was 15, one of the first albums I ever learnt to play by ear was The Shadows’ 20 Golden Greats,” laughs Matera, on his initial love of this seminal group.

“That love has always been there [for me], I think The Shadows are one of the greatest instrumental bands.”

For Cilia, it’s the same. He cites the rhythm guitar work of the band’s Bruce Welch as a huge inspiration, and so it seems then, that Matera and Cilia aren’t strange bedfellows at all.

“I opened up for the Mentals a number of times,” Matera explains on their friendship, “I got to know Martin that way, and we chatted [then] about our love of instrumental music. And so, when this whole lockdown thing happened… I was working on some new stuff, I’ll mention to Martin and see if he’s up for a collaboration.”

Cilia confirms: “Joe contacted me to see what I was up to, as COVID restrictions were making touring impossible,” he writes via email.

“We started to work on a song together over the internet between Victoria and New South Wales. Originally Joe was talking about a compilation release including some overseas players, but this ended up as a single release.”

The two songs – ‘Sunday Island’ and ‘St. Kilda Bay’ – began as Matera demos, but via the wonders of modern technology, the pair fleshed them out in their respective home studios, shooting them

26

back and forth until they had something they were happy with, Matera providing the rhythms guitar, Cilia the lead. “[Yeah], the first song we collaborated on was ‘Sunday Island’,” Cilia says. “Joe sent me a rough idea for the tune, and I took it from there. It was recorded at my studio in Sydney (Surfersaurus Studio) with Joe sending in the guitar track that he recorded in Victoria. Ah, the wonders of modern technology. Jacob Cook from Mental As Anything played drums.”

“I love [Martin’s] playing, I always have,” says Matera. “Going way back to when he played with Dave Warner and those guys, and listening to his solo stuff, there’s this distinctive style… I think he’s Australia’s answer to (Shadows’ lead guitarist) Hank Marvin, he’s got this nice touch, a nice taste of melody.”

Melody, as Matera goes on to say, has always been of the utmost importance to him as a player, something he strives for within his own playing – yet another reason why these two aren’t, in actuality, strange bedfellows at all. As Cilia says, what the pair were looking for in these two tracks was, “a feel-good, ‘up’ band vibe with a strong melody, which I think we’ve achieved.”

This is illustrated across the course of the songs, yet another reason that shows Matera and Cilia have more of a connection than one might have thought. Instrumental of course, and paying tribute to not just The Shadows, but the Australian equivalent in The Atlantics, both tracks are melodic and strong, changing shape and colour throughout, but never once losing sight of themselves as a whole; it’s as if they’ve been playing instrumental music together years.

“With us both growing up listening to The Shadows. [it’s] made it easy to find our place in these tunes, it’s a good balance,” confirms Cilia.

The reception to this collaboration has been solid, and so as Matera says, the pair plan to continue working together, with the aim of releasing an entire instrumental album sometime next year. “Yeah, you enjoy doing something and you want to keep going with it, it’s a love affair I suppose, you just want to keep doing it,” he says.

‘Sunday Island’ and ‘St. Kilda Bay’ are available now via the artists’ websites.

TELLING STORIES Lisa Richards triumphs over adversity

By Chris Lambie

F

rom her Canberra Home, Lisa Richards, tells me, sitting here on the FEATURE “I’m couch, the dog is at my feet, I’m in a wonderful relationship with a stellar fella. I feel like I have solid roots now in my life.” Her latest album is called I Got A Story. That is an understatement. It’s a more multifaceted story than most with her glorious music forming like a lotus out of muddy waters.

While Richards’ songs and distinctive vocals stand alone, it’s impossible to ignore her backstory. Growing up in Townsville, the youngest of eight kids, she endured emotional and physical onslaughts that could’ve broken her. For a time, they did.

“I dreamed of escaping. I felt the pull of the city,” she says. “I started drinking when I was 12. I was delinquent. I moved to Canberra for 18 months, then Sydney for 6 or 7 years.” In Kings Cross, “drinking with the homeless folks, smoking like a chimney”, she started busking a Capella. “I remember someone yelling out a window that I was too loud! On the street corner on Friday night in Kings Cross! Ridiculous.”

The video for new single ‘Dominoes’ recalls those times. “A friend in Texas calls me a miracle. I was not a good candidate for a good life. Somebody who’d die on the streets using drugs and alcohol, prostitution, violent relationships…was the probable path.”

Her first validation came from a judge’s report of a school Eisteddfod performance: “Has a lovely clear singing voice.” She’d played the lead in The Wizard of Oz in a local hall. Like Dorothy, she says she never really knew if it was a dream. “Because my family was so messed up, no one came. I had a feeling I was invisible.” Music was her one nourishment and salvation. “I only got clean and sober because I wanted to make music. It’s been the instigator for all the good things in my life. All the work, healing, therapy… years of depression, eating disorders, a lot of baggage to sort through.”

Gradually, the young girl with the beautiful voice and requisite drive was noticed. At a club in the Cross, she put up her hand to sing between poets and Avant Garde jazz acts. Singing ‘Plain Gold Ring’, she attracted the attention of a guy who was putting on a concert at Abercrombie Caves.

They went on to form a band, The Cavers.

(Her first guitar was plastic, nicknamed ‘the lunchbox’ by bandmates.) Jamming

turned to east coast touring and recording.

“When I was a year clean and sober, I went to America with the band for six weeks and decided I needed to be in New York,” she laughs. “None of the decisions I made were very well thought through.” She moved to New York and decided to go solo. ‘”t was excruciating. I’d been singing for seven or eight years and could only play the songs I wrote. Somehow, I got a manager and recorded my first album. Then a manager of Blondie and Talking Heads [became] a champion of mine. I got my first SXSW showcase. So, I sublet my illegal sublet and stayed in a youth hostel in Austin Texas for a month. I met heaps of people, played lots of shows and [later] moved there. A guy I met on the second night, I ended up marrying. But that’s a whole other disastrous story.”

An ArtsACT grant helped make I Got A Story. Richards returned to the US, her home for over two decades, to again record with producer Tim Bright (Lisa Loeb). She favours a small bodied Martin guitar to suit her petite frame and a little travel friendly Furch. She’s performed at major international festivals and graced compilation records alongside Adele, Nina Simone and Corinne Bailey Rae. She’s played CBGBs, The Bitter End, The Canberra Theatre and home concerts. She teaches and is learning production skills.

Richards’ father recently died in his 103rd year. COVID restrictions denied her attendance at his bedside and funeral.

Despite a checkered relationship with him (“Doesn’t every teenager hate their parents at some point?”) her father bought Richards her first ‘real’ guitar when accompanying her (in his 80s) to Telluride Bluegrass Festival. At a recent Folk Alliance gathering, Richards realised “These are my people! This is my life.” Most of us start life ‘on a couch with a dog at our feet’ before facing or embracing society’s dangers.

With one hell of a story, she’s preparing to develop it into a one woman show. It’s like a life lived backwards. She laughs, “I’m getting younger and younger like that Bob Dylan song. I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now. I love that idea.”

I Got A Story is available now at lisarichardsmusic.com 27

FEATURE

AFTER THE AFTERSHOCK

Mike Elrington draws from personal pain in order to create his new album, Aftershock, writes Samuel J. Fell

M

ike Elrington has been cooking. In the kitchen, he’s found some form of stability, another place to implement his time and energy as the current global situation makes life hard all ‘round; he can’t keep up his usual high-octane touring schedule (over 100 shows a year, for the past two decades), and so he’s found other ways to stay sane.

“Yeah, I am used to doing around one hundred shows a year, being on the road a lot… and that’s just all stopped,” Elrington says from his home in Victoria’s Lakes Entrance. “It’s been a chance to find other things in life… so I’ve been getting into cooking. Normally, I’ve never given a shit about that, I’m just used to being on the road and eating out all the time.

“But being home, not being able to go out anywhere, I’ve found more things to do here, and [cooking is the answer].”

Of course, in keeping some sense of normalcy, music has played a huge part too and so Elrington’s cooking hasn’t been limited to the kitchen. He has, over the course of the past three years, been concocting in the studio – new record, Aftershock, the result of time and energy, personal pain and trauma, coming to light this month.

It’s his ninth studio release in a career spanning two decades, and one which sees this blues journeyman digging deeper than he ever has before, from both a lyrical and sonic standpoint. “It was good to get this one finished, it did take a long time to do,” he says candidly.

“It’s been influenced by personal things, my marriage breakdown being the main one, there was a lot of pain and sadness that’s gone into the songs. And it affected the process, [and so] the album took a lot longer than I wanted it to, to record. That was nearly three years ago now, it was extremely traumatic and painful… so I guess it made sense to write a record based around that, because I’ve always been the sort of songwriter that likes to write from within, about personal experiences, that’s always felt more natural to me.”

Elrington has been quoted as saying that Aftershock is his most personal work to date, which comes as no surprise. What is surprising is how the lyrics came together – slowly, then extremely quickly at the last minute. “What I did with [this album], which I’ve

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never done before, is I actually left it to the last minute before the session [to finish the writing], to put that pressure on myself.

“A lot of the songs were written, literally, on the way to the studio, in the car. And usually I’d have been more organised… and it was done purposely, I thought fuck it, why don’t you just have that pressure, and force yourself to come up with something on the day?

[And I think] that certainly helped, forcing myself to do it, when I don’t have the option to not.”

While this unconventional writing method seemed to work for Elrington in this instance, the recording itself took much longer.

The personal toll all this took on him, while fuel for the writing fire, dulled his drive when it came to the actual playing and recording, and so a process he’d hoped to get past quite quickly, dragged on for a number of years.

“Yeah, because of my mental frame of mind, I just wasn’t bringing my A-Game,” he shrugs. “I just struggled to bring the best vocal performances, the best guitar parts, and so a lot of it had to be scrapped. We started demoing stuff in late 2016, maybe early 2017, it was a three year process. When we got to the end of it, I sat down and worked out how [long it had taken us], and it was over two hundred hours.”

It ended up being a gradual process in which Elrington pulled himself together, getting angry with himself for wasting time, for not doing it ‘right’, eventually getting to the place where he was able to be happy with it. Aftershock too, is a mixed bag, sonically, Elrington using the record as a blank slate to incorporate myriad influences, and so hip hop and electronic motifs pepper his trademark acoustic blues makeup.

Overall though, it seems the man’s ninth offering was about catharsis. “Absolutely,” he smiles. “It was the best therapy I could have had to help manage pain and sadness and depression. Music has always been pretty cathartic to me – I think I’d be a much angrier person if it wasn’t for music,” he laughs, “I think I’d be scared of myself!”

Aftershock is now available via mikeelrington.com

LIONHEARTED COUNTRY LION Independent

An album born from friendships by James Ellis & The Jealous Guys. By Denise Hylands

M

elbourne is known for its incredibly healthy Americana and Country live music scene. It’s always amazing to watch artists careers grow through connection with other musicians, singers, and songwriters. It’s a thriving musical community.

So, when a festival like Out On The Weekend brings like minded musicians out to tour Australia, yet again friendships are born and connections are made. A fine example is the latest offering from James Ellis & The Jealous Guys whose new album Country Lion was born through new friendships and a love of music.

“Well, that is exactly right. When we first played the festival in 2017 we met Lillie Mae and her band, Craig Smith and Frank Rische, her brother,” explains James Ellis. “That kind of allowed this album to happen as it is because through Craig we then met Micah Hulscher, when he was out in 2018 touring with Margo Price who ended up being one of the producers. Then Micah got his buddy Alex Munoz involved, who's also played with Margo and Nikki Lane.”

A year ago I met James for the first time at the Continental Club in Austin, Texas, where he was hanging out in Honky Tonks and getting some musical inspiration.

“Yeah, that's exactly right,” he says. “I had a band before, they were called the Bitter Sweethearts, it was kind of a country rock band, and we'd been playing around for a long time but not really doing much. I was thinking about what I wanted to do next. I booked a trip to the States for a month and spent a lot of time in Austin. I walked into the White Horse the first night, and I was just like, ‘This is what I want to be doing. This is the community I want to be a part of.’

“I didn't even realise that that really existed in Melbourne to some extent, that there was a two-step community, and there was a honky-tonk crowd. As soon as I got back to Melbourne I connected with that scene, and we started up the band and started playing as many gigs as possible.”

James Ellis & The Jealous Guys released their debut album It Ain’t Texas But It Ain’t Bad in 2018, collecting the Music Victoria Best Country Album award.

For the new album, with the producers living in the States and the band in Melbourne, what was the process for the making of the new album? “Micah Hulscher and Alex Munoz came out in March, 2019, and we went into Soundpark Studios in Northcote with the band and tracked most of the stuff there,” explains James. “Then they took it back to Nashville and I ended up going over there in May, 2019 and we did the mixing and mastering.

It's been ready for a long time. It feels like it's been ready for 15 months or something like that. Maybe longer.”

Ellis also picked up some Nashville players who have contributed on the album. “Because Micah and Alex were kind of producing the whole record and the project, they were in Nashville and just had the guys over to record,” says Ellis. “Eddie Lange, came over, who plays with Josh Hedley, at Roberts - amazing pedal steel player - as well as Craig Smith. Lillie Mae singing and playing fiddle and her brother Frank also.

“The idea of having them involved was that this record had been set up by meeting them, and we thought, wouldn't it be nice

to have them involved as much as possible and capture that community spirit that allowed this album to exist in the first place? It's really nice having a bunch of those people play on it.”

“The reason we first got them [Micah and Alex] involved is that we wanted a Nashville ear on the arrangements and the production, how it sounded and the playing,” says Ellis. “I think it's just brought out some really nice textures and layers to the playing, and different feels to the songs.

FEATURE

“‘A Thousand Tears’, is a really good example of them coming in and changing the feel completely because that song was originally just going to be a 60s Merle Haggard honky-tonk thing, which is how I see every single song that I write going. They said, ‘Hey, let's try this Cuban, Latin vibe. Let's inject something quite different into it’ - which is an approach that we would never have thought of if we'd been doing it ourselves. They brought in very new, interesting and exciting ideas to the record.

The title Country Lion also has a great little story behind it.

“Yeah, it's pretty funny,” agrees Ellis. “A few of us were at AmericanaFest in 2018 in Nashville and we were at some prefestival party, and someone introduced me to Chuck Mead of BR549 Fame. I had a chat with him, and showed him a photo of the album cover of our first album and I'm on the album cover, and he looked at it, he said, ‘Oh, you're the Country Lion!’ I was like, ‘Sure, great. Why not?’ And I thought that is going to be the name of the next record.”

Country Lion is available now through Bandcamp.

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ALL ASHORE

“I think during lockdown I really was feeling grateful for having an apartment and some kind of a job…..”

FEATURE

The gorgeous new album Shore

by US indie-folk outfit Fleet Foxes is - by complete happenstance rather than design - a work of art inexorably linked to this atypical chapter of history that we’re currently inhabiting.

By Steve Bell

PHOTO CREDIT: By Emily Johnston

I

t’s not just that the album’s relaxed atmosphere and joyous, lifeaffirming vibe - the intricate arrangements rife with soaring choruses and memorable hooks - seems to work as, if not an antidote, at least a salve to the mental stress and anguish seemingly inherent in these demoralising times.

But can you imagine another era where the writing of an important album was completed in June, the recordings finished in August and then the whole thing rush-released with little fuss nor fanfare in September? That’s what happened with Shore, which ended up being dropped on the spur of the moment to coincide with the northern hemisphere’s autumn equinox, simply because in times like these you need to think outside the box.

The band’s frontman Robin Pecknold - who during the creative and recording processes for any given album essentially is Fleet Foxes, building it up on his own - had already spent over a year in a smattering of studios all over the globe piecing together the music which would comprise their fourth album, when the sudden onset of COVID-19 brought things to a grinding halt.

30

The album’s lyrics, on the other hand, came after the full impact of the pandemic on both society and our individual freedoms had become blindingly apparent, making the way that the words and music combine into thrilling unison an almost unprecedented achievement.

“Yeah, they were really made in different times almost completely,” Pecknold reflects. “All the music was pretty mapped out in February but I had no lyrics, and then all of the lyrics got written in June (after which ‘Sunblind’ and ‘Featherweight’ came together in July and August).

“But it was just about finding the words that would mesh together with the music in the right way, and finding the right perspective - that was the issue.”

Even the manner that the lyrics came together - Pecknold gaining inspiration as he avoided the mundanity of lockdown by aimlessly driving his car around the empty back roads of upstate New York seems entirely rooted in the now.

“It was really just like idle thoughts - the idle thoughts you’d have on a solo road trip - and those thoughts just turning into lyrics because

I was thinking them while I was listening to the rough demos,” the singer explains. “So, something would come to me and I’d just pull off to the side of the road and write it down - I’ve never worked that way before, but it was pretty great.

“I’ve definitely written lyrics while going on really long walks - I think movement is really important in writing, and just turning some part of your brain off to make room for something else to enter.”

“I mean if you hold up our first album [2008’s Fleet Foxes] against Shore the shift has been gradual and organic but in some ways it almost feels like a different band - it’s crazy to contemplate that evolution - but that’s cool because it means there’s always somewhere new to go. When I was younger I used to worry about getting older and running out of ideas, but I don’t think that’s necessarily necessary.”

“I think gratitude is a pretty big theme, and self-acceptance,” he tells. “I know those are kinda corny buzzwords, but I think during lockdown I really was feeling grateful for having an apartment and some kind of a job, and to be born into the family I was born into and having good siblings.

And while at numerous junctures throughout Shore it becomes obvious how much Pecknold is enthralled as a fan to his fellow songwriters - the spectre of Brian Wilson comes in the lush musical arrangements as well as the spoken-word samples of him in the studio which adorn ‘Cradling Mother, Cradling Woman’, while ‘Sunblind’ is dedicated to his peers no longer with us, namechecking Richard Swift, Elliott Smith, David Berman, Judee Sill, Bill Withers and John Prine - he doesn’t feel like what he’s listening to at any point influences his own writing.

“I just really felt lucky, and I think that made me less focused on whatever I was interpreting as the problems I was having and just thinking more about my friends and missing my family. It’s all written from the experiences of the last few months, but for me the main things are acceptance and gratitude as well as honouring others.”

“Sometimes it’s like the chicken and the egg because you’re in a certain state of mind and that state of mind has this certain music that attaches to it, and the music you want to make is going to come from that same state of mind,” he ponders.” If you’re going through a tough year you’re probably going to listen to sad stuff as much as you want to make sad stuff.

With the effects of the pandemic being magnified by ongoing societal concerns - especially in America with their impending election and the ongoing civil rights struggles - it feels like the perfect time for Fleet Foxes to usher this uplifting suite of songs into the world, but Pecknold admits having misgivings about whether the timing was appropriate.

“So, the stuff I listen to is always there, I’m always trying to honour my heroes and carry their memories forward and make music that can live alongside the music that I’m particularly enamoured with, but I also like different music at different times for different reasons.

And as the words flowed during these aimless drives a narrative began to emerge, with its foundations stemming from Pecknold’s empathy for others being exacerbated by isolation.

"I think initially back in March I was, like, ‘Man, this upbeat album doesn’t make sense at all for this time’, but once I had the lyrics and I felt like they connected with the music in a good way my concerns dried up,” he recalls. “The worry had been whether trying to make something happy or uplifting or whatever is going to sound corny or trite, and I think some of the stuff I was reflecting on allowed that not to be the case.

“I think on this album I was enjoying simpler things and learning lessons from simpler music and finding the germ of how a simple song without a lot of complexity in the chord progression can be really powerful if it’s a strong melody with a clear idea.”

Shore is available now through ANTI- Records.

“It was acknowledging these other things like the death all around us or acknowledging pain but finding a way to accept it or move past it, and I think relief was a big theme.

“It was kinda like when you get really sick and you really appreciate your health and realise that it’s something you take for granted, so I guess I wanted the album to feel like how you’d feel if you’d just got over a cold or something like that. You’re glad to be well because you have that fresh memory of being sick.”

Shore feels far more directly accessible than its predecessor CrackUp (2017) - that album, Fleet Foxes’ return from six years in the wilderness, being marked by lengthy and complex instrumental passages - but for Pecknold this evolution is entirely par for the course.

“I think it’s just trying to honour the fact that you kinda change as a person to some degree over the years, but you don’t change completely,” he reflects. “I’m not going to be, like, ‘Oh, now I just wanna make beats’ - maybe, that could be fun, but it could never be the purest expression of what I want to do or make - so I don’t want to do something to invoke something old just to do it, and I also don’t want to try and do something new just for the sake of it.

“I feel like if you’re following the mood you’re in and the people you find yourself surrounded by and your passions and what sounds exciting to make, then it’s always going to be a little bit new and a little bit the same. That feels like a stable way to progress.

Photo by Jason Rosewarne

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FEATURE

PRISON BREAK

Matt Berninger teams up with Booker T Jones for a debut solo album.

By Brett Leigh Dicks

W

hile The National has long been celebrated for its artily sombre brand of stadium-friendly rock music, its members aren’t shy with indulging their affinity for the more rootsy side of contemporary music. With the band’s guitarists and music composers, brothers Aaron and Bryce Dessner, recently playing leading roles in the production of Taylor Swift’s indie folk album, Folklore, front-man and lyricist Matt Berninger teamed up with Booker T Jones for his own stripped-down debut solo release, Serpentine Prison. Produced

by Jones – whose resume features the likes of Otis Redding, Willie

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Nelson, Sheryl Crow, and Elton John – in addition to Jones the album features an array of lauded musical guests including, Andrew Bird, Gail Ann Dorsey, Mickey Raphael, and Hayden Desser. Guided by Jones’ soulful musical hand, the album provides a very different musical canvas for Berninger’s poetic lyrical perception and his golden baritone voice. Matt Berninger recently spoke to Rhythms Magazine about the album, working with one of his musical heroes, how songwriting can be like skating on thin ice, and why his local stationery store has run out of whiteboards…

Tell me a little about the genesis of Serpentine Prison and how Booker T Jones come into the frame as a potential producer?

About 12 years ago Booker asked me to sing on his record The Road to Memphis. His daughter wrote a lot of the lyrics for the album, because he doesn’t really do the lyric writing thing, and they thought it would be a good idea for me to sing one of the songs as a debut with Sharon Jones. So, 12 years ago I went into the studio and worked with Sharon Jones and Booker and it was an incredible experience. I could talk about that day alone for hours. Around Christmas of 2018 I thought about doing a covers album. Booker produced and arranged Stardust which is my one of both me and my dad’s favourite albums and I thought, “Wait, I know him!”. So I wrote to Booker and we talked about doing a covers album and across the course of those conversations I had been working with different people and had a lot of song ideas that were cooking and Booker said, “Why don’t we focus on those?”. Nine months later we were in a studio for 14 days and we recorded a bunch of originals and a bunch of covers.

I love the fact you referenced Willie Nelson’s Stardust as being one of your favourite albums because here on Serpentine Prison you have Mickey Raphael …

Oh man! He’s the coolest guy ever. I had all these incredible people come in and play, people like Gail Ann Dorsey and Andrew Bird, who not just played along but took the songs in whole new directions. And Mickey was so amazing too. He is so funny and such a wonderful guy. Getting to know people like him through Booker, who I honestly don’t know if I would ever have got to cross paths with, was amazing.

Booker T Jones has a resume quite unlike any other. He’s worked with iconic artists across a variety of music genres. What did he bring to the production of the album?

I had demos that I had done with other songwriters and musicians and when I gave them to Booker they were already songs with structures. But he heard the songs and had different ideas. And they were great ideas. We were playing “Collar of Your Shirt” and getting the vibe just right but he felt like the song wanted to keep going. He said “Matt - write some more.” The whole second half to that song was kind of his musical invention and that’s one of my favourite parts of the record. All over the record you can hear him take a song and take it on a left turn when his organ comes in. He plays guitar and bass and so many things musically but the most important thing was his preparation. We would go in and get a song down in just a couple of takes. He would know when we had it and when it wasn’t going to get any better. He’s led bands all his life and the eyes of everybody in the room were on him. He was a like a shepherd with a flock of sheep and the sheep followed his every command.

What was that like for you as a musician to have an experience like that?

I can’t play the guitar or anything so just to watch him bring these songs together was incredible. You can hear the musicians in the room look at each other on his records. When you listen to Booker T & the M.G.’s you can tell when Steve Cropper looks over at Donald “Duck” Dunn to take things in a new direction. You can listen and tell who’s leading. You can smell the cologne in the room on Booker T’s records – you know what I’m saying? And that’s what I wanted for my album, I wanted it to feel like you’re in that room.

You might not play guitar but you have a remarkable ability to string words together and form lyrics. Your lyrics are poetic and cryptic and poignant and funny. And that can be in the space of one song. From where does that arise?

It changes all the time. I used to sit and write one line at a time until I had a whole song and then tweak it. Now I just sit somewhere and look out the window or stare at the ceiling and get a rhythm going in my head. The first draft is pretty quick and free associative but then I go back and sometimes I tweak a chorus for months

where the rest of the song was written in five minutes. I’m using whiteboards now. I have a lot of giant whiteboards all around the backyard where I write down ideas. I’m running out of room though so I’ve got to go back down to Staples and get a few more. Process is fun to mess around with. I picked up some notebooks recently to try and go back to how I used to write and see if there’s something about that that will take me in a new direction. It’s like someone who ice skates. If they’re not trying new moves and risking hurting themselves, then they’re just going to get bored and that’s the same for me with writing.

You have collaborated with your bandmates in The National for the past 20 years and co-written lyrics with your wife - Carin Besser – on many occasions. For this album you have stepped out of that creative environment. Was that liberating?

There was a moment in the studio where Booker pointed to a line in one of the songs and he put his hand on my back and said, “That’s a really good lyric Matt.” The whole experience of making this record was very comforting like that. I never really let anyone into my process except my wife, and she didn’t really play a role in the writing this time. Serpentine Prison was a break in many ways so it was nice to have Booker talking to me about the lyrics from an outside perspective – outside of the band, outside of my marriage, outside of everything. He looked at each song purely from a musical perspective and to have someone of his calibre who’s worked with all the amazing people show me that much attention and give me that much respect was, I don’t know - it really is indescribable.

You often write very introspective lyrics, but with the success of The National you now take them out and play them in stadiums to tens of thousands of screaming people. How aware are you of that ultimate end point when you’re writing a song?

You’re always aware of that. It’s funny because even when we were writing our very first songs in The National and nobody knew who we were and we didn’t know if anyone was going to hear them, I always imagined singing them to a crowd of weeping ladies.

You always imagined that. But now it’s turned into a real thing I try not to imagine that anymore! So now I’m only imagining my own weeping self when I write. When I get on stage, I become an entertainer and I’ve learned how to be myself and be an entertainer at the same time. Being on stage can be a very brutal place and it’s not as fun as it looks, so I’ve had to learn how to enjoy the whole experience. When I’m writing I don’t think about an audience at all – other than god maybe – and when I say god, I’m a polytheist or something and I mean the bigger picture, which in this instance is art. I think about truth too. And sometimes I just think about what’s bugging me.

Serpentine Prison is available now through Concord/Caroline Australia.

33

FEATURE

REDEMPTION SONGS Through the Songbirds program, prison inmates in NSW are being given the opportunity to showcase their musical talent, and it’s paying social dividends, writes Samuel J. Fell.

Lying here in the darkness / I hear the sirens wail / Somebody going to emergency / Somebody’s going to jail – ‘In A New York Minute’, Eagles (Hell Freezes Over) Murray Cook doesn’t really remember the first time he walked into Sydney’s notorious Long Bay Correctional Centre. All he does remember, is being nervous. “Really nervous,” he smiles. “You know, I was this white, middle class guy, they’ll probably tear me to pieces.”

It was actually the prison’s psychiatric ward Cook was walking into, and it wasn’t as an inmate, but a teacher. “It was the psych hospital,” he confirms, adding with a laugh, “these guys were all mad serial killers and psychos, they’d committed some pretty bad crimes, but they… all just loved it so much, they were really friendly, there weren’t really any dramas.”

Cook was there to teach music, a gig he’d come across almost accidentally, as a way to augment his income as a session musician, playing with the likes of Midnight Oil, the Warumpi Band, Mixed Relations and Mental As Anything. He’s a multi-instrumentalist, one of those guys who can play whatever he picks up; if not on a stage, then in a 34

classroom seemed the place for him to be.

“Music therapy work is vital in prisons,” Midnight Oil guitarist Jim Moginie says of Cook’s work. “If someone commits a misdemeanor, then you’d want them to rehabilitate and become whole again. Music can do that better than anything. Doctor Music cures all.”

Cook, who met Moginie “on the train one day in 1974, going to university” prior to playing with him in early incarnations of the Oils, went on to teach music at Long Bay for twenty-one years. During this time he toured with the Oils, with the Mentals, with whichever band he was involved with at the time, always though, coming back to prison.

It became a part of his life, one he couldn’t imagine living without.

As so often happens though, politics got in the way, and his position, after more than two decades, was scrapped. “Yeah, (then NSW Premier) Mike Baird sacked us all, all the jail teachers, but I was lucky to be headhunted by Mindy Sotiri, she works for the Community Restorative Centre (CRC),” Cook explains. “She’d heard what I’d been doing, and they were thinking of expanding into doing some arts education in jails.”

The CRC, a non-government organisation dedicated to providing “assistance for inmates in the period of transition from prison into the community”, has been involved in numerous aspects of inmate life, via a plethora of evolving projects, since 1951. Its foresight and vision, in this instance via Sotiri (herself a singer-songwriter), led to the recruitment of Cook and the design and implementation of a music-based program entitled Songbirds.

“In 2016, I was on a research trip looking at post-release services in the US and the UK,” Sotiri explains of the program’s origins. “I was so inspired by some of the incredible arts and music programs that were on offer for people in prison (and on release), and came back very inspired to do something similar in NSW. I got in touch with Murray… to see if he would be interested.” “[Yeah], that’s how it started,” Cook smiles.

“I basically wrote the Songbirds program [from scratch], from my experience.”

Songbirds, according to the CRC website, aims to “provide songwriting and arts workshops inside select NSW prisons… [engaging] professional songwriters and artists to support, teach and mentor people in prison, and on release.”

Essentially, Cook gives inmates the opportunity to write songs and have them recorded, the project’s first tangible outcome being the Songbirds: Ballads Behind Bars album, released in 2018.

Working with a likeminded cohort, in this instance Front End Loader’s Bowden Campbell, Cook has a rudimentary recording set-up (laptops aren’t permitted inside the prisons), and once the songs have been written – some as solo efforts, others as collaborations between multiple prisoners – they’re laid down in fieldrecording style, remixed and fleshed out later on, and put out into the public sphere, any money being made funnelled straight back into the program.

Songbirds is also modelled on a couple of very successful international programs, most notably Vox Liminis in Scotland, and Jail Guitar Doors in both the UK and

America; the success of these programs has given Cook and Sotiri the inspiration and drive to continue with their own version, a version which has proven very successful in its own right. “[Murray has] brought out the best of people in trouble,” Jim Moginie says simply on the outcomes from Cook’s program thus far, and the results speak for themselves.

This month, another tangible outcome has been achieved, with the release of Songbirds 2: Ballads Behind Bars, another instalment in what looks to become a regular series of albums, featuring inmates performing their own work, many having put pen to paper, or stood behind a microphone, for the first time in their lives.

The writing of a song and the almost guerilla style of then recording it (something almost anyone can do these days, anywhere, thanks to advances in technology), may not seem a big deal.

But for many inmates, the opportunity via Songbirds to do just that, has been invaluable, a very real opportunity to turn their attentions and talent to a viable and worthy cause.

“There’s emerging research about the transformative capacity of arts and music in prison environments,” Sotiri says, “in terms of breaking entrenched cycles of imprisonment and allowing skilled artists and musicians behind bars the opportunity to pursue both a practice and an identity that exists entirely outside of the criminal justice system.

“There’s no doubt that arts and music programs can be utterly life changing for people in prison.”

*** “When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable. I see no foe. I am related to the earliest times, and to the latest” – Henry David Thoreau Around 2012, or maybe 2013, James’s best friend died in a car crash. The pair had played music, trading guitar licks, generally kicking around together, for years. His mate was only 15, and for James, who has two sisters, was like a brother.

This tragic event then, led to James writing one of his first songs, entitled ‘Goodbye’, which he subsequently sang at his mate’s

funeral. “I just wrote it,” James remembers, “and it got a lot of praise from his mother and father. That one means a fair bit to me.”

James has an assured voice, his guitar work is strong. He’s a natural, never having taken lessons in either singing or playing. “I can’t even remember when I got into singing, years and years ago, probably as a toddler,” he muses. “The Wiggles got me into singing I reckon, singing ‘Hot Potato’ and all that.

Dad’s always played guitar, so I picked it up off him, and pretty much taught myself from there.” >>>

35

>>> Life for James moved on, and in 2019, he was incarcerated at the Broken Hill Correctional Centre. His love of music hadn’t abated, he still had ‘Goodbye’ under his belt, as well as a few other songs including ‘Make Believe Queen’, about a fictional girlfriend on ‘the outside’. It was in the Broken Hill CC, that he met Murray Cook.

FEATURE “He was in production of his second album, and was touring around all NSW correctional centres, and Broken Hill was the lucky one to get picked, I guess,” he says on how his contributions to Songbirds 2 initially came to be. “I let a bit out, and [Murray] wanted to record two songs.”

Both ‘Goodbye’ and ‘Make Believe Queen’ appear on Songbirds 2: Ballads Behind Bars, two very different songs, but similar in that their purveyor’s voice is solid up front, backed by his simple-yet-effective guitar playing. “James is an outstanding young singer, I reckon, he’s a great songwriter,” says Cook.

James’s two contributions were recorded in the prison library over the course of about fifteen minutes, the fruits of his songwriting labours coming to life, the pure honesty and raw emotion driving it all to a place beyond a mere prison room. The resulting tracks are two of the best on the album.

“It was a good program to have, it kept your mind on something else,” James says.

Since his release from Broken Hill, and since the release of Songbirds 2, James has been scouted for television talent show The Voice, something which would most likely never have happened, if not for Songbirds. *** “Music has always been a matter of Energy to me, a question of Fuel. Sentimental people call it Inspiration, but what they really mean is Fuel. I have always needed Fuel. I am a serious consumer. On some nights I still believe that a car with the gas needle on empty can run about fifty more miles if you have the right music very loud on the radio” – Hunter S. Thompson Oliver was driving west from the Byron Bay area to Margaret River, on his way to a new job. Not far outside Broken Hill however, he hit a kangaroo, damaging a headlight.

Once in town, he was pulled over for the damage, the police then finding an amount of “contraband” in his car. He ended up in the Broken Hill CC for three months.

“Right from getting pulled up, I never thought it was going to be a big deal,” Oliver explains, adding with a laugh, “but it just slowly started becoming more apparent it was gonna be serious. I never thought I’d be in there for three months, not knowing when I’d get out.

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G N OU Y L ed i NEI n de E B T ’ ON W

prisoners from West Australia singing in “They charged me with commercial supply, language. “I loved the rawness,” Moginie which has a maximum of twenty years.” remembers, “the honesty of the songs Oliver was able to procure a decent and the documentary style way they were lawyer, and so the charges were eventually recorded.” Moginie then, was an inspired dropped, only three months being the time choice to work on Songbirds 2. he served. It was during these>> three months The lyrics tell a“The version ofthing Young’s story.

Growing in Canada, main for me, is to see theup look though, that Oliver also met Murray Cook; his father leaving when he was a young boy, beat up at on someone’s face,” says Cook on how school, Oliver’s ‘Broken Hill Blues’, written during important program Songbirdscourted is for by dreams of stardom, leaving aCanada forlike Hollywood, his time within the Songbirds program, thecame wellbeing of many the inmates appears on the new release. “business men” who to hear “the of golden sound.”who The key become involved, and how it affects him.

“Yeah, I just met [Murray] oneverse day, is I think it one, the fifth especially coming as it did after the “They’ve worked really hard, they’ve learntsuccess was the day of my first court of appearance,” Harvest. Neil Young writing to himself, writingprobably to his dead friend, a song, or a new scale… they’ve he says on how it all unfolded. “The librarian been told all their lives that they’re a piece writing to every wannabe rock star. had told me he was coming in, that he was of shit. So, to improve people’s lives, I think I from Midnight Oil… I didn’t pick up the might getgold/ moreI out of ityou’ve than they do.”

“Well, all that glitters isn’t guess heard the story guitar that day, but he was there the next The CRC runs a concurrent programthrough a told/ Butsome I’m a pauper in a naked disguise/ Aarts millionaire day and some of the boys were doing too,Oh andfriend so all of themine/ coverDon’t art to be Songbirds 2 man’s denied.” recording, and I just thought,business yeah, I’d like to eyes/ is also created by inmates. As a program, take this opportunity.” its importance can’t bethe underestimated, And the chorus, which at times during tour he wouldascream: Oliver goes on to say he “had the biggest small yet vital cog in a system that perhaps “Don’tHill be denied/ Don’t be denied/ Don’t be denied /No no, don’t blues at that point”, and so ‘Broken all too regularly lets people fall through the be denied.”

Blues’ is just as it sounds – a grinding, basic cracks. blues tune where he laments the fact he is “There are On this version however, he currently reprievesover the 13,000 fourth people verse, the one where he is, and how he can’t wait to get incarcerated in NSW prisons, with more out; a man in a situation, longing to business be free men about coming to hear the “golden sound.” than 20,000 cycling in and out of prison – a quintessential theme of the blues. each year,” Sotiri explains. “Within this On aa tour where Young was challenging his audience with an Oliver was only incarcerated for population, there’s a wealth of creative worth of new material, perhaps song he was relatively short time, and yet album’s the role the talent that currently haswith only this haphazard Songbirds program played forinsisting him wasone has to opportunities expression, performance follow theirfor vision, no matter the cost. incredibly important. “It was Certainly, pretty hardhe was saying and development; thetoexperience of there’s more life than money – to relate to people in there,” he says, imprisonment has the capacity to both something knew by then. “‘Don’t Be Denied’ “but music transcends language, groups,he certainly restrict and produce immense creativity. has a lot do with Danny,There I think,” Young toldto McDonough. “…I think that’s everything, you just listen to to it. And if you is such a need channel the creative can play music, you can havethe the first hardest potential in the criminal justiceaffected system.”me in what major life-and-death event that really motherfucker think you’re a good Songbirds then, is about far more I was[bloke]. trying to do… you kinda reassess yourself asthan to what you’re It was a bit of a protector for me as well, releasing anthat album.

It’ssoabout giving second doing – because you realize life is impermanent.

So, you you’ve gotta be careful.” chances, about unleashing potential that wanna do the best you can while you’re here, to say whatever would otherwise lie dormant, about offering the Cook took Oliver’s field recording and fuck it is you wanna say.than Express yourself.” more one might have thought possible. fleshed it out, adding bass and keys, further Murray Cook has helped make this a reality, bringing to life a song written in the midst Goldberg,and a former Senior Writer and as SotiriRolling goes onStone to say, she wants it to of hard times, making it evenMichael more real, become an evenTo more integral part of the is founder of the original Addicted Noise online magazine, another ballad from behind bars. corrections system. author of three rock & roll novels including 2016’s Untitled. *** “I’d like to maintain it, embed it, and expand “Music is the universal language of mankind” it!” she enthuses. “Our vision is to be able – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow to run workshops in all prisons in NSW, and In late 2019, Murray Cook approached his also support people more comprehensively old Oils bandmate, Jim Moginie, and asked in their creative practice on release. We if he’d be interested in coming on board for just need to find the funding to make this a Songbirds 2, to mix it at his Oceanic Studios. reality.”

Moginie jumped at the chance.

Songbirds 2: Ballads Behind Bars is “The songs are raw, unfussy and brutally available now. For more information on the honest,” he writes via email. “The first song, program, visit www.crcnsw.org.au ‘Can’t See My Baby (‘Cos I’m Locked Down)’, sung by the women in Mary Wade prison, is beautiful and heartbreaking. When they say, “I miss you”, you know they really do. It’s the truth in the sentiment that cuts through all the crap.

“And there’s no self pity. They’ve all experienced loss and regret and real-life dramas. That’s what a good song is: the intent and the singer and the song are all the same. These songs are all like that. The angst is genuine, unlike a lot of music out there today.”

Moginie had worked on a similar project in 2018, Wangka Kutjarra, curated by Ange Leech which featured indigenous

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TWO TO ONE

Two guitar legends, James Williamson and Deniz Tek, team up for an action-packed new album Two To One.

By Ian McFarlane Two To One? What’s in an album title? Quite a lot as it turns out.

“Yes, it sounded good to us,” says Deniz Tek. “It’s good to look at in print and then to say it. You want something that’s cool and you want something that relates to the album.

The ‘Two To One’ phrase that I know of is a song by Blind Boy Fuller from 1930. It’s an old blues expression.”

So, we have two guitarists combining to make one important statement. The term also relates to a ratio, as in when you score twice as many points as your opponent. Or, as in auto-mechanical terms, it pertains to a gear for reducing or increasing a velocity ratio two to one. We could be talking about two metaphorical classic racing cars heading out on the track at 150.00 mph and then having to decelerate at an alarming rate.

The Two To One album cover features 1950s comic book imagery of high velocity carnage on the racetrack, engines screaming, the clash of metal on metal, tyres squealing, bodies flying. So, when you take all that into consideration, you know what you’re getting.

When we hook up for our Zoom meeting, James Williamson is in San Francisco, Tek in Hawaii and I’m in Melbourne. The devastating bushfires in California are still raging and the smoke haze in SF has been unbearable. “Oh, it’s been horrendous,” Williamson confirms. “Today is the first day we’ve been able to go outside, the smoke has been so bad.”

There comes a time in a guy’s life when he gets to talk to, not one, but two of his favourite guitarists. Williamson is best known for his pioneering work with Iggy and the Stooges on the iconic Raw Power album plus Kill City and New Values with Iggy, his solo work (the 2014 album Re-Licked, for example), his production CV and his career as an electronics engineer. He’s also collaborated with numerous other musicians.

38

Which is where Tek comes in. He’s known for his pioneering work with Radio Birdman, The Visitors, New Race, his long-running solo career, his many collaborations and his other career as a Naval squadron doctor and jet pilot. Tek had seen the original Stooges as a high school kid growing up in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He missed seeing the line-up with Williamson on guitar as he’d moved to Sydney to study medicine but had heard his subsequent work. Williamson had not been aware of Tek’s career before they crossed paths at the 2011 Ron Ashton Memorial Concert.

The duo first collaborated on the 2017 EP Acoustic K.O. The next step was an electric album. Williamson takes up the story.

“The idea solidified last year, I would say mid last summer-ish. Matt Green from Cleopatra Records initiated the idea. He’s been following both our careers for quite some time and I’ve been working with him on some other albums that he was doing, Mitch Ryder, Cherrie Currie. So, in one of our conversations he proposed this idea and we had to work out all the details. I produced it and we recorded the basic tracks in Sausalito.”

I asked Tek how they went about working on the songs? Who was gonna take the lead on one particular song or another?

“We each came up with song ideas. As far as the music it was pretty evenly split up. I think maybe James wrote six and I wrote five pieces of music or came up with the original idea for that. Then we swapped files, we’d made home demos and took input from each other about them. Especially on a lot of mine James was instrumental in guiding me to a place so the songs came out well. The lyrics were a combination of couple of guys James has worked with (Paul Nelson Kimball and Frank Myers) and then me, ’cause I always write my own lyrics.”

The songs and riffs mesh so well it is difficult to delineate one player or another. As a

listener – and not having seen the song writing credits at this stage – I would say that, for example, the single ‘Jet Pack Nightmare’ is the most Deniz Tek like whereas ‘Stable’ is the most Stooges or James Williamson like.

Tek chuckles and Williamson says, “Well, you’re half right, ‘Jet Pack...’ is mine and so is ‘Stable’. It all blends too. So, it’s a kind of a mixed bag.”

On second thoughts, maybe ‘Progress’ (“Down the highway running free as the summer breeze / Gunning down this lonesome road just doing what I please / Got no destination got no plan in mind / Got no expectations and I’m feeling alright”) is more Tek than Williamson, or ‘Small Change’ is more Williamson than Tek. It hardly matters as it’s a collaborative venture par excellence.

“We designed the songs to work well with both of us,” Tek elaborates. “I especially tried to provide a backdrop in the songs that I wrote for James’s solos, because I love James Williamson’s solos and I want to hear them in a certain way. I tried to design the songs so that it would be a good context for what he does. Nobody else really plays like that.”

With ‘Climate Change’ Williamson came up with the idea and wrote the music while Tek wrote the lyrics. He addresses the subject – “talkin’ about climate change” – but doesn’t

advocate any direct action. I ask Tek if he has a stance on the subject?

“Well, I didn’t think that was the thing that could be put into the song. So, it was meant to be observational. It is happening and we’re maybe holding up a mirror to what we’re seeing, rather than advocacy of any particular program. It’s a huge topic that still needs a lot of consideration but when you look at the data... it’ll take a concerted, worldwide effort on a massive scale. Trying to put that in a song is hard and if you try and put some of that in a song and not all of it, it takes away from the stuff you didn’t put in the song, it puts you in a quagmire. That’s why it was written the way it was.”

As a programme of music, it seems they took some pains to flow the music across two sides of vinyl. The first side features the riff rockers, the second side continues the riffs (‘Climate Change’, ‘Birthday Present’) but they introduce acoustic ballads (‘Small Change’, ‘Melissa Blue’ which is actually a bonus track on the CD).

“Yes, definitely the sequencing of the album was well considered, by both of us,” Williamson confirms. “I think we’re both LP oriented. There was a lot of different possibilities that we tried and this was the order we thought worked well.”

Two To One is available now through Cleopatra Records

JAMES WILLIAMSON & DENIZ TEK

TWO TO ONE Cleopatra Records

Who can forget all the best two guitar combinations in rock?

Richards and Jones; Verlaine and Lloyd; Allman and Betts; Young and Whitten; Perry and Whitford; Gorham and Robertson. There are numerous names you could provide but for now, how’s about we give a big hand to Williamson and Tek. James Williamson and Deniz Tek are leaders in their own fields: Williamson with Iggy and the Stooges, Iggy Pop and his solo work; Tek with Radio Birdman and his solo work. Just as two heads are better than one, two guitars does the trick. The players’ individual guitar sounds and techniques mesh in such perfect unison here that it can be difficult to determine who is playing what. On the surface you can pick Williamson’s solos and Tek is right in the pocket with his rhythm work, but they mix it up to solid effect.

The riffs are compelling and, as you would expect, the guitars are up front, but this is not a gun-slinging, axe-grinding, dirty-arsed riff fest just for the sake of it. You’re not going to get that immediate, yet unsatisfactory jolt to the system. The song writing is suitably robust so these songs seep in slowly and the hooks remain indelibly planted.

Whether it’s the riff rockers such as the single ‘Jet Pack Nightmare’, ‘Stable’, ‘Progress’, ‘Climate Change’, ‘Liar’ and ‘Birthday Party’, or the more laid back and acoustic tracks ‘Small Change’, ‘Melissa Blue’, ‘No Dreams’ and ‘Take A Look Around’ they carry the weight.

The acoustic tracks reveal a rootsy, bluesy side with Tek playing harp on ‘Small Change’.

If there’s one gripe, it’s that Tek’s vocals don’t always hit the mark

especially on the quieter tracks. That’s just nit-picking because this is a very satisfying release and one to chalk up as delivering a guitar combination that has already displayed ample potential for the future.

IAN McFARLANE

39

ANOTHER SIDE OF

BEN HARPER FEATURE

In the midst of one of the most turbulent times of the past few years, Ben Harper drops a steel guitar instrumental album, inspired by some of his heroes and a David Foster Wallace novel. By Brian Wise

“All you can do is shut the world out and create and write. The majority of this record was written on tour over the past 25 years.�

Photo by Jacob Boli

W

hen I last spoke to Ben Harper just two years ago, he was in Nashville playing the Ryman Auditorium with Charlie Musselwhite, preparing to produce an album for Mavis Staples and looking forward to playing Bluesfest six months later with a re-jigged Innocent Criminals.

Since then the world has changed dramatically. It seems an eternity since we sat down backstage at the holy church of country music to talk and Harper pointed out the photos of famous musicians on the wall and said how honoured he was to be playing there. In the year afterwards he played Bluesfest 2019, did summer tours of Europe and the USA with the Innocent Criminals, played festivals on both continents and promoted a variety of charitable and environmental causes. He was looking forward to a busy 2020.

Then nearly everything stopped. Since March this year Harper has appeared online at 80th birthday celebrations for Ringo Starr and Mavis Staples, released a new solo single, recorded a version of Nick Drake’s ‘Black Eyed Dog’ with Rhiannon Giddens and appeared on Ziggy Marley’s latest album. He has also just released his fifteenth album overall (including 7 solo studio albums) and it is unlike anything he has done before.

Winter Is For Lovers is an album of music recorded entirely on a specially

commissioned Monteleone lap steel guitar.

For the purposes of online marketing the album is divided into fifteen pieces - each titled after a particular city or region in the USA or Europe - but it is really meant to be heard as one piece. The vinyl release obviously has the movement divided in A and B sides. All of Harper’s influences are evident in what is being referred to as a ‘symphony’: flamenco, classical, Hawaiian and blues guitar. It was built up over years of writing and recorded in August last year.

Given Harper’s commitment to various causes, it seems almost counter-intuitive to release an album that is totally non-political.

It is certainly a meditative oasis in one of the most turbulent years of our lifetimes.

The fact that the album is all instrumental is almost a sign that there is almost nothing left to say about what has been happening.

“There was a 5.1 earthquake a few days ago and that shook us right out of bed here in Southern California, as they tend to do at night,” says Harper on our Zoom call.

“Nothing like an earthquake to go with the pandemic! Not to mention police killing folks, not to mention there’s someone steering the country into the burning flames of the abyss.”

“Apart from that, everything's fine?” I joke.

“Apart from that, just over here sliding around on the guitar,” he responds.

Harper is still addressing some important issues as can be seen from his recently released duet with Rhiannon Giddens on Nick Drake’s ‘Black Eyed Dog.’ “I shared a deep, deep connection with the late great Heath Ledger around that song,” explains Harper. “He and I bonded deeply over Nick Drake and in particular, ‘Black Eyed Dog’. So, it has huge sentimental depth and roots for me. And to be able to share that song, in collaboration with Rhiannon who I've been a fan of forever, just was a great arrival of some sort.

“Collaborating was both of our ideas when I went to see a show of hers in Los Angeles and met her afterwards. We talked about collaborating in the future. Through the inspiration of seeing her play, I recorded a version of ‘Black Eyed Dog’, just set up one microphone in a room and recorded it live, vocal and guitar and thought maybe this could be a contender for she and I to collaborate on.I didn’t hear boo either way, I just sent it off. The first thing I got back was her completed production and certainly was bowled over.

In many ways it's very timely given what's going on, because there are a lot of people who've been deeply affected emotionally and mentally by all the events that have been happening.

“Yes, it is the year of the ‘Black Eyed Dog’, if ever I've seen it,” agrees Harper who says

that he thinks working with Giddens in the future is ‘unavoidable’.

The other project on which you can hear Harper is Ziggy Marley’s new album, More Family Time, on the opening track, ‘Play With Sky.’ He says that it was ‘absolute blast getting that together with Ziggy who he has known for more than 20 years.

“That came while I'm figuring out how to be a home recording engineer,” explains Harper. “So, all of that has been quite timely - and Ziggy is guesting on a track of mine that will be coming out on a reggae record of mine – and, hopefully, not in the far distant future.

“Hey man, if my dad was Bob Marley, I'd only be doing Bob Marley's songs all day every day,” says Harper when I suggest that some people unfairly see Ziggy as still walking in his father’s shadow. “So, I can't blame him at all, but he's had his own breakout hits with the Melody Makers and everything. So, I'd imagine that's his lifelong venture and defining his own role as well as embracing the light that his dad created on our planet.”

Which brings us to Winter Is For Lovers, with its cover photo shot on a snowy, cavernous New York street in the East Village; reminiscent, because of its location, to some of Dylan’s early album covers. (”Here's the crazy thing,” says Harper when I point out the echo, “it didn't even hit me until somebody said that and I went, ‘Oh shit.’

But I think it's close enough for horseshoes, as they say”.)

“It has 15 movements within the body of work, within the piece itself,” explains Harper of the new album, “and that is to serve the purpose of modern music distribution, for the modern platforms.

I needed to divide it so it could fit the structure of your go-to music playlist and servers and platforms. It's one body of music, I wrote it as one slide guitar symphony. It's composed as a body of work and it's divided out of circumstance.”

What inspired him to record a full album of instrumentals? (Harper has kindly given us the instrumental track ‘Heart & Crown’ for a Rhythms sampler).

“I've been aiming for it for ever,” he replies.

“The instrumental ‘Heart & Crown’ I was able to give you because that wasn't on steel guitar. I have a whole collection of non-steel guitar instrumentals. That was the closest to making Winter Is For Lovers.

I was able to part ways with that one, but I have been working on this record, Brian, since I've known you, for decades. I've been working on this and taking aim at this record and have had to evolve and live into arriving at a place where I could actually bring it to life - whether that's being able to play it, or even being able to hear it, to compose it. It's taken this long.” >>> 41

>>> Over the years Harper has been known for playing the distinctive Weissenborn lap slide guitar, manufactured in Los Angeles in the 1920’s and ‘30s and highly sought after for its distinctive sound. But for the new album Harper chose the Monteleone archtop lap steel made by John Monteleone in Islip, New York (‘Islip’ is also one of the track titles).

“I used to live in New York,” recalls Harper of how he discovered Monteleone’s guitars, “and he makes them one at a time with as much care as I've ever seen a human being put into anything. The difference is in the projection and the overtones. The Weissenborns have their quality - and I will never part ways with the Weissenborn, I love it - but where the Weissenborn leaves off with the hollow neck resonance, I feel the Monteleone picks up in moving the air in a unique way with the carved arch top and back. It was a sound I had been reaching for and didn't arrive at until I met John.

“I’ve always chosen my flat top guitars that project slightly like an arch top, and I've always chosen my arch top guitars that sustain a flat top. I have my entire career, if not life, been looking for an instrument that brings out the best in both and I always figured I'd just have to settle on one or the other.

“Having played a Monteleone in a music shop 10 years ago, I heard both in one instrument and from there I knew I needed to venture out and find him and see if he would be able to make a lap steel. The fun and exciting part for me was convincing him to make it, because he didn't want to make it just to be because he could or had the skill or would get paid to do it. He was very interested in trying to contribute to the genre of lap steel guitar and he agreed to do it.

“Sure enough, it was that sound I heard that day. That day I played that arch top, it was again 10 years ago in the depth of winter in New York, I picked up a Monteleone. It was the flat top sustain with the arch top projection, and then something else that was mysterious and indefinable.

“I almost wanted to walk out with that instrument, but it just wasn't a lap steel. I didn't want to convert it, I don't like to do that to instruments, being the purist that I am when it comes to instruments. So, I got on John's waiting list. I called him up, once he agreed to do it, I just waited. I got the call one day that he was ready to make it.”

Winter Is For Lovers is said to explore the same territory as the American Primitive movement pioneered by Leo Kottke and John Fahey, who Harper met while working in the family music shop, the Folk Music Centre, learning to play and repair instruments. Other musicians such as Sonny 42

Guitar luthier John Monteleone Terry, Brownie McGhee, the Rev. Gary Davis and Doc Watson also played in the store and Harper met and even strung guitars for Ry Cooder, Leonard Cohen, Jackson Browne and David Lindley (who had a massive influence on him). As he gravitated to the slide guitar, he learned finger picking from Taj Mahal and studied with Chris Darrow of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, who was not only once in the band Kaleidoscope with Lindley but became his brother in-law. (Darrow passed away in January this year).

“None bigger than David,” says Harper of Lindley’s influence. “David was very giving.

Chris Darrow, who's also played a huge pivotal role in my influence and the music I make, wrote the song ‘Whipping Boy’ on my first record. I've heard a couple of stories, a couple of different ways, but David and his wife, Joanie and Chris Darrow introduced my mom and dad to one another. So, that's going all the way back. Then we were neighbours. David's daughter, Rosanne, and I grew up as best friends next door neighbours. So, David is family and I have been hearing him and listening to him play. I would go to his shows as a kid with Rosanne.

We'd all just be playing around backstage at David's shows, Jackson's shows, all that.”

“And he moves different, man,” he adds of Lindley. “I mean, it's a different thing, he is a natural wonder. David Lindley is as connected to the mystery of sound as anyone I have ever met in my life. He is the

genesis of the modern lap steel sound. It's Lindley period. End of story.”

“I did know what I was looking for. I did.” says Harper, when asked about his sound on the new album. “I don't mean to sound overly earnest about it and overstate my point as I tend to do but I don't know any guitar player who's not committed their life to tone and sound and always reaching for something that they're hearing off in a distant reality. The Monteleone is me pulling that down from wherever that resonates.

That's somewhere beyond silence, that's where we're trying to pull our tone out of.”

“It is something I've never done, especially attempting to do an entire album of it and write something this long,” he replies when I mention the comparisons to John Fahey.

“I mean, you talk about the challenge of weaving this together, writing something that is this in depth and at this length, and then recording it, sitting down and playing, 35 minutes of a lap steel piece you've written under the mic and under the lens of the microphones, it was a big challenge. I did it for hours on end four or five days straight until I got what I felt was the take or the combination of takes.”

To properly experience the album, you need to listen to it as one piece, perhaps as I did, listening to it late at night with no external distractions. It can a beautiful experience.

“Oh, I love to hear that,” enthuses Harper.

“See, that's the thing. I am getting as much out of hearing how people are listening to it as I get out of it from actually replaying it. I love to hear something, whether it's on a long drive at night at sunset at sunrise or while doing the dishes. It's exciting for me to be getting that back.”

The other interesting aspect of Winter Is For Lovers is the connection with the late David Foster’s Wallace’s novel, Infinite Jest, which is noted for its unconventional narrative structure.

“There was a time where I was working on this record and I was not able to clearly see where it was going to live,” explains Harper. “There was a chance that I was going to explore my lap steel collection on the various movements and weave them all together. There was a time that I was going to include round neck instrumentals with lap steel instrumentals. There were various ways I was looking to bring this record in for a landing, but none of them were. It just wasn't where I knew it had to be, which was preventing me from finishing it. Around that time where I was trying to figure out a way to make this record, I read. I was about a

third of the way through the book, Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace’s masterpiece.

“At a certain point, once you're all the way in with Infinite Jest, you can't believe what you're reading. So, I went online to do a little research of how a book like that could have possibly come to be. In doing so I saw an interview with him where he said that Infinite Jest was a series of short stories that he was working on simultaneously, that he realised were actually one body of work and that's when it hit me. That that's what I was attempting to do. That's what I needed to do to actually complete this record. Once it was clear to me that I was working on one larger piece, it enabled me to actually finish the record.”

“I think that the sonic essence of each track comes as close as I can get to resonating what it feels like to be in those places,” he responds when I ask if the music is meant to reflect the location of the title. “You know, Montreal – it’s the coldest I've ever felt in my life. It's the winter in Montreal, it's the coldest place I've felt in the ever anywhere.

So, it had to make it. ‘Paris’ was written in Paris. ‘Toronto’ was written in Toronto. A lot of them were written in the places they're titled after.”

One of the selections, ‘Bizanet’ is named after a region in the south of France and its mood – like the other pieces - reflects Harper’s feelings about the place.

“That's one of my refuge post tour hide outs,” he says, “and to me there is no more tranquil an environment and no more sort of place that brings me true peace than that region.”

“It's so unfair,” laughs Harper when I mention that all of the tracks on Winter Is For Lovers, are titled after locations in the northern hemisphere. “That just leaves room for the instrumental record number two, because there's no question, I got to get all those on there. I'm so often in Australia in the summer months. Not to cop out, but most of them are where the songs themselves are written because there's so much isolation and solitude on tour. All you can do is shut the world out and create and write. The majority of this record was written on tour over the past 25 years.”

Winter is For Lovers is available now through ANTI- Records. A limited number of white vinyl copies are also available at the ANTI Australian webstore.

“I shared a deep, deep connection with the late great Heath Ledger……He and I bonded deeply over Nick Drake and in particular, ‘Black Eyed Dog’.”

43

GOOD TIMING

“I’d had the benefit of being right up close with people - now [it is] something we might have a little nostalgia for…..”

Elvis Costello has released a new album, Hey Clockface, and has also been busy delving into the archives.

By Bernard Zuel

I

t’s been a year of feast or famine for Elvis Costello – personally, professionally, musically.

Early this year he had a new Grammy under his arm (for last year’s album, Look Now), sold out shows behind and ahead of him, and some songs in his back pocket which he was itching to try out during some lay days on the tour’s UK leg – firstly in Helsinki and a couple of days later in Paris.

He put down three songs solo in Helsinki – rough and roughly electronic in the way of the bare, nakedly protest songs he released in the 1980s as The Imposter – and another half dozen in Paris, where arrangements were improvised on the spot by an ensemble more resembling a small jazz group than either of his long-term bands, the Attractions or the Imposters.

Then he began to twig that things weren’t exactly right.

“I started seeing the holes appear in apparently sold-out crowds, so I knew [something was up]. There are reasons why people don’t make it to a show, but when you’re starting to have people call you who were supposed to be coming, saying ‘I don’t know about this’, you might want to reconsider,” Costello says now. “Next thing you know I’m back in Canada.”

It was almost as sudden as that. While married to a Canadian – singer/pianist/songwriter Diana Krall, with whom he has twin 13-year-old boys – London-born, Liverpool-raised Costello, is not a Canadian citizen and faced the very real prospect of being kept from his family as borders shut.

Since racing back in time, he has been holed up in “a little cabin on Vancouver Island”, on the west coast of Canada. Which isn’t the worst place in the world to hunker down. And if the year’s shows disappeared into the ether there were compensations.

“You can imagine, you’re fairly secure from things. You’ve got to go out now and then for supplies but we’ve got a woodland trail where we could keep ourselves from literally feeling cabin fever, and you’re hearing from friends in cities and it’s pretty grim,” he says,

44

PHOTO CREDIT:

By Ray DiPietro revealing that they’d lost several friends in New York, one of the early Covid-19 hotspots. “Once the immediate shock of those events passed, I realised that we also not only had time together, Diana and I - normally we’ be on a tour bus going to Hot Springs Arkansas or somewhere, on a summer tour - but my lads were doing school over the Internet and we were together.”

It wasn’t all home schooling though. The perpetually active writer and composer – who has also been writing songs with Rodney Crowell and appearing in fundraising and attention-raising spots for Britain’s NHS from his Canadian eyrie - had those Helsinki and Paris recordings looking for a permanent home, though little about them suggested they were destined to be used together.

It was then his friend, jazz trumpeter Michael Leonhart, sent him some music from lockdown in New York looking for help finishing them, “and they became that missing piece” to make sense of it all.

Part of that solution was the music was not standard in structure or sound, playing into the adventurous approach to what has become the new album, Hey Clockface.

“They had something about them, they had some rhythm and atmosphere to them, that one end joined to the Helsinki music and the other joined to [the recordings made in] Paris,” says Costello of the songs written with Leonhart, including ‘Radio Is Everything’, one of two spoken rather than sung vocals on the album. “When I had time to think about how to sequence them, I had the benefit of Michael’s contribution [and] these two songs were so unusual because there wasn’t a core structure in any way in the music, and that freed me to look at some verses I had written where it wasn’t very clear verse/chorus structure and I left a lot of the thoughts trailing, and I thought there really is no reason why I can’t respond to this music.”

Costello’s approach to the first piece of Leonhart music was to effectively “spontaneously compose” into a tape recorder, and when he took yet another route to the second piece Leonhart wrote a

horn arrangement based around that melody and lyric “and then it became a dialogue across thousands of miles”.

“I’d had the benefit of being right up close with people - now [it is] something we might have a little nostalgia for: being with other humans - and I didn’t feel inhibited in any way about working at a distance either,” Costello says.

In fact, two albums were being made at a distance in this Vancouver Island cabin, with Krall finishing her recent album. She was upstairs in their music room with its studio-level speakers, going back and forth with an engineer in Los Angeles, while he was downstairs doing the same. “It was like duelling records,” Costello recalls.

“We talk to each other about what we’re doing; it’s not like ‘we have to play my record louder’, ‘no my record louder’,” he says jovially. “She was doing that in the small hours and I’m up at dawn sometimes working – we seem to be creatively tuned at different times. Which is just as well, or it might be ‘I’ll fight you for the piano’ and I can’t arm wrestle her: those piano players have a grip of iron.”

If it sounds like it was actually fun, turns out it was.

“I wouldn’t trade it. I could have been on tour bus this summer, one of us would have had our lads with us for some of the summer touring, but this year we were home and all this writing and thinking and loving all happened.”

He adds that “I have to say we, of course, are very, very fortunate to stay out of harm’s way and have this work to do”, but there’s no need to apologise. And if he were to, he could always say he’s making up for his good fortune with a gift (or is it a temptation too far?) for fans not sated by the substantial number of his repackaged/remastered/reissued albums.

As well as this new record “chucked into the stream with the other fish”, Costello has begun a massive reissue program which in its first iteration will see a six-disc box set based around his 1978 album, Armed Forces.

The box will have a strong visual element, commemorating the work of the designer/artist Barney Bubbles who contributed to Costello’s album covers and sleeves from Armed Forces to 1982’s Imperial Bedroom, and mock-ups by an artist who specialises in romance novels and comics. Also included, along with singles in their original sleeves, are a series of live concerts, including the now infamous 1978 show at Sydney’s Regent Theatre, The Riot At The Regent, it’s called,” he says.

“It’s a glimpse of the band almost going into orbit and then burning out,” Costello laughs. “But there’s some good playing on those records and with the album we went back to the tapes and got it to sound like it did originally, and we had a lot of fun with the presentation of it. I opened it and thought, this is what we intended to do: a little bit of panache that went away in the CD era.”

Too much?

“It’s something you would give for a gift; it’s obviously not an impulse purchase for anybody,” he says. “But it’s the last word on that particular set.”

Sadly, or not, I point out to him that for some people, including someone not a million miles from this very conversation, it would be if not an impulse buy then certainly an immediate purchase.

“You might,” he says tolerantly at the commitment/madness of the hardcore fans. “But I’m not deluding myself. You’ll be the first kid on your block with it, but not everybody else will want it.”

He hasn’t seen my block.

Hey Clockface is out now through Concord.

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MELBOURNE BOOKS 45

FEATURE

JOSH & ASH

A

fter several years of touring tirelessly around the world Josh Teskey has been forced by a lockdown to stay still at his home in Warrandyte, the outer Melbourne ‘suburb’ that birthed the Teskey Brothers band. Ash Grunwald has also just come off touring a new album but he is up near Byron Bay, enjoying the sort of freedoms Melburnians have been dreaming about for months.

It has been a year since I caught up with both of them: Josh in Nashville and Ash when he was in Melbourne promoting his new album Mojo (which featured an appearance from Teskey) and his book Surf

By Day, Jam By Night. Last September I was at the Ryman Auditorium to see the Teskey Brothers put on a spectacular show to win over an American audience and prove that their success in Australia was definitely not going to be a one-off. At the same time Ash Grunwald was on the road, having turned his life around and moved back from Bali, and was touring behind the new album. The Teskey Brothers then won an ARIA and got a Grammy nomination for Run Home Slow and recorded the Live At The Forum album, which went on to top the charts. Everything was looking good for both of them. Then it stopped.

“It was a big change,” says Teskey when I talk about the recent lockdown. We are on a Zoom call and I can see him in his studio and

46

Ash in a place that appears far more tropical than Melbourne. “The world turned upside down. But we had a big start to the year, because we did the biggest Europe run that we've ever done, in February, just before everything all went down. It was like the grand finale of the last three years.

“Then we came home and everything went down. But we were planning on some time off, because we had a baby, me and my partner. Had a little daughter. So, we were planning on slowing down a bit anyway, and then it's just been fully extended. So, we just went into baby land; and baby land has just continued for a little bit longer than we thought, which has been kind of nice - with respect to everyone who's doing it really rough at the moment.”

“That was a funny thing because for me it was going really well in Europe; and that's something I'd been working on for a long time,” says Ash. “So, it's a really strange situation because it was like Murphy's Law: I really get it happening and it really felt like things were on fire. Nowhere near the level of a Teskey Brothers things on fire, but things were going really, really well.

“So, I hung on for dear life as COVID hit and I was touring in Spain at that time and I think we were the last band to be touring in Spain. Then I just had to get out at the very last minute that I could. So, it probably wasn't timed that fantastic for me. I wish

COVID was a few years ago when I was chilling out. But you make the best of it and there have been so many silver linings. I was panicking at first when it all went down, because I was booked solid this year.

“I feel bad even talking about that because it's affected so many people so much worse and it's just life. I did find the silver linings.

I started doing these online concerts and selling a ticketed show. And that worked out to be a really good thing. And it's also brought me back to playing... Actually, that phase brought me back to doing a lot more of a bluesier, solo show. I'm playing in the same context that Josh and I did the album in. So, it's worked seamlessly, actually.

Ash Grunwald is looking heathier and more relaxed than I have ever seen him but, to be fair, I don’t recall ever seeing anyone up Byron way looking stressed!

“Well, last year I was in the middle of the book tour and the music tour, wasn't I?” says Ash when I mention that he seems quite laidback compared to our last meeting. “That was the whole reason, coming back from Bali, was to literally burn the candle at both ends and just see what was possible, career wise; and try and get a few different things happening. It seems that all of those things have worked pretty well. Just as well as panning things, working with the whole COVID thing. But it's funny, the goalposts move, don't they? You're not

Josh Teskey teams up with Ash Grunwald for Push The Blues Away - a project that is set to put the blues back at the top of the charts.

By Brian Wise going to beat yourself up that you're not out there, when it's illegal for you to be doing gigs.”

“We've all got to know our areas a little bit more haven't we?” says Teskey from his studio. “All the walks and all these little nooks that you didn't know before. With Warrandyte though man, I've like totally found some amazing walks. I mean, I've lived here most of my life and there's these spots where I'm just finding these walks around the park and links around the different spots to the river. It's been amazing actually. It's really good to get that because you just never take the time.

You go to the river spots you knew. We're creatures of habit, aren't we? So, you often go to the same places and yeah, it's got us checking out the place really well.”

“Actually, this has been another bonus of this, or of being here,” responds Josh when I mention that he appears to be sitting in a very nice home studio. “I live here. I live down the back. The studio's sort of up in the house. So, I'm in the studio here, the Half Mile Harvest studio, which is really Sam's baby. So, you could say I'm just down the hill. If you imagine during Run Home Slow recording, that was my commute every day for that for months.”

Push The Blues Away was recorded entirely live and straight to tape, acoustically, with Josh on harmonica, Ash on guitar, sharing vocals and adding hand claps and stomps on seven original tunes, with two classic blues covers: Son House’s ‘Preachin’ Blues’ and Elmore James’ ‘The Sky Is Crying.’

Of course, they have enlisted guitarist, vocalist, and now Grammy-nominated engineer, Sam Teskey to produce.

The album emerges from the love both Josh and Ash have for the blues which they both discovered when they were young but from entirely different paths.

“What I always say is funny about this one for me is I was listening to blues on a local level before I was listening to American

albums,” recalls Josh. “So, one of my main mentors at school was a guy I talk a lot about, called Sam Linton-Smith from The Honeydrippers and bands like Black Cat Bone. He was showing us our first grooves, when we were around about thirteen.

Then, apart from that, I was out at the St. Andrews pub and around the traps, watching Ash play some stuff and doing his sets there. I was probably 14 and watching Ash in his early twenties.”

“Maybe I might have been 16. You might've been about 20,” he says to Ash. “I was watching Ash. I was watching Chris Wilson.

I was watching Geoff Achison. That was the stuff I grew up on first. Actually, a lot of that very much is what influenced this album. People like Robert Johnson and all

those kinds of - real classic finger-picking stuff, which is all the first stuff that I was playing by myself as a busker, before Sam was really picking up the guitar and getting going. So, a local level, which is interesting.”

“What was it for me? As we would have discussed over the years, Triple R and PBS were huge for me; and it was the radio,” says Ash. “I used to just hear the slide guitar played in rock songs. I was talking to Diesel about his introduction on ‘Driving Wheel’. He did the slide intro when he was playing on Barnesy's live album. That was just awesome. There are things like that. I didn't know what it was that I was hearing because I guess I was like ten or eleven in the late ‘80s. >>>

“I was watching Ash. I was watching Chris Wilson.

I was watching Geoff Achison.

That was the stuff I grew up on first.

Actually, a lot of that very much what influenced this album.”

– Josh Teskey

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“…It was so liberating to write a blues song. I could write a better blues song, probably, if I know Josh is going to be singing on it…” – Ash Grunwald

>>> “There's slide and Ry Cooder was probably at the height of his popularity and I was massively, massively influenced when I was a kid, by that cheesy movie Crossroads, starring the Karate Kid, Ralph Macchio, as the blues guy. Ry Cooder did the soundtrack and I had taped it by holding up a little tape player to the TV and that massively influenced me.

“It's funny, looking back on those days.

My tape, that I taped off the TV, was massively influential on me. So, all of the background slide stuff, and just the real Delta blues flavours, and the gospel flavors in that, really influenced me.”

The genesis of Push The Blues Away came from working together on the song ‘Ain't My Problem’, for the album Mojo, explains Ash. “I was so stoked to get the Teskey Brothers on there. These guys, especially Josh, he's my favourite voice in blues and soul in this country. I was just honoured that they were into it. They said, ‘Oh yeah. We used to listen to you when we were young’ and I thought that was just amazing. I was just so lucky that Josh was willing to do it. Then we started jamming. I think we jammed doing ‘The Sky is Crying’, which was the reason that was on my mind was because I was just about to, that weekend, play at the Memorial at Port Fairy for Chris Wilson; and play that version because he influenced me on that version. So, for me to hear Josh, this amazing new talent at the passing of my hero, Chris Wilson, felt like a bit of a changing of the guard when we were jamming there. Then, we just... I don't know. What do you reckon, Josh?”

“Well, we were sitting right here, where I'm sitting right now……waiting around while all the people set up their bits and bobs and the film crew's doing their thing. So, we were just jamming on it, weren't we?

“I think, for me, it was a big part of it. We were just sort of sitting as the real, raw 48

basics. I had a harmonica with me, and we were just doing this old timey kind of blues groove. We started talking about this, saying how good would it be just to do something like this, just without any of the complexities, without getting too complicated with everything else - just back to basics and let's just have some fun with it. We were always going to do standards, blues standards; and if we can come up with a couple of originals, we will.

We ended up coming up with a lot more than we thought. A little bit of inspiration just came up and all these different songs came out.”

“We had just finished the Run Home Slow recording process,” continues Josh. “So, me and Sam... Which was very complex and really all stuff it involved internationally and a lot of label involvement. This is a big, stressful process. And this was a bit of just us freeing up that complication of what can be recording - and just having some fun.

And we did have fun.”

“Totally,” agrees Ash, “and for me, I haven't done anything like that since my first album. It was a magical thing to share together like that. You know how you can hear people play and that's one thing, but then you feel it a different way when you jam with people. Then I noticed that that first time we jammed, how we clicked and that doesn't always happen with everybody, even if they're an amazing player. So, I thought that was really cool.

I knew we actually had a synergy there when we just first had that jam. So yeah, it was easy to do, wasn't it? It was so easy.”

“Me and Sam had a really good time just hanging out with Ash and just talking music,” adds Josh. “So, that became a little bit of a part of it, and also came out in the song writing a little bit in a weird way. It was, for the first time, talking a bit about stuff outside of music, talking a bit about

family and stuff in some of these songs.

We were writing love songs as well, which for me is a little bit different from pain and misery and things like that.”

“I love how that thing came out,” chimes in Ash. “I should say one thing. When people ask me about that process of recording with you Josh, it was so liberating to write a blues song. I could write a better blues song, probably, if I know Josh is going to be singing on it. I could write quickly because I just imagined his voice there. So, for me it was so inspiring. I've been doing this thing for so long, but I've never written a blues song for somebody else and somebody else's voice that can do things that my voice can't do.”

“So, ‘Hungry Heart’ was really, interestingly, this kind of thing where I was trying to think in a blues style,” explains Josh of the second single released from the album, “and I wanted to make it really raw sort of bluesy stuff. But what came out was this almost more folk feel; finger-picking thing. Then I thought, I don't know if this is bluesy enough really for the album. It's just kind of a blues feel. But as we spoke about it, we thought it's this kind of folky blues. You'd almost compare it to people like Keb' Mo' or Eric Bibb, or something like that. And it was a little bit of an influence in that way.

“But the song itself is really about being on a level of just not finding what you're looking for. Finding your path a little bit.

It's finding a pathway I guess, and not shying away from what you're after - and a real love song for meeting my partner Hannah and having my daughter Ava. It's a real song for finding what you want and going for it. Feeding your hungry heart.”

Push The Blues Away is out on Friday November 13 through Ivy League Records.

Visit the Rhythms Podcast to listen to the interview and hear some of the music.

Untitled-1 5

CUTTIN’ GRASS VOL. 1 - THE BUTCHER SHOPPE SESSIONS STREAM IT TODAY AND PRE-ORDER THE VINYL WWW.COOKINGVINYLAUSTRALIA.COM

16/10/20 3:58 pm

FEATURE

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JONI THROUGH THE PAST Joni Mitchell looks back to her formative years with Archives Vol.1 (1963-1967).

By Warwick McFadyen

E

veryone starts somewhere. Musicians and songwriters are fortunate that they leave an audio trail of the journey from that first step to the present. Some don’t look back. Others do, and it seems as the shadows start to fall on a career, the greater the weight of archaeology to sift through for the foundations to expose the artist’s mind at the time of the creation.

In the first note struck or sung, the first word coalescing can be heard an artist, wrestling form into shape. Even legends have to take a first step.

Joni Mitchell has released those first steps, and in doing so is following the paths of two of her contemporaries Bob Dylan and Neil Young in opening up the vaults to their work.

A week before her 77th birthday on November 7, Mitchell released the first tranche of what is to be her Archives series.

The five-CD box set, which is also available in combinations of vinyl, includes the first recordings by Mitchell as a teenage Joni Anderson.

As the Dylan and Young Archives and Bootleg series shows, time may be the conqueror, but it can also be the revelator.

The Mitchell Archives release covers the years before she had a record out. Some of the material was before the young Canadian was finding her feet; at times, she was just finding the shoes to put on her feet. One of her first performances from 1963 shows when you’re young and just wanting to perform, well you’ll perform anywhere: ‘‘For Men Only—CKBI-TV Prince Albert, SK: Nineteen-year-old Joni Anderson was booked as a one-time replacement for a late-night moose-hunting show. During the program Joni was interviewed and performed several songs accompanying herself on baritone ukulele.’’

(From her timeline on jonimitchell.com) The boxed set covers 1963 to 1967, the year before the release of her debut album Song to a Seagull in 1968. As with all these endeavours, there is a repetition of song, in different settings and different times.

It’s both portrait of an artist, and evolution of that artist.

For many years, as Mitchell expanded her songwriting, she brushed off the term folksinger. But here it is unequivocal. She was a folksinger, and it was a beauty to behold. Her voice is as clear and pure as a mountain stream. Indeed, she now admits that of this material she should not have been a snob. ‘‘A lot of these songs, I just lost them. They fell away. They only exist in these recordings. For so long I rebelled against the term, ‘I was never a folksinger.’ I would get pissed off if they put that label on me. ‘‘I didn’t think it was a good description of what I was. And then I listened and, it was beautiful. It made me forgive my beginnings. And I had this realisation, I was a folksinger.’’

The discovery and subsequent bringing into the light the motherlode of Mitchell’s first recordings was pure luck.

Barry Bowman was a disc jockey at radio station CFQC-AM in Saskatoon in 1963. A 19-year-old folksinger was playing the clubs.

Her name was Joni Anderson. Bowman asked her into the station to record her. Nine songs were put down on tape.

The newspaper The Times Colonist, of Vancouver Island, where Bowman now lives, recently interviewed Bowman. “I propped her on a stool, put a mic in front of her, went in the booth and put down the recording,” explained Bowman. “And that was it.”

And as is the way of these things, both Bowman and Mitchell moved on, the tapes were misplaced and indeed forgotten.

How easily they could have been gone forever, with Bowman wondering whatever happened to those recordings of the now celebrated and acclaimed singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell. Enter Bowman’s daughter and a box of bits and pieces, found in his former wife’s home in 2015.

Bowman told the Times Colonist: “I kept from time to time thinking, ‘I wonder where those tapes wound up?’ I’d obviously left them in the basement or something like that. And sure enough, [in the box] I spotted this one tape immediately. I recognised it. And then I noticed that there’s a second tape. I had not remembered that there was two tapes.”

Bowman had the tapes converted into digital recordings, and after industry advice contacted Mitchell’s assistant. In 2018, he delivered the tapes to Mitchell, who asked him to write the liner notes for the first disc.

The first disc is as folk as folk can be, and from this distance, gives rise to wondering how Mitchell could have denied it being so. It kicks off with ‘House of the Rising Sun’, then travels through traditional and folk classics such as ‘John Hardy’, ‘Copper Kettle’, ‘Fare Thee Well’, ‘Molly Malone’, ‘The Crow on the Cradle’, ‘Deportee (Plane Crash At Los Gatos)’ and ends with ‘The Long Black Rifle’, ‘Ten Thousand Miles’ and ‘Seven Daffodils’, recorded at her parents’ house.

There is an endearing birthday wish to her mother Myrtle as she leads into ‘Urge for Going’, ironically about fleeing the Canadian winter. ‘Urge for Going’ was recorded by Tom Rush in 1966, and thus took Mitchell on the path of becoming known by others covering her songs. By the time of ‘Song to a Seagull’, her name was wellknown. As good a song as ‘Urge for Going’ is, she didn’t release it until as a B-side to ‘You Turn Me, I’m a Radio’ in 1972, then on her Hits collection in 1996, and then on the compilation Songs of a Prairie Girl in 2005.

Among the early recordings of songs that would become classics of both her catalogue and modern music generally, such as ‘The Circle Game’ and ‘Both Sides Now’, there is a gem of a cover of another young Canadian just starting out: Neil Young. In 1967, she covered Young’s ‘Sugar Mountain’. Young had written the song on his 19th birthday in 1964.

Mitchell a few years later told a concert audience Young wrote it as a ‘‘lament for his lost youth. (...) And I thought, God, you know, if we get to 21 and there's nothing after that, that's a pretty bleak future, so I wrote a song for him, and for myself just to give me some hope.

It's called ‘The Circle Game’.’’

The boxed set also includes Mitchell in 1967 performing ‘Little Green’, written for the daughter she had signed over for adoption.

As Mitchell has said: ‘‘I was dirt poor. An unhappy mother does not raise a happy child. It was difficult parting with the child, but I had to let her go.’’ ‘Little Green’ would be part of the 1971 album Blue, recognised as a masterpiece.

The folk years, of course, did not last. Mitchell’s prodigious talent needed more space in the music and the poetry. Three years after For the Roses came The Hissing of Summer Lawns via Court and Spark.

The eighties brought a string of albums heavy on production that turned off a lot of fans. By the nineties, this had become a cooling off, which paradoxically escalated into open warfare with the industry.

Mitchell was unrepentant. The muse takes you where the muse goes.

Her last album of original material was Shine in 2007.

In the past decade she has battled Morgellons syndrome, and in 2015 had a brain aneurysm. Thus, time the conqueror and, in the evidence of this Archives release, a revelator!

It’s clear from the first track, the light was shining.

Joni Mitchell Archives Vol.1 is available through Warner Music Australia.

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52

Burning Down The House illustration by Todd Alcott Graphics.

Photo by Chris Frantz

FEATURE

“We changed styles multiple times, musical styles.

I never changed my hairstyle!”

Chris Frantz, drummer and founding member both Talking Heads and the Tom Tom Club, has written a memoir detailing his career, his partnership with Tina Weymouth and their relationship with David Byrne. By Brian Wise

I

f things were normal in the music industry this year, we might have been celebrating the 40th anniversary of Remain In Light, the brilliant, visionary and ground-breaking Talking Heads album, released on October 8, 1980. Rolling Stone magazine recently named it at No.39 in its Greatest 500 Albums of All Time but would anybody seriously suggest that Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours (No.7) is a better album? (I think not!). In decades to come it will no doubt climb that list, as others have done, as its importance is reassessed and recognised.

Recorded at Compass Point in the Bahamas and produced by Brian Eno, the album still sounds as invigorating - with its African-influenced polyrhythms, complex instrumentation and surreal lyrics - as when it was first released. With guests including guitarist Adrian Belew, singer Nona Hendryx and legendary trumpeter Jon Hassell, it was a revelation.

Talking Heads broke up in 1991 and, apart from one brief get together, for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, there has never been a reunion tour. Members of lesser bands

(Eagles?) have managed to patch up (or at least ignore) differences and tour. Having seen David Byrne in concert twice last year – at Jazz Fest and in Melbourne – it was apparent that the songs receiving the greatest audience response were the Talking Heads classics. The concerts were great, for sure, but one had the inescapable feeling that a reunion tour would have been even more successful.

If fans are disappointed then there is no doubt Chris Frantz, foundation member of the band with Byrne and Tina Weymouth (who ended up playing bass), is even more regretful. Not that Frantz is expecting a call soon. He hasn’t spoken to Byrne for over 15 years and the only communication between them has been in regard to re-releases and use in films and TV of the music they made together.

“It's a real shame but David has his Broadway show,” says Chris Frantz by Zoom when I catch to chat about his remarkable memoir, Remain inLove. “That's what he's into these days. We can be very proud of our legacy. As you say, the records, not just Remain in Light but maybe particularly Remain in Light - they still sound hip and challenging in a very good way to the listener.”

A discussion with Frantz about Talking Heads could easily get waylaid into a prolonged complaint about David Byrne’s treatment of his fellow band members. But that would be a misinterpretation of Remain In Love, which is about so much more than a dispute.

Of course, it is difficult to escape the overarching presence of Byrne as the eccentric front man of the group: his outsized suits, his onstage mannerisms and his distinctive vocals all made him a memorable character.

Yet propelling Byrne’s music was a group of musicians who contributed greatly to the music – and this was a long-running point of contention. There might not be too many things more frustrating than not getting credit for an artistic creation, especially one that is going to last for decades.

“Although I had indications that David was a different type of person, I was very happy to work with him,” recalls Frantz when I mention that he and Tina met Byrne at the Rhode Island School of Design. “He is a great entertainer with very interesting ideas. I will say that the rest of the band was also very interesting and had good ideas. I think that David is one person, one character in this book of many. >>> 53

“Remain in Light represented an effort to get beyond the predictable rock and roll formulas.”

“My feeling is we would probably not be having this conversation right now had it not been for CBGB….”

>>> “This book is about many different interesting characters. David is one of them.

Of course, Tina is the real star of this book.

When I started writing the book I thought, ‘What's my angle going to be?’ My angle, which I believe is unique unto myself, was that I could tell the Talking Heads story as an insider, a person who was there for the actual formation of the band all the way up to the end. I played on every record. But what really makes my perspective unique is that I was also married to Tina. I saw everything, still continue to see everything, through the eyes of someone who is married to Tina Weymouth and quite happily.”

One of the first signs of potential trouble was regarding the credits for the band’s first single, ‘Psycho Killer,’ written collaboratively

by Byrne, along with Frantz and Weymouth, who had formed a band, The Artistics, playing` mostly covers at college parties and a local pub.

“Tina and I, at that time, shared a painting studio on the art school campus,” continues Frantz. “One day there came a knock at the door - we were working on our paintings - and it was David, [who] said, ‘I've got this song that I've been working on, I wonder if you could help me with it.’ We said, ‘Sure.’ He came in and he played us the first verse and the chorus to a song that he said was inspired

by Alice Cooper. Tina and I thought, ‘Wow, 54

this is very good. We like this.’ David had the idea that the bridge of the song or the middle eight section should be in a foreign language.”

Weymouth ran with the idea and, as her mother was French, wrote the bridge.

“That was the mind of the psycho killer speaking,” says Frantz. “We thought, ‘Oh, that's perfect.’ I sat down and I wrote a couple more verses. Tina and I came up with this thing on the end where we shouted, ‘We are vain and we are blind. I hate people when they're not polite.’ Which we thought was kind of a crazy thing to say. David liked all these ideas, incorporated them into the song. We thought, ‘Wow, this is very promising. We could write more songs of our own, original songs.’ So, we did.”

Byrne, who was initially credited as the writer, was eventually persuaded to change the credits to properly reflect all three but it was one of the things that became a sticking point in the band and something they had to deal with on multiple occasions.

“In Talking Heads we were motivated by various things,” says Frantz. “One thing we wanted to do was become famous, at least that's how David and I felt about it. I'm not sure Tina ever cared about being famous or not. Then we thought, ‘Maybe we could make enough money so we don't have to worry about the rent.’ But we were never

after great riches or anything, that was not our motivation. But going down and making our mark in the history of music was a great motivation for all of us. When you change the credits on something, then the history books write the credits.”

“Yes, the credit issue was a chronic problem with Talking Heads,” he continues. “We would call David out on it when it happened. He'd say, ‘Oh I'll correct it next time’ but it just kept happening every time, over and over again. “Be that as it may, we were still doing such great work together, like really good work together that we didn't want to break up the band because we knew that bands like Talking Heads don't come along every day.

We learned to live with certain, shall we say, unfair aspects of the music business but we kept trying. I don't know if David ever really got the message because he's a person who doesn't seem to realise where he stops and other people begin or vice versa. He doesn't get that. But as you said, we don't need to dwell on this, we can move on to something more positive.”

Some of the most interesting stories in Remain In Love concern the move to New York City, where Talking Heads became a reality and added Jerry Harrison on guitar and keyboards. Frantz hardly paints a romantic portrait of living on the Lower East Side, with its crime and poverty. They rented an

unserviced loft for US$299 a month and dropped in on friends to shower!

“Well, I think it was dangerous although nothing ever happened to us,” says Frantz.

“Maybe it felt more dangerous than it actually was. We were kids from the suburbs whose parents provided nice homes and a nice family life and nice education. We knew we were in the right place but it was a bit of a shocker, the actual living conditions. But, you know, we really had a good time back then despite all of that. We didn't have much money but it seems like nobody had much money back then in the art scene but we could still have a really good time and we did.

“The Talking Heads were living on one street, Chrystie Street, and a block away was Debbie Harry and Chris Stein. Two or three blocks up the street was Dee Dee and Joey Ramone living in a loft there with their graphic designer Arturo Vega. The guys in Television were nearby, either in the East Village or Chinatown. There were loads of good artists and serious artists living around, like Ornette Coleman and Robert Rauschenberg and John Giorno and Philip Glass. Philip Glass lived right around the corner from CBGB and may still live there, I'm not sure. It was a very vital time and also a very vital area, although you would never know it walking down the street because everything was going on behind closed doors.”

CBGB, run by Hilly Kristal, was the focal point for a host of what were to become extremely influential bands and musicians: Talking Heads, Television and Tom Verlaine, Patti Smith, Blondie, The New York Dolls, The Ramones (who Frantz thought were a Mexican band when first told of them), to name just a few.

“My feeling is we would probably not be having this conversation right now had it not been for CBGB,” says Frantz. “CBGB was like the incubator for so many bands including Talking Heads. It was where we learned to hone our stagecraft and get better at performing. Eventually it was the springboard out into the rest of the world for us. I'm very grateful. “ “I don't know if he had a vision, but he was a very magnanimous kind of paternal fellow,”

says Frantz of Kristal, who the band brought onto the stage at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremony. “One great thing he did was if you had ever performed once at CBGBs, you never had to pay admission again. Admission was not a lot of money or anything but in an era when people were pretty much broke it meant that musicians could go to CBGBs and hang out, congregate there and share ideas and gossip and shoot the breeze and get drunk and really have a good time. CBGBs became, in fact, a real clubhouse for all these young bands.”

While many of the CBGB’s bands started to get record deals Talking Heads took the unusual route and held firm against all offers until they felt that their material was good enough. They were even courted by Lou Reed who made them an old-style offer they could easily refuse. “We could rock the stage at CBGBs pretty well but we didn't feel like we were capable of making an album that would stand up to repeated listenings,” says Frantz.

“We felt like we had some work to do on our musical chops.” Finally, Seymour Stein of Sire Records, who they had rejected a year earlier, nabbed them. The debut album 77 offers plenty of hints of just how talented they were.

By 1979’s Fear of Music, and the song ‘I Zimbra,’ the band started incorporating African rhythms into the mix, thanks to listening to Fela Kuti, Manu Dibango, King Sunny Ade and Chief Ebenezer Obey. This rhythmic complexity continued into Remain In Light. While Frantz notes that producer Brian Eno wanted a larger slice of the pie he admits that he was a ‘great producer’.

“He really raised the bar for us,” admits Frantz. “He came from an art school background like we did. We kind of spoke the same language that way. He understood us and we understood him. It was a very beneficial collaboration for everyone concerned, particularly for Brian.

“It was a different style. I don't know why we kept changing styles, but we did. We changed styles multiple times, musical styles.

I never changed my hairstyle! Remain in Light represented an effort to get beyond the predictable rock and roll formulas. Things started becoming kind of predictable with

rock and roll around 1980. Probably because of our art school background, we were anxious to get beyond those formulas.”

A year later, when Byrne decided to make an album with Eno, Frantz and Weymouth formed the Tom Tom Club. They recorded for Island’s Chris Blackwell at Compass Point and enjoyed a No.1 single with ‘Genius of Love’, the follow-up to the infectious ‘Wordy Rappighood,’ which became one of the most sampled songs of all time. This was much to the chagrin of David Byrne.

“That first Tom Tom Club album was like magic,” says Frantz. “We had had no intention of doing anything outside of Talking Heads.

Tina and I were very happy with Talking Heads. But David wanted to do a solo project.

When he said he was going to do it, Jerry said, ‘Well, I want to do a solo project too.’ Tina and I, our hand was kind of forced. We went to Chris Blackwell and he was very cool. We went down to Compass Point and we recorded ‘Wordy Rappinghood’. It was a big hit and it was like magic. It just all came together.”

By 1991, Talking Heads was over and a measure of how the relationships had broken down can be seen in the fact that Frantz and Weymouth found out from reading a newspaper interview with Byrne.

After being together for almost 50 years, Frantz and Weymouth are still in love with each other and with music. I ask Frantz, if he thinks it is easier to keep a marriage going than to keep a band together.

“You know, there's a lot of similarities between a marriage and a band,” he laughs.

“I don't think I'm the first person to say that, but it's been easier for me to keep my marriage together than it was to keep the band together. I don't know if that's the case for everyone. I'm sort of the person who put the band together. I asked David to form a band with me and then I asked Tina to join the band and then I asked Jerry to join the band.

I felt like once we were touring the world and everything, I thought we'd kind of made it and everything was going to be alright, but it just goes to show how wrong you can be.”

Remain In Love: Talking Heads, Tom Tom Club, Tina is published by St Martin’s Press.

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“It wasn’t just dispossessed kids meeting at McLaren and Westwood’s shop, it was more considered than that.”

FEATURE

Photo by David Parkinson

Photo by Toby Amies

MALCOLM MCLAREN: THE ULTIMATE OUTSIDER’S INSIDER

A decade on from his death, former punk svengali, artful dodger and polymath Malcolm McLaren is still dividing people.

His biographer Paul Gorman spoke to Jonathan Alley for Rhythms.

M

alcolm McLaren divided people. People in bands, people in the media, people in the arts, and simply, audiences of everyday people, everywhere. To paraphrase his punk pets The Sex Pistols, ‘No One is Ambivalent’ when it comes to the late manager, fashion designer, filmmaker, sometime musician and permanent contrarian who passed away in 2010. “Do everything the society hates, with as much style as possible…. and, don’t fear failure. Better a flamboyant failure than any kind of benign success”. This throwaway quote from a 2010 BBC documentary, partially based on his original ‘manifesto’ unwittingly became McLaren’s epitaph: it’s literally engraved on his headstone.

Some might paint him as a villain whose scorched earth /year-zero aesthetic threw out the musical baby with the bathwater, while others may view him as a genius who tore down doors through which the masses poured, forming bands of their own in the wake.

Genius? Svengali? Con man? Or an explosive combination of the lot?

And, besides the punk explosion of which he was a central part in the mid ’70s – via management of both The New York Dolls and The Sex Pistols – what was McLaren’s lasting cultural contribution? Beyond this archetypal creator of hype, just who the hell was Malcolm McLaren?

Author Paul Gorman, an acquaintance of McLaren’s (not, he stresses, a close friend) has delved into the not in-considerable contradictions of his life and career in his new biography The Life of Malcolm McLaren, to delve into some possible answers. The man he found

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underneath the silver-tongued satanic polymath was inevitably more complex than the media cartoon for which so many seem so happy to settle. McLaren, a Jew growing up in the austerity of ’50s postwar East End London, led an a-typical childhood and adolescence, privileged in ways, unnecessarily cruel in others. His father deserted the family before McLaren was two.

His mother, uninterested in the concept of raising children, promptly shipped McLaren and his elder brother Stuart off to be raised by their Grandmother, who according to Gorman, both “rejected and spoiled” the young man. “She withdrew him from school after one day, to home-school him. She then gave him a copy of Oliver Twist and told to ‘get on with it’. “ Gorman tells Rhythms, from London “ I think in a way they were the making of him, the failure of those relationships. They are his ‘Rosebud’, to make a comparison to Citizen Kane, those events were the key to his nature”.

Years before punk, or even his Teddy Boy clothes shop Let it Rock (which pre-dated Sex, the infamous boutique he opened with Vivienne Westwood), McLaren was to be found at odds with those around him, albeit stylishly. “He channelled East End Jewish visual expression” says Gorman “The young Jewish men around the East End rag trade all got fine suits for their Bar Mitzvahs: even then he was expressing himself through visual style. But he gravitated toward the margins, and associated with the dispossessed; he experienced an alienation that made him ‘the ultimate outsider’s insider’. “

Gorman’s argument is supported by an obscure news story from 1966: before the Paris riots, before the height of flower power, a young McLaren made his first headline getting arrested in London’s Grosvenor Square for burning the American Flag. But McLaren, before up-ending popular culture completely a decade later, he under-took a rite of passage more familiar to those he later overthrew; the great UK art schools of the late ’60s that had produced John Lennon, Pete Townshend and Syd Barrett, and a great many others. McLaren did eight years at various London art schools, able – as students were in those heady days – to freely move from one to another.

He learned sculpture, painting, fine art, and gained a strong understand art history. In his final year, 1971, he studied at Goldsmiths (later to produce Britain’s richest living artist, Damien Hirst) under the tutelage of Keith Albarn – the father of Blur lead vocalist Damon Albarn. “Keith Albarn told me he always knew McLaren was a mis-fit, but in the best way” says Gorman “When left Goldsmiths, he had a project in his head. It was to do with visual style, art-directed living, and another key idea he engaged with via his interest in the Situationists. According to them, art was over.

It was about setting up a series of interventions and actions that commented on spectacle”.

And that, is punk rock in a nutshell. McLaren recognised, obviously, that he could poke and prod at the under-currents of society he saw around him. It was just a matter of finding how. In ’70s London, he knew he could tap into fashion conscious music-scenesters, hung over from the tumult of the youthquake of the previous decade, cagily poking around for the next big thing; what they didn’t expect was their world would soon implode, to be forever altered by an art terrorist who’d put together the most controversial band the world had seen up to that point; the infamous Sex Pistols. But Gorman found a new angle in the well-trodden story. “It wasn’t just dispossessed kids meeting at McLaren and Westwood’s shop, it was more considered than that. Before Lydon, McLaren was working with a kid called David Harrison: he was a customer at Sex; working class kid from East End, and a Gay man. Again – putting him in The Sex Pistols – it’s this clash of ideas. But he was too shy: he liked Gong, and wanted to play the saxophone”.

Enter one John Lydon, the forever wildcard in the Pistols trail of infamy, the man who was perhaps far too like McLaren himself to work with him for long. Band members Paul Cook, Steve Jones and Glen Matlock initially had little interest in the bony miscreant from Finsbury Park, refusing to turn up to the first rehearsal with him.

But Gorman insists McLaren forced the initial union of an ultimately very unhappy marriage. “ McLaren said ‘no, this guy’s got it: you have to work with him, this person is really important’. He wants to set up an explosion: he juxtaposes surprising elements, and lets it happen”.

This same anarchist-wizard approach continued to define McLaren: he’d learned about the power of iconography from watching stage masters like Lydon and the New York Dolls’ David Johansen: as the ’70s morphed into the ’80s; he took this another step ; re-purposing the looks he’d fashioned with Westwood at their boutiques Let It Rock and Sex for Adam and the Ants, and then Bow Wow Wow (a project he established by removing the Ants from underneath one very unhappy Adam). But the real power move McLaren made in the ’80s was his album Duck Rock, and the single Buffalo Gals.

McLaren was not a DJ, or a lead singer, or even a proper record producer; yet by fusing classic early New York hip hop and a form of bluegrass music, he’d ‘curated’ a record like none other before it. XL Recordings producer/label owner Richard Russell (who produced the last recordings of both Bobby Womack and Gil Scott-Heron) cites it as one of the most influential recordings of his youth in his book Liberation Through Hearing. “He understood the ways in which you

read undercurrents in society” Gorman says “He was quite a cerebral person, who also understood the power of pure rock and roll. He could read undercurrents; visual, political, and social. He fused this understanding of visual style; he’d have made a great advertising magnate or marketing director.”

McLaren maintained this approach until he died in 2010, collaborating with everyone from funk legend Bootsy Collins to acting legend Catherine Deneuve, singer Francoise Hardy , and creating a series ‘soundclash’ films called 1-21, sampled French porn films before the actors dis-robed. He also, tellingly, reconciled with his long-lost father after a journalist tracked him down and engineered a reunion. Gorman remains firm in his view the McLaren stereotype is just that. “I am married to an Australian: I know about larrikins, he was one. He was not as brittle as he was painted, in this cartoon-like way . He was Jewish-Scottish, not very English; and a lifelong romantic. “When news of McLaren’s quite sudden passing broke, Gorman was with former Clash/Big Audio Dynamite musician Mick Jones at The Chelsea College of Art “He said: what a shame, we’ll never hear those ideas again. I think Mick nailed it: that’s the really sad thing when someone passes; we’ll never again know what he thought.”

The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren by Paul Gorman is out now through Little Brown Book Group.

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I’LL BE GONE

– MIKE RUDD, SPECTRUM AND HOW ONE SONG CAPTURED A GENERATION According to Craig Horne’s new book, ‘I’ll Be Gone’ is the iconic song that still resonates 50 years on.

By Ian McFarlane

I

t’s a story that had to be told in book form, a significant part of Australian rock music history. Written by singer / guitarist / songwriter Mike Rudd, Spectrum’s ‘I’ll Be Gone’ remains as relevant today as when

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it hit #1 on the Australian national chart in 1971. It’s so ingrained in our collective psyche now as to be a modern-day folk song.

Musician and author Craig Horne examines the story in his book I’ll Be Gone – Mike Rudd, Spectrum and How One Song Captured a Generation (Melbourne Books). It completes what could loosely be termed a trilogy of music history. If you started with his previous books Daddy Who? – The Inside Story of the Rise and Demise of Australia’s Greatest Rock Band and Roots – How Melbourne Became the Live Music Capital of the World, then I’ll Be Gone is the next important step.

Even if you haven’t read the other two, it’s a book worth your time and attention. Put on a

soundtrack of Spectrum’s Milesago, Ariel’s A Strange Fantastic Dream, Indelible Murtceps’ Warts Up Your Nose or Spectrum Plays the Blues’ Spill and you’ll create a suitably agreeable ambience to take it all in.

‘I’ll Be Gone’ might be the centrepiece under discussion but the whole encompasses Rudd’s life and career, from his time with Chants R&B starting in Christchurch, New Zealand, his move to Melbourne, playing with Ross Wilson’s band The Party Machine, the formation of Spectrum, Indelible Murtceps, Ariel, The Heaters and further afield. Rudd is one of the genuine good guys of the local industry. As well as extensive commentary from him, there are interviews

Sounds of the City featured with Tim Gaze (Ariel guitarist), Simon Wettenhall (from Lipp Arthur), Philip Jacobsen (Spectrum’s manager), Peter Robertson (current Spectrum drummer), Glyn Mason (Ariel guitarist) and many more.

In 1971, with ‘I’ll Be Gone’ heading to the #1 spot on the national chart Spectrum released their debut album, Spectrum Part One. Oddly, and somewhat a departure from commercial practise at the time, the hit single was not included. Rudd had perhaps reasoned that such an atypical Spectrum song didn’t suit the album’s general mood. By not including it Spectrum’s underground reputation was preserved.

Rudd explained to me, “We were amazed at how successful the single became. Pleased of course but because there was quite a hiatus between recording it and when it actually came out, we’d kind of lost contact with the thing. Then it came out and raced manfully to the top of the charts! It’s still a matter of some disbelief, even to me, that we didn’t include ‘I’ll Be Gone’ on the album. I’m sure it couldn’t have happened after that. EMI probably made that rule after we sent that album out. It probably would have sold a lot more units with it on. The single would have opened the album, had we not been certifiably insane at the time. Still, ‘I’ll Be Gone’ has had a marvellous life.”

The single was accompanied by one of the first Australian promotional rock film clips, which cost a whole $300 to produce. Shot in black and white and directed by film-maker Chris Löfven, it’s had regular airings on television and YouTube ever since.

Rudd: “Because I really didn’t have any money in the early days of Spectrum, I was inspired to write ‘I’ll Be Gone’. I had the notion of ‘someday I’ll have money’, so I wrote the song around that. Our modus operandi was, I’d write a smart idea, present the basic sketch to the band and then we’d work on it and come up with the right arrangement. So, we were a jamming band and it was all very organic. I really liked Ross Wilson’s sense of arrangement, but I think he had a lot firmer idea of where he was going whereas I didn’t.

“Many of the songs were longish, and I don’t suppose there were many other bands doing that at the time but that was just the way it worked out for us. We didn’t have any preconceived notion of where we were heading. The attitude was we’ll just do the songs, not with any thought as to whether people were going to like it. It was just a

question of whether we enjoyed doing them. As years went on, we became more conscious of what people were asking for, and probably did a bit of designer writing for that. Certainly, in the early days it was strictly for us.”

The late Bill Putt, Mike’s musical partner for 45 years, said to me in interview many years ago, “In the case of ‘I’ll Be Gone’, it was like any other Spectrum song. Mike had the idea; we rehearsed it and then demoed it.

I remember it had a guitar part at the start originally. I can’t really remember the original arrangement of it but then I do recall one time that Ross was either at a rehearsal or a gig, he’d just come back from England, and Mike was working on a harp part for the intro. Mike nailed a harp line and Ross just went, ‘That’s the one!’.”

The original stereo master recording of ‘I’ll Be Gone’ went for four minutes 22 seconds. For the single release, the recording was folded down to mono and edited to 3:28 which was ideal for radio play. Naturally, most people would be most familiar with the original single cut, but the longer stereo version has been included on subsequent Spectrum reissues.

Within a matter of months of ‘I’ll Be Gone’ reaching #1, Daddy Cool followed suit with ‘Eagle Rock’ as did Chain with ‘Black And Blue’. Formerly counter-cultural rock bands were now the mainstream norm.

Throughout all his musical adventures Rudd has continued to play the song. As soon as he plays that signature opening harp line, audiences erupt with cheers and are up on their feet. They sing “Someday I’ll have money / money isn’t easy come by / by the time it’s come by I’ll be gone” in unison. It’s a true master class in elation.

IN CONVERSATION WITH AUTHOR CRAIG HORNE Congratulations on the book. Can you tell us how you put it together? It’s actually completes a trilogy. You’ve already had Daddy Who? and Roots published, and now the Spectrum book. Was it always your intention to do a trilogy?

No. I had wanted to write the Daddy Cool book, especially after Ross Hannaford and Wayne Duncan died. Originally Ross Wilson was reluctant to be involved. >>>

Ariel-A Strange Fantastic Dream LP coverUK version 1974

A-Reefer-Derci gig advert-Dec 1975-Ariel

Spectrum-Poster 59

>>> Then once Wayne had died and I wrote the eulogy for his funeral, Ross just said, ‘yes, we have to do this’. He was absolutely fabulous over it all. That captured a certain era in Australia music that I, and all of us, love. It was an era of optimism, cultural awakening and all those sorts of things. That led me to thinking, ‘well, how did we become such a great music city?’. I approached David Tenenbaum at Melbourne Books and he said ‘sure, write it!’. That became Roots and I had learnt an incredible amount researching it.

Then leading up to I’ll Be Gone, to me it made sense because Spectrum was almost the brother / sister band to Daddy Cool. Mike had joined Ross in The Party Machine, after heading over from New Zealand with Chants R&B. Following Ross’ lead, Mike saw the whole possibility of writing original songs.

Then when Ross went to London to join Procession, Mike set up Spectrum, following Ross’ blueprint, if you like, of writing quirky, often humorous original songs. Mike’s early influences weren’t so much the Rolling Stones, or whoever, but people like Spike Milligan.

Then when Ross came home from overseas, I think he followed Mike a bit. He formed Sons of the Vegetal Mother then Daddy Cool and also the key point was having Chris Löfven’s film clip for ‘I’ll Be Gone’ and Ross said, ‘I can do that as well with ‘Eagle Rock’’. So, there was a whole lot of cross-fertilisation there.

You could have written a whole book about that one song. The book’s title is I’ll Be Gone but it’s really Mike’s whole journey, his biography. So how did you incorporate the fact that one song defined his career in so many ways?

Basically, he’s felt that he always has to play it, you know, at the end of the set. I just think it was interesting because Spectrum played in a certain way that was exploratory and free flowing and it was almost post-pop if you like. ‘I’ll Be Gone’ is a pop song.

Totally, and you’re right in the way he continues to play it, even up to recent times, under all sorts of different guises.

All he has to do is play that harp line and the audience just reacts immediately.

It’s almost like a folk song now, it’s so ingrained in our psyche.

It is. This is the reason I think it has resonated, it takes us back to that time where it was a feeling of optimism and a feeling of freedom and we were rejecting all of the post-World War II conservatism of the Menzies era. We were really heading for something else, we were protesting against Vietnam and there was still the threat of atomic bombs. We thought, as 18 or 20-years-olds, ‘fuck it I’m off to Queensland, I’ll travel and play in bands.’ I think it captures 60

that spirit. Whenever he plays it you can almost see us all leaning back with our eyes closed, thinking about that time in our lives.

Speaking of heady times, the most interesting thing about Mike as a personality, a band leader, everybody thought he was stoned out of his mind because of the music he wrote but he never touched drugs.

He gets asked about that a lot, and he just agrees, ‘well, I am straight actually’. Peter ‘Robbo’ Robertson, his current drummer, says they always have soda water on stage.

And then back at the hotel Mike would maybe have a glass of red but usually it’s a cup of tea and a biscuit. That’s so sweet, hardly the cocaine snorting rock star.

You write about his relationship with his wife, Helen. That ended up being very sad because he had to care for her for a long time before she died. She was very important in his career. She was his muse.

Yeah, he says that. She was incredibly supportive and encouraging throughout his career. Mike really pays tribute to her in the book. I think in that last chapter about her, it’s heartbreaking. And I think it’s a real credit to him, his loyalty to her, they both saw it through.

Apart from ‘I’ll Be Gone’, which the story hinges around, what are some of your favourite Spectrum, or Ariel or even latterday Mike Rudd songs?

There are so many, how can I pick? I love that first Spectrum album, it’s superb. It’s hard to pick even from that first album. If I was to talk about favourite tracks, let me think about this? ‘Superbody’ and I’ve always loved ‘That’s Alright’ from Milesago, I think that’s unbelievable. And ‘What The World Needs (Is A New Pair of Socks)’. I love that, it’s just hilarious. With Ariel, all of that first album is just wild. In Spectrum they’d just come out in their jeans, but I remember seeing that first Ariel line-up at Swinburne and they came out in costumes with Tim Gaze in a white suit and they were just amazing. I thought, ‘where’s he been, where did he come from?’, he was incredible.

Lastly, on a question of writing, what was your approach to writing the book? Did you do it piecemeal or did you religiously sit in front of the computer writing so many words per day?

Exactly the latter. Because we are in lockdown and my wife is working, I’d just start every day at 10 o’clock and finish at 5 o’clock. I had it planned out and I just had to follow the story chronologically. Mike was great plus he has an incredible archive of photos and cuttings, five big scrap books, which he gave me access to. That was really crucial.

Spectrum-Milesago LP 1971

Murtceps-Warts Up Your Nose advert 1972

Spectrum-I’ll Be Gone single, Germany, 1971

Sounds of the City

I’LL BE GONE – MIKE RUDD, SPECTRUM AND HOW ONE SONG CAPTURED A GENERATION

The Accidental Masterpiece Excerpt courtesy of the author and Melbourne Books © 2020 When Mike Rudd, with Bill Putt, Lee Neale and Mark Kennedy walked into Armstrong’s Studios that fateful day they were fresh from playing to over one hundred thousand people at Princes Gate opposite Flinders Street Station at the end of yet another moratorium march. Initially they recorded two tracks that day. The first was ‘Launching Place, Part I’, a lilting, melodic guitar-driven instrumental that highlights both Mike’s distinctive approach to playing the guitar and Mark Kennedy’s great drum feel. The second song was ‘Launching Place Part II’, a satirical, some would say brutal, take on the festival experience, or as the Milesago site rightly described it: ‘A rather savage attack on the naïveté of the prevailing peace-and-love festival ethos.’ This was an interesting choice for a song designed to publicise a festival, especially with lyrics such as, ‘Doctor, doctor, take your shoes off, dance around in sheep manure.’ Although typical of Mike’s black humour, the song manages to make the whole festival experience sound like an altogether unappealing event—sinister even—as the disturbing imagery of the last verse alludes to, ‘The world no longer is a virgin, empty sockets blankly stare, children making love to children, children making love to children…’

According to Mike: At the end of the session Howard looked slightly desperate and asked us if we had anything else. Well I did, I had this song, ‘I’ll Be Gone’. We’d been playing it at our gigs and it received a really strong reaction every time. It

also had the imprimatur of Ross Wilson. Ross had come back to Melbourne after his stint with Procession in London. He came to one of our rehearsals and gave us his song ‘Make Your Stash’. We then played him our set and when he heard ‘I’ll Be Gone’, he tapped his nose and said, ‘Yep that’s The One!’ So, in the end, ‘I’ll be Gone’ was recorded as an after-thought … it was the harp riff that did it. It locked in the listener instantly.

It was that riff and, according to Philip Jacobsen, the rearrangement of the song by producer Howard Gable, that certainly contributed to the song’s appeal.

Sure, the harp riff is quintessential to the song, but so are the eloquent lyrics, described by Milesago as: A wistful, almost fatalistic observation of life on the road and [of] the elusiveness of love and fortune. With its loping country-blues feel, the easy swinging backbeat from Mark and Bill, and interlocking guitar and electric piano

by Mike and Lee … ‘I’ll Be Gone’ became, (upon release) an immediate hit, racing up the charts to become the national #1 in February 1971 and spending twenty weeks in the charts.

‘I’ll Be Gone’ was a song that not only ushered in a new era in Australian music, it also pointed to the metamorphosis underway in the wider Australian community.

Thousands of young people were pouring into universities and rejecting the traditional expectations of their parents of: career, marriage, children and a quiet, comfortable life in the suburbs.

With the world on the edge of nuclear danger and change, young people saw this world with different eyes. If the bomb was about to drop, if capitalism led to social and sexual inequality, environmental Armageddon and mass exploitation then fuck it, let’s do something else! Let’s get out of the rat race;

let’s not fan the flames of hysteria; let’s live an alternative life and not one dominated by the traditional black and white world of sport, career, The Women’s Weekly and the mysteries of the Sunday roast. Many young people had little in common with this grey world and aspired to a life lived in full colour.

To me, that is the message of ‘I’ll Be Gone’; its simple lyric rejects the overriding materialist ideal of a life lived in luxury, and instead looks to a life that embraces simplicity and freedom. It’s a beautiful song, a song that spoke to a generation, a generation that was embracing a spirit of hope over violence, trauma, lies and greed. But it was a song that had been edited to conform to the pop radio three-minute, thirty-second formula.

It was in many ways at odds with the pervasive force of Spectrum’s cerebral catalogue of music. This contradiction would follow Spectrum and Mike throughout their and his career.

I’LL BE GONE – Mike Rudd, Spectrum and How One Song Captured a Generation by Craig Horne is available from Melbourne Books (melbournebooks.com.au) 61

TOP GEAR!

By Brian Wise

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his year during the lockdown we have been updating our technology and I thought you might like to know what sort of gadgets and gear we have been using and what you can buy with your tax return or festive season gift vouchers. (I have noted where we have had a demo model, otherwise we are using the gear on a daily basis).

THE IMAC You can get a brand-new iMac (like the one shown) for under $1700 which sounds ridiculously cheap these days for something that has hundreds of times more computing power than the lunar lander (so does your phone). Or you can do what we did at Rhythms. Incensed at being told throw away our slowing late-2009 iMac – the computer equivalent of a great grandfather – we fitted it with a brand new OWC SSD drive. Okay, there were a few small bits left over because we did it ourselves, but it seems to be running almost like new. While it can’t handle the latest operating system, it will last long enough for us to save up for a newbie.

SAMSUNG GALAXY

Of course, you can get the same flip function in the new Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2 for a mere $2999! Another friend convinced me to buy the LG30+ which has a built in DAC that produces great sound and you can add a mini-SD card for storage – and it is still really cheap! Nevertheless, the iPhone connects up with all your other Apple devices and the cloud which might be a major consideration for us on the road in future.

IPAD PRO

PODTRAK L-8 If this is too complicated, then you can get the Podtrak P4 which is much more compact. It has four mic inputs with XLR connectors and four headphone outputs with individual volume control, the same phone functions as the L-8. It also has sound pads and records directly to SD etc cards. Powered by batteries and a AC

RODECASTER PRO If you are serious about podcasts you can also have a look at the Rodecaster Pro – which was ground-breaking when it was released and now has several extra accessories such as a battery pack. But remember that whatever device you record onto the quality of the sound will be determined by the quality of the microphone you use.

RODE USB NT MIC

By the way, when buying computer equipment, we now employ what I like to call the Harrison Principle, named after our subscriber Graham Harrison, who sagely said, “Why would anyone want to buy a four-cylinder Mustang?” When applied here it means you must get the fastest processor (which we like to refer to as a ‘donk’) and the largest capacity drive you can possibly afford because, for certain, you will run out of storage. (Mark the words of the fool – me who bought a 256GB MacMini!).

IPHONE Who would ever have thought we would want to pay $1400 for a phone, which is where the new iPhone 12 starts! The old Motorola flip phone I bought 20 years ago in the States for $50 still starts up but, unfortunately, it won’t work on the current network.

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This year we used the iPad Pro to produce the Womadelaide special broadcast for Triple R and the CBAA. This is almost as good as a laptop and has the new A12Zchip. We used some software to emulate the studio and it worked brilliantly. You can also now buy a keyboard with a trackpad (at an additional cost) but the cheaper keyboard works fine.

The 12.9” Pro is quite hefty, and you need to be careful when using it to read in bed. Fall asleep and drop it on your face and you either have a nasty shock or a broken nose!

ZOOM LIVE-TRAK L-8 Fancy doing a podcast anyone?

We’ve been using the Live-Trak L-8 to produce some podcasts and programs. You’ll hear a lot more of them in future which is why we love this machine.

The L-8 has an 8-channel mixer, a MixMinus function for phone guests and a TRRS cable for phone connectivity. There are also sound pads for pre-set sounds and effects, connections for 6 microphones if you need them and you can also use battery power or a USB power supply. It records to an SD card or you can run it into your computer or into a broadcast input.

A few years ago, we got a bargain Shure SM7B in the USA after producer John Porter used one to record a program for us. Apparently, this is Bob Dylan’s favourite mic – at least one thing we have in common with him. The ElectroVoice RE-20 is supposed to be as good. Both are a bit too heavy to take in a shoulder bag into the field. On the road, I sometimes use a 30-year-old EV PL11 (now discontinued) which is very good. Tim Thorpe at Triple R has been using a Rode NT USB Mini to record his programs during the lockdown in Victoria and for $149 it sounds great.

TECHNICS SL1200 As I mentioned last month, I have re-discovered my vinyl collection and had the use of a Technics SL1200 Mk7 for a few weeks to compare to my original 30+ year old SL1200. This is a brilliant turntable with everything you need if you are producing program material and the new model seems every bit as good. It is quite a heavy-duty piece of equipment.

Our advertiser AudioJunction has Technics in stock. It also has Rega Planar turntables which look the most likely to provide a second device next year.

Lock your Music in the Vault - By John Cornell

H

aving your entire curated CD collection at your fingertips can be a wonderful thing, no more having to excuse yourself from the dinner party to change the music on your cd player or having to make a choice of only 5-6 CD’s for your multi player.

You could use a streaming service such as Spotify to play from, but you would probably be compromising on audio quality plus some of your carefully curated CD collection may not be available via streaming apps.

Before music streaming became the thing you probably would have downloaded a playlist for your iPod and put up with the crappy sound of Compressed MP3 filesremember that!

Now that times have moved forward you can have all of you lovingly collected CD collection stored on a device with Hi Fi sound quality playback and accessible via your smart phone, tablet or laptop. These devices are known as a dedicated Music Ripper Streamer and there are a number of them available on the Australian market.

My pick of these products is the BLUESOUND VAULT 2i. The BLUESOUND company was birthed from the famous and respected HI FI Manufacturer NAD (New Acoustic Dimension) founded in London in 1977 by Dr Martin L Borish and now owned since 1999 by The Lenbrook Group based in Pickering, Ontario, Canada.

BLUESOUND wireless streaming products were released onto the market in 2014 and

have continuously evolved. BLUESOUND like to say they are not a computer company masquerading as an audio company, but that they are an audio company making products for audio and music lovers that incorporates computer technology.

The VAULT can be a stand alone product that integrates into an existing Hi Fi Rig or can communicate with other BluOS enabled Players for a home wide experience. The VAULT name says it all, you can declutter (making more room on your shelf for all those family pictures and knick-knacks) by ripping and storing your entire CD collection on to the 2TB hard drive via an inbuilt optical CD drive. The hard drive will hold around 5000 compact discs at full resolution.

If more space is required you can plug in an additional external hard drive easy-peasy.

You can also download Hi RES tracks from the internet or transfer files from your computer.

One of the great things about the VAULT is that you don’t need to download any software to do this- you simply put a CD into the ripper and it will do the rest including sourcing album artwork and track listings, it doesn’t get much easier than this.

Being a streamer as well you can stream music from your favourite streaming service.

Some of the biggest players to choose from in the Australian music streaming market are: Tidal, Spotify, Deezer, Google Play, Amazon and Apple music.

Another handy feature of this unit is the on-board Bluetooth aptHX HD which not only allows you to play files from your smart device via Bluetooth to the VAULT (for when your muso friend comes around and wants to play you their latest composition on their phone) but it is two-way Bluetooth. This means you can stream High Res audio from the VAULT to a pair of compatible Bluetooth enabled headphones for late night listening to your CD collection keeping the rest of the household happy campers.

The VAULT is part of the BLUESOUND Wireless streaming family of products which includes speakers, amplifiers and preamplifiers. With the BLUESOUND ecosystem you can, by using your home wireless network, connect up to 64 BluOS – enabled players through the BluOS Controller App for a house wide music system. For more information on other BLUESOUND products check them out at bluesound.com.

The vault is available in both black and white colours and currently retails for $1999.00

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BY NICK CHARLES

JORDAN BRODIE

Jordan is one of the new bright lights in the Australian acoustic guitar world. He’s wonderfully talented, prolific and dedicated to fulfilling his potential. Once the touring world arrives at some sort of normality he’ll be coming your way, but for now check out his great recordings.

I’ve noticed a big leap between First Take and your latest recordings and videos. You must be hard at work!

I look at music as a full time job. I am very disciplined, self-driven, meticulous and organised. I have to be continually learning and growing. I do that mainly through songwriting, listening and learning from other artists and incorporating new ideas into my tunes and pushing my musical boundaries.

“Twitch” is a good example of this.

I can hear a little of the new- age acoustic approach but also shades of classical technique, jazz chording and some choice jazz/blues voicings. How do we account for this fine mix?

I studied Jazz Guitar at the Queensland Conservatorium so the more crazy, jazz, intellectual side of my playing is fuelled by that world. I also love Celtic music and a strong melody. Everything revolves around melody for me. My influences are a melting pot of jazz, blues, classical, country, traditional and popular music with artists including Tommy Emmanuel, Julian Lage and Emil Ernebro.

Your take on the Toy Story theme is exceptional in groove and articulation.

Tell me how that was put together.

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The idea for the arrangement was to explain and breakdown fingerstyle guitar and the “boom chick” bass. Chet Atkins always had the knack for taking well- known tunes and adding his signature “boom chick” bass approach while incorporating the rhythm and melody simultaneously.

It’s interesting how most acoustic conversations come around to the influence of Chet. He seems to be a guidepost to making a living in music- through production, sessions etc. in order to, whenever possible, play one’s own music. Do you have a career plan as such?

It seems few musicians actually make a living through only one area of music. The modern guitarist is more likely to have a successful and sustainable career by being self-sufficient. Particularly this year, I’ve had to re-evaluate. I’ve altered my approach from focusing on touring to developing various streams of income, such as streaming and playlist royalties, creating online tutorials, sheet music and teaching. I needed more balance.

You’re getting a lovely warm, big sound in your videos. What goes in to producing that?

I’m very much a student when it comes to sound engineering. I’ve spent hours researching my favourite artists' recording techniques and know the sound I want to achieve. I pass my ideas onto the engineer. However, a lot of it just comes down to being prepared on recording day, having a great sounding guitar and a good ear. Eventually, I’d like to record and produce my own albums to become more self-sufficient and sustainable.

Speaking of great albums, what are some of the benchmarks, old and new that you look to?

1. Center Stage (Live Album) Tommy Emmanuel The album was in the family car for years and years, listened to on every road trip. The beginning of my fingerstyle journey.

2. The Day the Finger Pickers Took Over the WorldChet Atkins, Tommy Emmanuel 3. Sultans of Swing: The Very Best of Dire Straits 4. One Quiet Night - Pat Metheny 5. World's Fair - Julian Lage . A massive game changer for me. It summed up perfectly how to blend classical and jazz techniques and harmony, all while maintaining a clear melody on acoustic guitar. My tune "Luna" was strongly inspired by his approach.

What are your plans once life returns to normal?

I hope to finish the tours I had planned this year, especially NZ and Tasmania. I was a week into a 3 week tour when Covid struck. I released Riff Raff in August, so my goal is to promote that. My dream is to be able to perform regularly across Europe and US/ Canada.

By Martin Jones

RALPH TOWNER / GARY BURTON MATCHBOOK ECM 1975

T

he three (and a third) of you who read this column regularly might have discerned its predilection for ambient seventies jazz. But I maintain that we need to share all the advice we can in navigating the minefield of that era of jazz. While some (most) were busy abusing notes and synthesizers others were exploring gentler spaces where no jazz player had tread before.

Freddie Hubbard’s Polar AC and Pat Metheny’s and Lyle Mays’ As Falls Witchita, So Falls Witchita Falls (technically ‘80s not ‘70s) are examples of the latter which have already graced this column space.

Recorded over two days in 1974 in Ludwigsburg, Germany, Matchbook is a worthy companion to those two releases. While critically acclaimed at the time of its release, acknowledged as the best of Ralph Towner’s and Gary Burton’s partnership, it’s difficult to find much information about it.

What do we know about its protagonists? Both began their musical lives as pianists inspired by Bill Evans, and both went on to become innovators on different instruments. Burton pioneered a four-mallet approach to vibraphone based on his piano studies and Towner switched primarily to nylon and 12-string guitar and the title Matchbook most probably comes from one of his experiments; interlacing his strings with a cardboard matchbook to create a percussive effect. Both players were pioneers of jazz fusion, Burton bringing country and rock elements into his jazz in the sixties and Towner embracing folk, classical and Indian elements.

On Matchbook, the duo’s lust for experimentation is used for good not evil, perhaps uniting in their original love for Evans’ use of harmony and melody. In fact, while Evans was renowned for leaving out root notes for the bassist to play, on Matchbook there is no bass player, not much bottom end at all, the listener invited to fill the bass and percussion with their imaginations, the guitar and vibraphone liberated to soar and dive around each other while never straying too far from a strong melodic focus.

That focus is particularly evident on the two non-original pieces, ‘Some Other Time’ and ‘Goodbye Pork Pie Hat’. Though the former was originally written by Leonard Bernstein for the musical On the Town, I’d like to imagine that it was Bill Evans’ take on the tune which united Burton and Towner. You can hear the sparse chords and notes of Evans’ introduction echoed in the Matchbook version – surely an unabashed homage.

‘Goodbye Pork Pie Hat’, Charles Mingus’s tribute to the godfather of cool, Lester Young, closes Matchbook in a rendition that is more sombre than celebratory in tone. Again, Burton and Towner constantly switch lead roles, blurring the lines between their respective instruments, a triumphant and affecting duet.

Of the album’s remaining material, Burton contributes a short composition, ‘Brotherhood’, with the other six written by Towner.

Each side is broken up by a one-minute interlude track. On Side 1 it’s Burton’s spooky ‘Brotherhood’, a drone and a few sparse notes, the perfect soundtrack to a suspense building pre-climax horror movie scene. Side 2’s ‘1 x 6’ is less ominous, a classical guitar solo with Spanish influence.

Of the Towner compositions here, ‘Icarus’ is his most famous, perhaps one of his signature tunes, previously recorded on his solo album and with The Paul Winter Consort. The vibraphone taking the lead here really helps with the intended sense of weightlessness and flight. It’s a dramatic piece.

Following the eloquent nylon string guitar composition ‘Song For a Friend’ (haven’t been able to discover which friend inspired it) comes the title track, by far the most energetic performance on the album, Towner finger picking at lightning speed to create, for the most part, a drone over which Burton takes flight. Though towards the end Towner takes his turn to solo on nylon string, the vibes pattering like rain in the background ‘til both instruments unite in a flurry of ascending notes.

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BY KEITH GLASS 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.

JIM PULTE OUT THE WINDOW United Artists UAS-5579 (1972) In retrospect, the period 1971-72 were quite the years for ‘roots’ style Rock n’ Roll. Record companies were giving a fresh look to artists who would have been passed over in the ‘pop’ era and singer/songwriters were the new heroes of the charts. Enter Oklahoma born Jim Pulte. Already a veteran of local bands The Disciples who morphed nationally into Southwind. The latter a group with tons of potential that made two albums for the eccentric Blue Thumb label (the other singer/ songwriter in the outfit was ‘Moon’ Martin) but alas there were no actual hits.

With the band relocating to Los Angeles, Pulte was given a chance to reconnect with several Okie alumni including the brimming 66

with talent Jesse Ed Davis who eagerly took on the job of producing Jim’s solo debut.

Not only that, he filled the sessions with fine musicians including the great Leland Sklar on bass, (who despite playing on over 2000 albums NEVER ‘phones it in’), the spectacular Jim Keltner on drums, steel maestro Buddy Emmons; and among others Dr. John, Ben Sidran and Larry Knechtel on keyboards.

Of course, Davis’ guitar work is exemplary throughout - almost alone worth the price of admission.

You’d think the songs would have to be pretty special to house this degree of talent and you’d be right if subtlety was spectacular.

Play the album once and Polte’s light vocal approach tends to make little initial impact as he works his way through a variety program starting out with the cheery (despite the title) jaunty and almost vaudeville style ‘All Uphill From Here’ then concluding strangely with what could be his best two compositions, the grinding ‘Old Time Junkie’, (love being the drug) and title track ‘Out The Window’ - a tale of lost love as a beguiling last gasp. Along the way all flows pretty well. Track three ‘My Heart’s On Sweet Rollene’ for example is a fine rollicking groover reminiscent of The Band, but perhaps the fare is a tad on the light side (dictated by Jim’s slight but endearing vocals) until we hit the very singular Jesse Ed song ‘Reno Street Incident’,

on which Pulte probably posts a better version than the writer. Wickedly funny and sexual, the song could have been a hit either time if radio would have played it – which of course never happened. Then as indicated above, the album comes into focus and finishes on a high note.

Record racks were (and still are) littered with albums like this. You can flip over them or maybe something catches your eye for further examination. I go back to the moment of creation here. Two Okie kids in the City of Angels re-connect, grab some musical heavyweights and make a major label album. It’s a particularly American dream. It doesn’t happen anymore. It all still sounds pretty good almost fifty years later and the only way you can get it is on the original vinyl release (or a few selected tracks online) – either way it’s going to cost you very little or nothing and give a whole heap of enjoyment. Both Jim and Jesse Edd are gone but thankfully the music and the memory lingers on.

Polte hung in for one more album (which I confess I’ve never seen or heard) then virtually gave the game away. From the scraps I’ve read, he seemed to have no regrets and moved on to other life experiences. Although he’s gone, I guess he is one of the lucky ones.

By Trevor J. Leeden

INTRODUCING EDDY AND THE FALCONS

STEEP CANYON RANGERS

Esoteric/Planet

ARM IN ARM Yep Roc/Planet

CHRIS SMITHER

MORE FROM THE LEVEE

Signature Sounds Recordings/ Planet

SHARON JONES & THE DAP-KINGS

JUST DROPPED IN (TO SEE WHAT CONDITION MY RENDITION WAS IN) Daptone/Planet

Roy Wood has worn many hats on his schizophrenic musical journey, and ‘genius’ is a comfortable fit. After the brilliance of The Move and ELO, his next incarnation came with Wizzard, a ferocious big band that mixed be-bop jazz with rock’n’roll, as well as delivering a bona fide pop classic in ‘See My Baby Jive’, and a ubiquitous festive seasonal favourite.

Eddy is an unashamed pastiche of vintage fifties Teddy Boy rock’n’roll, re-creating the sounds of Carl Perkins, Del Shannon, Elvis, Gene Vincent and even Neil Sedaka; drape coats and blue suede shoes are highly recommended when listening.

BEAUSOLEIL

EVANGELINE WALTZ Sunset Blvd Records/Planet

It’s been a busy time for North Carolina’s undisputed kings of bluegrass, with Arm In Arm being their third release in the space of 12 months. It is an unabashed celebration of relationships forged over decades, and an homage to their musical influences. Still firmly grounded in, but not limited by, their bluegrass tradition, the Rangers continue to blaze adventurous new musical trails. From the anthemic “Every River” to the gentle vulnerability of “Honey On My Tongue”, this is a string band at the very height of its powers.

DANIELLE MIRAGLIA BRIGHT SHINING STARS VizzTone/Planet

Essentially a sequel (or encore) to 2014’s superb Still On The Levee, a retrospective of songs re-recorded with a stellar cast of New Orleans’ finest, More… adds another ten outstanding songs from the vault. Smither opens with a beautiful reading of 1970’s lovelorn “Lonely Time” and concludes with the elegiac tenderness of 2006’s “Father’s Day”; in between are cherished favourites such as “Caveman”, “I Am the Ride” and “Drive You Home Again”, and he even manages to squeeze in a delightful new blues shuffle about stolen cars “Let It Go”.

Smither should be declared a national treasure.

BERT JANSCH

This jaw dropping compilation of cover songs that were recorded upon request for movies, TV programmes and tribute albums serves as a bittersweet reminder of the awesome talent the world lost in 2016.

The breadth of artistic styles is, well, breathtaking, from Dusty Springfield to Janet Jackson, Woody Guthrie to Prince, Stevie Wonder to Kenny Rogers, and Shuggie Otis to The Wailers.

From faithful renditions to funk reinvention, the 13 tracks make for an eclectic, soultastic freakout as good as any studio album Jones released during her lifetime.

Earth Recordings

JOHNNY WINTER

CRIMSON MOON

TEXAS ‘63-‘68

Sunset Blvd Records/Planet

After nearly 50 years of flying the flag, BeauSoleil are as close to Cajun royalty as it gets. Under the leadership of ace fiddler Michael Doucet, they have consistently set the standard for not only preserving the Cajun tradition but also forging new paths by embracing R&B, jazz and a soupcon of rock into their repertoire. It’s all on display on this fabulous 2-disc set, recorded before an intimate fais do-do crowd in Baton Rouge; good time Cajun dance music doesn’t get any better (and also check out Doucet’s excellent new solo album Lacher Prise while you’re at it).

There is little doubt that Miraglia has assiduously studied the exploits of both Rory Block and Bonnie Raitt. With a raspy Joplin-esque voice, the Boston native puts those lessons to good use on this fine set of rootsy blues tunes. A foot stomping, finger-picking take on Ma Rainey’s “C.C. Rider” is a standout, as is the interplay between Peter Parcek’s tasty electric licks and her pulsating acoustic lead thumb technique on Janis Joplin’s “Turtle Blues”.

Laurence Scudder (viola) and Richard Rosenblatt (harmonica) add understated embellishments to a fine acoustic blues set.

This 20th anniversary reissue is a timely reminder of the Scottish troubadour’s unsurpassed virtuosic talents. Peerless as an acoustic guitarist and possessed of a natural yet captivating vocal style, Jansch is joined by contemporary electric guitar practitioners Bernard Butler and Johnny Marr. As with much of his later work, the mood is subdued and atmospheric with subtle jazz and blues inflections, dabbling in traditional folk tunes, Appalachian murder ballads, some originals, and a carefree rendition of Guy Mitchell’s “Singing the Blues”.

The albino guitarist from Beaumont, Texas was a bluesrock force of nature right up until his death in 2014. The 41 tracks included trace Winter’s beginnings from a performer with distinct soul tendencies (such as Ray Charles) to Mose Allison’s R&B influences, through to the release of his blistering solo debut The Progressive Blues Experiment and the power trio Johnny Winter And, which would set the template for Texas blues.

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IS WHERE THE ACTION IS

By Christopher Hollow

DANA GAVANSKI WIND SONGS EP Full Time Hobby

Stuck in lockdown, unable to tour due to the global pandemic, Serbian-Canadian folk artist Dana Gavanski has recorded a covers EP that is superimpressive. I mean, sometimes you don’t think you need to hear a song again until you do.

Like when Dana sings the Chic number, ‘At Last I Am Free’.

Here, she shaves it of all its disco 1978ness-ness and the result is stunning. (Btw, Robert Wyatt also did a great rendition for a 1980 single). Gavanski achieves similar results with the King Crimson ballad, ‘I Talk to the Wind’. It’s a closer reading to the original but no less striking (it’s worth noting the song’s original singer on the Giles-Giles-Fripp version, Judy Dyble, just passed away too). The third knockout is taking on a very underrated mid-60s Tim Hardin track, ‘Never Too Far’, and, again, celebrating its timeless feel. The most original interpretation is saved for Judee Sill’s ‘The Kiss’, which swaps the Heart Food LP string arrangement for an electronic reading. The lyrics inspiring the album title: “Holy breath touching me, like a wind song, sweet communion of a kiss.”

THE NUDE PARTY

MIDNIGHT MANOR New West The Nude Party are a charismatic six-piece party rock band from North Carolina via upstate New York. Their smart self-titled debut came out in 2018 (check out 68

‘Water on Mars’). On Midnight Manor, the opening salvo, ‘Lonely Heather’, sets a scene with percussion piano, breathless vocal and hints of cowbell, roaring out of the blocks, a romp, a rollick, a raucous ride down a slippery slide ("Lonely, lonely Heather, when you twist, I hear the crinkle of your leather!") .

It proves a hard act to follow but if you like your country flavoured rock and roll with a side of pisstake, then you’ll enjoy numbers like ‘Pardon Me, Satan’ and ‘Thirsty Drinking Blues’ (“Now I’m drinking with me again instead of drinking with you”) while it’s hard not to love the Todd Rundgren homage, ‘Shine a Light’.

NICK MASON’S SAUCERFUL OF SECRETS

LIVE AT THE ROUNDHOUSE Sony

As a kid, the first live show I ever saw was Pink Floyd at the new National Tennis Centre, early 1988. In hindsight, it was an amazing event to experience but, at the time, I was kinda disappointed. I didn’t hear any of the songs I wanted to (my

favourite Pink Floyd cassette was Relics). Turns out, what I really wanted to see was Nick Mason’s Saucerful of Secrets playing ‘Interstellar Overdrive’, ‘See Emily Play’ and ‘Astronomy Domine’. On this live album, the Floyd drummer taps back into his much younger self to showcase Syd Barrett-era songs that helped launch the band as superstars. And that includes oddities like ‘Bike’, ‘Remember a Day’ and ‘Vegetable Man’, which would’ve absolutely lit me up as a teen. BTW, I would love to go back to Rod Laver Arena and hear that Pink Floyd show all over again. I’d definitely enjoy it more second time round.

with Wayne pining: ‘I wish the dinosaurs were still here now.’

Then there’s more references to LSD, weed, Quaaludes, the usual Flaming Lips fare. It’s another instrumental, ‘When We Die When We're High’, that piques my interest again. I’ll keep trying.

DEAN & BRITTA QUARANTINE TAPES PIAPTK

THE FLAMING LIPS AMERICAN HEAD Warner

Confession: I own every Flaming Lips record. But I don’t listen to the Flaming Lips. (I’ve got a similar relationship with Wilco, Nirvana, Spiritualized and R.E.M). I am, however, always intrigued enough to see if the latest release will be the one to draw me back into the fold. With American Head, I feel close. I love the first three tracks especially the instrumental, ‘Watching the Lightbugs Glow’, featuring wordless singing from country superstar Kacey Musgraves.

‘Flowers of Neptune 6’ is good, too, but I enjoy it most when singer Wayne Coyne recedes from talking acid and the backing vocals kick in and it sounds like acid. ‘Dinosaurs on the Mountain’ is the type of song that has made me tune out

For music fans, the big question is this: despite the lockdown and no touring, have we ever felt closer to our favourite artists? 2020 has seen a range of musicians doing Zoom streaming shows. Rewarding followers with intimate performances that are heavy on the requests. My fave duo, Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips, have curated a live album from their L.A. Echo Park residence that distils the best of their streamed recitals.

Physically, it’s a box set of six lathe-cut vinyl singles, digitally it comes with incredible Brian Calvin album art. The songs incorporate Wareham’s career in Galaxie 500 and Luna but it’s the covers that are the hook, ranging from huge hits like the Bee Gees’ ‘Massachusetts’ to Donovan’s rare 70s ballad, ‘Sadness’. Bob Dylan’s late-‘80s comeback, ‘Most of the Time’ to Cristina’s New York no-wave number, ‘He Dines Out on Death’.

Then, there’s the Incredible String Band’s ‘Air’, a remix of Kraftwerk’s ‘Neon Lights’ or The Clash’s ‘I’m So Bored With the U.S.A’.

BY CHRIS FAMILTON

Western Dreams To outsiders, country music is often cruelly pigeonholed as big hats, trucks, guitars and broken hearts. Fans and students of the genre and the myriad of styles that fall under its wide umbrella know that you can find any tone and temperament within it – from bland commercialism to avant-garde concept albums.

There’s been a marked increase in the number of people turning to music that soothes the mind and soul in 2020. A reprieve from politics and pandemics and a way to process the societal disruption we’ve all been experiencing. For open-minded country and folk music listeners, there are plenty of acts and albums that serve that purpose.

Much of the meditational and indeed cosmicsounding music gets pegged as ambient/ slowcore country and folk noir. Most has a psychedelic aspect to it, unavoidable when you consider the influence of the desert in American music and the prevalence of nature and mysticism in UK folk.

Cowboy Junkies have always had that psychedelic patina to their recordings – the slow, drowsy feel that hypnotises the listener with its twang and shimmer. Mazzy Star were psychedelic wanderers who had more

country than rock in their heavy-lidded DNA, and more recently, Estonian band Holy Motors dial into and continue a similarly narcotised musical atmosphere.

Folk music has always explored bewitching territory, from the acoustic reveries and minimalism of the American Primitive Guitar scene to the players of the British folk revival in the 60s. There’s an undeniable ambient aesthetic that runs through to current artists making similar explorations.

Players such as William Tyler, D.C Cross, Chuck Johnson, Luke Schneider and Daniel Lanois. The primary instrument of the latter two is the pedal steel, an instrument with a unique predilection for conveying heartache and atmosphere with its heavily emotive sound. Johnson, Cross and others draw from multiple sources – adding electronic elements and field recordings to their music to further widen their impressionistic landscapes.

New York instrumental group SUSS conjure up what Brian Eno and Ennio Morricone might sound like together, taking influence from albums such as Eno and Lanois’ Apollo and Ry Cooder’s Paris, Texas. There’s a soundtrack quality to their compositions that can be compared to the film music work of Nick Cave & Warren Ellis, which always seems to contain traces of the western or folk

aesthetic. One key release that many of these artists would likely cite from their record collections would be Bruce Langhorne’s soundtrack to the 1971 Peter Fonda western Hired Hand. Richmond Fontaine are another group whose music increasingly dealt in minimalist, nuanced, widescreen qualities, though theirs was more of the literary bent, reflecting the writing of their songwriter Willy Vlautin. Their final release was a soundtrack to one of his novels, Don’t Skip Out On Me. Of the bigger names in Americana and alt-country, Wilco are renowned for their expansive and experimental approach to traditional song form and as a result they’ve made regular forays into ambient-influenced territory. Whether it’s the meditational dissonance of ‘Less Than You Think’ (A Ghost Is Born) or the ghostly dreamscape of ‘Reservations' (Yankee Hotel Foxtrot). Other acts such as Calexico and Lambchop have also embraced the beauty of slow motion and subtlety in their music.

Country music has always been built on the high and lonesome, the conveyance of mood and atmosphere – whether that’s a rowdy bar or a starlit desert vista. For many in 2020, its quieter, more reflective side has been a vital source of relaxation, escape and musical consolation.

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THE ROLLING STONES

Billy Pinnell

GET YER YA-YA’S OUT!

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ABKCO

N

amed after a Blind Boy Fuller song, Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out, The Rolling Stones' second live album, once nominated by rock critic Lester Bangs as 'the best rock concert ever put on record', was recorded on November 27 and 28 1969 at NewYork's Madison Square Garden except for one track 'Love In Vain' that was recorded in Baltimore, Maryland on November 26.

Having not been on the road since April 1967 expectations were high for the Stones' first US tour in three years.

Since their previous trip Stateside guitarist Mick Taylor, recruited from John Mayall's band had replaced founder member Brian Jones who had been sacked a few months earlier and would tragically die from drowning on July 3, 1969.

Let It Bleed, their eighth studio album had just been released so the bulk of their live set came from that album and its 1968 predecessor Beggar's Banquet. Keith Richards' main man Chuck Berry was acknowledged with the band's versions of 'Carol' and 'Little Queenie,' in addition to a memorable performance of Robert Johnson's 'Love In Vain' that showcased Taylor's great talents as a lead guitarist with an impeccable feel for the blues.

At the time, the Stones were on the cutting edge of mainstream rock, their songs seething with menace, sex, violence and debauchery.

While they had lost their most musically adventurous member in Jones, with Taylor they gained an accomplished technician who merged his blues roots with a feel for melodic improvisation more common with jazz guitarists. Mick Jagger once said of Taylor, “I think he made a big contribution to the band, he made it very musical, he was a fluent, melodic player, some people thought it was the best version of the band that existed.”

Charlie Watts had this to say: “What came out of playing with Mick Taylor are musically, some of the best things we've ever done.”

On reflection it's not surprising that most fans and critics have over the years voted Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out! the number one live album of the 20 plus legitimate in-concert Stones' releases. This was the Rolling Stones with no guest contributors apart from piano player Ian Stewart, no horn section, no keyboards, no backing singers. The immediacy of an outstanding bar-band, two lead guitars, rock music's greatest front man and a rhythm section, Watts and Bill Wyman as tight as fingers in a glove, contribute to the ongoing appeal of this album.

Cornerstone numbers like the opener 'Jumpin' Jack Flash', a nine-minute 'Midnight Rambler' with Mick Jagger's harmonica adding to the song's ominous feel, a stark 'Sympathy For The Devil' incorporating a samba beat, a lascivious 'Stray Cat Blues' ('I can see that you're just thirteen years old'), 'Honky Tonk Women' and the explosive 'Street Fighting Man' present overwhelming evidence that the Rolling Stones were at that time the world's greatest rock and roll band.

Equally memorable were Jagger's asides to the audience: “Thank you kindly, I think I busted a button on my trousers. I hope they don't fall down. You don't want my trousers to fall down now do you?” and his patronising, “Charlie's good tonight isn't he?” (Charlie was good every night).

In 2010 a deluxe box-set of Get Yer YaYa’s Out! was released. The original 1970 album was supplemented by a second CD comprising five previously unreleased tracks from the Madison Square Garden shows, 'Under My Thumb', 'I'm Free', ('I Can't Get No) Satisfaction', the Rev.Robert Wilkins' 'Prodigal Son' and Mississippi Fred McDowell and the Rev.Gary Davis' song 'You Gotta Move' performed by Jagger and Richards as an acoustic duet with Mick singing to a slide guitar accompaniment from Keith.

A third CD features performances from opening acts B.B.King and his band (five tracks) and the Ike & Tina Turner Revue (seven). The B.B.King tracks include at least three of his classic studio recordings, 'Everyday I Have The Blues', 'How Blue Can You Get', 'Why I Sing The Blues.' Tina Turner offers dynamic vocal performances of Arthur Conley's 'Sweet Soul Music', John' Fogerty's 'Proud Mary', The Beatles' 'Come Together', Dusty Springfield's hit 'Son Of A Preacher Man' and Otis Redding's soul classic 'I've Been Loving You Too Long.'

The fourth disc is a DVD containing film footage from the Stones' tour shot by documentarians Albert and David Maysles featuring all five bonus concert tracks and a backstage conversationbetween Richards and Jimi Hendrix comparing notes on a plexiglass guitar while Janis Joplin looks on from the side of the stage.

The ongoing appeal of Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out! released 50 years ago, is that it captured one of the world's greatest rock and roll bands at the height of their power reminding us all of how great live the Stones were and still are.

By Denise Hylands

W

hile the world is still in some form of lockdown and so many artists have delayed the release of new material, there still seems to be a constant steady flow of new releases coming out, so much so that it’s hard to keep up. Iso releases, archival material and reimagined music might just be some of the highlights of 2020.

Gillian Welch & Dave Rawlings brought us the perfect companion in All The Good Time as well as two volumes of archival material in Boots No. 2: The Lost Songs Vol 1. and Vol. 2. Dave Alvin also releases a collection, From An Old Guitar: Rare & Unreleased Recordings featuring songs recorded over the years for his own records, tribute albums and songs recorded just for the sake of it.

John Fogerty has taken advantage of the pandemic lockdown to record an album in his home studio with his kids, Shane, Tyler and Kelsey. Fogerty’s Factory will feature versions of four Credence songs, six of Fogerty’s solo tunes and a couple of covers. The Family even recreated the classic cover of Cosmo’s Factory, transforming the original idea from 50 years ago.

Canadian music maker Daniel Romano has made very good use of his time in lockdown having released 10 records so far this year.

I love his country musings, which you’ll find on the third release with his band the Outfit, Content To Point The Way, it delivers.

However, as is his will, the musical stylings of the other releases range from prog rock, power pop to punk. The latest is getting probably the most attention, How Ill Thy World Is Ordered. He's also released a fulllength tribute to Bob Dylan & The Plugz, Do (What Could Have Been) Infidels.

Special performances are a daily occurrence with so many artists hopping on line to sing us new, reimagined and cover songs. Lucinda Williams has launched Lu’s Jukebox! (started October 29, US) a musical journey spanning time and multiple genres. A six-episode series with full-band, in-studio performances featuring a themed set of songs with an occasional Lu-rarity or new song fitting with each episode’s theme. The project will benefit struggling independent music venues with a percentage of each ticket going directly to selected venues. Themes include Tom Petty, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, Southern Soul, 60’s Classic Country and Christmas with Lucinda. To be available to purchase as digital downloads and CD …more info on her website.

Tanya Tucker is also supporting a live venue with the release of her new live album Live

From The Troubadour with a percentage of takings going to that venue. Recorded in October 2019, the album features tracks from her Grammy Award winning album ‘While I’m Living,’ as well as songs from her 70’s, 80’s and 90’s career, including her first single and hit as a 13-year old, ‘Delta Dawn’.

Tucker says, “I can’t be with the fans, so this is my love letter to them, a live album.” And she sure delivers a dynamic performance.

Jordie Lane with Lollies (Clare Reynolds) offer Back In Time - Songs & Stories (Reimagined). Releasing 10 songs over 10 weeks from the October 9, (you can always go back). Bunkereddown in their Nashville home. Stuck inside, Jordie Lane started daydreaming, getting nostalgic about his past and thinking of his older songs, and where they came from. So, armed with a Hi- Strung 'Nashville' guitar (it’s the 6 High strings on a 12-string guitar), and a battery powered Casio keyboard given to them by friends, they reimagine these songs live to tape as well as Jordie telling some spoken stories too! Head to Jordie’s Bandcamp and maybe even throw a few dollars their way for these beautiful revisited songs.

Archie Roach releases The Songs of Charcoal Lane. Music legend, Stolen Generation survivor and 2020 Victorian Australian Of The Year, Archie Roach AM, celebrates the 30 year anniversary of his debut album Charcoal Lane, recorded at his kitchen table in Southwest Victoria, during lockdown.

There’s been a lot of love for John Prine since he passed away earlier this year. Kurt Vile’s recent release Speed, Sound, Lonely KV EP features a beautiful duet with Prine on ‘How Lucky’ as well as his cover of ‘Speed Of the Sound of Loneliness’. Wynonna (The Judds), has released an EP of favourite songs including her version of Prine’s ‘Angel From Montgomery’ as well as songs by Fats Domino, Slim Harp, Nina Simone and Grateful Dead. Talking about Prine a box set has just been released, Crooked Piece Of Time via Rhino featuring the first seven albums by one of the best singer songwriters there was.

The sad news that Justin Townes Earle passed away has also hit us all. In support of his wife and young daughter an official GoFundMe has been created to cover the large legal and medical debt accrued. If you loved him and can help, please do. And news that his father Steve Earle is to record and release an album of his son’s songs, will be an extra special thing. So many new releases check out the list. And so many to look forward to.

John Prine Box Set Crooked Piece of Time

NEW RELEASES Dave Alvin - From An Old Guitar: Rare & Unreleased Recordings Rachel Brooke - The Loneliness In Me Brent Cobb - Keep ‘Em On They Toes Elizabeth Cook - Aftermath Dawes - Good Luck With Whatever Drive By Truckers - The New OK Great Peacock - Forever Worse Better James Ellis & the Jealous Guys Country Lion Jeremy Ivey - Waiting Out The Storm Lydia Loveless - Daughter Mike McClure - Looking Up Sam Morrow - Getting By On Getting Down Old 97’s - Twelfth Waylon Payne - Blue Eyes, The Harlot, The Queer, The Pusher And Me John Prine Box Set Crooked Piece Of Time Archie Roach - The Songs of Charcoal Lane Daniel Romano How Ill Thy World Is Ordered Slim & I (soundtrack) Bruce Springsteen - Letter To You Chris Stapleton - Starting Over Strung Like A Horse - WHOA! Tanya Tucker - Live From The Troubadour Jeff Tweedy - Love Is The King Gillian Welch Boots No. 2: The Lost Songs Vol. 2 Bonnie Whitmore - Last Will & Testament William Elliott Whitmore - I’m With You Jonathan Wilson - El Camino Rea EP Wynonna – Recollections And don’t forget that special Xmas album: Dolly Parton A Holly Dolly Christmas 71

CD: Feature

BY BRIAN WISE

VIKA & LINDA

SUNDAY: THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ISO Bloodlines

H

ot on the heels of their superb ARIA chart-topping collection, Akilotoa: Anthology 1994-2006, released in June, the singing sisters quickly released an album of covers in September that almost achieved the same feat. It remains, I think, the first ‘gospel’ album to make the Top 5 in recent memory. Not bad for a project that started with some online sessions in their loungeroom during lockdown.

All of a sudden, the duo who had become renowned for their work as backing singers with Paul Kelly and Joe Camilleri’s Black Sorrows before that, rather than their own albums, stepped into the limelight.

In some ways they were emulating Kelly, with whom they have worked for many years, who also released an album recorded in isolation along with a studio album with Paul Grabowsky.

If you have seen Vika & Linda performing online or caught some of their own gigs over the years you would know that some of the songs have been part of their repertoire since their very early days. Sister Rosetta Tharpe’s ‘Strange Things Happening Every Day’ and ‘Didn’t It Rain,’ Nina Simone’s ‘Sinner Man’ and ‘Amazing Grace’ have probably been with them since they first started singing together. But for The Gospel According To Iso they have freshened up the playlist, having gone through just about every song they know during their online sessions. They have added Paul Simon’s ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ and Chuck Berry’s ‘Downbound Train’ (which was inspired by his hellfire upbringing and of which they recorded an unreleased version for their first album in 1994). They also enlisted Paul Kelly to help them sing the classic ‘In The Land Where We’ll Never Grow Old” and included the ominous ‘Shallow Grave’ given to them by Kasey Chambers and Harry Hookey.

Once they’d decided to record a gospel album Vika & Linda called on keyboard player Cameron Bruce to provide the music and flesh out the sound of those simple online sessions.

“It happened quite quickly, actually,” explains Linda. “Cameron made beautiful music for us and very great songs for us to sing. So, we’re very, very happy with the result.”

“We started off doing songs, gospel songs that we already knew like Sister Rosetta Tharpe’s ‘Up Above My Head’, we’ve sung for a long time,” adds Vika. “Then we thought when the second lockdown happened, ‘Okay, let’s learn some new songs,’ which is when we started getting really serious about the gospel record. That’s when Linda went searching for obscure stuff. Paul Kelly sent her a great collection.”

“Well, we went to church a lot as kids,” recalls Vika when asked how important gospel is to them, “so we were listening to the Tongan choir a lot. But it’s a different kind of gospel singing. We do more of the American kind of Sister Rosetta Tharpe, that sort of stuff. We’re not the big choir singers, hymn singers like the Tongans are. Just listening to those harmonies was a big thing in our family. It was like Dad would make us go to church just so we could hear that.

“And then when we started singing professionally, I was drawn to singers like Sister Rosetta Tharpe, and Ruth Brown and Aretha Franklin, and I just loved their powerful voices,” she continues. “So, I

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started singing their songs immediately. It’s just something that just really, really rings true to me when I hear those women singing and how powerful they are. Dad was a big fan of Mahalia Jackson and had her records and we’d listen to her sing. Just their power and their belief was really, really something that drew me in. I think Linda too.”

“That’s right. Mahalia Jackson was the first early influence for me,” agrees Linda. “She sang at the end of a movie called An Imitation of Life, and Vika and I were made to watch that because it was sort of racial tale, a bi-racial tale and broken marriages and things like that from the ‘50s. But the end result for that, not only was it a moving movie, but it was Mahalia singing gospel song at the end. That was like, Whoa, hang on a second, what’s this?”

“We were crying at the end of the movie, and listening to Mahalia sing,” adds Vika. “It hasn’t left us.”

“Kasey, when we reached out to her for songs for our record, our next record which is coming out, she sent five in a row,” says Linda when I ask her about ‘Shallow Grave.’ “All the songs she sent were very different in style but this one we knew Vika and I could possibly do for a gospel record. It’s got a really kind of dark and sort of spooky vibe to it and we wanted to sing it. We loved it immediately. Love the way she writes. Kasey leans on that sort of religious imagery a lot in her songs and I like the way she references the Bible and things like that in her music without being too preachy. So, we knew that this would be good for a gospel record.”

“We love singing with Paul because we love our combo, the combination we get when we sing with him because he’s really strong and he sits up there and he loves to learn those difficult harmonies,” says Linda on ‘In The Land Where We’ll Never Grow Old’ featuring Paul Kelly creating a trio.

“He’s very particular and he wants to get it right,” adds Vika. “I’m thinking, ‘How is he ever going to sing this part?’ And he just nailed it.

A beautiful three-part harmony - and he had the hardest harmony out of the three of us. He had the hardest part. But he’s always brought us beautiful songs to sing. He loves gospel music.”

CD: Feature

BY DENISE HYLANDS

JAIME WYATT

NEON CROSS New West

G

rowing up with musical parents is one thing, but when they take you to concerts as a kid that have a lasting impression on you, well that’s another. One of those concerts became the inspiration for Jaime Wyatt’s musical path. Heading to LA from Washington State as a 17-year-old to fulfil a recording contract, LA was her base until recently making the move to Nashville.

“I grew up going to a lot of concerts,” says Wyatt. “I grew up seeing the Grateful Dead and Neil Young. One of my first concerts was an artist named Bonnie Raitt. That actually really had an impact on me.

I decided in that moment... we were like backstage and I got to meet her, and I decided then that I wanted to do what she did. I was like, she is powerful. It was the whole package. She was graceful, and just had this presence. She was pretty magical to me, especially as a young kid.

I’ve yet to see her since I was four or five years old.”

Living in LA for nearly 12 years, Wyatt “made a lot of music” but she also got herself into a little bit of trouble. “A little bit of trouble,” she confesses, “and it’s actually something that stays on my record forever. It was also something that saved my life and that really, really impacted me greatly in a positive way. But consequently, I had to do a little bit of time behind bars in the LA county jail: eight months, and that was pretty wild. But I came out of that and was able to write an album about it, and that was my last album, Felony Blues (2017).”

Having spent time in jail for robbing her heroin dealer and releasing an album, things were still not looking great for Wyatt. Her new album Neon Cross covers the next chapter of her life, the hard times and low points, continued drug and alcohol problems and many attempts at recovery. “For me, it was rock bottom, right?” says Wyatt when I ask her what finally helped to get her clean. “That is a cliché that we all talk about, but a big part of my realising that in order to stay sober, I had to come to terms with my sexual identity. This isn’t true for everyone but, for me, I had to be out of the closet and be out and proud as a gay woman, and that meant also being out and proud as a gay woman in country music which is somewhat risky, but it’s been very well received so far. I was able to write a lot of songs about that process, and a lot of songs about the fear and about the joy and the liberation.”

Wyatt was recently named the new queer queen of outlaw country!

“That’s very flattering,” says Wyatt. “That was The Advocate magazine, which is a queer publication, and actually an international publication.

So, it’s really cool. It’s hard to maybe just totally own that. I’m like, “Oh, I’m not the queen of country.” But I did have a real queen of country music on my album, Jessi Colter. That was on ‘Just A Woman’.

That was pretty cool because she is a legend.”

Wyatt’s album was, in fact, produced by Shooter Jennings, son of Jessi Colter and Waylon Jennings.

“Shooter produced the album, and he sings on a song with me,” explains Wyatt. “He’s a dear friend, and it was just such a great experience to make this record with him. He seems to be one of the hot producers at the moment.

He’s doing some good stuff. He’s really, really built his reputation. He has two Grammys now. We had become friends before he had started

making an album with Brandi Carlile and, of course, before the Tanya Tucker album.

“We’ve just become friends through musicians in Los Angeles. It’s a pretty small country scene out in LA. His band members were playing in my band, and they played on my album, Felony Blues. They always said, ‘Hey, you’ve got to meet Shooter. I really think he’s going to dig your songs,’ and then sure enough that happened.”

As well as having Shooter’s band join her again for this recording Wyatt also had guitarist Neal Casal (of The Cardinals and Circles Around The Sun) play, on which turned out to be one of the last projects he would have worked on. (Casal died in August 2019).

“It was such a surprise,” says Wyatt of Casal’s passing. “I feel so grateful that Neal was able to be on my record. It was quite a dream come true. We had another guitar player booked for the album and he had a scheduling conflict. Shooter said, ‘How do you feel about Neal Casal playing on the album?’ I was just kind of like, ‘Well, yeah, but will he do it? Can he? Will he? Can we afford him?’ He was totally into the project. It was a perfect fit. The album wouldn’t be what it is without Neal’s guitar playing on there.”

On the song ‘Livin’,’ Wyatt sings, “That doctor said it’s one in a million that I’ll make it to 35”. Well Wyatt celebrated her 35th birthday on September 29.

“It’s amazing!” says Wyatt. “I’ll tell you, it really did feel like one in a million. I feel so, so grateful to be alive and happy about my life, and happy to even do the menial, boring things.”

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CD: Feature

BY MEGAN GNAD

LITTLE WISE

I WANT TO REALLY SEE YOU, AND YOU SEE ME Independent

S

inger-songwriter Little Wise has just released the surprise new EP, featuring a selection of stripped-back, live recordings.

Following the launch of her sophomore album, Want it All, in September, 2020 was earmarked as a touring year for Sophie Klein, who was set to perform throughout Australia, and potentially Canada.

However, when COVID-19 came along changing all plans, and forced the Melburnian into lockdown, she started listening back to her live radio performances that were recorded while touring Want it All at the end of 2019. The idea to create a companion EP was born.

“Four of the six tracks were recorded live to air at ABC Radio in Melbourne, Sydney and Hobart last year,” Sophie says. “It was nice, because I was able to head into their studios, with nice recording facilities, and capture how I would sound playing live, so in a way it’s how I would present the songs if I was playing live to an audience.”

The EP, which takes its name from a lyric in Want it All, is divided in two, with side A showcasing the band (Rosie Burgess on bass and Pam Zaharias on drums) and side B featuring Little Wise’s solo performances. It was mixed and mastered by Fraser

Montgomery of The Aviary Studios, who was responsible for the sophomore album recording and production together with Nick Edin.

The new live versions provide fans with exciting new interpretations of the songs. For instance, on the record, Devil off my Back is a rollicking track performed with a full band, layers of guitars, drums and bass. Yet, on the EP, the song which was recorded live at Hobart ABC, is performed solely by Sophie with her guitar. “This really strips it right back to how I initially wrote it,” she says.

Sophie also performed a live set on The Friday Revue with Brian Nankervis and Richelle Hunt where she played Johanna with her band, and her own version of the Springsteen classic Dancing in the Dark, as a solo performance. Want it All (Live) was recorded at St Kilda’s Fyrefly Club for the album launch in December 2019, and Mamma was captured as part of the Tuck Shop Ladies’ podcast, ‘Truettes’.

“During the album recording, we were so focused on finessing every detail from the performance to the production and engineering,” Sophie says. “This EP was the opposite. I only ever had one take, and sometimes I came into the studio rushed and flustered…These recordings are by no means perfect. But they are real. And true to what myself and the band were sounding like at that particular moment in time.”

As she waits until the day she can get back out on the road touring once again, Sophie has been keeping busy working on new music, podcast appearances, and online performances, which includes a recent special live stream tribute to Tracy Chapman. “I’m writing

for album number three now and just trying to become a better artist and a better musician while we work this out,” she says. www.littlewise.com.au 74

CD: Feature

BY CHRIS LAMBIE

MELODY MOKO

TWO KIDS & A RADIO

MGM

B

efore our Big Paddock went into lockdown, singer-songwriter Melody Moko had planned on taking her new album Two Kids & A Radio on the road.

“I was going to do a band tour, which I've never done.” Instead, she set about ‘making lemonade out of lemons’ while not touring. “I decided to focus more on the digital side of things, so I guess there were benefits in that regard.”

Fellow Country artist and best friend Catherine Britt suggested Moko join her on the Bush Pubs Tour. “We couldn’t play capital cities, but we did Covid-friendly shows in the bush. It’s great to play in different environments. It wasn’t glamorous but just special to be back on the road. People were very appreciative to hear live music.”

Born and raised in Adelaide, the mother-of-two is now Newcastlebased. The follow-up to Moko’s 2017 debut album The Wreckage delivers more of her own honest and playful stamp. “This time, I didn’t really overthink that. It’s funny. Sometimes I think I’m not Country enough for the outback. But then you’ll get a ringer or old bushie come up after a show and say, ‘I love those lyrics.’ It’s often the songs I wouldn’t have expected. They’re emotionally connected, and I don’t have to play Johnny Cash to win them over.”

There’s a special camaraderie in the Country/Americana scene among female artists. “They’re so very supportive,” Moko says. “A group of [us] did the same things at same time. Fanny Lumsden, Catherine, Amber Lawrence… we all had babies at same time, making music and touring a lot. It’s never a competition. It’s a network, a village. It’s ‘Wanna share a gig?’, ‘Let me hold the baby’, ‘Let’s share accommodation at this festival...’ Our mums all get along and help with each other’s babies. I can’t imagine how I would’ve got through without that. To feel that this is your job. You’re alone though it’s not a normal road to tread. It makes you feel less insane.”

Two Kids & A Radio was recorded in Nashville with producer Neilson Hubbard. “I couldn’t be happier with how it turned out,” Moko says.

“With The Wreckage, it was more like three friends making a record (husband Michael Moko and Britt co-producers). Neilson took the reins [here]. A really good producer sees the album as a whole and you as an artist, maybe more than you can. For the track ‘Benjamin’, I pictured this rollicky Brandi Carlisle thing with lots of percussion.

Neilson said ‘This song is not that. It’s rip-your-heart-out, shooting down the barrel, almost like a journal entry. It won’t speak in the way it needs to.’ Sometimes the most important thing is what you take away.

So, he took the bass track out and straight away I knew he was right.”

Hubbard has worked with female voices including Mary Gauthier and Kim Richey. “The thread that runs through his productions - there’s life, their voice is so up front. There’s no warmth lost between the live situation and on record. He was one of two producers topping Moko’s wish-list. “Michael said, ‘Just email them babe. Give it a shot.’ I got brave and emailed both. Neilson replied almost immediately. We got on Skype, found we had the same sense of humour and loved the same stuff. Then he sent his quote! That’s why we crowdfunded. For independent musicians, you can’t beat it. The fan/artist relationship is more personal than it’s ever been with social media etc.”

Fats Kaplin (John Prine) features on the album. “I had to have pedal steel on the record. Fats was just an incredible man, quirky and kind.

Recording live, we had this vibe of the company in the room.” The album has already reached No.1 on the Australian Country Albums chart and No. 40 on the All Genre chart. The title track debuted at No. 3 on the ARIA Country Chart.

Moko recalls seeing her first live gig. “It was just me and Dad. We saw the Dead Ringer Band in the Riverland in SA. Kasey [Chambers] got me up on stage to play tambourine. From then on, my music taste went in that direction. Catherine Britt, Melinda Schneider, Sara Storer, that late 90s Country stuff. Dad then said, ‘If you like that, here’s Lucinda, Emmylou, Linda Ronstadt…’ Moko says, “I’d had other jobs. In a factory, a receptionist, doing music on the side. After I met Michael and had our first child, I thought ‘I need to commit if I’m making this a proper profession’.”

Two Kids & A Radio delivers a swag of singles including ‘Like Hank Would’ (a classic Country revenge song) and ‘Last Cigarette’ (cowritten with Britt). Was the Bush Pubs Tour a case of ‘mums on the loose’? Moko laughs, “We both had newborns, so we had to try and rein it in a bit. But we did have a couple of nights. One in Memphis when we had a gig on Beale Street and Cate’s friends offered to babysit. We were drinking blue cocktails and definitely on the loose.

Crazy things. I’m making it sound like a big thing, but we were home by 1 am!”

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CD: Feature

BY CHRIS LAMBIE

BRUCE HEARN & THE MACHINISTS

LIVE AT THE ATHENAEUM: A TRIBUTE TO WOODY GUTHRIE

Back in 2017, singer/songwriter, musician and labour advocate Bruce Hearn decided to mark the 50th anniversary of Woody Guthrie’s death.

He brought together some of Australia’s most esteemed folk voices for a series of concerts. Live at the Athenaeum: A Tribute To Woody Guthrie is now released as double album.

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former student activist and union rep, Hearn is now a Senior Lecturer in Industrial Relations. In the ‘80s, he formed pioneering Melbourne ska band, Strange Tenants, touring with the likes of U2, UB40 and reggae legend Jimmy Cliff. But his first musical ventures were in Melbourne’s folk scene. His Guthrie tribute shows re-captured the energy and passion of those times. “I didn’t plan to put out a live album. But a filmmaker friend set up a video camera to record the night. She said afterwards, “The images aren’t that good but the sound quality turned out really well.” Another friend mixed that with what was on the desk. “Then I thought, ‘This event actually deserves a luscious, old school vinyl album.’ I’m thrilled with the way it all came up.”

“The humanity of Woody’s music is needed today,” Hearn says. “He had many tragedies in his life but so many of his songs have optimism.

(Guthrie’s life story reads like the Book of Job.) He loved humankind and had this positive spirit that, in the long run, things will work out.

The resilience to keep struggling and all work together.” Hearn learned about Woody when, as a 10-year-old, he saw Pete Seeger perform.

“This tall thin guy with just a guitar or banjo had the whole theatre singing along. Then I heard Arlo (Guthrie’s son) and I became a full-on folkie. Before I got side-tracked,” he laughs. By 16, he was playing folk clubs, including the Outpost Inn and the Green Man with (late) partner in crime Greg Heehan. He put music to one side while at uni, planning on getting a ‘proper job’. As one of a radical group (M.A.U.D.) he ‘kidnapped’ then PM Malcolm Fraser during a demonstration. The retired pollie invited Bruce and comrades to dinner in 2010. A whole yarn in itself!

The live recording features 20 of the songs performed on the night.

“It’s all acoustic, allowing the voice and lyrics to be up front. No drum kit, electric guitars or bass. The sort of music Woody could’ve done outside a factory at a picket line. Woody’s all about words. In fact, he pinched the music for a lot of his songs, even without realising it, putting lyrics to tunes used previously. The melody of ‘This Land Is Your Land’ comes from an old American folk song recorded by The Carter Family with a religious basis to it. He makes the song his own.

He’s been credited with writing about 2,000 songs. Each year his family release lyrics found somewhere in a box. I think Billy Bragg’s probably going to be putting out albums of Woody’s songs for the rest of his life! Somebody said, if you want to write a song about something today, you don’t have to. There’s already a Woody song. I [chose] a mixture of songs where the messages were really relevant and [relatable] but also musically diverse.” Although not mic’d up, the audience sang along at the top of their voices along with local Trade Union choirs. All featured guest artists agreed to join in without hesitation. “The protest movement was all about the collective.

Strengthening each other to make change”. What would Woody make of these times? “I think he’d say, ‘I’ve seen it all’. In fact, Donald Trump’s father was once was his landlord. He wrote ‘I Ain’t Got No Home’ in about 1940. Ten years earlier he’d been living in one of the old man’s apartment blocks.” He wouldn’t let any apartments out to ‘coloured people’ which prompted Woody to leave.”

2021 marks the 40th anniversary of Strange Tenants. They once opened for Jimmy Cliff in London. “Just before we went on, the venue manager asked if I’d noticed anything about the audience. I said, ‘what do you mean?’ He said, ‘They’re here to see Cliff and are nearly all black.

You’re a bunch of white Australians playing reggae’. I thought, ‘Well, yeah, reggae and ska and we are in Brixton’. He said, ‘Good luck with that!’ But we opened with a political song, ‘Soldier Boy’ and they just loved it.” Hearn has also recorded a debut solo double album but, given the restraints of 2020, has postponed its release til next year.

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THE BAKERSFIELD SOUND Country Music Capital Of The West 1940 - 1974 10-CD Box Set (LP-size) • 224-page hardcover book • 307 tracks THEFAMILY BAKERSFIELD SOUND BEAR BCD 16036

Country Music Capital Of The West 1940 - 1974

BRUCE HEARN & THE MACHINISTS

LIVE AT THE ATHENAEUM: A TRIBUTE TO WOODY GUTHRIE If ever there was a time for solidarity and revolution, it’s today. Consummate rabble-rouser Bruce Hearn captures the power and passion of yesteryear’s sociopolitical movements on this historic recording. Hearn selected a mixed bag of songs from Woody Guthrie’s vast back catalogue. Following opener ‘Woody’s Song’ comes a set list of songs for the worker, the oppressed, the abused and the hopeful. Familiar hits include ‘I Ain’t Got No Home’, ‘Worried Man’s Blues’ and ‘Union Maid’. Heartbreaking stories inspired ‘The Rape Of Ruth Farnsworth’ and ‘Sacco & Vancetti (Two Good Men)’.

Guest vocalists are ideally suited to individual tracks.

Some are folk legends, others known among the wide world of Roots music: Unmistakable vocals delivered alone and in harmony: Eric Bogle, Mic Conway, Margret RoadKnight, Kerri Simpson, Jan ‘Yarn’ Wositzky and Kavisha Mazzella. A long-time choir leader, Mazzella arranged the stunning group singalongs, with the Victorian Trade Union Choir appropriately on board.

Record #2 brings the faithful together for ‘Lonesome Valley’, ‘This Train’ and ‘All You Fascists’. Although barely audible on the recording, you get a sense of rousing audience participation when Hearn invites all to join in for Woody’s most famous anthem ‘This Land is Your Land’. The songs are as relevant as when written. The inspired feeling in the room is palpable. Double CD and digital versions are available but the vinyl option seems the most fitting.

● 10-CD Hits, classics, rarities and live recordings Box Set (LP-size) • 224-page hardcover from book Bakersfield, • 307 tracks featuring Buck Owens BCD & The Buckaroos, Merle Haggard, Bill Woods, Wynn BEAR FAMILY 16036 Stewart, Red Simpson, Billy Mize, etc. ● Hits, classics, rarities and live recordings from Bakersfield, featuring ● Includes a fabulous hardcover Merle book with a treasure trove of rare Buck Owens & The Buckaroos, Haggard, Bill Woods, Wynn pictures,

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THE ELVIS PRESLEY CONNECTION VOL. 1 Roots And Covers Of Elvis Presley CD digipac with 36-page booklet • 33 tracks • BEAR FAMILY BCD 17561

THE ELVIS PRESLEY CONNECTION VOL. 1

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Rockers, R&B acts – all&were influenced

by Elvis Presley!

Sheridan & The Beat Brothers, Jerry Lee Lewis, and many more – ● 33 originals and rare cover versions of famous Elvis tunes. with lots of rare recordings such as demos, live recordings and ● previously Feat. Carl Perkins, tracks.Most & His Playboys, Clyde Stacy, Tony unheardMickie Sheridan & The Beat Brothers, Jerry Lee Lewis, and many more – with lots of rare recordings such as demos, live recordings and previously unheard tracks.

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CD: Feature

BY DENIS HYLANDS “That's actually a great thrill, especially when it's somebody that you play their music and admire them, like the people you just mentioned,” says Leigh when I mention some of the people who have recorded her songs. I add that Rodney Crowell likes her as well and that he even wrote the liner notes for the album stating: "Listening to Brennen Leigh's Prairie Love Letter, I imagine Guy Clark and Loretta Lynn falling in love and running off to Minnesota or some North Dakota homestead where they raised up a singing songwriting guitar playing daughter whose inherent gifts are so skilfully framed on this very fine album.”

“Isn’t that cool? What a nice quote,” says Leigh. “What a kind nice thing to do. He's just such an articulate, intelligent person that's just got such a big heart. So that really meant a lot.”

“So, I wanted Robbie to produce it because his connection to poetry is so strong and I'm also a big Robbie Fulks fan,” responds Leigh when I mention that Fulks produced her new album. “So, I really loved his most recent two albums that he made, Gone Away Backwards and Upline Stories. I love the way they were recorded, I love the way the songs tied together and I loved the narrative. The threads of themes that went through them and just how cohesive they were and how beautifully the stories came through. So, I asked him to do it and I was just so glad that I did because his involvement emotionally and in a literary way was really evident. And he's just a lovely person, so that didn't hurt either.”

BRENNEN LEIGH

PRAIRIE LOVE LETTER Independent

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f you’ve been a regular visitor to Austin Texas over the years, there’s a chance you would have caught the brilliance of a Brennen Leigh gig and most likely even danced a little Texas two-step to her tunes too.

As a teenager of 14, Brennen Leigh started playing music in a bluegrass / country duo with her brother. It was the music their parents played and listened to at home. Having started musically on the piano, she went on to play guitar and mandolin. They sang two part harmony from their love of the Louvin Brothers, The Everly Brothers and Bill Monroe. On her sixth album she pays homage to the people and the place of her upbringing in the songs that make up this love letter.

“So, I grew up in the middle of America, pretty much smack in the middle of America in Minnesota and right on the North Dakota State line,” says Leigh. “My mom's and dad's family are both from North Dakota, which is the geographical centre of North America and it's flat Prairie land. And then Minnesota is kind of rolling Hills and lakes. So, I moved away when I was 19 years old and I've been pretty consistently homesick ever since, but you kind of have to get away in order to see the beauty. And I got away and I haven't lived there now for 18 years and I've just kind of been slowly gathering these songs about home, the poetry and melodies about that part of the country, which kind of isn't written about very much in American traditional music.” Leigh has been writing songs and performing with her musical partner Noel McKay for many years now and they have both written for other artists too. Leigh’s songs have been recorded by people like Lee Ann Womack, Rodney Crowell and Charlie Crockett.

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I suppose also that Leigh would never have thought in her wildest dreams that she would have been recording with someone like Steve Albini, formeler;y of Big Black and owner/producer at the Electrical Audio studio in Chicago.

“No, but Steve was lovely,” replies Leigh, “and Robbie said, ‘Well, if you like the sound of my last record, we should just go to Steve in Chicago,’ because that's where he did that. Steve just has a wonderful ear. He's genreless. He's just thinking about getting the best sounds that he can all the time, so that was a pleasure. Yeah, it was fun to work with the two of them together.”

So, this album was made in Chicago and Nashville where Leigh had access many awesome musicians.

“We got just such a wonderful group of people together and everybody kind of threw their magic In,” explains Leigh. “Tim O’Brien sang on ‘I Love the Lonesome Prairie’ and played some octave mandolin and a little fiddle. Alison Brown played banjo, Jenee Fleenor played fiddle. The kind of core group for the bulk of the session was Noel McKay and Courtney Patton on harmonies. And then Robbie, Dennis Crouch, Pete Finney on pedal steel and Kaitlyn Raitz on cello.

I'm sure I'm leaving somebody out, but it ended up being a very cohesive sounding record because everyone was so present and loving.” I should also mention that Leigh is a great guitar player. Guy Clark said it best, “Brennen Leigh plays guitar like a mother*****r”….

CD: Feature

BY BRIAN WISE “I thought I was a tough rock chick but life tells you otherwise,” she says, after mentioning that a fall in the street while walking at night left her with a broken knee and breaks in both sides of her left wrist.

“Just a crazy accident and it was very scary. I ended up in hospital, had lots and lots of surgeries. There was big damage to the nervous system and basically it meant that I had no use of my left hand. The only thing it did was cause ridiculous pain and was the size of a baseball mitt, and my fingers wouldn't move.”

“I'm going to be a lot more careful if I'm walking anywhere in the dark from now on, I can tell you that,” adds Simmons after describing some of the surgical procedures, which I am too squeamish to repeat here.

Simmons gives a lot of credit to Howard Gelb for encouraging her musical pursuits.

“Well, Howe and I became friends years ago when I was doing an interview with him and while I was still living in the UK,” she explains, “and somehow we became buddies. That doesn't always happen with musicians.”

SYLVIE SIMMONS

BLUE ON BLUE Compass Records

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ou might immediately recognise the name Sylvie Simmons but not necessarily because of her music. Before coming out as a singersongwriter and learning to play the ukulele, Simmons - who was born in London and is now based in California – was an acclaimed rock writer, and the author of books including her celebrated biographies of Serge Gainsbourg, Neil Young and Leonard Cohen.

The last time I spoke to Simmons was at the Americana Festival in Nashville about her best-selling biography I’m Your Man: The Life of Leonard Cohen. Then after touring the world talking about the book and singing Cohen’s songs, accompanying herself on a ukulele, Simmons decided - with the encouragement, accompaniment and production skills of Howe Gelb of Giant Sand - to record an album in Tucson, Arizona.

Now, Simmons’ second album, Blue On Blue - a gorgeous delicate work – has just been released but its path was far more difficult than the debut recording. After returning to Tucson in 2017 to record, work came to a halt on the first evening, after recording first takes of five of the songs, when Sylvie suffered a dreadful accident that left her with multiple broken bones, nerve damage and an unusable left hand. A long and painful period of surgeries and rehabilitation followed while she wrote some new songs that she recorded them in different studios in-between treatments.

Simmons is in the Mission District of San Francisco when we catch up to talk about the album. She vividly recalls the accident in Tucson that almost put an end to her fledgling music career.

“I've got a ukulele and for some reason or other, I started writing,” she continues. “I 'd been a want-to-be musician when I was in my teens.

My whole plan was to be a singer songwriter. I had a really cute guitar and I wrote really sad songs in minor keys and I got on a stage - not even a stage I was just at the front of the room in a pub - and I froze.

Totally froze like a deer in the headlights. Couldn't sing. I just gave up being somebody cute with a guitar and not a singer songwriter and decided I'd write about music instead.”

“Howe was the one who was egging me on?” she continues when I asked her what finally convinced her to record an album. “I'd send him a song now and then and he'd say, ‘Have you written a song this month? I haven't heard another.’

“I took the ukulele on the road, and I sang Leonard Cohen songs. I thought it will be less nerve wracking somehow, than actually just reading or having people ask me questions on the stage. Weirdly by the end of it, after going here, there and everywhere, everybody would say, bring the ukulele even if it was some academic discussion on stage.

“I got used to performing. When I got back, I said to Howe, ‘Do you still want to make a record?’ and he booked the studio the next week and we recorded that album, live to tape in a day and a half.”

Gelb duets with Simmons, in front of a small ensemble - Thoger Lund, Gabriel Sullivan and Brian Lopez from Tucson plus Australian Matt Wilkinson and Jim White (Wrong-Eyed Jesus) - on the song ‘1000 Years Before I Met You,’ one of the album’s highlights.

“I loved him singing on that,” she says. “He was so sardonic, and he was great. It was like if he was in a movie, he'd be Sam Shepard in a cowboy hat. Midnight cowboy and lonely cowgirl. It was in a nice easy key to play. I tried it in the studio and the band immediately turned into Nashville cats before my very eyes.”

“He's absolutely wonderful,” she adds about Gelb. “He is, in a way, a Neil Young character except didn't hit the financial and sales heights that Neil Young did. What I mean is that he is enormously talented but has always done whatever he wants to do, whenever he wants to do it, in whatever way he chooses to, which was always Neil Young's motto.

Yes, he's been at this now since the '80s, and just making wonderful, wonderful music. He's got an excellent singing style.”

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CD: Feature

BY JOE MATERA

YUSUF/CAT STEVENS

TEA FOR THE TILLERMAN 2 Island In Cat Stevens illustrious long career his now iconic 1970 album, Tea For The Tillerman proved to be career watershed. It etched Stevens forever into the annals of music history. In the wake of the album’s celebrated mass popularity, Stevens became the ultimate singersongwriter acoustic pop star of his day and proved influential to a generation that followed.

Further albums and commercial success solidified Stevens’ standing, before he abandoned it all for religion in 1978. In the early 2000s, he

Photo Credit: Rhys Fagan

started to dip his feet back into the musical waters, eventually making a proper return to mainstream popular music under the name Yusuf Islam with 2006’s An Other Cup. The trajectory was continued by the follow-up Roadsinger (2009) and then Tell ‘Em I’m Gone (2014) and The Laughing Apple (2017 - all now released under the Yusuf/Cat Stevens name).

This month sees Tea For The Tillerman celebrate 50 years since its release and rather than the usual anniversary reissue, Yusuf decided to go a different route, by re-recording the album in its entirety and reimagining it within a more contemporary setting.

“I always like to take on a challenge” Yusuf says via phone from his home base in Dubai. “Because of its iconic stature in music history and in particular in my musical history, I needed to sort of approach it from a very casual point of view. And I had to make it kind of mine as well as make it relevant to me today too. The songs were written for my time, but they were also written for this time too, because the subjects and themes are kind of perennial. They don’t really fade, and you can hear that from songs like ‘Where Do The Children Play?’, ‘Wild World’ and ‘But I Might Die Tonight’.”

For Yusuf, the album’s songs are vital messages for the world community, particularly relevant to the current pandemic. “They have become quite profound” he affirms. “I think the secret here is that I was incredibly sincere with what I was doing. It wasn’t just me trying to do and make another pop song, it was me trying to express myself, my thoughts and what I was experiencing and thinking and learning.

Particularly, after I almost had a brush with death through having contracting tuberculosis after my first little excursion into the pop music circus. And then came this moment when I started reflecting and all of the songs came out of that reality. It wasn’t put on at all and I think that’s why they’ve got longevity”.

The songwriting process for the original album came out of a time when reflection and recovery were order of the day for Yusuf, uncannily similar to the circumstances all of us find ourselves in today.

“They came fairly fast after I came out of hospital [recovering from tuberculosis] as I had a lot of time” explains Yusuf. “I wasn’t supposed to and couldn’t work for about a year as I had to take it easy. And that just gave me a lot of time which is kind of what we’re experiencing today with Covid-19. I’ve just got so much time on my hands.”

As his creative muse took hold, Yusuf was also inspired by the new singer-songwriters on the block. “There was this whole fresh wind of inspiration which I caught onto” he says. “Everything like The Band, Van Morrison, Richie Havens, Tim Hardin, Tim Buckley, Neil Young, and even with what Dylan was doing at the time too. And because of my imagination, I sort of locked myself away from those influences when I wrote which is an important point. I don’t kind of copy anyone, but at the same time, I get inspired by other people and that then kind of develops within me and within my core imagination. And then, it comes out somehow miraculously with something I enjoy and that others feed off as well”.

Was it challenging for him to revisit Tea For The Tillerman and approach it with a more modern approach?

“With some of the songs” be begins, “we had to take them on a different kind of excursion, and it was more towards the blues and R & B which has always been one of my musical loves. I grew up in that era where discos were all just playing this incredible music coming from the States. It was all R & B and we were just getting offered them and,

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so of the clubs I went to, The Animals were down there, and they were doing all that. The whole wave of British rock just began with the blues and I was caught up in that too. And that’s why you see that kind of effect coming out now on things like ‘On the Road to Find Out’ and my little James Brown effort, ‘Longer Boats’.”

Listening to ‘On The Road To Find Out’ today, one can’t help but notice the lyric’s prophetic spirit. “That was definitely a peep into the unseen,” he affirms today. “In a way, that song has unveiled itself over the years to be as true as anything I have ever written. The concept or the idea of The Book, I mean that was in a way The Book has always been a symbol of sacred communication between what is up there, and us down here. And there is no doubt and no way, that man could ever have reached where we are today, without the ability to read and to pass on that knowledge. So, it is a very profound song.”

With Teaser And The Firecat, the follow-up album to Tea For The Tillerman, due its own 50th anniversary next year, has Yusuf plans to revisit that album in a similar style too? “Not necessarily” he reveals.

“I’ve got so many new songs as well as I’ve got a whole album kind of in the pipeline. It is more and less mixed and ready to come out, but it was just because of the 50th that we had to put that on hold and go with Tillerman 2. But I’ve got so many other songs. There are certain songs I wouldn’t mind going back and doing again but, not really like this, because this is a whole homogeneous kind of tribute to one particular album which defines, for most people, my music.”

CD: Feature

BY BRIAN WISE

ROBERT WYATT

HIS GREATEST MISSES Domino

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evered as one of English music’s treasures, Robert Wyatt’s collection, His Greatest Misses, is probably aptly named. While Wyatt has been influential since he began his career in English ‘progressive’ bands such as Soft Machine and Matching Mole he has certainly avoided any commercial success. Not that the eccentricity of his music would easily fit into the mainstream. About the closest Wyatt came to a hit was in 1983 with the anti-war song ‘Shipbuilding,’ written for him by Clive Langer and Elvis Costello.

Wyatt’s life was irrevocably changed in 1973, a couple of years after the release of his debut solo album, when an accident left him paralysed from the waist down. Nevertheless, he pursued a solo career that was marked by its singularly eccentric view of the world and music to match. His wry humour can also be heard in some of the songs and one of the great album titles of all time, 1975’s Ruth Is Stranger Than Richard.

His Greatest Misses includes selections dating from Rock Bottom (1974) to Cuckooland (2003) although the running order is non-chronological. There are also three cover versions that are probably unlike any you have heard of The Monkees’ ‘I’m A Believer,’ Chic’s “At Last I Am Free’ and ‘Arauco,’ written by Chilean artist Violeta Parra.

The release of His Greatest Misses coincides with the publication of Side by Side, a book by Robert Wyatt and his wife Alfreda Benge, a visual artist and lyricist who has cared for Wyatt and overseen his career for the past forty-six years. (‘P.L.A.’, the opening song is an acronym for ‘Poor Little Alfie’).

“Robert's not been well, and he's been in hospital for a few months, but now he's home, but still in the hospital bed,” explains Alfie Benge when I catch up by phone to talk about the album, which is now available on vinyl for the first time. “So, he's mending at home, which is much better than mending in hospital. But it's still very frustrating for him because he has to stay in bed and he just gets a bit bored.”

“He's got a very, very faithful fan base, very faithful and loyal but it isn't mainstream at all,” agrees Benge when I mention that while Robert might not have enjoyed commercial success he is revered.

“He's much better known in Europe than he is in Britain, for some reason. I think maybe because places like France are more used to esoteric, odd things, but he's very well known among musicians. He's very respected by the musicians who know him. It's a very nice level for a professional because if you're very well known, people always want to get at you; whereas, he's still at the level where people want to be nice to him. So, he doesn't have to suffer being a victim of people sniping at you because you're famous.”

“I mean, if you're never in fashion, you can't be out of fashion, can you?” laughs Benge when I mention that he maintained a solo career across nearly four decades and that the collection illustrates his eclectic career.

“The thing is he doesn’t like repeating himself,” responds Benge.

“So, there's this variety and you couldn't have variety in any order.

It just doesn't have to be chronological. He'd be bored if he did the same thing. So, the basis of whatever he does, has to be interesting; therefore, he really works hard on it. On a musical level there's an

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effort in it. It isn't just blues chords or three chords things. There's always something that he tries to discover. So, I think that's the ingredient that makes his stuff so varied because it's an effort to discover something musical.”

“I mean, even things like ‘Strange Fruit’ [not on this album], which you would think someone like a little white boy shouldn't be singing, but he does, I think he does very well. He's good at other people's songs because he chooses good ones. I mean, that's the thing, you've got to choose, you've got to choose a good song. You can't sing any old song well because it's got to be a good song. They've got to say something that means something. They've got to have a meaning on any level. I mean, he'd be quite happy to sing the most poppy songs if it had the right notes and the right... and a decent idea in it.”

“What about a song like, ‘I'm a Believer’? I ask.

“Well, that was a mistake,” laughs Benge. “He was forced to do a single by Virgin because they wanted to make people famous. So, he had to do a single, and he said there was a Monkees song he really liked, but he said the wrong one. He meant to say, ‘Last Train to Clarksville’, but in fact he said, ‘I'm a Believer’. That's what happened but it turned out good, really, with all the other musical chaps, the violin and everything.”

“He has a loyal band of musicians who will always work with him and come in and do a bit,” says Benge, who also points out that Wyatt has retired from music, though he still maintains an interest in politics.

She cites Brian Eno, Paul Weller and David Gilmour as friends and supporters.

“He's trying to avoid it because it's depressing in England.”” says Benge of Wyatt’s opinion of politics, adding that he spends most of his time listening to jazz these days – appropriate given his musical beginnings.

CD: Feature

BY CHRIS LAMBIE

ARNA GEORGIA

YES GIRL INDEPENDENT

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asked singer-songwriter Arna Georgia if the title of her first fulllength release – Yes Girl – came from the regret of missing past opportunities. Quite the opposite, it turns out.

The country artist confesses, “I’m the worst person ever. I actually say ‘Yes’ to everything that happens. If someone says, ‘Wanna come with me to the snow tonight?’, I say, ‘Of course I do!’ Sometimes I make these decisions and think later, ‘I did not want to do this. Why did I say yes?’ But that’s always where stories and songs end up coming from.”

Bill Chambers produced Georgia’s 2017 recording Midnight Carousel.

Nailing the sound she was after, it debuted at #2 on the iTunes Country charts.

“I wanted to capture that traditional raw authentic Country. For Yes Girl, I wanted to keep a bit of that but also to delve into the more contemporary stuff and merge the two. Producer Nash (son of Bill) Chambers hand-picked the band accompanying her on the new album, recorded in Nashville.

“Whatever I was going to ask for [the musos] were already doing. I never imagined, when I was writing the songs, how good they’d sound.

It was fun to spend time with the band and listen to their stories.

Arriving in Nashville, you’re inspired as soon as you get off the plane.”

Georgia says. She put the finishing touches on a song or two. “Then I recorded, socialised just a little bit and then holidayed!” she laughs delightedly.

Anyone who thinks Country music is all about runaway spouses and farming dirt should have a chat with Georgia. She epitomises the bubbly optimism of youth. Songs on the new album include ‘Passing Through’ about the ‘crazy weird life’ of a musician’s life on the road.

‘1998 (Catching up To Do)’ celebrates childhood memories of her Greek grandmother.

Georgia says, “Yia Yias are a special breed of their own. Anyone who has one or knows one will relate.”

How did the Sydney girl from the suburbs go Country? “My parents listened to mostly 70s and 80s music. I listened to the Disney channel, Hannah Montana (aka Miley Cyrus) and Taylor Swift. But then I got a massive obsession with Billy Ray Cyrus. It made me listen to country music. I started appreciating lyrics and songwriting. By 14 or 15 I started listening to Johnny Cash, Hank Williams, old school Country like the Carter Family and everything. My parents and my friends were like, ‘What’s going on?’”

She’s gone on to write, record and perform at festivals from Tamworth and Gympie to Nashville’s Americanafest. She’s opened shows for artists including Catherine Britt and Amber Lawrence. She joined Lawrence and Travis Collins on tour and Bill Chambers as special guest and band member around Australia as well as a 17-show tour of the USA. Georgia first met Golden Guitar winner Allan Caswell when paired with him for a songwriting workshop at the Country Music Association of Australia academy. “My time at the Academy was the best two weeks of my life”, says Georgia. She approached Caswell for help with a new song she couldn’t quite nail. “It’s a break up song… and in the end we wrote it quickly.” ‘Missing Rose’ was co-written with Country queen Catherine Britt. It’s an emotive take on a murder ballad, inspired by a true story with changed names.

Georgia majored in Musical Theatre for a Bachelor of Music degree.

Sensing a change of heart, a friend suggested she switch to her first love - Country music. Along with training in acting and dance, her studies come in handy when creating video clips.

Continuing a theme from the earlier EP, Yes Girl features the track ‘All My Married Friends’. Social media posts show the busy artist in a familiar role as wedding guest. “Oh my God”, she gasps. “I've just been to two weddings in the space of one week. This is outta control!”

Georgia is eagerly anticipating a return to other events. “I feel like [the next] Tamworth will be like one big delayed Christmas party for all the artists.”

Her first gig back since the easing of NSW lockdown laws was her album launch. “It was so fun. We could only have about 30 people but I booked a whole band with every instrument possible. ‘Cos I just wanted to play.” Like all crowd-starved performers, Georgia is planning for the wider reopening of state and territory borders. “Come February/ March, I want to get back to Queensland and hopefully Victoria and Tasmania in 2021!”

Yes Girl is available at arnageorgia.com

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CD: Feature

BY STEVE BELL

NATALIE D-NAPOLEON

YOU WANTED TO BE THE SHORE BUT INSTEAD YOU WERE THE SEA. For Fremantle-bred (and currently based) singersongwriter Natalie D-Napoleon it’s been a long and convoluted journey towards the release of her strong second solo album You Wanted To Be The Shore But Instead You Were The Sea.

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he’s spent the last decade juggling her ongoing musical ambitions with her concurrent career as an award-winning poet and lecturer while based with her family in the central Californian coastal city of Santa Barbara, a locale that looms large over the genesis of the new record.

Not only were the new songs predominantly written from the front porch of the century-old cottage they were living in, but the album itself was recorded in an equally old chapel nestled in the hills behind Santa Barbara, a venue which eventually informed both the approach to and sound of this beautifully stripped-back batch of songs.

“It really has been a long voyage,” D-Napoleon chuckles. “I’m so happy with how it’s turned out because you do these things sometimes on a wing and a prayer really.

“It was Jim Connolly and I - Jim was the co-producer and the person who arranged the songs and basically the music director for the band

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- and we cooked up this plan to record the album with one mic in this 100-year-old chapel in Santa Barbara.

“His idea came from the fact that he’d recorded a string quartet there with one mic in this beautiful space and it had worked out really well, so we thought that we’d give it a go. We all have full-time jobs so we went in there over a few weekends and would just bang out as many live takes as we could to see if we could make it work, and I was delighted with the results.

“I think for me the best thing was just being in the room and being able to see the faces of everyone that I’m playing with. It’s not necessarily just a beautiful location but for me it’s a beautiful acoustic space - for me that’s what the Deane Chapel is.

“It’s just a beautiful acoustic space, as well as being a gorgeous old chapel - wood floor, wood walls, wood ceiling, everything handmade and over 100-years-old - so there was something special aesthetically as well as sonically about that space.”

The task of capturing these Americana-tinged songs on tape was helped when they were able to rope in Lucinda Williams’ long-time offsider Doug Pettibone to throw his considerable guitar skills into the mix.

“My other half asked me when I went in to record the album ‘Who would you like to play guitar?’” D-Napoleon recalls, “and I said, mainly sarcastically, ‘Well, the guy who plays with Lucinda, Doug Pettibone, if he’s available!’ And my husband said, ‘Do you know that he lives in Ventura?’ - which is like 30 minutes down the road from Santa Barbara - so we decided to just ask him! We sent him the demos and he loved the songs and said, ‘Yeah, sure, I’ll join in!’

“The thing is I’d already made my last album Leaving Me Dry (2012) with David Piltch - he was k.d. lang’s bass player for 20 years, and he’d co-produced a bunch of things for her as well - and Kenny Edwards who played with Linda Ronstadt had played with me live and played on that album, so Doug knew that I’d done that stuff as well. I think when people know you’re doing a certain quality of work and they listen to it and like it then they’re willing to step in and give it a go and help you out.”

And with D-Napoleon currently back in Australia completing her PhD in Creative Writing it’s unsurprising that the songs on You Wanted To Be The Shore… are lyrically beguiling, a series of empathetic character vignettes featuring the trials and travails of various female protagonists.

“What happens for me is - and it’s the same thing when I write poetry - in the beginning stages I just let what’s in me come out,” D-Napoleon explains. “I let the songs just come out and be what they are, and the first few songs I wrote were ‘Wildflowers’ and ‘No Longer Mine’ and ‘Thunder Rumor’ and ‘Soft’. So, after those songs came out, I stepped back a little bit and thought, ‘There’s a theme here with these songs.’

“I consciously took a step back from being in the work to step outside and look at the work like an editor - an outsider - and I could see the theme emerging about women’s lives and trying to tell stories about women’s lives, so that gave me a direction for the rest of the songs on the album.

“That method works really well for me because it allows you to rely on intuition, and intuition gives you the power to bring out real feelings and the passion behind what you’re doing, and then to step back and use your ration to sort of point it in the right direction and give it some focus. Put them both together and it’s often a compelling combination.”

You Wanted To Be The Shore But Instead You Were The Sea is available at nataliednapoleon.net, Bandcamp and Apple Music.

CD: Feature

BY CHRIS LAMBIE

ANGUL GILL

3 MINUTE MOVIES Independent

Young rural NSW-bred singer-songwriter Angus Gill is only in his very early-20s but has managed to carve a formidable niche in the scene with his catchy, literate brand of country.

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aving already spent over a decade at the coalface despite his tender years, along the way he’s carried a Golden Guitar nomination, collaborated with the cream of the Australian country crop - as well as some pretty big overseas names - and even become one of the youngest ever Australians to debut on the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville (during a brief return to its spiritual home at the Ryman Auditorium, no less).

For his accomplished third album 3 Minute Movies, however, the vibe of the songs was a little less traditional and veering more towards altcountry terrain, so Gill turned to one of the best and most adaptable bands in Australia - the crew usually found behind the great Paul Kelly.

“It’s great to have been able to do this with PK’s band, because it’s opened a new sonic palette for me for this album,” the singer gushes.

“It was a real blast tracking with those guys.

“How it actually came about was in 2018 when I did a writing trip to Nashville - I’d been over a few times and developed a real connection with Music City - and I’m drawn to the songs and the writing environment over there, and I’ve developed some great friendships over there.

“I’d come back from the trip and I had the songs that were informing my last album Welcome To My Heart (2019), and I had these other songs in an ‘anonymous pile’ which were a little bit more rootsy and a little more Americana - kinda steering in that direction.

“I wasn’t sure what to do with those songs, but I started slipping a couple of them into my shows and I could see there was an audience for them just from the reaction and audience connection, you could tell there was something there.

"I was driving back from the Mildura Country Music Festival in September 2018 and I was listening to PK’s Life Is Fine album - I really love that album - and I just had this lightbulb moment: ’Wouldn’t it be cool to do an album with the PK band?’ I thought they would really work with this bunch of songs that I had.”

Fortunately, Gill had already been introduced to his future studio band courtesy another famous name he has stored in his mobile phone.

“I met them through Steve Earle,” he smiles. “Steve and I have been friends for five or six years - I met him at a writing retreat in New York and we often catch up when he’s over here or I’m in the States - and he was out here in 2017 supporting PK and the band, so I got to meet PK and the band through Steve.

“So, I reached out to Dan Kelly and he put me in touch with all of the other guys in the band and we booked a studio in Melbourne for December 2018 and made the record over two days in an analogue

studio.

“It was a fascinating experience working with analogue equipment and tracking without a click track and without any studio trickery and very minimal overdubs. It was very much like some of my favourite albums were tracked back in the ‘70s and ‘80s. And when I realised that this was the same process that this band often do when they make an album with PK then I thought it was the right band to use this approach.

“It’s very different to the kind of more traditional country projects that I’ve done - and the country projects that I’ve produced - where it’s a lot slicker, a more shinier style of production where everything tracks to the grid and there’s heaps of overdubs and vocal tuning, and everything’s just corrected and positioned for a commercial audience.”

You can tell that the friendship enjoyed by Gill and Earle is strong and genuine - they duet on the album’s powerful lead single ‘The New Old Me’ and their rapport is obvious - but given that there’s more than a four-decade age gap what did the unlikely mates bond over?

“There was a shared love of music but also literature,” Gill laughs. “I’m really interested in words and phrases and poetry and I read a lot so we bonded over that.

“And Shakespeare! At the time I met Steve he was talking about Shakespeare and I was studying at school - the same plays he was referring to like ‘Hamlet’ and ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ - so we talked about that a lot. But also, he’s very familiar with the Australian music industry, he’s toured over here countless times, so we sort of bonded over that well.

“But the great thing I love about Steve is that you can talk to him about anything, and he’s got so much knowledge in every sector of life. He’s so easy to talk to because he can just fly off about anything - I just love catching up with him for that fact.”

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CD: General DAVE ALVIN

FROM AN OLD GUITAR: RARE AND UNRELEASED RECORDINGS Yep Roc

guitars resonate with the sheer fun of creating music that remains timeless; isn’t that what it’s all about.

TREVOR J. LEEDEN

LUKA BLOOM

Bittersweet Crimson BlueSky Records

Dave Alvin’s latest release is a celebration. Ruminating upon the 16 songs he has selected from the archives, Alvin states: “the majority were recorded for no other reason at all than the sheer kicks of going into a recording studio to make some joyous noise with musicians and singers that I love and admire”.

Whilst he is a prolific performer and recording artist having in recent years released stellar albums as a soloist, with his brother Phil, and this year with The Third Mind, this collection is a reminder that Alvin has been making outstanding music for a very, very long time.

These are not demo recordings but the finished products, original recordings that were inexplicably left on the shelf. There are several originals included, but it’s the interpretations of songs by heroes and friends that stand out. The heroes include Willie Dixon (a ripping version of “Peace”), Dylan, Doug Sahm, Marty Robbins, Mickey Newbury and Earl Hooker; friends are represented by Chris Smither (the title track from the Link Of Chain tribute sessions), Peter Case and the late Bill Morrissey. Alvin’s regular cast of sidekicks (Greg Leisz, Bob Glaub, Danny Ott, Don Heffington, and Cindy Cashdollar) are present and correct throughout, and it’s great to hear songs featuring former buddies from The Blasters (Gene Taylor, Bill Bateman and John Bazz), as well as the late Chris Gaffney’s accordion featuring prominently. Traversing acoustic blues, Tex-Mex, country/rock and electric barroom blues, Alvin’s old 86

Barry Moore, Christy Moore’s far less angry younger brother, better known to the world these past 30 years as Luka Bloom, was lucky.

He managed to get into Dublin’s Windmill Lane Studios just a fortnight before Ireland went into COVID lockdown, taking with him multi-instrumentalist and expat Melburnian Stephen Cooney, who has previously featured on some of Bloom’s most popular tunes including his version of Waterboys’ Mike Scott’s ‘Sunny Sailor Boy’, double and electric bassist Jon O’Connell, who’s in Irish band The Walls, and percussionist Robbie Harris, who most recently has been touring as part of Afro Celt Sound System. O’Connell added some electric guitar, keyboards and vocals, while Bloom called in singer Niamh Farrell, working at the time in a Dublin hospital, to join him in his home studio to add her voice to what became the album’s opening song, ‘Can We Stay’, a tune that positively shimmers, the accompaniment underlining Bloom’s languorous voice so subtly and tastefully, as it does right across Bittersweet Crimson. This is a more contemplative Bloom than the man who burst onto the scene back in 1991 with an unlikely version of LL J Cool’s ‘I Need Love’ and its accompanying album, The Acoustic Motorbike, that showcased an acoustic strumming style that saw one reviewer describe his music as “stadium rock for the bedroom”. Farrell’s winsome voice

joins Bloom on the album’s title track, the simple poetry of ‘The Hunger’ and his simple ‘Vision for 2020’ too. There are still songs that address the inequities visited upon the innocent souls of the world by forces over which they have no control – the man dispossessed of his olive trees in ‘Front Door Key’, the musicians of an African desert nation in bittersweet, jaunty ‘Love To Mali’, even us, or those of us who survived the fires of last summer in ‘Who Will Heal the Land’. “Memory’s my keepsake,” Bloom sings in a song titled ‘Keepsake”, a sort of samba no less, and so there are songs that remember, whether of loves past or, in ‘The Day the Great Oak Fell’, of the passing, back in 2013, of Nobel Prize-winning Irish “poet laureate” Seamus Heaney.

Bittersweet Crimson might for the most part be a more subdued collection of tunes, with that inevitable melancholy that inhabits the national soul of Ireland, than those of the younger Bloom, but there is no bitterness, just a recognition that life, like the pomegranate, is and ever will be bittersweet.

MICHAEL SMITH

ANGUS GILL & SEASONS OF CHANGE

3 MINUTE MOVIES RIVERSHACK RECORDS / MGM

“I can do just what I want while I’m stupid young and free.” So sings twenty-something ‘small town NSW’ musician Angus Gill.

Perhaps not so stupid. His new album features good mate Steve Earle, no less, on outlaw Country single ‘The New Old Me’. From gravelly vocals to twanging then shredding guitar, it’s as rock-solid as the Grand Canyon. Further testament to Gill’s cred, he’s

backed across the recording by Paul Kelly’s band: Drummer Peter ‘Lucky’ Luscombe, Bill McDonald (bass), Cameron Bruce (piano and Hammond B3 organ) and Dan Kelly and Ashley Naylor on electric guitars. Co-writers include Allan Caswell and Alissa Moreno. It’s certainly a Country album but Gill confidently takes the songs into a-typical directions. Driven by Farfisa organ and a boppy energy, the title track puts me in mind of The Reels. There’s balladry (‘Hey Underdog’), the soulful ‘Almost Alright’ and an ode to ink. ‘Skin Story’ was co-written with Nick Wolfe (Wolfe Bros.). Bagpipes (AccaDacca – tattoos – geddit?) complement Naylor’s guitar.

Mark Lizotte (Diesel) co-wrote and plays on ‘Daylight Robbery’ with Luscombe’s steady beat driving the getaway car. Less traditionally Country is saxophonelaced ‘Acquainted With The Night’ with Gill’s distinctly Australian vocal delivery. ‘You and Me and Monopoly’ celebrates simple pleasures with the added flourish of alternating time signatures.

The Golden Guitar nominee has impressed since his teens. His latest work suggests the evolution of Australian Country is in good hands.

CHRIS LAMBIE

BRIGID MAE POWER

HEAD ABOVE THE WATER Fire Records

Power’s previous album (The Two Worlds) was a brooding, sometimes harrowing listen that delved into relationship abuse, which was nonetheless riveting. What transcended the message was her ethereal voice, it truly is a thing of beauty, lying somewhere between fellow Irishwomen Máire and Enya Brennan. With production

CD: General duties shared between multiinstrumentalists Peter Broderick and Alasdair Roberts, her voice is framed in a calmer and more soothing environment, and the effect is mesmerising. Most of the album borders on a gentle lilt, one that blurs the boundaries between country and traditional folk. Power accompanies herself on gently strummed guitar, but it’s the added instrumentation from the studio ensemble that creates the haunting dynamics. Behind her folk-tinged singing, several tracks are awash in subdued pedal steel (‘On A City Night’, ‘Wedding Of A Friend’), whilst the use of Shruti box (a droning harmoniumlike instrument with bellows originating in the Indian subcontinent), bouzouki, bodhran and piano brings an overwhelmingly elegiac tinge to Power’s songs. The album’s atmospheric high point is reached on the hypnotic, evocative ‘I Was Named After You’, as flute, synthesiser and lightly brushed congas intertwine with Power’s melismatic vocal lines. The sonic palette is further broadened on the droning ‘I Had To Keep My Circle Small’, as Power’s soaring falsetto outlines her autobiographical choice of allegiances. Head Above The Water is an understated yet powerful statement, giving credence to quiet being the new loud.

TREVOR J. LEEDEN

LISA RICHARDS

I GOT A STORY MGM DISTRIBUTION

abuse. Richards lived a hard life in fast forward, before cleaning up her act for the love of music.

Eventually falling on her feet, her worldly-wise songwriting is a hard-won legacy. ‘Dominoes’ is the second single from her seventh album I Got A Story. Opening with Hammond organ, an easy rhythm rolls us along city streets, under bridges, killing time…

A child-like vocal (somewhere between Aldous Harding and Joanna Newsom) suggests youth interrupted, staunched in time. Yet the vulnerability is tempered by an assured delivery from the benefit of maturity and perspective. ‘Eulalia’ muses on the extraordinary life of Richards’ grandmother and how it may have influenced the following generations. Looking back at bad choices on ‘Driving Me Crazy’, Richards sings: ‘Don’t want to read your mind/Tread on eggshells in the black of night/ With no torch.’ The redemptive ‘Clean Slate’ and ‘Places We Grow’ talk of new beginnings. The now Canberra-based Australian lived in Austin Texas for many years. She returned to New York to record the album with producer Tim Bright who plays slide, synth, mandolin, harmonium, pedal steel and more.

Gary Langol adds keys and Lap Steel with drummer Ben Perowsky (Ricki Lee jones), bassist Jesse Murphy and Sam Reider on piano accordion. There’s something special – exceptional – throughout this album full of riches from a fractured story.

CHRIS LAMBIE

VARIOUS ARTISTS

PEEPHOLE IN MY BRAIN Grapefruit Records/Planet

his spiritual blues awakening. Over three decades later, a musical scene dominated by singer-songwriters and American soft-rockers had its own crossroads encounter with the rising tsunami of creatively progressive artists who would chart the course for the seventies; a time of melody with muscle. The three discs contained in the appropriately sub-titled British Progressive Pop Sounds Of 1971 bulges with hits and rarities of those who emerged from the underground scene in search of more mainstream success. Glam rock and androgyny exploded; Dana Gillespie recorded ‘Andy Warhol’ with backing from Bowie, Ronson and the Spiders, only for the songwriter to claim it back for his new album. Prog rock behemoths ELP, Atomic Rooster, Curved Air and Barclay James Harvest made assaults on the charts and all are included. Bona fide classic songs from The Move, Medicine Head, John Kongos, the eccentric Kevin Ayers and Terry Dactyl & The Dinosaurs sit beside offerings from the gifted guitarist Michael Chapman, ex-Zombies singer Colin Blunstone, the Kinks (from the Percy soundtrack!) and Procol Harum, as well as oddball contributions from the likes of Don Crown & His Busking Budgies and Phase 3; also noteworthy is Pete Atkin’s baroque ‘Sunlight Gate’ with lyrics written by literary critic and legendary deadpan satirist the late Clive James. The highly entertaining 40-page booklet forensically details each of the 71 tracks that glisten like gold, with a sprinkling of pyrite for good measure.

TREVOR J. LEEDEN

JAMES WILLIAMSON & DENIZ TEK TWO TO ONE Cleopatra Records

On shaky ground, dominoes may fall in any direction. Singersongwriter Lisa Richards recalls her life as one of the fallen. She struggled to survive alongside others living on the streets, with childhoods framed by neglect and

Robert Johnson had his crossroads moment in 1936, and ever since a plethora of artists have followed

Who can forget all the best two guitar combinations in rock?

Richards and Jones; Verlaine and Lloyd; Allman and Betts; Young and Whitten; Perry and Whitford; Gorham and Robertson. There are numerous names you could provide but for now, how’s about we give a big hand to Williamson and Tek. James Williamson and Deniz Tek are leaders in their own fields: Williamson with Iggy and the Stooges, Iggy Pop and his solo work; Tek with Radio Birdman and his solo work. Just as two heads are better than one, two guitars does the trick. The players’ individual guitar sounds and techniques mesh in such perfect unison here that it can be difficult to determine who is playing what. On the surface you can pick Williamson’s solos and Tek is right in the pocket with his rhythm work but they mix it up to solid effect.

The riffs are compelling and, as you would expect, the guitars are up front but this is not a gun-slinging, axe-grinding, dirty-arsed riff fest just for the sake of it. You’re not going to get that immediate, yet unsatisfactory jolt to the system.

The song writing is suitably robust so these songs seep in slowly and the hooks remain indelibly planted.

Whether it’s the riff rockers such as the single ‘Jet Pack Nightmare’, ‘Stable’, ‘Progress’, ‘Climate Change’, ‘Liar’ and ‘Birthday Party’, or the more laid back and acoustic tracks ‘Small Change’, ‘Melissa Blue’, ‘No Dreams’ and ‘Take A Look Around’ they carry the weight. The acoustic tracks reveal a rootsy, bluesy side with Tek playing harp on ‘Small Change’.

If there’s one gripe, it’s that Tek’s vocals don’t always hit the mark especially on the quieter tracks.

That’s just nit-picking because this is a very satisfying release and one to chalk up as delivering a guitar combination that has already displayed ample potential for the future.

IAN McFARLANE 87

iBOX SETS FOR santa to deliver DEREK & THE DOMINOS LAYLA & OTHER ASSORTED LOVE SONGS UMC/Polydor Derek & The Dominos‘ 1970 album Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs featuring Eric Clapton, Duane Allman, Bobby Whitlock, Carl Radle and Jim Gordon - is being reissued for its 50th anniversary as a deluxe 4LP vinyl set and two CDs. The original album has been half-speed mastered by Miles Showell at Abbey Road Studios and is on two LPs. Two further records of bonus material make up the box set. The vinyl box comes with a 12×12″ book of sleeve notes taken from the 40th-anniversary edition. A 2CD edition will also be made available.

FLEETWOOD MAC 1969-1974 Rhino The new 8-CD box set covers a five-year timeframe and several different band line-ups of the band, from founding members Fleetwood, Peter Green, John McVie and Jeremy Spencer; to later additions like Danny Kirwan, Christine McVie, Dave Walker, Bob Welch, and Bob Weston. This collection includes seven remastered studio albums: Then Play On (1969), Kiln House (1970), Future Games (1971), Bare Trees (1972), Penguin (1973), Mystery To Me (1973), and Heroes Are Hard To Find (1974).

Six of the seven include bonus tracks, with single versions, non-album tracks and some alternates.

The bonus eighth CD is an unreleased recording of the band’s 15 December 1974 concert at The Record Plant in Sausalito, California. The performance captures the band – Fleetwood, Welch and the McVies – on tour supporting their latest 88

album, Heroes Are Hard To Find (the show was simulcast on the KSANFMl radio station in San Francisco).

There is also a vinyl set that comes with a bonus seven-inch single featuring ‘For Your Love’ (Mono Promo Edit) on one side, and the previously unreleased ‘Good Things (Come To Those Who Wait)’ on the flipside. Both of those are bonus tracks on the Mystery to Me CD in the new box set.

JOHN LENNON GIMME SOME TRUTH Capitol As part of the celebrations for John Lennon’s 80th birthday his most vital and best loved solo recordings have been completely remixed from scratch for a new collection. The definitive new Best Of John Lennon - 36 tracks completely remixed from master tapes in hi-res stereo 96/24 PCM, 2 CD/Blu-ray new 5.1 surround mixes and Dolby Atmos. With a 124-page book with rare photos and extensive notes from John, Yoko and more. Foldout 2-sided poster, 2 postcards and GIMME SOME TRUTH bumper sticker.

RICHARD & LINDA THOMPSON HARD LUCK STORIES 1972 – 1982 UMusic This 8CD box set features remastered versions of all six studio albums and previously unreleased recordings. This career retrospective contains the three classic Island Records releases – I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight, Hokey Pokey and Pour Down Like Silver – and the long out-of-print albums First Light and Sunnyvista as well as their final album Shoot Out The Lights.

Hard Luck Stories contains 113 songs in total which 30 are previously unreleased. All the studio albums come with bonus tracks and there are Early Years and live discs to complete the eight-CD

collection. The set was personally curated by Richard and Linda and compiled and mastered by Andrew Batt. It contains a 72-page hardcover book featuring brand new essays (by Patrick Humphries and Mick Houghton) and rare and previously unpublished photographs.

THE ROLLING STONES GOATS HEAD SOUP Interscope The 3CD+ blu-ray package offers a brand-new stereo mix, a 5.1 surround and Dolby Atmos mix, a disc of rarities and alternate mixes and the ‘Brussels Affair’ concert, recorded live at the Forest National Arena in October 1973 is reissued on CD for the first-time outside Japan. The rarities disc includes three previously unreleased tracks: ‘Scarlet’ (featuring guitar by Jimmy Page), ‘All The Rage’ and ‘Criss Cross’.

The super deluxe edition includes a 120-page book, with photos and three essays: ‘50 Years On – An Appreciation of Goats Head Soup’ by Ian McCann, ‘Brussels Affair Live 1973 Tour’ by Nick Kent and ‘The Story Of The Cover Art’

by Darryl Easlea. This set also includes four 1973 reproduction tour posters which are rolled up, not folded. A 4LP vinyl box is also available which contains the new stereo mix, the rarities disc and the Brussels Affair, while a 2LP edition omits the live gig and a single vinyl LP offers just the new mix of the album. ALL the vinyl is half-speed mastered. 2CD and single CD options are available.

LOU REED NEW YORK Warner Music Australasia This 3CD/ DVD/2LP Deluxe Edition of Reed’s Sire Records debut features newly remastered sound, unreleased studio and live tracks, plus the DVD debut of The New York Album

concert video. This limited edition and exclusive bundle also comes with a cassette version of the New York album. 30 years ago his Sire Records debut and 15th solo studio album earned a gold record, a Grammy nomination, and a No.1 hit with ‘Dirty Blvd.’ This includes a newly remastered version of the original 1989 album on CD and – for the first time – on double 180-gram audiophile vinyl. The set also includes 26 unreleased studio and live recordings of album tracks from the Lou Reed Archive. The 3CD/ DVD/2LP set comes packaged in a 12 x 12 hardcover book that includes new liner notes written by music journalist David Fricke, essays from archivist Don Fleming, and was produced for release by Laurie Anderson, Don Fleming, Bill Ingot, Jason Stern, and Hal Willner.

THIN LIZZY ROCK LEGENDS UMusic To celebrate 50 years of Thin Lizzy Universal Music have released a 6CD+DVD box set that features 74 unreleased tracks and 99 tracks in all. The box covers the band’s whole career with audio newly mastered by Andy Pearce. The content encompasses unreleased material including demos, radio sessions, live recordings and rare single edits.

The track listing has been compiled

by Thin Lizzy guitarist Scott Gorham and Lizzy expert Nick Sharp from a collection of newly discovered tapes most of which have never been heard before. The DVD features the hour-long Bad Reputation BBC documentary and the band’s legendary performance on the Rod Stewart A Night on the Town TV Special from 1976. The set also contains replicas of the nine tour programmes bound into a hard-backed book, Phil Lynott poetry books, four prints by cover artist Jim Fitzpatrick and a book containing quotes by all the members of the band about their experiences playing with Phil Lynott and Thin Lizzy, along with some famous.

CD: World Music & Folk

BY T O N Y H I L L I E R

FAY HIELD WRACKLINE Topic/Planet

English folk academic, banjoist and songstress Fay Hield’s fifth studio release provides proof positive that she’s now worthy of comparison with such esteemed compatriot trad divas as June Tabor, Maddy Prior and Eliza Carthy. Wrackline is a devilishly good concept album that collates spellbinding narratives concerning ghosts, ghouls and fairies, some connected to the animal kingdom. As usual, Hield benefits from sparse but immaculate accompaniment from some of the UK folk scene’s finest instrumentalists on guitar, fiddle, concertina and bass. But it is her pristine phrasing and singing - nuanced or robust, according to each song’s requirements - and impeccable enunciation that comfortably holds centre stage, particularly so when channeling the spirit of a 17th century witch in the set’s compelling opener. Hield’s cornerstone interpretation of a 14th century poem similarly commands attention, despite its 7-minute duration.

DANNY KEANE ROAMIN’ MVKA/Planet

British cellist/pianist Danny Keane bridges the gap

between genres on his kaleidoscopic debut album, deftly weaving elements of world music, traditional folk and contemporary dance music around a jazz core.

Apprenticeships with the stellar likes of Anoushka Shankar and Mulatu Astatke have provided him with an appreciation of Indian and African rhythm that’s manifested in a handful of engrossing self-composed numbers. Classical and cinematic music and Scandi minimalism are other influences that help colour a set in which no two tracks are alike. Skilled collaborators combined with his own superior playing and arranging ensure that Keane’s ambitious collage is elevated well above mundane mash-up status.

THE RHEINGANS SISTERS RECEIVER Bendigedig

With art-house aesthetics and European and Scandinavian influences this lauded English siblings duo hits a new peak on their fourth album together.

Both accomplished violin, 5-string banjo and keyboard players and singers, Anna & Rowan Rheingans mix lyrical original tunes and songs informed by travels with their own stark slant on traditional pieces from France, Sweden, Norway and Catalonia, assisted by a jazz saxophonist (the set’s sole guest artist) on three tracks.

While predominantly reflective, plaintive and down tempo not unlike another esteemed British sister act, The Unthanks - their music is breathtakingly beautiful.

AFEL BOCOUM LINDÉ World Circuit Records

Having spent decades touring and recording with desert blues legend Ali Farka Touré before spreading his wings with other stellar Malian names such as Toumani Diabaté and Habib Koité, singer-guitarist Afel Bocoum should be more widely known. Lindé might be the album to bring him international acclaim. While based in traditional desert blues, Bocoum’s fourth solo release combines tradition and innovation, the latter courtesy of contributions from a select but diverse guest list and the production skills of English studio whizzes Damon Albarn and Nick Gold. Trombonist Vin Gordon of Jamaican ska legends the Skatalites lends reggae flavouring to a track that also features kora flourishes; Joan As Police Woman adds folksy violin to another, while the departing number is given a classic Nigerian afrobeat pulse by the late great master drummer Tony Allen. Other deviations from desert blues include a racy piece driven by Congolese soukousinfluenced dancing guitars.

DJELY TAPA BAROKAN Label 440

Djely Tapa may be Montrealbased these days but she grew up in a village in western Mali in a family of griots (traditional minstrels) and that’s predominantly what informs her music and mission. Blessed with spectacularly soaring and powerful pipes not dissimilar to her birth country’s male and female superstars Salif Keita and Oumou Sangaré, and a predilection towards punchy Afro-pop, it seems only a matter of time before she makes international mainstream waves. On her belated debut album, Mandinka traditions (kora harp included) and desert blues simmer in a hot studio production that incorporates electronica and Afro-futurism as Tapa salutes the strength of African women.

BANTU EVERYBODY GET AGENDA Soledad

On its latest and arguably greatest album, Nigerian big band collective BANTU (Brotherhood Alliance Navigating Towards Unity) sashays impressively from Fela Kuti-inspired afrobeat and afrofunk to James Brown-influenced soul garnished with 21st century hip-hop, RnB and jazz while delivering sharp socio-political commentary. Singers and rappers spit out their rhetoric above hypnotic criss-cross rhythm patterns created by a super-tight brass section, guitarists, keyboardists and pulsating percussion.

Afrobeat progenitor Fela Kuti’s youngest son, Seun, gives his tacit approval to the agenda with a guest vocal track on ‘Yeye Theory’, one of the set’s standouts.

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CD: Blues AL HENSLEY

FIONA BOYES BLUES IN MY HEART Blue Empress/Only Blues Music

In the two decades that have passed since widely acclaimed multi award-winning blues woman Fiona Boyes released her debut solo album she has toured and recorded internationally with some of the world’s top blues musicians.

The guitar playing Aussie singer-songwriter’s outstanding talents have been hailed by greats from Hubert Sumlin to Pinetop Perkins. This 20th anniversary digitally remastered edition of Blues In My Heart has been signed to Californian label Reference Records for worldwide distribution. A follow up to her much lauded 2018 title Voodoo In The Shadows, the re-issue which shows the way her life and blues journey would enfold marks Boyes’ 11th solo release. While Boyes has since displayed her remarkable skills across a range of guitars from electric to resonator slide and cigar box, here she channels a Memphis Minnie-inspired power and stylistic authority over acoustic country blues finger-picking and Piedmont ragtime styles. Members of Boyes’ former band the Mojos occasionally appear as the blues raconteur’s mercurial voice oscillates between joyful croons and righteous growls over 10 original compositions and historical material from early players like Tommy Johnson, Leadbelly, J.B. Lenoir and others she deeply admires.

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FENTON ROBINSON OUT OF CHICAGO JSP/Planet Co. Mississippi-born blues guitarist Fenton Robinson settled in Chicago at the age of 27 in 1962. His career peaked during the seventies propelled by an acclaimed series of releases on Alligator Records. Robinson’s plaintive tenor voice evoked the strains of Albert King while his subtle, immaculate fretwork expanded on the B.B. King school. These recordings, made in England in 1989 and Belgium in 1992, previously only appeared on a couple of rare compilation albums. On the first six cuts, Robinson is accompanied by the Norman Beaker Band, an in-demand backing sextet for blues artists touring the UK at the time. They provide a buoyant foundation on four studio sides and two live takes at the Burnley Blues Festival. The four remaining tracks recorded at a Belgian blues festival feature an equally proficient backup band with the added weight of Chicago blues guitar hero Son Seals. A studio version and a live recording of Robinson’s immortal ‘You Don’t Know What Love Is’ bookend the set. Also, in the mix alongside more Robinson originals are exhilarating readings of the Count Basie/Jimmy Rushing classic ‘Goin’ To Chicago’ and chestnuts by Louis Jordan, Rosco Gordon, T-Bone Walker and Sonny Boy Williamson.

ANNIE LAURIE

HENRY TOWNSEND

THE ESSENTIAL ANNIE LAURIE Jasmine

MULE Omnivore

Reported to have been blues diva Dinah Washington’s favourite singer, Annie Laurie was regarded among the best R&B/jump blues singers of the immediate post-war era. This CD contains the pick of her recorded material from 1946 to 1962 beginning with her first platter W.C. Handy’s ‘St. Louis Blues’ which she recorded while touring the chitlin’ circuit with Dallas Bartley’s territory band.

Shortly after arriving in New Orleans in 1947 Laurie was engaged by renowned singer/ pianist/band-leader Paul Gayten with whom she registered a series of chart successes, including her powerful cover of Buddy and Ella Johnson’s ‘Since I fell For You’. Also, among Laurie’s first-class body of work with Gayten are the slow burning ‘Annie’s Blues’ and the jump tunes ‘My Rough And Ready Man’ and ‘I Ain’t Gonna Let You In’. Laurie’s recordings between 1951 and 1953 find her in deep blues territory working with orchestras led by greats such as Hal Singer featuring dirty licks by celebrated guitarist Mickey Baker. Laurie’s biggest hit came in 1957 with the Rudolph Toombs-penned ‘It Hurts To Be In Love’. Regrettably though, five years later she left the scene to follow the dictates of her religious beliefs.

Lying halfway between Memphis and Chicago, the Mississippi River city of St. Louis, Missouri was a major stopover point during the great northern migration of blues artists from southern plantations between the 1920s and 1940s.

While itinerant country blues guitarists were omnipresent on St. Louis streets, barrelhouse pianists such as Walter Davis and Roosevelt Sykes primarily dominated the city’s blues music in bars, pool halls and night clubs. A stand-out vocalist, Henry “Mule” Townsend began playing guitar in St. Louis during the 1920s and made his first recording in 1929. He reached a wider audience as an accompanist on sides by Davis, Sykes, Robert Nighthawk, Big Joe Williams and Sonny Boy Williamson. Under the tutelage of his friend Davis, Townsend also became well versed on piano. This remastered reissue of Townsend’s 1980 album Mule enhances the original release with eight previously unreleased bonus tracks from the outstanding session.

Townsend displays highly venerable skills accompanying himself on piano on all but four songs here. A solo work apart from three cuts where Yank Rachell guests on mandolin and guitar, the production is worthy of Townsend’s unique genius, recognising the historical significance of such an important artist.

CD: JAZZ

BY T O N Y H I L L I E R

ARTEMIS

NUBYA GARCIA

MAMMAL HANDS

ARTEMIS Blue Note

SOURCE Concord Records

CAPTURED SPIRITS Gondwana Records

Artemis is an impressively credentialed and cosmopolitan jazz septet of female musicians from six countries: Canada, Chile, France, America, Israel and Japan. While its members are renowned for solo work, the band is a bona fide ensemble, whose limited live performances at events such as the Newport Jazz Festival have been lauded.

The chemistry between the lead instrumentalists — Musical Director and pianist Renee Rosnes, clarinetist Anat Cohen, tenor saxophonist Melissa Aldana and trumpeter Ingrid Jensen — and the tightness of its rhythm section (Rosnes, bassist Noriko Ueda and drummer Allison Miller) is apparent throughout the set. The icing on the cake comes from multi Grammy Award-winning singer Cécile McLorin Salvant, whose garlanded voice garnishes two of the nine tracks on the band’s eponymous debut album, which features material composed and/or arranged by each of the band’s six instrumentalists.

Originals inspired by iconic Mexican artist Frida Kahlo and the great classical composer Frédéric Chopin sit snugly alongside imaginative covers of Stevie Wonder’s ‘If It’s Magic’, Lee Morgan’s ‘The Sidewinder’ and The Beatles’ ‘Fool on the Hill’.

With her latest waxing, Nubya Garcia not only cements her status as the flourishing UK nu-jazz scene’s foremost female saxophonist and composer but also announces her arrival as a major player on the world stage.

The multi-award winner’s first release for one of America’s most respected jazz labels is a ripper. Aided and abetted by another young English luminary, keyboardist Joe Armon-Jones of the band Ezra Collective (who thrilled punters at this year’s WOMADelaide festival), and Kokoroko’s female trumpeter Sheila Maurice-Grey and rhythm section (bassist Daniel Casimir and drummer Sam Jones), Garcia gets stuck into her Afro-diasporic, Caribbean and London roots as well as classic modern jazz. While cornerstone renditions of the dub and backbeat-infused title track and ‘Pace’, which collectively run 20 minutes, will reward listeners’ patience, radio edits render snappy abbreviated versions. A cumbia-flavoured cut recorded with a Colombian trio, a Jamaican-tinged Lover’s Rock-inspired song and a short but soulful number featuring Chicagoan songstress Akenya offer contrast in an album that showcases Garcia’s spatial awareness, her sultry soloing and her proclivity for experimentation.

Besides also being an instrumental trio whose approach to jazz combines classical ambience and 21st century electronica and rock-influenced groove, Mammal Hands is signed to the same Manchester UK label that launched the equally acclaimed and musically related GoGo Penguin. In their case, though, saxophone rather than piano provides lead and the band’s drummer also plays tabla, which lends an Indian vibe to several tracks on their fourth album.

Furthermore, Mammal Hands’ classy sound sphere is informed by such diverse elements as Ethiopian music, Pharoah Sanders’ "spiritual jazz" and composer Steve Reich’s minimalism.

SUN RA ARKESTRA SWIRLING Strut Records

Marshall Allen still at the helm of Sun Ra Arkestra at 96. The veteran reeds maestro has guided the Arkestra with TLC since the band’s legendarily eccentric pianist, composer and bandleader shuffled off this mortal coil (to his beloved Saturn, one assumes!) back in 1993. Under Allen’s guidance, the colourful 12-piece has continued to honour its founder and uphold its status as one of the most eclectic and eccentric ensembles in the history of jazz. The veteran’s swinging, swirling title track is one of the better and more accessible pieces in a set that features new arrangements of Arkestra staples, though the band’s music is a taste that this reviewer has yet to acquire.

CLARIFICATION MARK GILLESPIE - Only Human (Rhythms #301 September/October 2020) With reference to the article on Mark Gillespie’s Only Human in Rhythms issue #301, I would like to clarify that he’d been a songwriter before he issued his collection of prose and poetry, Make Up, and that it was his then manager, Zev Eizik, who supplied the budget for recording the album. Also, the song title is ‘Savonarola.’

Ian McFarlane

Venerated American jazzmen have exited Planet Earth with such disturbing rapidity over the past few years that it’s both a relief and surprise, given his antiquity, to find 91

CD: JAZZ 2

BY D E S C O W L E Y

ADAM SIMMONS

ZATOCZKA: TRIBUTE TO KOMEDA Fat Rain 021

upon an expansive musical palette, unafraid to tap into the music’s elemental beauty. With Zatoczka, he has delivered an adventurous and heartfelt re-imagining of Komeda’s music, which remains as potent today as it was half a century ago.

ANDREA KELLER

ANDREA KELLER CURATES MONDAY NIGHTS LIVE AT THE JAZZLAB AK008 More than fifty years after his tragic death, at age thirty-seven, the reputation of Polish pianist and composer Krzysztof Komeda continues to grow. Trumpeter Tomasz Stańko, who played with Komeda in the sixties, routinely championed his music, most notably on his ECM outing Litania: The Music of Krzysztof Komeda (1997). Two of the finest tributes to Komeda’s music, however, have emerged out of the Australian jazz scene. Pianist Andrea Keller and trumpeter Miroslav Bukovsky issued The Komeda Project in 2018, and now comes Adam Simmons’ Zatoczka, capturing a performance by his Creative Music Ensemble at Melbourne’s Deakin Edge in November 2019.

The concert, presented by Polish Cinema in Australia, was played before a backdrop of atmospheric projections by video artist Jean Poole, referencing Komeda’s compelling soundtracks for directors like Roman Polanski and Jerzy Skolimowski. In tackling Komeda’s compositions, Simmons has striven to create a unified suite, bookended by the haunting theme from Polanski’s film Rosemary’s Baby, as voiced by Deborah Kaiser.

‘Crazy Girl’ and ‘Ballad for Bernt’, both drawn from Komeda’s score for Polanski’s 1962 film Knife in the Water, feature Simmons’ excoriating tenor saxophone, along with Tony Gould’s lush and delicate piano. ‘Roman II’ is ushered in by Nat Grant’s impressionistic vibes, before Simmons’s steers it in a jazzy film noir direction, opening the terrain for Gavin Cornish’s trumpet, which wails over pounding bass and drums. The centrepiece of the album is Komeda’s ‘Astigmatic’, a foundational milestone of European jazz, fusing atonality with free jazz. Throughout, Simmons draws 92

This release is billed as ‘Volume 1: The Composers’ Circle’, and promises to be the first of half a dozen live albums Keller has in the pipeline documenting her long-running Monday night residency at Melbourne’s Jazzlab.

The Composers’ Circle comprises a sextet of major Melbourne improvisers, and, true to its name, each musician has contributed a single composition. Recorded over two nights in December 2018, it kicks off with drummer James McLean’s ‘Apophasis’, a rhythmically jaunty piece highlighted by James Macaulay’s sweet-toned trombone and Sam Anning’s sinewy bass lines.

Carl Mackey’s ‘Hello Jim’ starts out with a captivating theme that serves as a launching pad for Mackey’s extended saxophone solo, his tone light and airy. Macaulay’s ‘Plan of a Taco’ is introduced with a muscular and knotty refrain, full of sliding trombone and sax, that builds to a resounding finale. Saxophonist Angela Davis’s contribution ‘Hymn for Haden’, a lyrical ode to the late bassist Charlie Haden, highlights her clear and unadorned alto sound, heart-rending in its emotional appeal. While Andrea Keller’s ‘Grateful, Hopeful, Joyful’ and Sam Anning’s ‘Ripples’ have both appeared on prior studio albums, the live versions here provide a new window on these masterful pieces. Keller’s approach to these performances is a democratic one. While each musician’s voice is featured, it is the composer and composition that is front and centre.

Overall, it is a gentle and delicate album, full of craft and subtlety, whose intention it is to highlight the compositional stature of some of our finest improvising artists.

By that measure alone, it succeeds admirably.

of improvisation. While Whirlpool carries few obvious hooks, it delivers up a rich sonic experience, one that grows with repeated listening.

ALISTER SPENCE

TREADING WATER Earshift Music

Pianist Alister Spence has been a dominant force on the Sydney jazz scene for several decades.

His long-running trio, with bassist Lloyd Swanton (The Necks) and drummer Toby Hall, has released seven albums to date, intent on pushing the traditional piano trio into exciting new territory. In a live context, they are capable of generating the sort of excitement we associate with acts like the former Esbjörn Svensson Trio (E.S.T), their music drawing as much upon electronica and minimalism, as it does upon jazz. Since 2008, Spence has also collaborated with Japanese avant-garde pianist Satoko Fujii, giving free rein to his more experimental leanings. This latter propensity is on full display with Whirlpool, his first stand-alone release of solo piano. As a double CD, there is a lot of music to ingest here. Comprising twenty-three relatively brief pieces, the music, true to its name, eddies and circles continuously, all-the-while flowing in mesmerising patterns. Spence is intent on utilising every facet of the piano, manipulating its workings, adding percussive effects. He freely explores a wide-ranging sonic landscape, whether laying down dense clusters of rumbling chords, or fabricating gentle plinking or scratching sounds. While his playing mines a long tradition of experimental piano, from John Cage to Cecil Taylor, there is equally an abstract lyricism to be heard throughout, resonant with effect. Overall, there is an organic flow to this music, like the sound of water coursing and cascading, representing an unbridled stream

The Avgenicos Brothers – Tom and Michael – are just that, musical siblings hailing from Sydney’s improvised music scene, where they’ve played alongside the likes of Mike Nock and Jonathan Zwartz. Treading Water, their debut album as co-leaders, sees them joined by a stellar crop of younger players: pianist Novak Manojlovic, guitarist Felix Lalanne, bassist Nick Henderson and drummer Alex Hirlian. The album’s opener ‘Toy Boy’ kicks off with Tom’s haunting trumpet, floating Miles-like over a backdrop of impressionistic guitar and piano, before it segues, at the two-minute mark, into an infectious rhythmic groove, cool as an autumn breeze. On the title track, Tom pushes his trumpet into more exploratory territory, skating over drums, before Michael’s sax assumes the spotlight, literally dancing over guitarist Felix Lalanne’s intricately woven patterns.

Treading Water is an intensely focused recording, emphasising concise hooks and grooves rather than extended improvisation. Of the album’s nine tracks, all composed

by Tom and Michael, just one cracks the five-minute mark. Such brevity, however, belies the subtle interplay lurking beneath the surface, an adroit interaction of drums/bass/ guitar/keys. Tom’s trumpet playing, in particular, is a stand out, his wideopen tone recalling Freddie Hubbard during his CTI years. While there’s nothing overtly adventurous, or boundary-pushing about this music, it reflects the co-leaders’ dedication to honing their trademark style, a symbiotic sax/trumpet groove that is as ear-catching as it is infectious.

WHIRLPOOL ASM009

AVGENICOS BROTHERS

VINYL:

BY S T E V E B E L L

THE POGUES

CRAIG FINN

COLOURED BALLS

BBC SESSIONS 1984-85 Warner PROTO CELTIC-ROCK

ALL THESE PERFECT CROSSES Partisan Records LITERATE INDIE ROCK

LIBERATE ROCK: SINGLES AND MORE 1972-1975 Just Add Water Records OZ ROCK GROUND ZERO

Record Store Day was delayed in 2020 due the pandemic so there are some unseasonably late vinyl releases available only in indie record stores, and this new collection provides a live snapshot of revered UK rockers The Pogues over a 15-month period early in their career. It comprises four separate sets they recorded for the BBC (including two for The John Peel Show, a huge patron of the band in their early years) and while still in their infancy - they were still using their original name of Pogue Mahone at the time of the first session - the original six-piece line-up is on fire here, hell-bent on fusing the punk sensibilities they loved (they’d just completed a huge tour with The Clash and signed with punk HQ Stiff Records) with the traditional Irish music they’d grown up with. This collection includes six tracks each from The Pogues’ lauded first two albums - Red Roses For Me (1984) and Rum, Sodomy & The Lash (1995) - and covers the whole gamut of their range, steering from maudlin ballads (‘The Auld Triangle’, ‘A Pair Of Brown Eyes’) to more raucous, ebullient numbers (‘Sally MacLennane’, ‘Poor Paddy On The Railway’, ‘Wild Cats Of Kilkenny’) to more traditional fare like ‘Danny Boy’ and their inimitable take on Ewan Maccoll’s ‘Dirty Old Town’. The sound is superb for a live recording, testament to both the band’s early chemistry and BBC production values.

Craig Finn is best-known for being frontman for iconic Brooklyn bar band The Hold Steady, but in recent times he’s slowly unfurled a complementary solo career which - while sonically a far more sedate concern - still shines a light on his incredible songwriting skills. This 2-LP RSD collection collates b-sides, outtakes and alternate versions from his most recent trilogy of solo albums - Faith In The Future (2015), We All Want The Same Thing (2017) and I Need A New War (2019) - and together they represent a whole new reimagining of this already strong career phase. The songs here are predominantly perfectly-crafted character vignettes, Finn studying the world through the eyes of those struggling to survive on the fringes of “normal society”, often finding themselves in situations where they’re no longer in control of the steering wheel. The ‘horn version’ of almost spoken word tract ‘God In Chicago’ is the highlight, sleepy and evocative, while stripped-back, acoustic renditions of ‘It’s Never Been A Fair Fight’, ‘Magic Marker’, ‘Blankets’ and ‘Grant At Galea’ also recast those tracks in an entirely new light. Finn provides liner notes on each track for context, but he’s such an incredible wordsmith that any chance to revisit his catalogue from a different perspective is a welcome one in my books.

Influential Aussie rockers the Coloured Balls formed in 1972 around the nucleus of crack guitarist and band leader Lobby Loyde, releasing their first single ‘Liberate Rock’ later that year. They may have looked like sharpies but they were playing loud, incendiary rock in the spirit of their local forebears like The Aztecs (further inspired

by US acts such as The MC5 and The Flamin’ Groovies). In their brief career they recorded four albums before splitting in 1975, but new collection Liberate Rock: Singles And More 1972-1975 focuses on the seven nonalbum singles they released during their brief window of existence (as well as two tracks from their infamous set at the 1973 Sunbury Rock Festival, including a spiralling 16-minute version of their classic ‘God’).

As veteran critic Ian McFarlane notes in the extensive liner notes these singles allowed the Coloured Balls to subtly experiment with genres and styles, their traditional blues-rock touchstones evolving in places towards heavy guitar psych, vintage rock, glam and even pop moments. The album was re-mastered by former Aztecs drummer Gil Matthews straight from the original master tapes so the sound is great, making this a fascinating adjunct to the core canon of these underrated Oz rock pioneers.

93

SLIM’S SHADOW

James Arneman brings to the screen the story of Joy McKean and her contribution to Slim Dusty’s music.

VARIOUS ARTISTS SLIM & I Universal

“She’s just an indomitable lady”, is how James Arneman describes his grandmother Joy McKean. With the release of the new documentary film Slim & I and as executive producer, he tells her story as the Australian Queen of Country, wife of Slim Dusty and so much more.

“I grew up with Slim and Joy as just Nana and Pa, but there was a certain point where I realised how well-respected they were and the depth of connection their music had with a lot of people around Australia. I wanted to tell their story and that's how we started on this journey of making the film. It just made sense to tell it from Joy's perspective because firstly, she's here to tell it. Secondly, because I think it gives you a whole new perspective on the way they built their musical legacy.”

So, what was the instigator to finally get her story out there?

What happened was, about five years ago, Joy wrote an autobiography of her life. When she sent me the chapters for that I was really a bit shocked about how frank and how honest she was. She really went back through all her diaries and spoke to a lot of old friends and really worked through her own take on her life in a way that was warts and all. For many years, Joy was really the person that guided Slim's career and definitely made sure their public-facing, their partnership was squeaky clean, very old school entertainers, all smiles. You'd never let on if anything was wrong or if you were having a hard time.

I’d guess that most people would be 94

unaware of who Joy McKean even is while Slim is a household name?

Yeah. When she met Slim, she was a songwriting prodigy when country music was having a huge wave of popularity in Australia in the late '40s and into the '50s it was very popular. She was part of The McKean sisters with her sister Heather. They were just incredibly successful. They had their own radio show as teenagers, at the age of 16 Joy was a radio compere. It was on Saturday night, it was a prime time radio show and people would come on. People like Jimmy Little and all these singers at the time. Of course, that's how they met a young Slim Dusty.

When Slim met Joy, she was far more famous, quite simply. She had a very thriving career. They worked very well together but it took a little bit of time to figure out, in their early years, about how that partnership would work and how it would remain equal.

A few times she had to tell him to pull his head in.

There is that moment, she's married, had a child, and all of a sudden was at home cooking and cleaning. That wasn't part of her plan?

They started touring Australia and they had a small following at the time. People knew who they were, they had records out on their respective record labels. They took a risk and saved up some money and just got a couple of caravans and booked some shows up the East coast of Australia to start with. The show was just Slim and Joy. Joy on accordion. Joy was the band essentially and then Slim was playing acoustic guitar. One microphone.

Very primitive shows in little country holes.

And they started that way. Then they slowly built up their show and they traveled with variety acts, jugglers and magicians and contortionists and other country and rock and roll artists.

They were the people’s people by going out, way out, to remote areas and Aboriginal Communities were they built incredible friendships because they returned year after year.

Over a 50-year career of country music, Slim and Joy, realised that their most loyal fans and the people that they could rely on were people out in remote areas of Australia.

Sometimes they were the only audience for Slim and Joy in some of the leaner times.

As we’ve mentioned, Joy was a great

James Arneman songwriter and many of Slim’s popular songs were written by her.

That's right, yeah. When we talk about Slim's biggest hits, Lights on the Hill, The Biggest Disappointment, Walk a Country Mile, these are all Joy McKean songs. Joy had a knack.

She knew Slim so well that she was able to write for him in his voice. In some cases, she knew what would work perfectly for him as a singer. Also, she could write for him as a character. There's some wonderful examples of that in the catalog.

There are some really lovely moments in the movie with the guests who reflect on their memories of Slim and Joy, of the songs and the influence they both were.

How did you decide on who to have as part of the doco?

That was an interesting balancing act. We looked for the range and the breadth of Slim and Joy's influence in their career.

Of course, because we were talking about Joy and her songwriting, we thought it'd be appropriate to look at some of the new generation of singer-songwriters in Australia.

We have people like Kasey Chambers and Bill Chambers.

Other people we've got are a little bit more unexpected, Missy Higgins, who does a wonderful version of Joy's song, The Biggest Disappointment. Great characters like Chad Morgan who is an absolute legend of Australian country music, The Sheik from Scrubby Creek. So funny. He's someone that was on tour with Slim and Joy in the early '50s so he has so much history with him. Then you've got songwriters like Don Walker, Paul Kelly, Troy Cassar-Daley all talk about their experiences with Slim and Joy. They've all got friendships with Joy which is great. Then you've got family, of course, my mum, Anne Kirkpatrick and my Uncle David that tell the family element of the story.

It's a really interesting balancing act and one that the director of the film, Kriv Stenders, helped a lot in being objective about. I was working on the film as a producer but Kriv is a very experienced director. He's made films, Red Dog, he made a great doc about the Go-Betweens.

Note for You: Pearl Jam and the Present Tense

By Ronen Givony (Bloomsbury, h/b)

A

few years back, author Ronen Givony was commissioned to write a small book for Bloomsbury’s 33 1/3 series. This was an adventurous series, at last count running to almost 150 titles, giving writers free rein to flex their collective muscle by writing about an album of choice, one that presumably meant something to them. The series’ strong-suit – like Fight Club – was that there were no rules, writers were free to adopt any approach they liked, even stream-of-consciousness fiction, as they effectively descended down the rabbit-hole of obsession and fandom. Givony chose Jawbreaker’s 24 Hour Revenge Therapy, an obscure album by a punk band that, in his own words, “no one had heard of”.

Reflecting back on the writing experience, he remembers: “the task had pretty much broken me”.

It borders on inspirational, then, to see that Givony is back for more – way more – in this hefty tome on grunge rockers Pearl Jam. Why Pearl Jam? That’s a question Givony expends plenty of words coming to grips with. Ok, he’s seen the band fifty-seven times, which seems not bad going, but this is a band who inspires genuine devotion among its fans. Givony is the first to call into question his own dedication: “There are people who would scoff at you for presuming to write a book after fifty-seven shows; and I don’t disagree”. If his book has a raison d’etre, it is to plumb his own fraught relationship to this music. Is it just a guilty pleasure? Is it simply a case of nineties nostalgia? Why is he happy to tell friends about seeing Radiohead two nights in a row, but not Pearl Jam? And right here is the rub: “Is Pearl Jam even any good?”

Givony’s book is not your standard biography of a band. For that, you’d need to look elsewhere (though there are surprisingly few books on Pearl Jam, especially in comparison to Nirvana). He has made no effort to interview band members, producers or roadies. He doesn’t take us into the studio when classic albums are being recorded. Instead, he’s gone where few would dare to tread – the dark web of Pearl Jam fandom. Is there a more bootlegged band, aside from the Grateful Dead? Early on, Pearl Jam encouraged fans to tape or film performances, with the result that there are few concerts that can’t be tracked down in some form. In

the first two years of the new millennium alone, Pearl Jam released seventy-two official bootlegs of live material, each one a double-CD. That’s a lot of music to wade through. Thankfully for the rest of us, Givony is there to do just that.

What if, rather than attempting the totality, he instead breaks down Pearl Jam’s career into thirty stand-alone scenes, chronologically ordered, that might stand in for the whole? Key performances, recordings, events, big or small, the detail of which sheds light on the wider story.

Some are unavoidable, like beacons on the landscape: the controversial video for early single ‘Jeremy’; the very public spat with Ticketmaster that kept the band off the road for several years in the nineties, and probably cost them a few albums; the disastrous Roskilde Music Festival in Denmark in 2000, at which nine young people were crushed to death near the stage; the band’s musical debt to The Who; or Eddie Vedder’s politics, right down to his invitation to the White House to meet with Bill.

Like punk, grunge music was a short-lived phenomenon, roughly lasting from 1991 to 1994, the year of Kurt Cobain’s death.

After that, the energy began to flag, as lesser clones, like Bush or Creed, flooded the space, diluting the mix. For Givony, Pearl Jam’s years of greatness spans the nineties, incorporating an unbroken run of best-selling albums from Ten to Yield.

Record companies today could only dream of such sales figures, with Vitalogy shifting 877,000 copies in its first week alone. Their initial rise was meteoric, going from playing small barns to stadiums in that first year.

Rolling Stone magazine went as far as to say that if they broke up after their first album, which has sold some twenty million copies to date, their place in history would be secured.

The strength of Goviny’s book lies in his readiness to make the tough call. His book is unreservedly opinionated, as so few these days are. Contrary to most PJ punters, he has no hesitation in citing No Code as their greatest album (strangely, I find myself concurring). He is kept awake at night worrying about whether Dave Abbruzzese, unceremoniously sacked in 1994, was truly the band’s best drummer. Givony proves himself a master of the bon mot, the memorable soundbite, demonstrating ample literary chops throughout. If I had room, I’d quote a hundred worthy passages.

But all this outpouring comes with its downsides, not least of which is Goviny’s tendency to quote Eddie Vedder’s onstage rambles verbatim, which can be dispiriting.

His book is like a vast patchwork, a disassembled jigsaw. I came away thinking that perhaps it’s a book best dived into, like one of Eddie’s epic dives into the mosh pit, rather than studiously read cover to cover. His book, in a nutshell, proves both exhaustive and exhausting.

Thirty years on, Pearl Jam are still a going concern, having released their latest offering Gigaton early this year. Like the Rolling Stones, they long ago forfeited being a studio band, instead morphing into a live juggernaut still capable of selling out stadiums. Givony’s book understandably focuses on their first great decade, despatching the past twenty years in a few brief chapters. By the end of all this soul-searching, what has Goviny learnt?

He certainly makes peace with his love of the band, though he remains unsure about their place in musical history. Do they belong to the middle-brow bands of the early nineties (Smashing Pumpkins, Red Hot Chilli Peppers) or to the more credible, chameleonic types (Nine Inch Nails, Rage Against the Machine)? Their catalogue, he acknowledges, provides ammunition for both arguments. More fundamentally he recognizes that, in the intervening years since he first fell in love with Pearl Jam’s music, something essential has been lost to us: “It’s not just that album sales are down – but the very idea that an artist can bring people together – that’s increasingly extinct. Popular music was once a utopian, promethean, idealistic reaching-out.

Today – like so much else – it is a retreat to our respective corners: an industry of spectators, algorithms, consumers and playlists”. In publicly professing his continued love of Pearl Jam, Goviny, has chosen to side with the angels, holding steadfast to his belief in music as a unifying force.

95

THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT

By Marcus J Moore (Hodder & Stoughton, p/b)

N

ot many musical artists find themselves the subject of a biography when only in their early thirties. But such is Kendrick Lamar’s critical veneration and influential reach, it should come as no surprise. Besides having garnered thirteen Grammy Awards to date, he was recipient, in 2018, of the Pulitzer Prize for music, the first rapper – and one of only a handful of non-classical composers – to be thus honoured. Even Obama got in on the act, nominating Lamar’s ‘How Much a Dollar Cost’ as his favourite song for 2015.

Marcus J Moore’s book makes it clear that, while Kendrick Lamar’s ascendency looks meteoric from the outside, the product of just four albums to date, it has come off the back of ‘damn hard’ work.

Growing up in Compton, a largely black neighbourhood of Los Angeles, Lamar counts among his earliest memories the 1992 LA riots, which erupted after four LAPD police officers, accused of beating truckdriver Rodney King, were acquitted by a majority white jury. His was a childhood permeated by gang violence and anti-police sentiment, lived to a soundtrack of N.W.A.’s Straight Outta Compton, with its strident ‘Fuck tha Police’, and the gangsta rap of Ice Cube, Dr Dre and Tupac Shakur (the latter notoriously gunned down in Vegas in 1996). By age-eight, Lamar had already seen two men shot and killed. These formative experiences would later resurface, refracted through the prism of complex word-play, in his music.

Despite this, Moore opts to begin his book on a more propitious note, recounting Lamar’s visit to South Africa in 2014, including a stay on Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for eighteen years. The experience proved life-altering, charging Lamar with an unexpected sense of belonging he’d never fully encountered in his own country. The episode fed directly into his masterpiece To Pimp a Butterfly, and was later revisited when Lamar scored the film Black Panther, working directly with South African rappers.

Like many rappers, Lamar started young, releasing his first mix tape, under the name K-Dot, at sixteen, before being taken up by Anthony ‘Top Dawg’ Griffith’s label. He honed his live skills touring as support for other acts, releasing his first album Section.80 to critical, if not commercial, acclaim in 2011. But it was his major label debut Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City, released the following year, that shifted the goalposts. An ambitious and sprawling album, it played out, nearcinematically, like a unified suite of music rather than a collection of songs. Tracks like the twelve-minute ‘Sing About Me, I’m Dying of Thirst’ would raise the bar for rap music. The album, described by one reviewer as a ‘journey through the concrete jungle of Compton’, would shift half a million units in its year of release.

Marcus J Moore is acutely conscious that Lamar’s career both coincides and reflects the past ten years of American political turmoil, embracing the final term of Obama and the first of Trump.

What other nation could pivot between such extremes? Mid-way, his book takes a detour to sketch out the circumstances leading to the Black Lives Matter movement, initiated by three black women in 2013 after the police shooting of teenager Trayvon Martin. Within an hour of first hearing the news, Lamar had penned ‘The Blacker the Berry’, which would appear on his consummate masterwork, To Pimp a Butterfly. It’s an album steeped in contemporary 96

events, but one that finds sustenance in black music from the past: Miles Davis, Sly Stone, George Clinton.

Much has been made of Lamar’s use of jazz musicians on To Pimp a Butterfly, engaging the talents of Kamasi Washington, Robert Glasper, Thundercat and others. As Moore says: ‘Kendrick wanted an ambitious mix of bebop and psychedelic jazz, James Browncentric funk, atmospheric soul, and off-centred beats. And most important, it had to be black – real black – from the music to the topics it addressed’. It proved a potent brew, mixing beats with live instrumentation, paying homage to the rich history of jazz in South Los Angeles. A few months later, cresting the wave of Lamar’s success, Kamasi Washington dropped his three-album opus The Epic, turning a whole new generation on to jazz.

Moore, a prominent black music journalist, is clearly invested in this story, rarely countering the litany of adulation that Lamar inspires.

In his portrayal, the rapper comes across as equal parts taciturn and self-assured, described as looking ‘more like a Baptist youth minister than the greatest rapper of his generation’. But that he is.

Lamar’s song ‘Alright’ achieved that rare feat, becoming a protest anthem in the same way that Public Enemy’s ‘Fight the Power’ did a quarter of a century previously. For his 2017 follow-up DAMN., however, he appeared to draw back from the stridency of his previous albums, stripping back the instrumentation, and offering up a more personal set of songs. It won five Grammy’s anyway.

If Moore’s book displays any pitfalls, it comes near the end. His heart doesn’t seem to be in it when he dissects DAMN., and he dispatches Lamar’s work on The Black Panther album in a paragraph. It’s understandable, this lack of denouement and closure; after all, he is dealing with an artist in mid-flight, one who has maintained relative musical silence for the past few years. Will Lamar return to lyrically confront head-on the ravaged state of the nation in 2020, a perfect storm of Trump, BLM, and COVID? Or has newfound fame and wealth smoothed the edges off the rapper already christened the voice of a generation? Moore advocates patience: ‘he’s always left us wanting more; we’d have to wait once more as he recharged, recentred, and reconfigured his spirit’.

KILLING TIME

By Jimmy Barnes Harper Collins HB

A

nd yes, here we are rapidly approaching the end of a year unlike any that most of us can remember and with it comes a stranger than strange Christmas season, one of course involving gifts for people that – at the time I write this – it is uncertain if in many instances we’ll be able to see.

And to that end Australia Post is already

By Stuart Coupe warning of slower than ever delivery times in the Christmas period. So, it is time to begin seriously looking at books for the music loving people in your life. And not surprisingly there are many possible options. Hey, did I mention that there’s this not half bad biography of Paul Kelly around? That will understandably be your first selection but other than that what’s around?

The rock’n’roll blockbuster is – of course – the third book from Jimmy Barnes, Killing Time which is another 400 + page offering that’s subtitled Short Stories From The Long Road Home. It is a collection of yarns that Barnes suggests fills in the world around his first two books.

Working Class Boy was, as Barnes says, an attempt to “unpack a troubled childhood” and Working Class Man was trying to, “make sense of my crazy rock’n’roll life.” This book is full of stories about what happened in between, during the “down time before gigs or during recording sessions, while travelling in remote places, hanging out with other musicians, or just quietly going about dayto-day life.”

Also, out in hardback for Christmas is Mark Mordue’s long-awaited Boy On Fire, the first part of a biography that the author has been working on for the best part of a decade. This portion deals with the early, formative years of Cave’s life. Mordue is a terrific writer and I’m excited to read what he comes up with.

Australia on the ‘virtual Elvis’ tour I’m immersed in the world of James Burton, Ronnie Tutt, Glen D Hardin and Jerry Scheff, and reading Richard Zoglin’s smart and insightful Elvis In Vegas: How The King Reinvented The Las Vegas Show.

Of course, it’s a lot about exactly that but also takes in tales of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Wayne Newton, Liberace, Sonny and Cher, Barbra Streisand, Howard Hughes, organised crime, and the overall weirdness that is Las Vegas.

If only there were even more hours for reading. I’m hanging out to get stuck into Marcus J. Moore’s The Butterfly Effect: How Kendrick Lamar Ignited The Soul Of Black America.

And who isn’t immediately drawn to a book that takes its title from the great song by Love on their Forever Changes album? But for such an LA-centric song, Maybe The People Would Be The Times by Luc Sante is very rooted in the New York experience.

Sante writes beautifully and this collection of essays is no exception, with rock’n’roll references abounding. After reading the opening pages I was looking for my copy of Florence by The Paragons and punching up ‘Arleen’ by General Echo. There’s essays on Patti Smith, the evolution of and landscape that spawned the Beastie Boys, and a lot of autobiographical writing about Sante’s youth on the Lower East Side in the 1970s and ‘80s. It’s a gem.

Happy reading . . . and did I mention that Paul Kelly biography?

Going now.

For Australian music history fans there’s Jeff Apter’s Friday On My Mind, a look at the life, times and music of George Young. I’m also salivating for a look and read of Craig Horne’s I’ll Be Gone, subtitled Mike Rudd, Spectrum and How One Song Captured A Generation.

So, what’s on the pile by my bedside table? I’m looking forward to delving into Ornette Coleman – The Territory And The Adventure by Maria Golla who apparently is strong on, according to MOJO, “The power of place and influence in a musician’s life” This is the first book on the jazz great since John Litweiler’s Ornette Coleman: The Harmolodic Life from 1992, and on a quick flick through looks to be the absolute business.

Speaking of jazz, I was pleasantly surprised to find of the existence of Mingus/Mingus, a slim volume containing memoirs of the music great by Janet Coleman and Al Young.

Another book that a lot of my friends are talking about is Remain In Love: Talking Heads, Tom Tom Club, Tina, by Chris Frantz which apparently finds the Talking Heads drummer certainly not holding back on his thoughts about and relationship with, in particular, David Byrne. As one reviewer commented after reading this, consider any plans for a Talking Heads reformation very much on hold.

As I’m doing edits on a book of interviews with Elvis Presley’s TCB Band which I conducted way back in 1999 when they were in

97

3

CONFESSIONS OF A LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER

By Greg Appel (Guthugga Pipeline Press, p/b)

The first thing to understand about Confessions of a Lighthouse Keeper is that it is not simply an autobiographical ramble through a few brief years in some minor independent Australian band that made a small splash in the lives of an even smaller MICHEL SMITH inner-city group of followers. That group might have grown a little larger through the story’s retelling/refashioning in the intervening years and might have given the band just a hint of effete cult patina. I’m no fan of ‘star ratings’ – I’ve never filed a ‘Best of whatever’ at the end of the year for any of the magazines for which I’ve written – but memoirist Greg Appel suggests that if the Go-Betweens could be seen as a B-grade band, the Lighthouse Keepers would probably be C-grade. So, why should anyone bother with a book about a C-grade band that, in its four-and-a-bit years, released three singles, a mini-LP and an album that barely dented the wider Australian consciousness even if it managed a European tour? Quite simply because Confessions is so much more than their story; it’s the story of a time and place, a generation, albeit just one little corner of it, delivered without affectation, simply affection – it’s a damned good read.

Appel delivers his memoir in the gentle, conversational, observational manner you get in the better, more personal kinds of TV documentaries. This is exactly the format in which he has been making a living in the years since he accepted that perhaps writing, recording and performing in an indie/alternative band was never going to pay the bills inherent in life as part of a long-term relationship involving kids. The majority of readers wouldn’t have seen the Lighthouse Keepers or the bands that followed - the Widdershins or One Head Jet. There’d be far fewer who haven’t seen the ABC-TV Australian music history documentary series Long Way to the Top and Love is in the Air, and some might have even attended the national concert tours the former show inspired. They can thank Appel and his time working in ABC-TV’s Archives Dept. for that – though not the concert tour.

He also worked on the ABC’s attempt at a more contemporary replacement to Countdown in youth music television, Recovery, some readers may recall from Saturday mornings on the ABC in the late ‘90s.

But that’s all getting ahead of things. The core the book is of course those four and a half years during which Appel almost accidentally found himself becoming a professional musician and songwriter in a band called the Lighthouse Keepers, and the core of that was his songwriting muse, singer Juliet Ward. They’d met when Appel was still playing in his first “serious” band, a shambolic ersatz punk affair dubbed Guthugga Pipeline, in Canberra, where he grew up comfortably middle-class and happy. The Lighthouse Keepers and their relationship began in earnest on Appel’s return from the trip-to-the-Old-Country he had to have, but things quickly progressed once the pair relocated to Sydney’s inner-city…

For what happened next, I’ll leave you to read the book.

What makes the whole exercise really interesting is the ‘documentary’ approach that Appel has taken. Much like the liner notes that accompanied the 2011 Feel Presents CD anthology, Ode To Nothing, rather than present the story solely from his own recollections, Appel has not only gone back to his own diaries 98

and those of the members who kept them at the time, but has interviewed them – as you do as a documentary-maker – thus providing a far more balanced perspective on not only the band’s ‘life and times’ but also the context in which the band’s music evolved, as well as the ethos of the period.

In fact, Appel goes one better and brings in voices that weren’t part of the small corner of the industry within which the Lighthouse Keepers chipped away at the craft – lazily, Appel would qualify. This makes for a much more satisfying reminiscence and one that will resonate for anyone who spent time trying to do the same thing in the ‘80s – and ‘60s, ‘70s, ‘90s and ‘00s for that matter. As it happens, Appel even includes a few thoughts and reminiscences from his father-in-law Brian Peacock, who played bass in New Zealand with the Librettos and in Australia (and the UK) with Normie Rowe & The Playboys, Procession and Western Flyer. [Ed: And also supported Rhythms Magazine back in the early 2000’s!].

Confessions isn’t your ‘tell-all’ drug-addled rock’n’roll memoir, thank goodness. Appel even apologises for its lack of ‘naughty bits’ despite the occasional imbibing of ‘medicinal herbs.’ But in the end, neither Appel nor Ward were really the kinds of musicians prone to playing that game, even if some of those around them were. Lazy they might have been, and not exactly prolific, but the music really was the point for them, and the fact that many of the members continued in music after the Lighthouse Keepers is testament to that.

Now surviving as a freelance film/videomaker, Appel also had a shot a writing a ‘rock musical’ – Van Park – which brought him back to one of the major characters in the making of Long Way to the Top: John Paul Young, whom he cast as one of the two central characters (the other being the inimitable Steve Kilbey).

Here’s one of my favourite Appel confessions: “John’s music resonated with me. I like good pop music, as opposed to bad.

Perhaps that’s what I was trying to create all along. It just came out sounding indie – due to a combination of laziness, budget and random factors beyond my control.” Quite the confession from a determinedly indie/alternative post-punk!

So, as that other champion of John Paul Young used to say on Countdown, regardless of what you may or may not know or care about the Lighthouse Keepers, do yourself a favour, seek it out and settle back for a thoughtfully, generous, rambling read.

4

TIME BETWEEN: MY LIFE AS A BYRD, BURRITO BROTHER, AND BEYOND

By Chris Hillman BMG Books HB $49.84

BRETT LEIGH DICKS

It wasn’t too long ago that Chris Hillman – he of The Byrds and The Flying Burrito Brothers - released his lauded seventh solo

album, Bidin’ My Time.

While doing press for the Tom Petty-produced record Hillman told Rhythms Magazine about an autobiography he had started writing, but quickly added the caveat – “But I’m not sure if the world needs another book by an aging rock star. The resulting book - Time Between: My Life as a Byrd, Burrito Brother, and Beyond - will be released next month through BMG and with it comes an unequivocal “yes” to Hillman’s rhetorical question.

Across six decades of making music, the only thing more compelling than Hillman’s remarkable creative journey has been his propensity for telling a story. Throughout the 315-page book the singer-songwriter does so openly and honestly with wit, candour and most importantly, empathy.

“When I was writing the book I didn’t think it was relevant to denigrate anyone who I had worked with or graphically describe that person,” Hillman explained of the parameters he gave himself to write an autobiography. “It wasn’t my intention to write a ‘tell all’ book where I say, ‘He was a drug addict and always had a needle sticking out of his arm.’ For me it has always been about the music so I wanted to stay focused on that and not denigrate the individuals I worked with.”

It was Linda Ronstadt’s musical memoir, Simple Dreams that served as a poignant yardstick for Hillman’s own musings.

“I don’t read autobiographies very much but I did read Linda Ronstadt’s book,” Hillman continued. “Linda’s book was really good and what I appreciated most about it was that she purposely didn’t talk about anybody in a bad way.

It was all about her music. I when I first started thinking about writing a book I also thought that was the way to go, so when I read hers that really validated it for me.”

Time Between: My Life as a Byrd, Burrito Brother, and Beyond traces Hillman’s upbringing on the outskirts of San Diego in rural Southern California through his induction into bluegrass music as a mandolin player to his tenure in succession of contemporary bands ranging from The Byrds, The Flying Burrito Brothers, and The Desert Rose Band.

“I was never trying to be the next Bruce Springsteen,” Hillman said. “I don’t think I ever could have been, but I’ve always enjoyed being a player in a band setting.

“When I started I never thought I was going to make any money from music. It was just something I loved and wanted to be a part of and I loved playing with other

musicians. That’s what I hope comes across in the book. There were times I had regrets, sure. Maybe I should have stayed in The Byrds longer but I also think that I was meant to be doing things in certain places at certain times.”

Those places had Hillman at the fore of contemporary music through the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. From his beginnings as a mandolin-playing bluegrass musician to switching to bass and along with Roger McGuinn, Gene Clark, David Crosby and Michael Clarke, forming The Byrds, his collaborations with Gram Parsons that forged the beginnings of country rock, his subsequent work in Manassas (with Stephen Stills and Al Perkins) and his own countryrock group The Desert Rose Band, Hillman’s musical journey is as enthralling as it has been ground-breaking.

“There was always something waiting for me around the next corner that and I didn’t have to seek it out,” Hillman explained of his musical progression. “After Manassas there was Souther Hillman Furay and after that I got back together with Roger and Gene in McGuinn, Clark & Hillman. Even when The Desert Rose band came along and I was the frontman by default, it wasn’t something I sought out.”

The book recounts a myriad of tales from the road; from the time when Little Richard and Jimi Hendrix stole The Byrds’ matching velvet-collar suits after a show in Los Angeles to sharing Wimpy Burgers with John Lennon and how a shared love of country and bluegrass music with Gram Parsons helped reshape The Byrds.

While the book beautifully conveys both Hillman’s unbridled love of sharing music and a good story, for every measure of levity his journey has delivered there is also a harsh dose of reality.

“We all aspire to achieve better things in our lives,” Hillman said.

“The book is a love letter to music but the subtext is here’s another guy trying to wade through some bad things that happened in his family, and a dark period, to emerge redemptive and a different person.”

99

Didirri

HELLO

Gina Williams and Guy Ghouse

Justin Townes Earle

Mike Noga

Vika and Linda

COMPILED BY SUE BARRETT

As the New Year approaches, here is a mix-tape which includes (to borrow a phrase from Bianca Gannon of Impermanence) some sonic hugs for the holiday season: Vika & Linda, ‘Amazing Grace’; Marc Gunn, ‘Christmas in Scotland’; Elephants Dancing, ‘Summer’s Song’; Aoife Scott, ‘The December Letter’; Dave Carter & Tracy Grammer, ‘American Noel’; Little Wise, ‘Mamma’; Gina Williams & Guy Ghouse, ‘Benallaby’; Emily Kurn, ‘Light the Lamp’; Rachael Sage, ‘Hanukkah in the Village’; Sighrens, ‘Hogmanay’; Kate Burke & Ruth Hazleton, ‘The Lake Isle of Innisfree’; Meghan Cary, ‘Christmas Through My Eyes’; Paper Scissors, ‘All of Us on Christmas’; Tuck Shop Ladies, ‘Two Hands’; Michael Waugh, ‘Kindergarten Fete’; Fiona Ross, ‘Auld Lang Syne’.

Australian singer/songwriter Jenny Biddle, now living in Scotland, says her favourite Christmas songs include ‘O Holy Night’ as she has “always had a soft spot for the harmonies” and ‘It’s Christmas Time (Let’s Just Survive)’ by Kathleen Edwards “for a bit of a giggle”. Amongst Scotland’s foods and beverages, Jenny “delights in the mulled wine” and considers Tunnock’s Teacakes to be “little bundles of heaven”. If you are looking for Christmas gifts (for yourself or someone else), the online store on Jenny Biddle’s website (www.jennybiddle.com) has “heartwarming postcards and coasters from my stop motion music video, ‘Five Foot Tall’; lyric tea towels; USBs; gift cards; and, of course, my new album, Hoping for a Hero”. Of her 2020 Christmas and Hogmanay plans, Jenny says, “My wife and I were planning on coming to Oz, but COVID decided it will be a quiet festive season tucked away from the Scottish winter by a cosy fire. We’ll be getting ready for an exciting new chapter with the birth of our firstborn in March!”.

According to the Australian Songwriters Association (www.asai. org.au), it has had its best response ever with the 2020 National Songwriting Competition. The Top Thirty lists were being posted online as we went to press, but the Awards Night has been deferred until early 2021 (due to COVID-19).

If you’re looking for other Christmas gift ideas, some record stores (including Captain Stomp, Ferntree Gully and The Basement Discs, Melbourne) and some venues (such as The Street, Canberra) have gift vouchers for sale. And Brian Wise would love you to give Rhythms subscriptions (print and/or digital) as Christmas presents.

Western Australian singer/songwriter Natalie D-Napoleon has a new album, You Wanted to be the Shore But Instead You Were the Sea. From memory, it’s about a decade ago that Natalie toured Australia with American singer/songwriter Victoria Williams.

Other new recordings include: Fred Smith, Domestic; Diana Jones, Song to a Refugee; Our Man in the Fields, The Company of Strangers; Vika & Linda, Sunday; Bruce Springsteen, Letter to You; Kate Miller-Heidke, Child in Reverse; Tom Houston, Gap in the Fence; Tim Minchin, Apart Together; Diana Demuth, Misadventure; Elvis Costello, Hey Clockface; Suzanne Vega, An Evening of New York Songs and Stories; Brennen Leigh, Prairie Love Letter; Gareth Leach, Trigger; Casey Burgess, Space to Breathe; Didirri, Sold for Sale; Dirk Powell, When I Wait for You; Kris Delmhorst, Long Day in the Milky Way; The Waterboys, Good Luck, Seeker; Robb Johnson & The Irregulars, Pandemic Songs; Phil Henry, Chasing Echoes.

100

Mick Hart

…AND GOODBYE

To all those who died in 2020, including as a result of COVID-19 Chicago-based songwriter Michael P Smith (78), who wrote ‘The Dutchman’ and who earlier this year lost his wife Barbara Barrow (with whom he recorded the 1974 album, Mickey and Babs Get Hot), died Illinois, USA (Aug) Trini Lopez (83), American singer and guitarist, died California, USA (Aug) New Zealand-born musician Don Martin (66), of Mi-Sex, died NSW, Australia (Aug) Salome Bey (86), American-born jazz, blues and R&B singer, died Canada (Aug) American singer/songwriter Justin Townes Earle (38), died Tennessee, USA (Aug) Ron Tudor (96), Australian music journalist, producer and founder of Fable Records and the Bootleg label, died Victoria, Australia (Aug) Australian singer/songwriter Mick Hart (50), died NSW, Australia (Aug) Steve Holland (66), guitarist for Molly Hatchet, died in August Western Australian songwriter, composer and guitarist John Meyer (67), who was part of Rose Tattoo and Chain, died in August Martin Birch (71), English music producer and sound engineer, died in August Tasmanian musician Mike Noga (43), drummer for The Drones, died in August Pat Fairley (76), of Scottish band Marmalade, died California, USA (Aug) English singer Wayne Fontana (74), of The Mindbenders, died England (Aug) Peter Starkie (72), guitarist with Skyhooks, died Victoria, Australia (Sept) Grammy-winning Australian singer Helen Reddy (78), whose hits included ‘I am Woman’, ‘Angie Baby’, ‘Delta Dawn’ and ‘Leave Me Alone (Ruby Red Dress)’, died California, USA (Sept) Max Merritt (79), New Zealand-born musician, died California, USA (Sept) American singer/songwriter Mac Davis (78), who wrote ‘In the Ghetto’, ‘Watching Scotty Grow’ and ‘It’s Hard to be Humble’, died Tennessee, USA (Sept) Chris Droney (95), concertina player from County Clare, died Ireland (Sept) English-born bassist Tim Partridge (70), died Australia (Sept) Lucille Starr (82), Canadian singer, songwriter and yodeller, died Nevada, USA (Sept) Jamaican musician Toots Hibbert (77), of Toots and the Maytals, died Jamaica (Sept) Ronald Bell (68), songwriter and saxophonist with American band Kool & the Gang (which took part in Band Aid 1984), died US Virgin Islands (Sept) Honey Cone singer Edna Wright (76), died California, USA (Sept) Al Kasha (83), American composer and songwriter, whose songs included ‘The Morning After’ (The Poseidon Adventure) and ‘We May Never Love Like this Again’ (The Towering Inferno), died California, USA (Sept) American singer Pamela Hutchinson (61), of The Emotions, died in September

Tommy DeVito (92), of The Four Seasons, died Nevada, USA (Sept) American drummer W S Holland (85), who worked with Johnny Cash & Carl Perkins, died Tennessee, USA (Sept)

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