Rhythms Magazine - May/June 2020

$12.95 inc GST $12.95 MAY/JUNE 2020 ISSUE: 299

“A Phenomenal storyteller with a unique sense of melody and an unmistakable voice,”NPR Music

“A remarkably evolved variety of break-up album, one whose match of melodicism and bruised romanticism makes it somehow suggestive of Lou Reed’s ‘Berlin’ as re-written

by Paul Simon.” Uncut

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“Pimienta defies the norm of relations and individualism” Billboard “A substantial cultural statement uniting Afro-Colombian roots... with just enough synthesiser heft to place Pimienta’s music in the here and now” New York Times

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“Son Little has a lithely expressive voice that can locate forgiveness, sorrow, and ecstasy in even the most hackneyed turns of phrase.”

The New Yorker

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CHRISTOPHER PAUL STELLING “Christopher Paul Stelling is an intense singer and lyrically has that poetic sense of mystery you can find in the songs of Bob Dylan.” NPR Music

Album Of The Week Double J

“This Ben Harper produced collection is one of the more vulnerable releases that Stelling has ever had.”

American Songwriter

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OUT NOW ON ANTI “His familiar dreamlike structural plodding is still intact with a bit of psych spaciness thrown in for good measure, moving the songwriter’s musical existence in forward motion.” SPIN

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“The intimate atmospherics, along with Ward’s storytelling acumen, make it an album practically designed for deep listening rather than skipping around to the singles.” The San Francisco Chronicle

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Volume No. 299 May/June 2020

UPFRONT 09

The Word

10

Rhythms Sampler #6. We Got The Blues!

12

Nashville Skyline

14

John Prine R.I.P.

Splendid Isolation. By Brian Wise.

Only available to subscribers!

Anne McCue has survived a tornado.

We salute one of the great songwriters who left us in April.

COVER STORY 16

Soul Music!

Lucinda Williams’s new album, Good Souls, Better Angels, takes aim at politics and hits the target. By Brian Wise.

NEW RELEASES & ON TOUR

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M10 BluOS Streaming Amplifier The best quality of music is now delivered over the internet.

Not only does it sound better, but entire catalogues of recorded music are more accessible than ever before.

HybridDigital

™

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The Price Is Right

Margo Price’s new album rocks.

By Martin Jones.

Stars On 45

More than four decades for an iconic Australian band.

By Jeff Jenkins.

The Liberation of Frazey Ford

37

Hermit-Age

A change of scenery inspired Ron Sexsmith’s latest album.

By Brian Wise.

Time Traveller

M Ward puts on his space cowboy hat.

By Martin Jones.

38

Have Harmony Will Travel

40

Musicians on Dylan’s ‘Murder Most Foul.’

Extraordinary guitarist Carla Olson enlists some high-profile friends for a great album. By Brian Wise.

Martin Jones and Brian Wise asked musicians about Dylan’s new epic song.

HISTORY

42

PBS-FM

Melbourne’s specialist music station has turned 40 and needs your support. By Ian McFarlane.

COLUMNS 48

Musician: Mandy Connell

By Nick Charles.

49

33 1/3 Revelations: Brian and Roger Eno

50

Lost In The Shuffle: Andy Fairweather Low’s Mega-Shebang.

51

You Won’t Hear This On Radio

By Martin Jones

By Keith Glass

By Trevor J. Leeden

52

Underwater Is Where The Action Is

By Christopher Hollow

53

Waitin’ Around To Die: Country Heroines

Wild Flower

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Classic Album:

Isbell vs Isbell

MORE REVIEWS

A new album marks a personal transformation.

By Martin Jones.

Courtney Marie Andrews’ new album is all about heartbreak.

By Chris Familton.

Jason Isbell makes peace with his younger self on his fifth album Reunions.

By Martin Jones.

Aloha!

Son Little’s third album blends classic soul and R&B.

By Sam Fell.

Flying South

Jonathan Wilson headed from Los Angeles to Nashville to record his new album.

By Martin Jones.

Miss World (Music)

Lido Pimienta reveals her true identity.

By Meg Crawford.

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55 67 68

By Chris Familton

Robert Johnson’s The Complete Recordings. By Billy Pinnell

Neon Rainbow

Andy Shauff writes about heartache, friendship and nights out!

By Sam Fell.

FEATURE REVIEWS:

Will Sexton, Shane Howard, Headland, Cheddar Road Allstars, Rory Ellis and Dave Favours.

World Music & Folk:

By Tony Hillier

Blues:

By Al Hensley

69

Jazz:

70

Vinyl: Rosary of Tears by Bakelite Radio.

71

Film: Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson & The Band.

72

Technology. Music Streaming.

73

By Tony Hillier

By Jeff Jenkins

By Brian Wise.

By John Cornell

Books.

Des Cowley reviews Acid For The Children by Flea.

74

Books Too!

75

The Last Word: Andy Shauf writes about heartache, friendship and nights out on Neon Rainbow.

By Bernard Zuel

76

By Stuart Coupe

Hello & Goodbye

By Sue Barrett.

5

CREDITS

“The perfect album for the times...”

Brian Wise

Managing Editor: Brian Wise Senior Contributor: Martin Jones Senior Contributors: Michael Goldberg / Stuart Coupe Design & Layout: Sally Syle - Sally’s Studio

The three-time Grammy Award winner unabashedly takes on some of the human, social and political issues of our day with her boldest and most direct album to date.

Website/Online Management: Robert Wise Proofreading: Gerald McNamara

CONTRIBUTORS Sue Barrett

Christopher Hollow

Steve Bell

Denise Hylands

Nick Charles

Andra Jackson

John Cornell

Jeff Jenkins

Des Cowley

Martin Jones

Stuart Coupe

Chris Lambie

Meg Crawford

Warwick McFadyen

Brett Leigh Dicks

Ian McFarlane

Chris Familton

Trevor J. Leeden

Samuel J. Fell

Mark Mordue

Keith Glass

Anne McCue

Megan Gnad

Iain Patience

AVAILABLE ON ALL DIGITAL FORMATS, CD & VINYL (INCLUDING 5 EXCLUSIVE BONUS ACOUSTIC TRACKS)

Michael Goldberg (San Francisco) Billy Pinnell Al Hensley

Jo Roberts

Tony Hillier

Michael Smith

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Rosary of Tears... a collection of classic ‘parlour blues and ballads’ arranged by Little Joey Vincent (a.k.a. Joe Camilleri) Available online: www.joecamilleri.com.au

www.bakeliteradio.bandcamp.com

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our brief conversation I did get an inkling of his sense of humour).

y thoughts are with all of you this issue in what has to be the most extraordinary time of our lives.

Welcome to a slightly different edition of Rhythms. I certainly want to thank our subscribers, advertisers (including the City of Melbourne), who have enabled us to continue publishing.

Prine’s shows in Australia in January last year received rave reviews and the concert we witnessed at The Palais in St. Kilda was absolutely wonderful. The songs on the latest album meant even more and the classics such as ‘Sam Stone,’ ‘Angel from Montgomery,’ ‘Hello In There’ and ‘Paradise’ were truly emotive. It is also hard to forget the image of a 72-year-old Prine dancing off the stage to the strains of everyone singing ‘Paradise.’

Thanks to all of you, especially those who have resubscribed in the past month which has allowed us to keep going. I was loathe to miss an issue, although at times it looked like we might, and I am glad we were able to get this edition to you.

When Warren Zevon sang about living in splendid isolation he was voicing the emotions of someone who was not only bitter but had a choice in the matter. Unfortunately, we do not. We are living through what resembles a science fiction movie but in this case, it is not going to end for some months. In mid-April I should have been winging my way from Bluesfest to Austin and New Orleans, but like many of you, my travel plans suddenly changed.

Then things went from bad to worse. On the one day – April 7 - we lost songwriting legend John Prine and producer Hal Willner. Prine had already cancelled his plans to appear here at Bluesfest and other dates in April due to a recurrent hip injury but after successful surgery he then succumbed to the virus that is sweeping the world. It was almost too difficult to believe.

Having last seen him at an abbreviated Womadelaide set in 1993 I had crossed paths with John Prine several times in the past few years, mainly in Nashville and at the Americana Music Festival and Honors & Awards ceremony. Opening Americana in 2018 Prine appeared at a showcase for his new album, The Tree of Forgiveness, at the City Winery. It was a stunning show, with Dan Auerbach guesting, as Prine played the album’s songs in sequence – because, as he explained, ‘it is the only way I can remember

John Prine at City Winery, Nashville, 2018 the lyrics’ – plus some of his other classics. I noted at the time that this show alone was worth the airfare. Maybe it is the fact that I am getting older that many of the songs on Prine’s album had such resonance with me.

Then, I saw Prine just seven months ago accepting the award for Album of The Year for The Tree of Forgiveness (which became his biggest selling album). A few days later I met him and got to shake his hand at a reception for Kelsey Waldon at his Oh Boy record label office. At first, I had been reluctant to introduce myself but, at the urging of my partner – who asked me when I would ever get the chance again – I finally plucked up the courage. I am glad I did. Of course, he was humble and charming. (While I had interviewed him for the magazine almost a year earlier, phone interviews rarely offer the chance to get to know someone. Yet even in

The beauty of John Prine’s writing was in his ability to take the ordinary and make it extraordinary. He was able to look at the small things in life and derive some deep meanings from them. I listen to ‘Hello In There’ from Prine’s 1971 debut album and marvel at how a 24-year-old could write such a song about old age. How did he manage to capture the life of a disillusioned middle-aged woman in ‘Angel from Mointgomery’?

Yet it is Prine’s humorous outlook on life that will equally stay with me and remind me to lighten up occasionally. I like the silliness of ‘Let’s Talk Dirty in Hawaiian’ (from German Afternoons, (1986): “Kicka pooka mok a wa wahini / Are the words I long to hear.”

When I spoke to Prine about ‘The Lonesome Friends of Science’, a song from his latest album about the demotion of Pluto as a planet, I mentioned that I had visited the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff where they discovered Pluto and designated it a planet.

He thought that was particularly funny and laughed as he told me I should ask for my money back! That’s how I would like to remember John Prine – with a smile on his face.

I sincerely hope we can all have a smile on our face when the next issue rolls around.

Take care. Stay safe.

Until next issue……

Brian Wise Editor 9

WE GOT

RHYTHMS SAMPLER #6 THE BLUES

FOR YOU

Welcome to our 6th Rhythms Sampler! Fifteen great blues tracks from the Australian delta and the USA will have you dancing and singing for the next two months – and beyond. Acclaimed by subscribers as out best ever sampler. Available exclusively to Rhythms subscribers and only now - by popular demand - until June 30, 2020. If you are not a member of the Rhythms family then you need to join to get this fabulous disc. Please go to rhythms.com.au/subscribe and join us.

THE RHYTHMS CD SAMPLER! EXCLUSIVELY FOR RHYTHMS SUBSCRIBERS:

Thank you to all the musicians who made their songs available.

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

Christone Kingfish Ingram, Fiona Boyes , Dave Hole, Black Sorrows, Heartbrokers, Geoff Achison, Lachy Doley Group, Hat Fitz & Cara, Lloyd Spiegel, Collard Greens & Gravy, Chris Wilson

Outside of This Town Courtesy of Alligator Records From Clarksdale, Mississippi, Kingfish is a new, young force in the blues at just 21. This track is taken from his debut album on which his playing has been described as ‘astounding.’

2. FIONA BOYES I Ain’t Fooling Still the only Australian to be nominated for the annual Memphis Blues Awards, Boyes spends a lot of time in the cradle of the blues. This track is taken from Voodoo in The Shadows (Blue Empress Records).

3. DAVE HOLE Too Little Too Late From Goin’ Back Down this is another big slice of blues slide guitar from Australia’s greatest ever blues export. The album took three years to make and Dave says, “This is the one I’ve wanted to make for what seems like forever.”

4. THE MCNAMARR PROJECT Holla and Moan From Holla & Moan, the collaboration between Andrea Marr and John McNamara combines two powerhouse voices to bring you the true sound of Soulful Blues evoking the sounds of Stax and Motown with great original material.

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St. Louis Blues From Rosary of Tears, a brilliant album of interpretations and the brainchild of Joe Camilleri who has now released 50 albums over a career that stretches back into the ‘60s! This is a song written by the father of the blues WC Handy and made famous by Bessie Smith (amongst many others).

6. ASH GRUNWALD WITH THE TESKEY BROTHERS Ain’t My Problem Courtesy of Bloodlines. This track is taken from Ash’s ninth album Mojo, a full-on blues explosion. Maybe the best of Ash’s entire career. Other guests include Kasey Chambers, Joe Bonamassa, Mahalia Barnes and Kim Wilson.

7. THE HEARTBROKERS Bad Static From the album Vol.10. which is an early contender for Australian blues album of 2020!

This stunning outfit comprises Van Walker on guitar and vocals, bassist Cal Walker, drummer Ash Davies, roots-rocker Jeff Lang and rockabilly-country pianist Ezra Lee. Plus, friends like Jack Howard on sax.

8. OPELOUSAS Third Jinx Blues A Rhythms favourite in our Writers Poll of 2019. A collaboration that teams Kerri Simpson, Alison Ferrier and Anthony ‘Shorty’ Shortte, this trio plays ‘Bare-boned blues for free-wheeling minds.’ This track from the debut album Opelousified features Allison on vocal and guitar, Kerri on baritone guitar and Shorty on drums.

SIDE B 9. GEOFF ACHISON Skeleton Kiss Achison is one of our finest blues guitarists and this track from Sovereign Town shows exactly why. The album was recorded in the heart of the Victorian goldfields at Ballarat, close to where Achison grew up.

10. THE LACHY DOLEY GROUP The Greatest Blues From the album Make or Break.

A unique sound in the classic and sometimes very traditional genre of the Blues. A power trio of Bass, Drums and of course Doley firing on the Hammond, his vocal screaming from the heart and the incredibly rare Hohner D6 Whammy Clavinet.

11. HAT FITZ & CARA Hold On From the album Hand It Over.

With a musical style that is a unique combination of folk, roots and gospel blues with old time flavourings. Hat Fitz is a “veteran” wild man of the blues scene in Australia. Cara draws on her soul background with a sensational voice as well as being a drummer and multiinstrumentalist.

12. LLOYD SPIEGEL Track Her Down Taken from Cut & Run. Celebrating 30 years on tour, Lloyd released his tenth album in 2019, the final part of an unexpected trilogy about personal redemption.

Somewhere between songwriter, social worker and truth-seeker sits Lloyd Spiegel, guitar in hand and a song at the ready.

13. PETE CORNELIUS Shack Song From the album Doing Me Good, recorded live to tape at Pete’s Elephant Room Studio in St Marys, Tasmania over a few sessions during the colder months of 2018. This album features all original material.

Print or Print & Digital today and we’ll send you our EXCLUSIVE SAMPLER FULL OF GREAT MUSIC....

AVAILABLE BY POPULAR DEMAND ONLY UNTIL JUNE 30, 2020 GO TO: rhythms.com.au/subscribe

R H YT H M S S A M P L E R # 6 M A R C H /A P R I L 2 0 2 0

1. CHRISTONE ‘KINGFISH’ INGRAM

5. BAKELITE RADIO

1. Outside of This Town - Christone Kingfish Ingram (4.08) 2. I Ain’t Fooling - Fiona Boyes (4.27) 3. Too Little Too Late - Dave Hole (3.59) 4. Holla & Moan - McNaMarr Project (3.23) 5. St Louis Blues - Black Sorrows (4.33) 6. Ain’t My Problem - Ash Grunwald with The Teskey Brothers (3.12) 7. Bad Static - Heartbrokers (3.25) 8. Third Jinx Blues - Opelousas (4.33) 9. Skeleton Kiss - Geoff Achison (4.40) 10. The Greatest Blues - Lachey Doley Group (5.04) 11. Hold On - Hat Fitz & Cara (2.59) 12. Track Her Down - Lloyd Spiegel (3.49) 13. Shack Song - Pete Cornelius (4.07) 14. Going Away Baby - Collard Greens & Gravy (3.24) 15. Wage Justice - Chris Wilson (6.08)

SIDE A

Subscribe to Rhythms

14. COLLARD GREENS & GRAVY Going Away Baby From the revered Melbourne blues trio here is a slice of real Mississippi blues with Ian Collard’s harmonica propelling this Jimmy Rogers’ classic.

This Aria award winning band have been forerunners of the Australian blues and roots seen since their formation in 1995.

15. CHRIS WILSON Wage Justice From the unique and final self-titled album from the late Australian blues music giant.

This is one of the amazing original compositions which reflects Wilson’s political concerns. You can find Chris’s album at Bandcamp.

rhythms.com.au

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Anne McCue reports in from the home of country music.

THE NOISE IS GONE There was so much noise and now it has quietened down. I like that about it. I can hear the birds and the soft acoustic guitar, the voice that is whispering, the heart that is beating.

There are no cars in the street, and I haven’t driven my own car for over a week. There’s time to wait and listen for music. The pressure of everyday existence has lifted now and instead, everything is a matter of life and death. A trip to the supermarket could be the end of it all, so best to stay at home.

On March 3 an horrifyingly destructive tornado hit down on the other side of Nashville, made its way through Germantown then jumped the river, crossing over to Woodland Street where it proceeded to eviscerate large brick buildings like The Basement East and Nashville gems like The High Garden Tea House & Apothecary.

It crossed through the carpark behind 3 Crow Bar, decimated some large Victorian houses and flew down Holly Street destroying those houses there and then kept going all the way through Donelson and it stayed on the ground for another hundred miles to Cookeville. People lost everything; some lost their lives.

At night, the streets were deathly dark and eerie, really eerie. Police cars with blue flashing lights were placed as sentries every few blocks.

The whole of the Five Points area in Nashville was without power. It was like some weird film set out of a science fiction film where the aliens had come in and picked up cars and dropped them and the giants had smashed the buildings with their bare fists. The whole place was shut down.

Fortunately, the people of the town went into action and there were too many volunteers. Like little worker ants, people picked up bricks and debris and put it in piles along the streets. People donated too much.

That was the first jolt for the musicians.

The venues, including The Five Spot, were closed down. Fanny’s House of Music had a wall wrenched away from its moorings and was closed, of course without power. The windows were smashed but miraculously, the instruments were unharmed. There was one 50-year-old guitar that leant into the corner as if the tornado had gently lifted it from the wall and placed it there. It was unharmed.

Over a week later, some of the power came back on. In a spirit of hope, The Five Spot re-opened and some shows were played that night. It was as if the heart of East Nashville was going to start beating again. But the 12

next day, owner Todd Sherwood made the difficult decision to close down, this time due to Covid-19.

Many of us have been isolating ever since and no doubt you have too. By the time you read this, much of the story will have been told.

But for now, there is a quiet everywhere. It must have been like this in the early 20th century, when there were fewer cars, when people weren’t on this mad consumption dash of buying everything new, of buying anything and everything, constantly buying stuff that will end up filling our city dumps with piles of trash and our oceans with plastic; when people used to walk around

the streets for the sake of being there, in the streets, not going anywhere, just soaking in the beauty of the neighbourhood and noticing the trees and hearing the birds.

We are getting a glimpse of how different our world can be - without the shallow, the loud and the empty - for they are the people who seem to make the most noise and fill up all the spaces. Maybe the people out there will start to listen to different musicians than the ones who have been shoved down their throats by the mainstream media for the last seventy years. Maybe other, more independent voices will be heard because, for a time, the noise is gone.

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“He was exactly the sort of character you’d hoped he’d be,” says Brian Taranto who co-promoted the second of John Prine’s only two visits to this country.

Much has been written about Prine in the weeks since he passed away, aged a comparatively young 73, as a result of coronavirus. All of it has been - as expected - laudatory and praising Prine as one of the finest songwriters of his generation and an influence upon countless other writers.

I saw Prine for the first time at the State Theatre in March 2019, a mesmerising show that concluded with the rather surreal moment when the clearly uncomfortable Hoodoo Gurus joined Prine onstage for a song.

Taranto had been trying to lure Prine back to Australia for many years and believes he was not alone in making pitches over the years to Prine’s long-standing manager Al Bunetta who passed away about five years ago.

Prine came to Australia previously in 1993, performing at Womadelaide, a winery in Victoria, the Continental Café in Melbourne and The Birkenhead Point Tavern in Sydney.

“How that tour came about I’ll never know,” laughs Taranto. “The only thing I can think that twisted his arm was being able to buy Blundstone boots. He had a thing about them and back in those days they weren’t as easy to get as they are now.”

Every time Taranto approached Bunetta it was a variant on a story all would-be Australian promoters went through.

“He was a funny guy with a good sense of humour,” Taranto says of Bunetta. “He’d always say . . . OK, we’re almost there – all we need now is eight return Business Class airfares from the States.”

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Finally, Taranto received a call from Frontier Touring’s Gerard Schlaghecke saying that Prine was up for a tour and the two put together a budget for what seemed an ambitious tour given the size of the audiences for Prine’s previous tour.

But out we came in our thousands in Sydney and Melbourne, and that combined with a smaller but sold out show in Brisbane and sizeable house in Auckland. There was something in the air leading up to the tour. At a function for my Roadies book in Melbourne I quipped to Taranto that it felt like the time was right for Prine. He looked at me and grinned. “That’s a T shirt – The Time Is Right For Prine.”

What became obvious was that Prine’s songs – and not just the well-known classics like ‘Angel From Montgomery’ and ‘Sam Stone’ – had embedded themselves in the consciousness of thousands of Australians who had either travelled with Prine and his songs since his 1971 debut or picked up on him at some stage over the next almost five decades.

“I don’t want to go into whether it’s the best debut album ever but it’s an insanely great record,” Taranto says of Prine’s debut. “It’s amazing.

“Weirdly I think I got even more into Prine through that failed John Cougar Mellencamp movie, Falling From Grace. He wrote ‘In Spite Of Ourselves’ and ‘All The Best’ – which are two of my favourite Prine songs – for this Billy Bob Thornton movie starring John Mellencamp which never came out. But the soundtrack did. I was living in Nashville and I got the soundtrack on cassette.”

Taranto speaks affectionately of the 2019 tour where he didn’t spend a lot of time

around Prine but had the opportunity to observe him at close quarters.

“At the end of each night he’d get a bottle of Vodka and a bottle of Ginger Ale and go back to his hotel room with his wife. I don’t think he drank it all, but that’s where he’d make his Handsome Johnny’s and have a little drink after each show. And watch TV and read Archie comics which was one of his favourite things he liked to do.

“I know a bunch of people in Nashville who had been around him for years and they all said such great things about him – he was that person you hoped he’d be. A bit like Neil Young – I’m sure he was grumpy at times and I’m sure he had his own way of doing things but he was a gem to work with.”

Prine’s passing inspired many great tributes.

The most poignant I read was from Amanda Petrusich which concluded: “Prine had one of those faces that doesn’t come along very often - beautiful, rutted, expressive. He always looked just a little bemused, in part because his eyes were narrowed and slightly arched, curled into a sort of permanent smile. It takes an exceptionally kind-hearted person to sing the whole messy, stupid story of what it means to be human - the cruel and indulgent things we do, the way that we love - and make it sound so logical. I don’t know if there’s a word for what people felt when they saw him play; it’s the kind of soft gratitude that wells up when you look at someone and feel only thankful that they exist, and that you got to breathe the same air for a little while.

Those losses are the hardest to metabolize.

But it helps to think of Prine in the heaven he imagined, which is the heaven he deserves.”

I wish I’d written that. Go well John Prine.

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a d n i c u

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SOUL MUSIC!

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The new album

Good Souls Better Angels is inspired by the blues and Bob Dylan.

“What comes around goes around,” sang Dr John and for Lucinda Williams what has come around on her new album is the blues. Fuelled by a healthy anger at the political situation in America, Williams has reached back deep into her past for inspiration.

Williams’ debut album Ramblin’, recorded at the Malaco studio in Jackson, Mississippi and released way back in 1979, not only got its title from Robert Johnson’s ‘Ramblin’ On My Mind,’ but opened with that song. The album contained another two Johnson compositions along with songs from Sleep John Estes, AP Carter, Hank Williams and Clifton Chenier and Memphis Minnie.

Forty-one years later, Good Souls Better Angels, opens with ‘You Can’t Rule Me’ – not only a shot at the current US administration – but also inspired by Memphis Minnie. In the same way that the blues expressed raw emotions for an oppressed population, Williams has come full circle and uses it to deliver a powerful message perfect for the times.

When I join Williams on the phone to talk about the new album it is on the cusp of the coronavirus restrictions and just after a tornado ripped through East Nashville where Williams lives with her husband, coproducer and now co-writer Tom Overby. Their house required a new roof but other buildings in the area were flattened.

“I always wanted to write the kind of songs that Bob Dylan wrote. He used to do that back in the ‘60s, like ‘Masters of War.’ So, it was his time to do that.”

“It’s crazy all that stuff that’s going on right now,” says Williams.

“Between the Tornado in Nashville, the Elections coming up and coronavirus, everybody’s a little stressed out right now.”

Two days after we spoke Williams was due to appear on Live From Here, hosted by Chris Thile, at the Kennedy Center in Washington and a week later at Willie Nelson’s Luck Reunion show in Austin. The former event was cancelled while the later went online.

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Williams’ three scheduled dates with Charles Lloyd & The Marvels in April were also cancelled. In fact, the last time I saw Williams in concert was with Lloyd, playing selections from Vanished Gardens, the wonderful album they recorded together, at last year’s New Orleans JazzFest in an inspirational show.

“It was a great experience,” recalls Williams. “It’s just a whole different thing when I hear my songs with him playing with his band and everything. It just takes it to a whole other place.”

What the Vanished Gardens project proved was that Williams has no boundaries to her musical vision and you can clearly hear that on the new album.

Not only has the music come full circle for Williams but she has returned to Nashville – where she previously lived for nine years – and even sought out producer Ray Kennedy, who she worked with on Car Wheels on A Gravel Road in 1998. (Last year she has completed a soldout tour celebrating that album’s anniversary).

“He invited us to drop in and kind of do some things and see what we thought,” explains Williams. “We weren’t necessarily planning on doing the whole album there, but then we got in there and started... just did a couple of tracks and we all were like, ‘Wow, this sounds great!’ So, we just kept going and we really only took about two weeks.

“We did a few days and then we had to leave to go out to do shows and we came back and did a few more days. It was only a couple of weeks of tracking for this album with the band because we didn’t have other people come in and do a bunch of stuff. So, it didn’t take as long.”

“Well he’s got a lot of vintage gear, in his studio,” replies Williams when I ask what Kennedy brought to the production this time around and what sound she was looking for. He has an amplifier, it’s from the ‘50s or ‘60s and a whole wall of guitars from those days, the 1930s to ‘50s and ‘60s. So, that really gave it a certain sound because a lot of the tracks I would be playing, I just ended up using guitars that were in the studio because they were so great.”

“Like on one song I would be playing 1950s guitar, going through a 1950 amplifier,” she continues. “That’s going to give you a certain kind of sound right there. Certain songs that we were recording Ray just understood, I think, the sound we wanted to get out. >>> 17

Lucinda Williams It was all recorded live in the studio. Well, we always do that with all my albums but this one definitely has a certain kind of a garage rock sound and bluesy little punk.”

Of course, Williams was accompanied by her band, Buick 6: Stuart Mathis on guitar, Butch Norton on drums and bassist David Sutton.

It’s a powerful unit, that has released its own two instrumental albums and is long overdue for a third. Good Souls is a chance to hear them behind Williams without any extraneous accompaniment. It’s an almost primal sound that reflects the origins and inspiration of the music.

“They’re great,” notes Williams. “I think they really nailed it.” She adds that before they went into Kennedy’s studio, she recorded the songs acoustically in the studio of her friend, Canadian musician Colin Linden.

“He’s a real good blues guitar player,” she says of Linden. “He has a home studio at his house here in Nashville. When I had these songs all together, Tom and I went into his studio and I recorded them acoustically, just me on the guitar. We had those demos of the songs and then, I gave those to the band to listen to.

“Usually they would show up first at the studio and kind of get everything set up. Then I would show up and we’d go through them. We just decided what song we wanted to do that day.

Then sometimes I would listen to the demo of it and by the time I got to the studio they already had some ideas for it. We just kind of did this: start playing and see what happens. It was a pretty organic process.”

“We’d do a few tracks and listen back to them and see which ones sounded the best,” she continues. “At first I was thinking about adding some other things like a harmony thing or all this stuff but then the more we went along, everybody said, ‘Let’s just leave it like it is.’ So, that was real different than my last albums. We had a lot of different guest artists and different drummers, different bass players, different guitar players and I was doing that too. But this was cool because it was just roll straight ahead.”

This approach works perfectly, especially on a song such as ‘When the Way Gets Dark’ that has a gospel feel to it that might have invited other singers.

“I know. It was really tempting to bring in different people,” says Williams, “but then we just decided let’s just leave it like it is.”

‘When the way gets dark/ You lose your spirit / You lose your heart,” sings Williams, “Don’t give up/Hang on tight /Don’t be afraid/ It’s going to be alright/It’s going to be okay.

While Williams excoriates the current administration on other songs, she also offers 18

some comfort. Over the past three and a half years it is surprising that more musicians in American have not written overtly political songs.

“Well, it’s just been on my mind and a lot of people’s minds,” she says when I tell her that it is not hard to guess what many of the songs are about adding that one of the songs was actually written when she was making the Little Honey album in 2008 . “That song sounded contentious…….but, for whatever reason, we just decided not to release it then. So, we rerecorded it for this album and it just really fit.”

“We recorded a lot of different songs because that’s the way we kind of do things now,” she continues. “We go in and just record stuff and we don’t really know yet what’s going to go together or anything. Then it starts to kind of all fall together at a certain point but it feels good to get those kinds of songs out. Those topical songs that, they do need to be written and they need to be sung and played.

“I always wanted to have more songs like that but they’re kind of harder to write I think, than a love song. I think a little more challenging, but I always wanted to write the kind of songs that Bob Dylan wrote. He used to do that back in the ‘60s and like ‘Masters of War’ - I recorded that with Charles Lloyd, - those kinds of songs. ‘The Times They Are A-Changing’ and all of that. So, it was his time to do that.”

“Well, people know who it’s about but you’re right,” she agrees when I mention that it is not difficult to work out the subject of ‘Man Without A Soul.’ “ I wanted it to be so it could be about different people over time, but this is the time that we’re in. I mean people know because the time we’re in. When I write songs, I like my songs to be as universal as possible. People can interpret them in different ways but right now it kind of hits people like, ‘Oh, I know who that’s about.’ That’s what everybody says when they hear it.”

“……Somebody who heard the

new album asked me if I had been influenced by Nick Cave because he said they saw kind of a similarity there.”

“We’re all really nervous about it,” says Williams when I mention the forthcoming Presidential Election and adds that she was leaning towards

Bernie Sanders. “I like him. I’m a little bit more left but I think people are supporting the other candidate because he’s a little more moderate.”

(Just a few weeks after we spoke Sanders dropped out of the Democratic race).

“But basically, everybody’s opinion feeling is whoever ends up winning the Primaries we need to vote for that person. It’s basically coming down to vote against Trump. At this point we just need to get Trump out. That’s the main thing.

“What I’m worried about,” she adds, “is that a lot of the people who support Bernie are saying, ‘Well if Bernie’s not the candidate then I’m not

“This one definitely has a

certain kind of a garage rock sound and bluesy little punk.” going to vote. That just makes me really angry because if you don’t vote, you’re voting by not voting. We just want to get people to the polls and we just need to get Trump out, get him out of there.”

“Oh, my God!” exclaims Williams when I tell her that in Australia we have the wonderful process of compulsory voting. “That’s great.

I love that. See, that’s what we need. We’re really progressive in certain ways but I feel like in so many ways we’re not. We’re behind other countries like with medical care and everything.

That’s great that you have that. I love that.

“See, I think here people would say, ‘Oh they can’t tell me what to do’,” she adds.

Apart from Bob Dylan and Robert Johnson, Williams has cited Leonard Cohen and Nick Cave as inspirations for her writing which now includes collaborating with her husband Tom Overby.

“Well that’s been a whole new development,” she explains. “It started out with him just giving me some ideas for songs and song titles. Like, he came up with ‘Man Without a Soul,’ he came up with the idea for ‘Big Black Train.’ He was kind of shy about it at first, but he would show me his ideas and then I’d take them, then come up with an arrangement and add more verses. That’s the way we did a lot of these and I really like it. I’ve enjoyed that process because it just opens up a whole new world of possibilities having him step in with some different ideas and different things.

“I’ve been influenced by a lot of different kinds of music over the years. But I’ve always wanted to make an album like this. It’s more bluesy kind of grungy sound. Jesse Malin - Tom and I co-produced his new album - listened to the new album and he said it reminded him of a cross between Howlin’ Wolf and Iggy Pop, and I said, “Yeah that’s it. I love that.”

“The song ‘You Can’t Rule Me’, I got the idea for that song from Memphis Minnie’s songs,” admits

Williams, “and ‘Pray the Devil Back to Hell’ kind of like reminds me of an old Delta Blues song.

Delta blues - it’s been a huge influence on me and an inspiration.”

Much of Williams work over the years has concerned matters of the ‘soul,’ not just matters of the heart. Albums such as Down Where The Spirit Meets The Bone, The Ghosts of Highway 20 and Blessed, explore in part some more philosophical themes. I ask Williams if this is a result of her Southern upbringing.

“Well, they probably do to some extent,” she responds. “Both of my grandfathers were Methodist ministers, but my father had pulled away from the church. So, I wasn’t raised in the church, he was agnostic - it’s what he used to call himself - but I still feel like, especially on my grandfather on my father’s side, I feel like I have some of that in my blood from him. I can remember my grandmothers singing the hymns, they were Methodist. So, I know I have a lot of that but then I explored as I was growing up and everything. I started exploring other things like Eastern mysticism and all of that. So, it kind of just got all mixed in there.

“That’s another thing about the Delta Blues stuff that you hear it a lot in Robert Johnson songs.

There’s that whole myth, the story about him meeting the devil at the crossroads. The devil is used a lot just as an image. I’ve just always been drawn to those ideas. As far as spookiness and mystic kind of thing, it’s hard to explain, but there’s a lot of what other songwriters have that as music. Like Leonard Cohen. Nick Cave does that a lot. In fact, somebody who heard the new album asked me if I had been influenced by Nick Cave because he said they saw kind of a similarity there.

“And, of course, Bob Dylan. Remember that song, ‘Highway 61,’ where he says, ‘God said to Abraham, kill me a son / Abe said, Man, you must be puttin’ me on’ - that kind of thing. So, all of it went to inspire me. My dad - a lot of his early poems you could see where he’s kind of struggling with that a little bit. He’s got a poem I love called ‘Why Does God Permit Evil’, that’s one of his great early poems.

I ask Williams, who grew up reading Southern authors such as Flannery O’Connor and Eudora Welty, if it is also because as we get older, we think about our mortality a more often.

“Yeah,” she agrees. “But I’ve always been drawn to the mystery. I love a lot of the folk art, especially the art from Mexico and South America. It’s got kind of the Catholicism mixed with... well some of it is called Santeria. You see the painting of Jesus and then there’ll be a dagger. It’s very dramatic with the blood flowing out of the heart and everything. Then there are always these skulls, the skeletons and the day of the dead and all that kind of stuff. I’m really drawn to all that.”

Good Souls Better Angels is available now through Cooking Vinyl Australia.

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Price’s

Down – But Not Out

Like all musicians, Margo Price has had to put her career on hold

By Martin Jones

Margo Price suddenly has plenty of time to do interviews. “Oh yeah, I’m down for talking to anybody right now. I’ll talk to the wall!”

Like most of her peers, Margo has had to cancel all her shows and is in lockdown at home with her family due to the coronavirus.

With a new album to release and a year’s touring planned in advance she’s watching her annual income evaporate before her eyes.

“It’s really a mess out there,” Price sighs.

“Everybody’s living paycheck to paycheck right now. But at least I’m not alone.”

Price has embedded herself firmly in the fertile East Nashville community, dropping out of school and moving there some seventeen years ago. Before forming her own “all-star” band The Pricetags, Price was in a politically outspoken group, Secret Handshake, with her husband Jeremy Ivey.

It was some of the more outspoken material on Price’s second album, All American Made, that attracted people’s attention. Songs like ‘Pay Gap’ (“It’s been that way with no equal pay and I wanna know when it will be fixed.

Women do work and get treated like slaves since 1776”) and ‘All American Made’ (“And I wonder if the President gets much sleep at night and if the folks on welfare are making it alright”).

20

back to how lyrics kind of change their meaning with the current times. ‘Letting Me Down’, that one was hitting me really hard the other night. And ‘I’d Die For You’, I mean the lyrics are not strictly political, but it’s really just social commentary, and it’s not judging people on either side, but it is funny how the times give more weight to different words.”

Until recently Price and her band had been rehearsing weekly, excited about bringing the upbeat energy of the new album to live audiences. The sound of That’s How Rumors Get Started was particularly inspired by the band’s progression as a live outfit.

Though the lyric “I’d Die For You” takes on a shocking literal meaning in the context of a pandemic, the song prophesises our sudden focus on what’s really important. Price sings, “Some say everything’s okay. Some say what all the others say. Some folks give, some take away. Just because they can,” before iterating that loved ones are all that really matter.

“Oh, it had a huge influence on it. I feel like our records haven’t always done justice to how we sound live and maybe that’s because the songs are freshly written and you’re going into the studio and you’re playing with headphones on and it’s just different. But I think over the past four years I have grown as a vocalist and as a performer. And I really care about putting on a good show and entertaining people. I love to be on stage and to connect with fans so I do feel like there’s a big hole in the scene right now.”

And then there’s the opening lines of ‘Stone Me’ about people wanting to live in a glass house and preferring to stay at home…

At this point, Price isn’t even allowed to gather her band to offer online performances.

“I was just talking about that! Like I’d rather stay home… yeah, we’ve been nine days on quarantine my family and I and I got a little more prepared I think than other folks I know. I was trying to tell my mom how serious it was, and she was all wanting to go out… and I was like, no this is not happening.

We’re gonna stay right here.”

“It’s really a mess. And streaming has really been hurting artists for a long time, it’s really hard to fight those people in charge. I mean Neil Young took his songs off of Spotify and then it’s like they’re back up. If someone like Neil Young can’t throw a rock in the wheel, how do we go about this, to at least get better pay? Streaming’s never going to stop and it’s convenient…but yeah…”

“I mean we wrote that song quite a while ago, my husband and I,” Price says of ‘All American Made’, “but we recorded the album when the election was still going on when it could be Hilary or it could be Trump, and all of a sudden it was like, okay… Because when I first wrote the song it was “I wonder if the President gets any sleep at night” and it was like an empathetic line about Barack Obama.

And then it came to, “I wonder how he sleeps at night”… so it’s very strange how time changes everything.”

Given her career, it’s not surprising to find a few songs focused on life on the road on That’s How Rumors Get Started. ‘Prisoner of the Highway’ and first single ‘Twinkle Twinkle’ (inspired by a conversation with Marty Stuart) are both insights on life on the road.

Price is already observing the same thing about songs from her brand-new album, That’s How Rumors Get Started, though it’s a more personal than political album.

A couple of weeks ago I was really starting to feel a little depressed… I was really looking forward to going to South by Southwest and getting the pieces of me back and my career.

“I’ve been wanting to write about things that were a little more close to me,” Price confirms. “And I wrote a song for my son and things that my husband and I had been through. Yeah, it’s funny though as I listen

“You know, motherhood can be isolating,” says Price, who gave birth to a daughter nine months ago. “And now I’m like, okay, well here you are, let’s rearrange the living room furniture and vacuum again (laughs).”

“Yeah, I mean it’s been a lot of my experience over the last four years. There’s been a lot of ups and downs but I’d give just about anything to do it right now….

The one glimmer of hope for artists was fans buying vinyl at shows.

“Oh I know. I do have a pretty good fanbase and my presales have been pretty good and a lot of people are buying vinyl. But I always did a lot of meet and greets, I’d shake a lot of people’s hands after the show, stay two or three hours and encourage people to buy something so I can sign it. But now it’s like where do we go from here?”

“Well I do have to say that I’ve been through hard things before,” Price concludes, “things that I never thought I’d go through. So, I’m really trying to look at this whole experience as something positive is going to come out of it. I’m still playing music every day for myself and it’s going to get me through.”

That’s How Rumors Get Started is out May 8 through Loma Vista Recordings.

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Stars celebrate their 45TH ANNIVERSARY with a wonderful new album.

By Jeff Jenkins

22

“I could tell you a thousand stories, played out in my rear view,” Mick Pealing sings in ‘Driving Hungry’, the opening track on Stars’ new album, One More Circle Round The Sun. Later on the record, he notes, “Our life story just a drop in the ocean. Maybe this ship has sailed.” But the strength of the album shows there are more chapters to be written in the remarkable Stars story, which started in Adelaide 45 years ago.

“Another verse, another hidden tear, one more rhyme to grace the air … one more circle round the sun.”

Mick Pealing met guitarists Mal Eastick and Andy Durant and drummer Glyn Dowding in Seacliff. “A woman in the neighbourhood would hold these little concerts on her front yard overlooking the beach,” Pealing recalls.

He was sitting on the lawn when the band launched into ‘All Right Now’. “We’re gonna play this song by Free, but we don’t have a singer,” Eastick informed the crowd. “Can anyone out there sing the song?”

Pealing whispered to his mate, “I know the words to that one.” His mate stood up and pointed at Pealing – “He can!”

So Pealing found himself on stage as the band’s new singer, though he sang the entire song with his back to the audience.

It’s been a long, strange and, at times, sad trip for Stars.

Their signing to Mushroom Records is part of music industry folklore. Legend has it that Michael Gudinski had the chance to sign two Adelaide bands: Cold Chisel and Stars.

“There was a point when we were in Adelaide and being managed by a guy called Geoff Skewes [a member of ’60s band The Vibrants], who also managed Stars,” Jimmy Barnes explains. “He approached Mushroom Records and pitched both bands, and Mushroom signed Stars and passed on Cold Chisel.”

Gudinski claims the Chisel demos he heard didn’t feature Barnesy’s vocals. They later became great mates and Gudinski signed Barnesy to a solo deal. “And I never let him forget that he passed on Cold Chisel,” Barnesy laughs.

Triple R’s Neil Rogers, the host of The Australian Mood for more than 30 years, ignited a debate on his show when he said that based purely on the debut records, Gudinski made the right call. “The Cold Chisel album, if you take out ‘Khe Sanh’, is an okay record, but it didn’t give you any indication of where that band was going to go and how big they were going to be,” Rogers argued.

“Whereas the first Stars album is a pretty damn fine debut album and it stands up to this day. If you looked at who achieved what with their first albums then you’d go Stars every time.”

The “Gudinski, you fool” comments occasionally annoy Pealing. “At the time, he was looking for a band with commercial value, and Stars had a bit of a look and an image and a couple of songs that were commercial, while Chisel were a hairy blues band. With all due respect to anybody saying he made the wrong

decision – it’s true, he probably did – but at the time …”

It’s easy to be a genius in hindsight.

Jimmy Barnes wrote about Stars in his autobiography, Working Class Man. “They looked like they should have been playing music on horseback. They were a reasonably good band but, more importantly, they had come up with a gimmick. They wore cowboy hats and boots and badges with their name on them and sang songs about horses and guns and shooting up the town … To top things off, they looked cute and had more girls following them than we did.”

Dave Warner – known for the single ‘Suburban Boy’ – remembers arriving in Melbourne from Perth to negotiate a deal with Mushroom Records and being taken to see the label’s newest signings – Stars – supporting Richard Clapton at Dallas Brooks Hall. “I was blown away by their musicianship, and amazed to finally meet Michael Gudinski,” Warner recalls.

“Two things struck me: he never stopped moving, and he never stopped praising and pushing his artists to whoever was present.”

Another big part of the Stars story was Little River Band’s Beeb Birtles, who “discovered” the band in Adelaide. “Throughout LRB’s career I was approached by other acts to produce them,” Birtles says. “In Adelaide I went to see a young band called Stars and was instrumental in bringing them to Melbourne and getting them a deal with Mushroom Records.” Birtles produced Stars’ first and third singles, ‘Quick On The Draw’ and ‘Mighty Rock’, and also wrote ‘The Straight Life’, the B-side of ‘Quick On The Draw’.

LRB’s original bass player, Roger McLachlan, remains a key part of Stars (alongside new drummer Erik Chess, who replaced Glyn Dowding last year).

Stars released three albums on Mushroom Records – 1978’s Paradise (which reached number 11 nationally; Cold Chisel’s self-titled debut peaked at 38), 1979’s Land of Fortune and the 1980 live album, 1157, which referred to the number of gigs the band did in less than five years. “That’s what you did back then. We would do seven gigs a week, sometimes two gigs in one day.” The band was continuously on the road – five guys crammed in a Toyota Corolla.

“The best years of our lives,” Pealing says.

Stars did many big gigs, including shows with The Beach Boys and Linda Ronstadt, as well as Joe Cocker’s infamous 1977 tour, when the English singer got kicked off Great Keppel Island – the first gig of the tour.

“He was just absolutely batfaced, maggoted all the time,” Pealing recalls. “And [piano player] Nicky Hopkins was just as bad. You’d see Joe before a gig and think, ‘How is he going to do it?’ But they’d push him out on stage, put him in front of the microphone and he’d turn into Joe Cocker.”

Pealing fondly remembers a jovial guy – “he was always up for a drink after the show, always the last to leave the party” – who wasn’t overly reliable. There was much

confusion before the Newcastle show: “Where’s Joe?” A search party was sent out, and Joe was found at a bar, asleep under a table, wearing only a pair of jeans. He was raced back to the venue, with the crew yelling, “Find a T-shirt for Joe!” They dressed him and pushed him out on stage. “And he was Joe Cocker.”

Sadly, the Stars story took a tragic turn when Andy Durant died of cancer, aged 25, in 1980.

Three months later, Mal Eastick organised a tribute concert at Melbourne’s Palais Theatre. An all-star cast performed Durant’s songs, including Jimmy Barnes, Ian Moss, Don Walker, Renée Geyer, Richard Clapton, Broderick Smith and Pealing.

“It was put together pretty quickly,” Pealing says of the memorial concert. “And the other artists didn’t have a lot of time to learn the songs. We had a couple of rehearsals and they were shaky to say the least. And the soundcheck on the day was even shakier. Mal and I looked at each other and said, ‘Oh my God, this is going to be freaking horrible.’”

And then 3XY’s Peter Grace introduced the band. “The curtains opened, and everything fell into place,” Pealing smiles. “Just like Joe Cocker.”

The resulting live album hit the Top 10, showcasing Durant’s songwriting. “Had he lived, he might have gone on to carve himself a niche in Australia’s pantheon of great writers,” said Rhythms founder Brian Wise.

The liner notes of the new album conclude: “As always, the spirit of Andy is never far from the band’s music and thoughts.”

A few years ago, Pealing connected with Nick Charles, masterful guitarist and Rhythms contributor, when they were on the same bill at the Clifton Hill Hotel in Melbourne. “I made a mental note that if I ever wanted to put Stars back together with the original lineup, he’d be perfect to do the Andy Durant parts – he has that picking style that Andy had.”

In Charles, Pealing also found a new songwriting partner. A Stars studio album, Boundary Rider – their first in 39 years – appeared in 2018, followed by the new album, which includes a stirring anthem called ‘Learning How To Rock ’n’ Roll Again’.

Not that Pealing ever forgot.

One More Circle Round The Sun is a collection of epic tales, beautifully played and sung, which will have you thinking of classic Dingoes, Eagles and Little River Band.

There’s even an ode to Adelaide called ‘The Anniversary Trail’.

The title of the album suggests a farewell, but Pealing is already planning the next release, perhaps a Pealing/Charles album. “Time waits for no one,” he observes in one of the new songs, ‘Losing Ground’. “If I don’t make a sound, I’ll just fade away.”

Yep, these Stars continue to burn bright. The mighty rock, the mighty roll … once it’s got you, it won’t let go.

One More Circle Round The Sun is out now via www.starsofficial.com 23

AN

I

The Liberation Of

Frazey Ford

The new album U Kin Be the Sun documents a personal transformation.

By Martin Jones Frazey Ford’s new album U kin B the Sun is nothing if not a statement of liberation.

Musically, Ford has never ventured further from her folk roots. Emotionally, she continues to confront and overcome the pain of the past, including the recent loss of her brother. The results are bolder and brighter than any of her past albums. Frazey laughs, “I had to make peace with the fact that some of these songs are downright happy… which is weird for me.”

Though Ford came to fame as one third of the folk trio The Be Good Tanyas, she’s continued to work towards a decidedly more modern soul bent, one in which groove takes over. U kin B the Sun takes all that a step further, with glistening production, and huge, deep grooves that bolster Ford’s emotional and sonic liberation.

Ford built a bond with drummer Leon Power and bass player Darren Parris while touring her last album Indian Ocean. She decided that relationship should be the foundation of the next record.

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“I was so used to playing with these guys that we just started doing these little rehearsals where we would record everything,” Ford recalls.

“Even when I didn’t have very many ideas we would just kind of get in there and I immediately wanted to hear what any idea I had sounded like over a groove…. we ended up having a bunch of time in the studio that was free and I hadn’t written that much yet so I got Darren to come up with chords, he would just shout out chords and we would improvise off of those. And that became the seeds of a lot of the songs, just us in the studio improvising late at night. And then I took those improvs and kind of shaped them.

That’s mostly how it came together.”

Did Ford find herself playing a different role in this scenario?

“Yeah it was interesting. It was just a very freeing scenario. You know usually when you’re in the studio it’s kind of opposite – everything’s worked out and you’re shaping these finished things. And this time in the studio there was this discovery and also I was playing piano and it was more just about exploring the chemistry that we have, the three of us in particular.”

However, Ford soon realised she was in unfamiliar territory. She left the studio with a bunch of improvised recordings but had no idea how she would begin to shape them into songs with lyrics and structure. In the middle of trying to work that out, her brother died.

“I’d never had a family member die before so I didn’t really know what to expect. It was almost like having a baby, it’s this whole new world where you don’t know what’s going to happen. So, I was navigating and it took me about two months to realise that I was in a grieving process and in that time I also realised that the ideas that I had for the album weren’t going to work. That I had to go back to the drawing board and re-approach everything.”

Ford affirms that U kin B the Sun documenting her “personal transformation,” as the album bio states, is consistent with her past work.

“I feel like, for some reason, maybe because it’s in the bio, I’m talking about it more in interviews. But there’s always been… like the song ‘Natural Law’ (from Indian Ocean), no one ever picked up on it but it’s essentially about confronting an abuser. And there was an article that came out in The Sunday Times and he said this song is talking all about her experience of sexual abuse. And that’s not accurate actually. What I’d say is this album is the result of having worked really hard to overcome trauma and the feeling of liberation that comes from working very hard to heal yourself. That’s, for me, more accurate.”

U kin B the Sun is available through Arts & Crafts/Caroline. Frazey Ford and band have postponed their Australian tour until later this year.

INTIMATE CONVERSATION

t’s late in the afternoon in Nashville, TN and Courtney Marie Andrews is reflecting on her past few weeks of isolation as the coronavirus pandemic sweeps across the United States of America. “I’m taking it day by day, as well as you can,” she says, before turning her thoughts to the livestream performances she’s been doing. “I was pleasantly surprised by them. At first, I was like “Oh God!” and for the first one we had a few technical difficulties but once we got on there we found there were people interacting and it felt like a communal thing. It’s a positive filler for right now but I certainly hope it’s not forever as there’s nothing quite like playing in a room with people.”

Old Flowers is Andrews’ reflection, dissection and way out of a nine-year relationship in which “we taught each other, grew up together, we were family.” That seismic event in her personal life meant she had little choice in the writing of these songs.

“I honestly didn’t have much time to think twice about it. A lot of them were written in under ten minutes. It was such a long and meaningful relationship in my life that letting go of it was all I could write about. Even if I wanted to write another type of song I just couldn’t. These were the type of songs that came out and I just embraced it.”

From our conversation it’s clear that the whole journey of writing and recording Old Flowers has been an integral part of navigating her heartbreak and being at peace with where she is now. “The feelings in these songs felt fresh and recording them felt like the final chapter of this book in my life. In each of these moments I was acting as my own therapist and it was very cathartic.”

We don’t often hear the other side of these types of songs – the other half of the broken relationship. Andrews was sensitive to the way her ex would react to the album. “I mentioned to him that I would keep him anonymous. I didn’t want him to feel like his name was about to be spread across the world,” she laughs. “I told him about the album and he said that he honestly probably wouldn’t listen to it for a long time. Which I think is very fair.”

Aside from Andrews and her producer Andrew Sarlo, the only other people in the studio were multi-instrumentalist Matt Davison, and James Krivchenia (Big Thief) who added drums and percussion. “It was mainly just Matt and I performing in a room and that felt like an intimate conversation,” says Andrews. “A lot of the songs were Matt

and I going around different instruments and trying to inspire ourselves in different ways and that enabled us to get the most real versions of the songs.”

Andrews spent many of her formative musical years as a backup singer for other artists, learning how to “be a good leader and mold myself into other people’s projects”. It also gave her the conviction to write her own songs and do her own thing.

As well as dealing with social distancing and isolation, Andrews is also mourning the loss of a friend and mentor with the recent death of John Prine, who she was lucky enough to perform with. I ask her what one of the key things was that he taught her about songwriting… “Oh man, he’s a heavyweight.

I can’t even begin… If I had to give you one word it would be humanity. That’s what I’m always trying to reach in my songs. If I’ve felt it then someone else certainly has. It’s just the way of the world. He’s a big dealer in songs about that. I am so grateful to have learned that from him. He’s written songs that will be in the songbook for a long time, if not forever.”

Old Flowers is available now on Fat Possum via Inertia.

Thousands of songs have been written about heartbreak but on her latest album, Old Flowers, Courtney Marie Andrews has found a captivating way to breathe honesty and intimacy into the subject matter.

By Chris Familton

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Isbell Vs Isbell Jason Isbell makes peace with his wilder, younger self on new album Reunions

By Martin Jones

W

riters are being surprised by their songs taking on new meaning in the current virus crisis. Not Jason Isbell.

“You know, I knew they would,” he responds when I point out that song titles like ‘Be Afraid’ and ‘What Have I Done To Help’ suddenly leap off the track list of his new album, Reunions. “Yeah that’s the thing, when you write a song like that it’s a real challenge – it’s a real challenge to write anything that’s in the least bit motivational or inspirational without writing just a big ole blubbering pile of shit of a song. You have to focus really hard on getting the right details and on coming at things from the right perspective. And for me what works best on a song like that is coming from my own perspective. What have I done? And I think I knew when I wrote those songs, these are gonna mean something different six months or a year from now. Obviously, I didn’t know how that would happen.

“But I remember hearing John Prine talk about his first record at a show a couple of years ago and the song, ‘Sam Stone’, on that album, you know about the Vietnam War and a guy coming home and developing a crippling addiction and then overdosing because of what he’d done and he’d seen in the war and I remember John saying, ‘You know you think these songs are not going to last very long. I thought the war was gonna be over and this was gonna be meaningful to people for a few months and then people were just gonna forget about it.’ But people need that song still. And it’s a little bit of a conundrum as a songwriter because you don’t want those problems to stick around. But at the same time, you just know – you just know – if you write that kind of a song that it’s going to mean something serious to people years from now. If it’s a good enough song.”

Songwriting is something Isbell takes very seriously. And he has earned rewards for that, including four Grammy Awards.

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Isbell worked long and hard to get where he is. Fifteen years ago he left the DriveBy-Truckers to embark on his solo career, met his wife Amanda Shires, battled and overcame alcoholism. Part of the theme of Reunions is going back and making peace with that angry, reckless self of fifteen years ago.

“I was a mess!” Isbell recalls of that period.

“Yeah I was really unhappy and drinking a whole lot and didn’t really have a lot of close relationships with anybody. But you know that was also around the time I met Amanda who’s now been my wife for many years, my best friend I met him around that same time too. You never know, when you’re at your lowest points you might actually be doing yourself some good incidentally.”

Indeed, does that younger Isbell talk back to him? Does he have anything valuable to teach the ostensibly older and wiser Isbell?

“Yeah I think probably so. That’s something that I think found its way onto the album.

I finally got to a point in my life where, you know, I think it’s safe to forgive that guy now and pay a little more attention to him.

‘Cause for a long time there just trying to stay sober it was important for me to be able to look at the difference between who I used to be and who I am now. And I think I’ve finally gotten to a point where I’m strong enough in my sobriety to start thinking, ‘Well, you know, I wasn’t all bad.’

And I’ve definitely had some things that I could have done better, but I wasn’t all bad.

There was some wisdom to glean from that guy, as much of a menace as he was.”

There’s a character in first single ‘Be Afraid’ who stomps around the stage like he owns it, who “can bark and snap like a dog at the man who just tuned your guitar”.

He’s oblivious to anything but himself and terrified and won’t ask for help. It’s tempting to read this as the older Isbell addressing the younger. >>> 27

ESSENTIAL LISTENING

>>> “In some ways, but you know I was

never afraid to speak my mind. I just didn’t have as many ways to do it back then. We weren’t on Twitter and all that. It wasn’t like if you get an idea and you’re angry about something you can just immediately tell a hundred thousand people. And it’s probably good that that wasn’t an option then because drinking and social media can be very, very dangerous.

“But I think I always spoke my mind and was motivated to do that because there has to be some kind of end game to all this that’s more than just having a successful career. Or being respected by your peers. I think there’s got to be more to it – that’s not enough for me. So, I sort of always looked at a platform as something you should use to maybe try to make other people’s lives a little bit better.

Just the simple act of empathy has become a political act now. In our country, just trying to see things from someone else’s point of view is starting the fight, you know. And I’m alright, I have the patience for that. If anything, the guy I was fifteen years ago was more ready to start a fight than I am now.”

There’s a potent word of songwriting advice to the younger Isbell in ‘Be Afraid’: “Tell the truth enough, you’ll find it rhymes with everything.” Isbell appreciates the craft of writing as much as anyone (he says he’s

Son Little’s new record almost never was, but the eventual resurrection sees him in career best form, writes Samuel J. Fell Jason Isbell & Amanda Shires “gotta be able to take every individual line and even every individual word out and look at it under a microscope. And it has to feel right. There are no words or phrases that are just pathways to get from good phrase to another. They all have to be of the same

Jason’s Nashville Roundup On the strength of the music coming out of Nashville right now in the face of adversity.

Yeah, my friend Lilly Hiatt has just put out a new one too and that’s a really good record.

A lot of her songs remind me of Aimee Mann which is just a great thing. But yeah, it’s been a very productive time for our town. And it’s also been just an incredibly difficult time because there’s been a lot of tornado damage before the virus hit. So, the last show that I played was a tornado benefit and I think a lot of people wound up contracting the virus at that benefit because we just didn’t know the severity of it yet. Yeah man what a strange time. But I think Nashville’s definitely the kind of city that reacts to crisis by working. We got a lot of songwriters locked in their houses right now and there will be a lot of awful things that happen because of the virus but there will also be some beautiful things too. Considering the fact that there are a lot of really talented people who can’t go out and do anything. I think there’ll be some beautiful work coming out of that.

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standard.”) In the end, though, it comes back to getting that right perspective. And Isbell has mastered that art of making the listener believe he’s telling the truth.

Reunions is available on Southeastern Records through Spunk.

On whether a new Gillian Welch record would heal the world. (laughs). Yeah you know I would rush ‘em if I thought it would help! But their studio got the ceiling ripped off in the tornado. And I talked to Gil a little bit the day of the benefit show and they managed to get all their old instruments and master reels and old gear and mics out of there before it got too wet and anything got ruined so I was really happy about that. But I think they’re still in the process of putting their studio back together. And you know with those guys it takes so long but it’s always worth it. It’s kinda like having dinner in Paris… don’t rush it.

It’ll be worth the wait. Whatever you get will be worth the wait.

On losing Bill Withers.

I know. I know. (I know I know I know I know) What a terrible loss. What a just great individual outside of the music. Somebody who stepped away from it and had such a nasty experience with the music business and was brave enough to talk about that openly before it was cool to talk about how your record label fucked you over. Bill Withers did it before anybody else.

But those songs are so simple and so beautiful.

Any time I write anything that reminds me in the least bit of Bill Withers I feel like I’ve succeeded.

There’s a certain quality to Son Little’s music, a certain way he has with it all that truly pulls you in. It’s music that’s dissolving the barrier between R&B and rock ‘n’ roll, as has been noted elsewhere, music that while it takes time to properly appreciate, rewards you more and more each time you dive in.

Aaron Earl Livingston, the man behind the moniker, earlier this year released aloha, his third offering as Son Little, and it’s this record which really cements this drawing power he exhibits, that really shows what an exceptional artist he is. And yet aloha almost never came to be, the album which critics are already hailing as Livingston’s best, was almost dead on arrival.

“If you’d asked me,” he says, pausing to laugh quietly, “if I’d ever make the mistake of not backing up my demos, I’d have laughed. But I guess I got complacent; it’d been so long since I’d backed anything up… I was just scattered, all over the place.”

He’s talking of a period late last year when his hard drive, containing all the demos for aloha on it, fried and died, leaving him with nothing. Prior to this, he’d released two records – Son Little in 2015, and 2017’s New Magic. His third was ready to be recorded, when disaster struck. While he did despair for a short while, this disaster then spurred an intense period of creativity, the new version of aloha coming together in only a week of frenzied inspiration.

“There was a lot of uncertainty at the time,” he smiles – uncertainty indeed, not to mention emotion, creativity, doubt and exhilaration. The results however, speak for themselves. The album is invitingly sparse, there’s no wasted space from either a lyrical or instrumental standpoint, no sound for sound’s sake, and so I wonder if this is a result of the light-speed time it took to create, or if it was always his intention.

“Well that was kinda an ongoing theme of the project,” he muses. “And for me personally, getting rid of excess, to be essential. This one, there’s a certain dreamy quality to the sound I think, it’s like that.

It’s sparse and it leaves things to your imagination, that’s what I was really looking for.

“And it kinda helped in a way, because I wasn’t sitting around spending my time calling up a chamber orchestra, or thinking of an elaborate string section. It just wasn’t time to do something like that.”

We touch back on the initial, lost demos – I’m interested in whether or not Livingston’s MO changed at all during this time: what did he want to come out with, with aloha, and how did it differ (if at all), from his original plan?

“That’s the strangest part,” he says, “it shows how quickly you can have a mood switch.

“A couple of the songs which, interestingly, are at the emotional centre of this record, are all of the ones that held over. But a lot of

what I lost had a lighter quality, I would say, there was more tempo. And I don’t know if it was me reacting [to the loss], but what I [then] came up with is a lot moodier, the light dims a bit. In a way, I think I worried about it first, then I became very comfortable and happy with it. Maybe that lighter, more upbeat record will come another time [though].”

Once Livingston had recreated aloha, he headed to Paris where, for the first time in his career, he hooked up with a producer, Renaud Letang (Feist, Manu Chao). As the album’s presser mentions, aloha for Livingston was “an exercise in letting go, ceding control, surrendering to fate.” So how hard was this to endure?

“It was not as comfortable as I might have thought,” he says after a pause. “It was challenging, as I’m used to controlling every step of the process… in practise, I had met Renaud, I’d heard about what he’d done, and we talked about music and how we’d do that and there was so much in common there, that I was able to relax a bit, and then once we’d done [some stuff], I felt very secure and found myself trusting him.”

It was with Letang’s help then, that after all that had happened, Livingston was finally able to create aloha as it stands today – sparse, dimly-lit, but essential. aloha is available now via ANTI. 29

Flying South Jonathan Wilson ditches the canyon studio auteur approach in favour of an old fashioned Nashville session.

By Martin Jones Where do you go after you’ve conjured a oneman studio magnum opus and then toured the world as guitarist and Musical Director for Roger Waters? Why, Nashville, of course.

That’s where widescreen studio-whizz Jonathan Wilson found himself: holed up in Cowboy Jack Clement’s Sound Emporium with a band of crack Nashville session hotshots recording an album essentially live.

But don’t be tempted to view Jonathan Does Nashville (aka Dixie Blur) as a passing whim.

Wilson’s family background is very much in Southern roots music. Indeed, it has recently emerged that his uncle played with Bill Monroe! And Wilson himself spent much of his childhood playing along with his father’s band, a lifestyle he found himself reminiscing over whilst wallowing in yet another hotel on the road with Waters.

Word is that it was Steve Earle who first suggested the concept of a Nashville studio jam to Wilson, who approached close friend Pat Sansone of Wilco to help facilitate the idea. Sansone arranged the studio and (most of) the musicians and next thing you know Wilson was up to his earlobes in fiddle and pedal steel. And loving it!

Hi Jonathan, are you holed up in quarantine?

Yeah, I’m in Topanga Canyon which is a good place to be for this kinda thing. Topanga Canyon is a really special place.

You were in Echo Park before, that was where your studio was?

Yeah, I was there for nine years. Nine years on the East Side in the middle of the hipster territory. So, this was a nice a change.

Tell me about how touring with Roger Waters influenced Dixie Blur, was it almost a reaction against all the carefully structured grand scale rock music?

I mean, it wouldn’t have been reactionary consciously but there was definitely, not so much to the performances with him, but more about the lifestyle – just being somewhere in the middle of nowhere and being, like, wow! So, there is a sense on the album of just thinking about my upbringing and my past and the way that those brought me to somewhere.

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And there probably is a bit subconsciously sort of like the joy of being free and performing something in the moment for sure.

There’s that line in ‘69 Corvette’ about wallowing in a hotel room and missing family and home.

Yeah and that definitely spawned from being on that giant tour. Spending extended amounts of time in places like St Petersburg, Poland, walking around the streets of Bulgaria being like, what now what? How did I get here again? Trying to figure it out and basically trying to find some shitty sushi and stuff. But so, there is definitely some of that autobiographical element there.

But the album came together a little bit more organically than something that was planned, you know, let’s try to play the sentimentality card! That would have never even fucken worked, so the fact that it all just happened was good for something like this because the album does actually have a story. It’s not like I’ve been sitting here spinning my wheels figuring out what kind of bullshit to talk about… like a brand new batch of songs where the process was exactly the same as the last time.

I was reading about your uncle and you growing up jamming with your dad and his band. In some ways is that what this record is about, bringing your younger self and those experiences of your youth into your music a bit more?

Yeah. Yeah, I can dig that. I think it’s definitely my most personal and intimate in the respect that it’s like a big helping… like I’m not really attached to perceptions that folks may have of a song or a subject or what I’m talking about so I’m doing it a little bit for myself, I guess. For the sake of the song.

I’m curious as to where Pat Sansone fits in, because although I’m a massive fan he’s not perhaps the obvious choice for a Nashville bluegrass ode production?

Right. Right. Well that sort of came together because he’s just a guy that I’ve done bits and bobs with through the years. He’s a guy that I’ve been super good friends with since the early 2000s, so he gets my whole scope of work and he’s friends with my family and stuff like that so when I made the choice to go down to Nashville, I called him because he’s there. So, he’s the guy who knows that town and he knows all the studios and the players. And he’s got the taste to be able to curate, like this is the guy for pedal steel, this is the guy for drums. He’s one of the few folks that I can actually fucken trust. So, the band that he put together was exactly what I was expecting which was just the perfect thing…

And as a producer and a player he’s just so fantastic, I mean he’s a silky bass player and then he does the Floyd Cramer thing on the piano no problem, and he’s from the South

like me so we see each other more on a Southern side of things, not a Chicago thing and not a California thing.

He’s got the experience of your previous work, rather than going to a Nashville name producer who didn’t.

Yeah exactly. Like fucken Dave Cobb man!! (laughs). But no, as far as the studio and stuff that Pat chose and the players it was perfect.

And then so it came to me one night that I wanted fiddle, and I wanted the most epic fucken fiddle, so it came to me that I was gonna get this guy Mark O’Connor, I don’t know why but it came to me to try to do that.

So that turned out to be a huge part of the sound. He’s sort of the featured soloist which is a first, a first album that had a featured person for me.

Didn’t you have to lure him out of retirement?

Exactly. He had said goodbye to Nashville, goodbye to sessions, ‘cause at the time he was doing them they were soul sucking

overdubbing. It was a bad time for country arguably. So, he did thousands of them and then said fuck this and he split. So, I got him to come back for the first time since 1990, which was kind of a big deal. During the time that he was in town, folks were definitely kind of talking about it. You know, the guy that said, “Fuck Nashville,” it was a famous thing. So, he came back which I feel was very cathartic for him, cause that whole process was very special.

Then the fact that he wanted to record live with the band, that would have shaped a lot of the process.

Yeah! Because at first I thought I didn’t want to put him out and make him come to Nashville, so I said, “Hey man,” because he just happens to live in a town called Charlotte, North Carolina, so I’m sort of like from there, from the time I was like 16 until the time I was 23 or something, so basically I told him “I have two friends there who have fantastic studios so I could send you the tracks and you could put some fiddle >>>

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down, no problem.” And he goes, “No man, that’s not the vibe.” He goes, “Overdubbing is why I quit this stuff. Because it’s a bummer.” And so, I was like, “Oh, that’s starting to make sense.” So, when he came and played, I think ’69 Corvette’ was the first song he played and listening to his on the spot… I mean just listen to that solo! Listen to the phrasing! That’s the phrasing of a master! A fucken master! So that was when I started to smile. I think that was on the third day or something and I was like, “Okay! This is good!”

So, tell me about those very first sessions.

Did it click straight away or were there some hiccups before it started firing?

Well, no, to tell the truth it was good from the start. I brought my engineer and he and I have done lots and lots and lots. So, we set up our tried and true thing so that got things to where they were sounding good.

But there was a point there where things could have gone the other way, where I could have gone to the control room, gone to the playback, heard what we just did on a song of mine and gone, “Oh fuck, this is not going to work!” Subsequently I would have done what I needed to do to try more takes and finish it maybe on my own, fix shit on my own, make sure it was done to a click track so I could put the drums down when I get back to California… all that damage control that you JONATHAN WILSON

DIXIE BLUR BELLA UNION It seems that touring with Roger Waters has, at least temporarily, cured Wilson of his Pink Floyd infatuation. Yeah, okay that’s harsh; Wilson has never been so one-eyed.

But evidence of his regard for Waters as a meticulous studio master was obvious throughout previous albums, Gentle Spirit, Fanfare and Rare Birds.

Dixie Blur sees Wilson take an about face, recruit Wilco’s Pat Sansone as producer, and head to Nashville for an essentially live album with lots of guests and a bluegrass heart. It turns out that Wilson’s uncle played in Bill Monroe’s band, his father was also a country rock musician and his grandfather was a gospel church preacher.

“So, I was exposed to something superauthentic that I was soaking up,” Wilson recently concluded of his childhood. “In hindsight, it doesn’t get more authentic than that.”

Wilson credits Steve Earle with the suggestion to take this new batch of songs to the hallowed turf of Nashville and he

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have to do. Instead I got this amalgamated sound, way bigger than the sum of its parts.

And I was just like, “Whoa! Okay this is what I was banking on – this wall of sound all happening so quick.” You don’t have to do days of overdubs, but it doesn’t work if the band is not capable of playing master quality takes, every take. That’s the difference. That’s what your indie punter has no idea… they don’t even know what that means! So that’s the great thing about the city of Nashville – it’s probably one of last spots on Earth that still has the culture of a session. It was a cool thing!

I guess one thing that’s inevitable and is noticeable as a fan of your work is that many songs in the past you’ve written, recorded and played nearly everything… it’s inevitable that the amount of you is diluted somewhat with all the collaborative input.

Right. Right. Yeah, I got to concentrate more on what matters in the end probably more which is the human element. That’s what people are vibing on. And it’s taken me a long time to figure that out because you try all the cool little bits and bobs and bells and whistles playing passages and cool fucken instrumental sections and you can take a Krautrock take on that and think that was cool – all the shit that you think you’re doing but nothing will really replace the listener’s connection to the vocalist and what they’re singing. So, this time I got to be that guy, I got to be in the booth and just be the singer and the songwriter. And not have to carry the load of the drums and the bass and all that other stuff. ended up at Cowboy Jack Clement’s Sound Emporium with a crack band including Jim Hoke, Russ Pahl, Dennis Crouch and fiddle player Mark O’Connor, whom Wilson coaxed out of retirement by promising to record live. The whole album was recorded on the fly in six days.

Does it work? It’s definitely a mild shock for the dedicated fans of Wilson’s “canyon stoner” fare, though we’re eased into it gently with opening track, ‘Just For Love’, all sparse and trippy, complete with flute (and pedal steel!!)

Second song, ’69 Corvette’ provides a clue to the album’s inspiration, the protagonist stuck in another motel room on tour missing his family and his home.

It’s not until we get to a song like ‘So Alive’ where O’Connor’s fiddle takes centre stage, that we realise we’re not in Echo Park anymore. In songs like ‘So Alive’, ‘Heaven Making Love’, and ‘El Camino Real’, it’s easy to pine for the more elaborate structures and soundscapes of previous releases. But when Wilson does head into more familiar terrain, songs like ‘Fun For the Masses’ and ‘Riding the Blinds’, the band setting propels him towards War On Drugs territory.

Although sometimes in certain songs in my own work or certainly when I listen to Prince or someone like Kevin Parker there’s a strength in a singular idea. It can be very, very potent.

And I guess the point of having Pat there was to also help you bring those guys into your territory when needed.

Yeah, no that’s exactly right. Pat was great at just being… he’s just a very, very positive dude so he’s the guy you want there as a problem solver and a mediator. When you talk about Southern hospitality, he’s the consummate…

The producer… I always say that to be able to have a producer of quality that’s a gift. It’s a luxury. Something that you pay for. When you don’t have one and you’re sitting around by yourself, trying to wire up the damn patch for the four hundredth time and run to the other room, check the drums, run back and play… that’s for the birds that kind of stuff.

The other thing that’s really noticeable as a listener is it just sounds like you’re having a lot of fun… sparking off others’ ideas and energy…

Yes! (laughs) That’s good! That’s exactly what was going on! And I feel like with the album that came previously, Rare Birds, was sort of like the million-hour tour de force and I felt like I had done that and it was definitely time to have some fun and not spend months and months and months and months trying to sculpt a perfect thing, solo style. This more like have some faith in the process, see what happens. And it was good.

It’s only inevitable that Wilson’s powerful personality (one-man-auteur/band/producer) is diluted somewhat by the collaborative nature of Dixie Blur. But you could argue that Wilson had taken that auteur route to its climactic conclusion on Rare Birds. Here there’s suddenly a wealth of outside colour and drama for both us and him to assimilate.

That is at least as much fun for the listener as it sounds like it was for Wilson.

Martin Jones

Lido Pimienta digs deep into her Colombian and indigenous roots for her new album

LIDO

SHUFFLE

by Meg Crawford

On the one hand, it’s a crying shame that Reggaeton-electro-pop high priestess Lido Pimienta is releasing her killer third album, Miss Colombia, during Covid-19’s lockdown.

For starters, she’s obviously unable to tour.

On the other hand, Miss Columbia’s a salve for the times – euphoric, danceable as hell and, at least in part, a paean to hearth and home.

Columbian born and now long-time Canadian resident, Pimienta started writing the demos for the album after the Miss Universe scandal in 2015 when Steve Harvey accidentally gave top honour to Miss Colombia, instead of Miss Philippines. However, Pimienta put the brakes on the project to take her 2016 album, La Papessa, on tour. In turn, the La Papessa tour took a spell when Pimienta was pregnant.

What follows sounds like an idyll. “I gave birth and said, ‘now, I’m going to stay home and finish writing Miss Colombia’,” Pimienta says. “It took nine months afterwards to finish the record and we did it at my house, where we built a studio. It was basically, getting up with the baby and sitting at my desk with my co-producer Prince Nifty and working on the music as we’re about to cook a meal. It was a very domestic setting – a domestic process.

“Because of the studio, I wasn’t attached to a schedule because I wasn’t paying by the day, so it was nine months of just living in my house, with my children, with my partner,

and with my creative partner. Creating and eating, then having dessert, sitting at the computer with the baby and recording when the baby was napping.”

Of course, being a homebody is a plus right now too. While Pimienta’s heartbroken for the countless people in creative industries suffering right now, she’s made for lockdown.

“I have to admit it – I’m a VIP, five-star member of the stay-at-home society. I actually hope that there’s a worldwide obligation for human beings to stay home two days a week so there’s balance in the world.”

Although the album was recorded in domestic bliss, Miss Colombia’s also about the anguish Pimienta experiences in relation to her birth nation, including for its record of extreme violence. In short, there’s plenty of bite in Pimienta’s lyrics. “It had to have a little bit of spice in it, right, you can’t be called Pimiento and not have a little bit of spice in it,” she cracks.

Pimienta digs deep into her Colombian and indigenous (Wayuu) roots for the album, while considering what it means to straddle cultures – is she Colombian still or Canadian?

“You know, I’m still figuring it out,” she says.

“I’m still trying to have patience for both countries that I inhabit. I have come to terms with the fact that there are things that I can not control and things that are pretty bad about both countries, but also pretty good about both.”

While a sense of being other and an outsider (culture-spanning, short, pig-tailed, queer, brown, not-blonde, doesn’t sing in English – ie. awesome) fuels Pimiento’s work, she’s absolutely at home with it. “I realised, ‘you are a weirdo no matter where you go, so just buckle up because it’s gonna be a wild ride.

It’s fine. Just be happy with being alive right now’,” she reflects, cheerfully.

Part of Pimienta’s comfort in her own skin and on stage stems from the fact that she’s been performing since she was a wee thing.

“My family are really big into music and we had a lot of blackouts in our apartment complex when I was a kid in Colombia,” she recalls. “My father would scream out the window, ‘we’re gonna have a concert – apartment 17. See you in ten minutes,’ and the whole neighbourhood would come. My dad would have me at four years old and my sister singing ABBA and Spanish pop songs from the seventies and ’80s to all of our neighbours. Candlelit. I loved it.”

Her first band experience, albeit a million miles from her current sound, undoubtedly helped too.

“I was in my first proper band when I was 11 and it was a punk/metal outfit. All of my friends were into the Spice Girls and I was singing guttural and screaming into the mic, ‘eff the government’, so now, when I’m onstage, it’s just like, ‘the stage, whatever, I’m gonna do it’.”

Miss Colombia is available via ANTI Records.

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They say a change is as good as a holiday and in Canadian songwriter Ron Sexsmith’s case it certainly paid dividends. Moving from Toronto to the small town of Stratford, Ontario, produced a burst of song writing inspiration. (Maybe it was also the Shakespearean connection in the town’s name?).

Sexsmith had lived in Ontario – a city about the same size as Melbourne – for many years.

In fact, I’ve met him there several times.

Once, we met in a club where he made a guest appearance singing some reggae songs for a local band made up of his friends. Last time, it was at a Starbuck’s when we were both searching for the historic album Bob Dylan released exclusively through the chain.

After visiting four other stores I finally found the Holy Grail. Between us we snapped up the store’s entire stock (friends had sent me on a mission).

Before we talk about Ron’s latest album we are drawn to a conversation about Dylan, who had released ‘Murder Most Foul,’ just a few days earlier.

“I was so excited to wake up and see that trending or whatever,” admits Sexsmith. “I definitely had to clear my schedule just to listen to it that day because I saw it. Oh my God, 17 minutes! It was just kind of amazing really. I thought it was brilliant. I know he wrote it a few years ago but it just felt so kind of what we needed to hear in some ways. So, there’s a lot in there. It’s a lot to unpack and that’s alright.”

“I listened to it three or four times and it was just something else and it did feel kind of apocalyptic in a way,” he continues, “the feeling of when it all went wrong or something. They always say that, I guess, about the Kennedy assassination, the whole innocence lost and all that. But it just felt very timely. It felt like what we’re living through now in the age of Trump and all that too - it just feels kind of cyclical.”

I mention to Sexsmith that It does feel as though there are parallels in some ways between the early ‘60s when Kennedy was assassinated, the tension of the Cold War and what is happening now.

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“Yeah,” he agrees, “And that may be another reason he decided to put it out now too. But I’m just glad he did and, hopefully, there’ll be an actual album coming out at some point with some new material. Maybe the timing of it was great too, because people all of a sudden can’t go to work or can’t do anything, so they have all this time on their hands. Because most people these days wouldn’t have the attention span to listen to that song. But this kind of situation forces us to completely stop and actually focus on something like that.”

Sexsmith is surprised when I tell him that ‘Murder Most Foul’ is Dylan’s first number one single – and it is on the Billboard Digital Charts.

“Wow! That’s like a Guinness World Record.

The longest song, number one or whatever.

But that’s crazy.”

Despite the darkness of Dylan’s new song and what is happening with the Covid-19 pandemic, Sexsmith’s new album arrives like a joyous message amidst the gloom; it’s one of the most upbeat albums he has made.

“That was the same for my last series of records,” he notes, “so it was kind of going in that direction - a little more upbeat. I think that’s just sort of happened naturally. I know with this record all of the songs are very specific to my new situation in the house and all that. I hear it on ‘Spring of the Following Year’ and ‘Chateau Mermaid’ [the name of his house].’I wouldn’t have written those songs had I not moved.”

At the suggestion of Don Kerr, his longtime collaborator who also co-produced the album, Ron played almost all of the instruments and recorded it in his home studio.

“He was spearheading the whole thing,” says Sexsmith of Kerr. “Because he’d heard my demos, which were just me, piano, vocals and overdubbed bass, he came back with this whole thing like, ‘Wow, you should do the whole record like that.’ He was a bit of a cheerleader and I got excited about the idea.

Then the other thing was he said he wanted to do it at my house. So, we turned my house upside down for about a week and we just got it done, just the two of us. The rest of it took about a year because I kept going back and forth to Toronto to overdub guitars and other things. But all the band tracks were done in that first week.

“It is all me except for Don played the drums.

Originally, he wanted me to play those too, but I think I was asking a bit much. But my band mates make an appearance on the very last song ‘Think of You Fondly’. They do this sort of Beach Boys section. It’s a little vocal, barbershop quartet type thing. And that was a complete surprise to me. That was something that Don did. So, I get this track in the mail and I’m hearing that for the first time. It was really nice. It was a nice surprise.”

‘Think of you Fondly’ actually sounds as if it could have come off Pet Sounds.

“Yeah,” says Ron. “But initially it didn’t really sound like that. It’s just when they started singing. I guess it reminded Don of The Beach Boys and then he got that idea. There was originally just an organ solo at that point. So, I thought it was a nice arrangement idea on Don’s part.”

The song has a very Brian Wilson feel about it and obviously Sexsmith is a fan of his writing, as well as writers such as Randy Newman and Harry Nilsson: all master crafstmen.

“It’s mournful, I guess in a way, some of Brian Wilson’s stuff,” says Ron. “When I was writing it I was thinking it was more like a Neil Young type thing. But it’s all those people that make me who I am. I’m just a hybrid of all these, The Kinks and Gordon Lightfoot and all these other people.”

I’ve recently been re-listening to my vinyl collection, and I pulled out a copy of Nilsson Schmilsson a few days before I talked to Sexsmith and could see similarities there.

“Oh, wow!” he exclaims. “Yeah, Harry is one of my heroes and all those people. Anyone who was strong melodically I tended to gravitate towards. Actually, in this record, I feel there’s a real kind of Nilsson-esque thing too. I mean he wrote sad songs, but in general there was always this kind of cheerfulness to what he was doing, and this sort of wordplay and sense of humour. I feel that it’s evident on this record. I think it’s just from being in a good place or a good time in my life, I suppose.”

The album is titled Hermitage, which I initially thought might have been the name he gave his new house.

“No, actually we named it ‘Chateau Mermaid’,” he says, “which is sort of a play on Chateau Marmont in LA. Again, it’s sort of another pun.

“I guess when we moved to this small town, I was imagining I could just be a hermit here.

I didn’t know anybody. And I felt that I had sort of reached the age where I could be a hermit. So, it’s basically hermit age. And I just put it together. And ‘hermitage’ just means literally where the hermit lives. So, I kind of knew what the title was even before I had all the songs.”

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“Well, the only thing is, it’s this COVID that’s making everyone a hermit now,” he continues. “I was all set to go out on the road next month. So, it’s like everything else, it’s been postponed. I believe we’ll get through it and everything will eventually be normal again or feel normal. But it’s such a huge inconvenience for everyone and frightening and everything else that goes with it.

Hermitage opens on a hopeful note with ‘Spring of the Following Year’ which Ron says came from imagining what his house would be like after the harsh winter months.

“Because we’re surrounded by trees and hedges, we were imagining it coming to life with the green and all that and have all these trees in the yard,” he says, “and that was sort of this aspirational thing. This year, the spring is pretty much a write-off in a way. So, I think all we can do is look forward to the next one and that’s what the song’s all about.”

‘Winery Blues’ was based on the sort of experience a lot of musicians and bands have probably had at concerts or gigs.

“We’d been asked to open for this songwriter here who’s a friend of mine, who’s also very well known in Canada and it was just going to be me and my keyboardist,” he explains.

“But there’s something that went down with our sound man and their sound man, and all I know is when it came time for us to play, my sound man wasn’t at the board where he should have been. So, we felt like we got sabotaged. A gig that should have been so fun and so easy turned into this bad experience and it didn’t have to be that way.

But because I’m a songwriter, it just really bothered me and I had to kind of get it out of my system. So, I wrote this song with humour and everything that just basically tells my side of the story.”

‘Dig Nation’ one of the soulful songs on the album is a variation on the expression, righteous indignation, which Sexsmith uses in the lyrics of the song.

“The whole idea of indignation was as if it was a town,” he says. “It set me off thinking about all sorts of things. About how just the whole discourse that you get online and everyone is always so upset about something. I just think people have to be a little more forgiving and a little more compassionate because everyone ultimately will say something stupid and not everyone can be as woke as you are, so it’s all about that. The sort of puritanical fervour on the internet.”

As on all of Sexsmith’s albums there are some beautifully crafted songs. One in particular, ‘When Love Pans Out,’ really appeals to me.

“Well, most songs you’re writing, rewriting, and throwing stuff out and it takes quite some time,” he says. “With ‘Love Pans Out’ is kind of an unusual song because the bones of that song go back a long way. I mean, I was working on that song late Eighties I think.

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There used to be a second verse and it used to be a bit slower and I think a different key or whatever. I used to play it back then and there was something that always bothered me about it. And there was something that I always liked about it. When it came time to making this record, I can’t remember how, but I was reminded of it and in my mind, I was able to revisit it and realise that it didn’t need that second verse. That was kind of the sticking point. So, it just took me a few decades to figure out that the song was finished.”

Sexsmith explains that the song ‘Small Minded World’ was commissioned for The Addams Family movie but never used in the film.

“Hollywood came calling, which happens from time to time,” he explains. “So, you always think, ‘Oh, maybe I should do this.

It could be my big break or something.’

So, I went and wrote it and they seemed to really like it. Then they asked me if I could go record it. So, you do all these, you jump over all these hurdles and then ultimately, they decided to go with somebody else’s song.

That’s been my experience pretty much every time whenever Hollywood calls. But on the upside, I thought, ‘Okay, well here’s another song that I wouldn’t have written had they not asked me.’ So, I’m glad we found a home for it on this record.

“They are always in a big hurry to get the song, but it’s not like they give you money to record it or anything. So, you’re kind of doing it on a wing and a prayer hoping that, ‘Well if I do this, it gets in the movie.” Because then you could possibly make some money or something. But my experience has been almost the same every time. I was asked to write a song for Stuart Little back in the 90s and I got a really good song out of it, but they never used it.”

I tell Sexsmith that I’m sure that will change in the near future.

“Yeah, it’s possible,” he says. “I was wondering about that. Like sometimes if you hang around long enough, you start hearing your songs and movies and stuff, so we’ll never know. There are fringe benefits I suppose if you manage to survive in this business and maybe at some point people look at you that way or like you have some kind of body of work. And I’m proud of everything we’ve done.

I’ve always thought the triumph of Sexsmith’s career is the fact that he has been able to hang around and write fantastic songs for all these years.

“Well, I feel very grateful for a guy who never sold a lot of records that I was able to make a connection with enough people to have this kind of devoted cult following that feels like it grows too,” he notes. “I mean I’ve headlined Royal Albert Hall, which is just insane. And I met most of my heroes. So, there’s been a lot of really great things. Things that have made me feel like I was quite successful. Of course, other times on a bad day, you feel like a total failure as well. But in general, I feel like I’m a survivor. Because obviously if I’d come out in the 70s when songwriters, singer songwriters were cleaning up, maybe it would have been a different story.”

I am fairly certain that in an alternate universe somewhere Ron Sexsmith is headlining stadium shows as one of the world’s most revered songwriters.

“That whole alternate universe stuff is very interesting because you run into people from time to time that really believe that kind of stuff,” he laughs. “I don’t what to think.

Who knows? Maybe somewhere I’m playing Wembley Stadium.”

Hermitage is available now through Cooking Vinyl records.

TRIP THROUGH TIME M Ward puts on his space cowboy hat for an album about movement through time and space.

Martin Jones Matt Ward was driving around LA with the radio on AM when the inevitable revelation hit him (any period of listening to the radio will eventually lead to a revelation) in the form of ‘Along The Santa Fe Trail’. (I forgot to ask which version, I sincerely hope it was Jimmy Wakeley’s).

Ward picks up the story: “And it struck me out of the blue that it needed to be on this record that I was trying to make that was trying to be a record about faith and movement and migratory creatures.

“And one of those characters was my grandfather who migrated from Mexico in the 1920s. And he travelled from Mexico to America through El Paso, Texas, and made it eventually to California through Arizona and New Mexico. And this song seemed to come from that place – that journey that we don’t have any photos from or any records of. So, you have to let your imagination fill in those blanks. And I think music can sometimes help fill in those blanks. And also reading the news – whether or not it’s pessimistic or optimistic.

Things that are happening now are echoes of what happened with my grandfather and it’s a lot to take in.”

Though ostensibly a classic Hollywood cowboy tune, ‘Along The Santa Fe Trail’ conjures some pretty spacey lyrics: “Stardust

scattered all along the highway on a rainbowcoloured skyway.” Forget Gram Parsons, here we have the original space cowboy, a figure who roams throughout Ward’s new album, Migration Stories.

Indeed, Ward sets the scene, simultaneously trampling its boundaries, with the album’s opening lines, “Sailing on past time and space.” In both its stories and its sonic palette, achieved with the assistance of members of Arcade Fire, Migration Stories does its best to roam beyond time and space to somewhere dreamlike.

“Thank you yes I’m really indebted to those guys,” Ward responds. “A couple of guys from Arcade Fire added a lot of keyboard textures to the record and these are synthesizers and keyboards that I’d never heard before. Yeah it was an eye opening experience.

“Being in Montreal, it’s good to take yourself out of your comfort zone, and record in a new city sometimes where everything is all foreign. People are speaking French and you can very easily feel like you’re far, far away.”

Yes, Ward made the journey to Quebec to record in Arcade Fire’s studio with members of the band and producer Craig Silvey. Ward’s career trajectory can be characterised by an increased interest in collaboration, if nothing else. For someone who started out as a predominantly solo folk musician, Ward has found himself in supergroups (Monsters of Folk), duets (She & Him) and even on the payroll of superstars (Norah Jones).

“Yeah well this one was a little bit different,” says of his collaborative approach to Migration Stories. “I knew I wanted songs to have a lot of space around them, and not be crowded with words or notes and for everything to have room to breathe. I love being able to give great musicians a chord

progression and a general idea but I don’t love micromanaging their performances. I love letting the X Factor make its way onto the record – it comes with improvisation, it comes with making sure we’re always recording the first take….

“The big picture that I’ve learned is to not come into the studio with completely finished and programmed songs. No one loves to be micromanaged. The best thing is to play with great musicians and people that you see eye-to-eye with and can take you to the place that you want the song to go but didn’t know that you wanted it to go to.”

When our conversation winds up discussing the new Dylan song, and who else we’ve been turning to for solace in times of confinement (in Ward’s case its John Coltrane and Leon Redbone), Ward says he was definitely conscious of trying to bring something positive into the world with Migration Stories.

“Everyone has their own take on migration and it’s something that’s been happening since mankind and civilisation began and I love going to different countries and hearing about people see it and how people view a solution. It’s outside of my grasp to come up with some kind of political answer. For me the songs come from more of a place of an emotional reaction to specific stories of people moving.”

Considering the story of Ward’s grandfather, it would have been tempting to take a political stance against Trump and his wall.

“Yes. Yeah there’s a lot of anger, a lot of fear and I tried my best to keep the record optimistic and take more inspiration from the successful passages as opposed to the failures…”

Migration Stories is available on ANTI37

While Carla Olson has played and recorded with many high-profile musicians over the years, her own name seems to remain underappreciated outside her peers and dedicated fans who are aware of her exceptional career.

With some high-profile musical connections and substantial musical history, it is difficult to know why Olson is not better known or more highly acclaimed. Hopefully, her new album Have Harmony Will Travel Volume 2 and its great selection of songs and guests will go some way to rectifying the situation.

“When you work from home, like I do, I write at home and I play guitar at home, I don’t play less,” says Olson on the phone from her home in Los Angeles when I ask how Covid-19 is affecting her. “If I’m working on something, I’ve got a couple of rooms that I work in and both my husband and I work from the house and we try to get out of each other’s way when we have to. But this is what it is. This is our universe now, so we just have to get used to it and not bitch and moan about it and just get on with it.”

Born and raised in Austin, Texas, Olson moved to Los Angeles at the end of the ‘70s and formed The Textones, one of the many great bands – including Los Lobos and The Long Ryders - to emerge from the LA scene in the mid-1980s. (These days they would be hailed as Americana).

After the demise of The Textones, Olson pursued a solo career that had two major collaborations: with former-Byrd Gene Clark (they released So Rebellious A Lover in 1987 and a live album) and ex-Stone Mick Taylor (which produced two live albums). As well as that, Olson has released her own impressive studio recordings and played with Percy Sledge (who recorded five of her songs or cowrites), Ry Cooder, Bob Dylan (in the video for ‘Sweetheart Like You’), Eric Clapton, John Fogerty and more.

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Olson was a really important collaborator with Clark towards the end of his life and she played an equally important role with Mick Taylor, helping him to make some of the best recordings of his post-Rolling Stones career.

She is still in contact with Taylor, though their last recording together was more than a decade ago. She spoke to him last November when she was on tour in Germany (he was living in Holland).

After the Stones did that tour in 2013, 2014, he just decided he was happy just not doing a whole lot,” says Olson. “It’s a pity because we really miss him. We miss hearing those beautiful solos. One of these days, we’re going to coax him out of retirement.

Hopefully.”

I mention that it was nice to see Taylor on stage with The Stones during their 50th anniversary tour.

“Yeah, but how many songs did he play on when you saw them?” asks Olson. (One and the encore). “He played ‘Midnight Rambler’ and then they brought him out for the finale of ‘Satisfaction’ - he played acoustic guitar and it was not a song you really needed to have him playing on. I guess it was their way of getting him out for the end of the show and then taking a bow and all that stuff.”

“There is a little bit of green-eyed monster going on there I think,” adds Olson.

“Definitely. I don’t mean by Mick Jagger. The green eyes I think come from Keith.”

It would be nice to think that the release of her latest album, Have Harmony Will Travel Vol.2 , and its array of guests, might bring Olson the attention she so richly deserves.

The first instalment featured Richie Furay (Buffalo Springfield), Juice Newton, Peter Case and James Inveldt (The Blasters).

Volume Two contains an even more impressive array of names. Timothy B. Schmit (Eagles, Poco) sings on Richie Furay’s ‘A Child’s Claim To Fame,’ the Buffalo Springfield song, and is assisted by his former Poco colleague Rusty Young on banjo, dobro and acoustic guitar. There is also a version of the Springfield’s obscure song ‘Uno Mundo’ (written by Stephen Stills) with Ana Gazzola singing. The amazing Terry Reid stars on ‘Scarlet Ribbons’ and turns it into his own song. On guest vocals. Peter Noone (Herman’s Hermits) actually sounds really good on the old Searchers’ hit ‘Goodbye My Love.’ I See Hawks In LA guest on a version of ‘Bossier City’ (written by Bobby Bourgoin and recorded by David Allen Coe in 1974) that is so good you’ll be searching out this band and then hunting down the original.

Gene Clark features on ‘Del Gato’, recorded back in 1987 and Percy Sledge appears on

‘Honest As Daylight,’ one of the undoubted highlights, which appeared on Olson’s Reap The Whirlwind back in 1994.

Olson also occasionally takes centre stage with her own vocals and songs such as ‘Haunting Me,’ ‘Shackles and Chains,’ ‘After The Storm’ (written by Gene Clark but never released by him) prove that she doesn’t have to rely on guests but enjoys the collaboration. It also makes you wonder why she hasn’t been snapped up to appear here at somewhere like Bluesfest.

There is also an Australian connection on the album and in Olson’s recent session work.

Vince Melouney, former guitarist with The Bee Gees and Billy Thorpe & The Aztecs, appears on the album, while Olson guested on Ash Grunwald’s latest album, Mojo.

“Yeah, what a lovely human. He really is a lovely person,” says Olson of Grunwald. “ I know he’s under a lot of stress right now because his tour in Europe got cancelled and everything. I sent him a little message on Instagram a couple days ago. I said, “You know what? Get out there. Get your guitar.

Do a concert for your fans. You’ll feel better, the fans will feel better.” Right now, I just got through organizing my kitchen and cleaning all the spice rack with all the dust on top of it and... You just got to get something accomplished every day and you’ll feel better. I mean, this is going to pass over. We’ll be okay.”

“I actually recorded that when Vince was in town for the Barry Gibb family tour in 2014 where he did a tribute to his brothers and to the Bee Gees music,” explains Olson when I ask her about Melouney who plays guitar on ‘Shackles and Chains’. They recorded it at the Beach Boys studio, Brother Records. “He was in town for that and I said, ‘Vince, come on! Let’s go record something.” I was asked to play a tribute to John Stewart, who if you know John Stewart’s work, he wrote the song ‘Gold’ and wrote ‘Daydream Believer’ for The Monkees. Anyway, that song ‘Shackles and Chains’ was the one they wanted me to sing for this tribute and Vince came and accompanied me on guitar.”

Have Harmony, Will Travel Volume Two arrives seven years after the original one, which was Olson’s first solo album for seven years.

“This is kind of weird not to have a record out for a long time.,” says Olson. “Although I have really been busy. So, it’s not like I’m lollygagging around. It’s been a lot of stuff production-wise: two solo albums from Paul Jones; a Joe Louis Walker album; a Barry Goldberg solo album. Just a lot of stuff. So, when you get busy doing one thing, it’s hard to digress and go back and put a band together and make a record; although that’s my love really - playing and playing live and playing rock and roll. But production’s pretty cool too.”

“Well, the first album started out as a project where I asked a couple of friends if they wanted to get together and sing a couple of old songs,’ explains Olson. “So, it was sort of one of those things that a couple of good friends said, ‘Yeah, I’d love to do something.’

Then the next thing you know, I have like four

people and then I had six people and then the next after that, I went, ‘Well, this is a whole album. Let’s just do it.’ So that’s how that came about.”

Most of Have Harmony Will Travel 2 was recorded at Entourage studio in North Hollywood. Olson recorded her first album, Reap The Whirlwind there in 1994. The studio was recently purchased by a film maker and doesn’t exist as a commercial entity anymore.

“It’s got a big room,” recalls Olson. “Most of the songs were done there. I miss it because it was a really great room. They used to do orchestras in there actually. Disney used to do their orchestra recordings in that room.

Disney down the road in Burbank.”

The remainder of the songs were recorded at Rancho Relaxo in Hidden Hills with engineer, Michael Reid. This is where Olson also recorded the album The Hidden Hills Session (2019) with Todd Wolfe. (Rusty Young added his parts in Nashville).

“Terry and I talked about for years recording ‘Scarlet Ribbons’ as a duet and it just kind of fell together,” says Olson of the song on which the remarkable voice of Terry Reid appears.

Olson recalls that she saw Terry Reid open for Cream in Dallas back in 1968! “He damn near blew them off the stage as three-piece,” she says. “I think I met Terry through Mick Taylor.”

“It’s like sandpaper, but it’s honey and sandpaper,” observes Olson of Reid’s unique voice. “Because he sings in such a sweet way, but yet he’s got this voice that sounds like he’s been up for six weeks. As I used to laugh at Rod Stewart who said the way he got his Sam Cooke voice riding around naked on a motorcycle in the winter screaming into the wind. I don’t know how Terry Reed got his voice, but probably it’s best I don’t know that.”

Undoubtedly, one of the standout songs on Have Harmony is Gene Clark’s ‘Del Gato,’ which is appropriate given the importance Clark has in Olson’s career.

“The song is one of my all-time favourite Gene Clark songs,” says Olson. “Not because I got to sing on it, because I just love the lyric. Chris Hillman was on that’ he played mandolin. That song particularly was from, I guess it was, a 1986 session with Gene Clark from So Rebellious a Lover.

Clark’s magnificent album No Other has recently been re-released in box set format with a splendid re-mastering and some interesting outtakes. Olson was at the release party in West Los Angeles at The Village Recorder where it was originally recorded.

“It was really exciting,” says Olson who is producing a new album for Clark’s daughter Kai. “It sounded great, but I think the original was fine.”

“Every night that I would play with Gene, I would look over and go, ‘What am I doing here? Who wants me? Nobody needs me’,” says Olson. “But what I learned from Gene was after playing in a rock band with Marshall

stacks and a drummer that had the crack of a snare that would just take your spine off, I had to learn how to sing softly. Gene taught me how to do that. He taught me that you can’t floor it all the time. You can’t be flooring it. You can’t be on 11 all the time. You have to have nuance and you have to bring your voice down where people can hear the timbre in your voice and the emotion that you’re trying to share with them. I learned a lot from him from that.”

The other legendary name on the album is Percy Sledge, whom Olson tracked down with her husband Saul in the early ‘90s after they heard his other hit ‘Warn and Tender Love’ and were inspired to get him into the studio with Saul co-producing the great

comeback album, Blue Light, with Barry Goldberg.

“Then Percy and I got to be friends,” recalls Olson, who had Sledge appear on several of her early solo recordings, “and I guess one of the days we were at the studio I gave him a ride back to the hotel and he said, “Don’t you have something that I can sing on? I’d love to sing on one of your records.” So, I gave him a couple songs to listen to and he picked ‘Honest as Daylight’.”

It sounds like a soul classic and is just one of the many great tracks on a superb album from a guitar great.

Have Harmony Will Travel Vol.2 is available through Sunset Boulevard Records.

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Bob Dylan’s latest song, ‘Murder Most Foul’ has given him his very first Billboard No.1 single (even though it is on the digital chart).

The song is a long meditation about the assassination of JFK. Or is it?

Rhythms asked some musicians about their opinions.

Compiled by Martin Jones and Brian Wise.

SCARLET RIVERA

(First joined Dylan’s band for the Rolling Thunder tour. New EP: All of Me).

I love it. I mean, I love it that if you really look at the lyrics, you can say, well, it was about an event that happened a long time ago in the ‘60s. But if you really look carefully at the lyrics, it brings you up to date, because it’s talking about the age of the antichrist is coming. And other lyrics talk about the progression of history.

On it being Dylan’s first No. Billboard Single.

It is amazing. When you think of ‘Tangled Up in Blue’ was like something you could dance to even. I mean, it’s so like a rocker of a song, even in spite of the lyrics being really deep and heavy. The fact is that this one is even incredibly deep and profound and it’s way longer than any single should ever be and it still made it as a top of the charts is wonderful.

JASON ISBELL

(LATEST ALBUM: REUNIONS) His take on the Murder Most Foul.

Oh, I like it. I think it’s great. Can we call it a new Dylan song though? I think he’s been hanging onto it for a while. But he’s still very, very powerful. He can still cut to the heart of something and his mind is very, very sharp.

We did a few shows with him a couple of years ago on a tour that Willie Nelson put together and Dylan was on a few of them.

And it was really good because I kind of got the sense that because Willie was there Dylan felt like he should rise to the occasion.

Because I know some nights he doesn’t really feel like being on stage… at least it doesn’t look like it some nights. But at these shows he was really in rare form and you know he was trying really hard and I thought that would be because Willie’s here. You know, Willie’s his elder and there aren’t that many songwriters left that Bob Dylan would consider to be an elder. But I felt really lucky to see those shows.

On the positive message of turning to music in time of crisis.

And also, it reminds you of early Dylan. A lot of songwriters, and I did this, start out talking about themselves. They’re confessional for the first half of their careers and then if you’re doing it right, your own personal problems get solved and you get comfortable and you start writing about things outside your door. And that’s usually where 40

songwriters will slip up. They start getting vague and preachy and the music’s just not that great anymore. But Dylan did it in the other order. He started out writing about society and the world around him and then eventually honed into himself and started writing about his own life. And this new song makes me think of the early Dylan who was sort of angry and indicting on one hand but also hopeful that things would get better.

SHANE HOWARD

(LATEST ALBUM: DARK MATTER) Some Thoughts on Bob Dylan’s Murder Most Foul – Shane Howard In the late-1960’s, John Lennon cynically accused Dylan of writing songs that created ‘the appearance of meaning.’

On first listening, is Dylan’s Murder Most Foul, a brilliant arrangement of carefully curated and clipped images or a lazy assemblage of an old man’s ramblings?

It’s not the first time I, or anyone else, has been hit with the ‘shock of the new’ after hearing a new Dylan song. Whether it’s the folk Dylan going electric at Newport, or the investigative journalism and ultra-reality of ‘Hurricane’, the unexpected 1978 release of the accusatory song for the murder of Soledad Brother, ‘George Jackson’, or the eleven and a half minute epic ‘Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands’, occupying an entire side of the 1966 vinyl album, Blonde on Blonde.

Next day, hearing the song for the second time, I could no longer imagine a world where the song didn’t exist. So, it is with so much of Dylan’s songs that stand like stone, like monuments, chronicling the era that we’ve lived through.

I was one of those kids who was deeply moved to see my mother weep when news came through the radio that JFK had been assassinated in 1963.

Dylan’s an American artist and ‘Murder Most Foul’, the phrase borrowed from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, is an American perspective of its post WWll empire. Like the rest of the world, for better or worse, our lives have also been dominated by American culture and the hubris of its laissez faire capitalist economy.

It’s taken a lifetime for Dylan to put all the pieces together, but ‘Murder Most Foul’, in rhyming couplets, chronicles his own life as well as the end of the American era, the American empire. The song bookends an era that began with the murder of a President who promised an America of vision and hope, civil rights and the space age and draws a line straight through to the modern-day buffoonery that the office of President and the USA have become. It’s a lament for the lost soul and possibilities of America and consequently, our world.

“Business is business and it’s murder most foul.”

“Where is the truth? Where did it go?”, laments the old man Dylan mournfully but dispassionately staring coldly at mortality.

“Darkness and death will come when it comes.”

Dylan is one of the greatest artists of our era, a modern-day Isaiah, prophetically casting a critical eye over the American empire that he was born and raised in. “I was born here, and I’ll die here, against my will”, (‘Not Dark Yet’) Dylan celebrates the great art and soul of America but paints an abstract portrait of a nation in decline, placing the beginning of that decline squarely at the murder of JFK. “I said the soul of a nation’s been torn away / And it’s beginning to go into a slow decay”.

His songs chronicle our era in history in a way no other single artist has. His songs have always cast a critical eye over the political life of the USA. The fact that he applies the magnifying glass to these matters, at this time, is significant.

There is irony in the fact that a seventeenminute long song-poem should also find itself as Dylan’s first number one song on the US Billboard charts.

It is, in many ways, his ultimate protest song and maybe, his swan song.

TIM ROGERS

(YOU AM I) My take on it is that it’s baffling and beautiful.

A riddle and a paean.

And I can’t get a minute into listening to it without crying And when it finishes I keep crying. And then I feel a little better, and feel like helping someone.

Which is a holy purpose of music in times of crisis.

Untangling the skeins of raging synapses and making some peaceful thought possible.

M WARD

(LATEST ALBUM: MIGRATION STORIES) I listened to it once and I loved the ambition of it. And I loved the courage in it. It would have been even more maybe incredible to be released a couple of decades ago. But it’s still so great to hear and I’m glad that he put it out.

On the positive message of turning to music in a time of crisis.

Yeah, it’s an interesting time to put that song out where people are…. struggling. My point of view lately is to try to put something out into the world that people can lean on right now. Instead of something to, um bring more abrasion into the world when there’s enough frustration right now in the newspaper.

RON SEXSMITH

(LATEST ALBUM, HERMITAGE) Oh my God, 17 minutes! It was just kind of amazing really. I thought it was brilliant. I know he wrote it a few years ago but it just felt so kind of what we needed to hear in some ways. So, there’s a lot in there. It’s a lot to unpack and that’s alright.

His observations on the song I guess he did it for the Tempest album. But I just think when this whole COVID thing happened, I think a lot of artists were, “What can I put out there to help people get through it.” I think that was his way of doing that.

I listened to it three or four times and it was just something else and it did feel kind of apocalyptic in a way. The feeling of when it all went wrong or something. They always say that, I guess, about the Kennedy assassination, the whole innocence lost and all that. But really when you dig deeper into that story it just feels there’s a lot of layers to it and a lot of darkness behind the scenes that we may never know the whole story. He seemed to be opening up that whole thing.

But it just felt very timely. It felt like what we’re living through now in the age of Trump and all that too - it just feels kind of cyclical.

JONATHAN WILSON

(LATEST ALBUM: DIXIE BLUR) His take on Murder Most Foul.

I love it! Are you kidding? It brought me to tears the other day. It brought me actually to tears. I love all that he name-checked and there’s something about the fact that many people won’t even know what the fuck he’s talking about is a pretty sad thing. And just that lack of coddling and American history… the lack of teaching it, the lack of speaking about it, all the cultural touchstones of the 20th century that will be just completely forgotten about…

On the positive message of turning to music in time of crisis.

Yeah. I mean it’s such a cool song. I gotta find out where he did it. He does a lot of stuff in Santa Monica but that’s something that I’m trying to find out. I know he plays with the road band, the same guys he’s had for a long time, so it’s probably those dudes. But then there’s weird strings in there I don’t know who that is…

SARAH CARROLL

(LATEST ALBUM: STAR PARADE) I was warned that Bob’s new song ran for around 17 minutes, so sat and listened, ready to go on a trip. I listened twice with a short break in between, and these things jumped out: The first two minutes or so deal with the assassination of JFK in a narrative way, telling the facts of the story we know. The character/s behind the killing may be telling

us: allusions are made to the fact that despite hundreds of thousands of people watching the motorcade, not one saw the killer. “ A magic trick,” “murder most foul’, and the language stretches out to ensnare us with snatches of poetry, song lyric, references to art and artists from the whole of the 20th century. The scope is enormous but esoteric at the same time.

The tale and its rhythms and rhymes are delivered in a semi-serious hokum vocal, with black inflections liberally sprinkled throughout. Half-sung and half-spoken, it’s mesmerising, even though two listens left me still unable to decipher the odd phrase. Bob changes point of view: sometimes he’s JFK, sometimes a detached reporter, sometimes the slyly boastful killer. As the dead man, his most memorable couplet, “Riding in the back seat, sitting next to my wife/heading straight on into the afterlife,” is just the saddest thing and evokes the horror of the way he died.

The major players are all slipped in, Oswald, Ruby, Marilyn Monroe, his brothers, the grassy knoll etc. and “Airforce One coming through the gate/Johnson sworn in at 2.38” devastates us with wit and surgical accuracy.

The elegy is played on bowed bass, orchestral strings and percussion and decorative piano.

To me this is the most beautiful and powerful recording Bob Dylan has made in a long time.

Music In A Time Of Crisis Which leads me to this simple observation.

Musicians must continue to produce work, regardless of the prospect or absence of immediate financial reward, because for us, it’s the only way to remain mentally well and connected. For everyone else, what we make can help to interpret and process the changes and loss and worry, and remind us all of the complexity and beauty of the world. It is a direct way to give to others which empowers all involved.

ASHLEY NAYLOR

(GUITARIST, EVEN, ROCKWIZ ORCHESTRA) I was totally blown away by this song when I first heard it. In usual circumstances I might have struggled to sit with a 17-minute song without distraction or interruption but in this current phase of what I’m calling ‘Orwellian’ uncertainty I relished this new Dylan experience and savoured every word as I currently have more time to do so.

I’m somewhat detached from the cultural trauma of Kennedy’s murder but Bob makes it very personal. His lyrics may often be inscrutable but when his words are as open and comprehendable as this, it hits you, particularly at a time like now when some of us are more vulnerable.

I made a solo pilgrimage to Dealey Plaza in September 2017 whilst on tour in the U.S. with Paul Kelly and the band to get a bit of perspective on the geography of Dallas and see the stretch of road and the grassy knoll

and ponder it all like any other visitor.

This song is now a retrospective soundtrack to the time I spent there thinking about it all and what the world was like before and after Kennedy was shot dead in broad daylight.

It seems Bob takes solace in referencing all the music and people he mentions in the song to remind himself that music can heal and soothe in a time of crisis and we all need healing and soothing right now.

On the positive message of turning to music in time of crisis.

It’s hard to imagine what the last few weeks would have been like if not for music. I’ve been sharing music related messages with friends locally and sending guitar parts via email to friends here and overseas. Music has been an incredibly positive force for me recently. It always has been but its importance has been magnified recently and it’s not only a light at the end of the tunnel....it’s a light guiding me through the tunnel........I feel a song coming on.

ANDY WHITE

(LATEST ALBUM: THE GUILTY & THE INNOCENT) I got an email from a producer friend of mine in the UK. It simply read, ‘Have you heard this ? Find somewhere quiet and take 17 minutes and listen to this: I was in tears and its everything my/our life has been and become…. I’m overcome…..”

One elder talking about another, I clicked the link to listen. I was thinking about Hamlet, I was thinking about Margaret Rutherford.

Found myself looking at John F. Kennedy.

What I heard was intelligence, experience, the sweep of history and music in a tale told by the greatest of storytellers. Didn’t want it to end but knew it had to. That’s what it’s about. Just like ‘’Desolation Row’, ‘SadEyed Lady’, ‘Jokerman’, ‘Brownsville Girl’, ‘Tempest’.

How lucky to be born in this era, too young in ‘64 but feeling the tailwind in the ‘70s and beyond. How lucky to hear this one sunny isolated Saturday morning, a hemisphere away.

On the positive message of turning to music in time of crisis.

I grew up in Belfast during the Troubles.

During the unofficial curfew you’d listen to the daily slow drip of death and condemnation on the radio. Mum always encouraged me in trying to make something beautiful out of the chaos.

Staying up late listening to Dad’s record collection on the Black Box, later I heard punk on John Peel. Reading and music gave me a voice. Isolation is where it’s at. Then, now and forever. Listen to music and you’ll make it through.

Playing that song again. There’ll always be something I missed last time.

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By Ian McFarlane Thanks to Meg Butler, Michelle Gearon, Helen Jennings OAM, Vince Peach, David Heard, Phil MacDougall.

Images courtesy of the PBS Archives.

This year marks the 40th year that Melbourne community radio station PBS-FM has been broadcasting

December 2019 saw the official 40th Anniversary of on air life for PBS and to celebrate the occasion the PBS Book Committee created and published 40 Years of PBS Radio. Like Triple R, PBS has been an important part of Melbourne’s musical culture and an essential lifeline for its broad listener base.

40 Years of PBS Radio is a handsome, lavish publication, in both words and pictorially, and documents the station’s history in great detail. The book’s Introduction states: “PBS was conceived as a community, memberbased radio station dedicated to music that wasn’t heard on other radio stations; a radio station unimpeded by commercial interests and where the announcers were free to play what they wanted. Never straying from this vision is what has made PBS deeply beloved by so many.”

As explained in the book it was Felix Hoffman, a music fan and electronics expert, who decided to set up a public, listenerbased radio station dedicated to progressive and under-represented music. In 1976 he formed a co-operative of like minded people to help create that different kind of radio station. They were enthusiastic, idealistic and hopeful. It took a few years and several test transmissions before the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal (ABT) granted PBS a licence to broadcast in 1979.

Did you know that PBS stands for Progressive Broadcasting Service? It’s a proclamation writ large and the station has forged an unbreakable bond between the Australian music community and the public at large.

The list of programs 1979-2019 – compiled by Rochelle Lade from her unpublished doctoral dissertation Music and PBS: A History of Programming at a Community Radio Station – runs to something like 868 in total.

And did you know that our illustrious editor of Rhythms, and long-time presenter of Off the Record on Triple R, Brian Wise got his start at PBS? There’s a grainy black and white photo of Brian in the cramped studio circa 1980; you can only see his back but one of the albums just visible on the console is Frank Zappa’s Shut Up ’n Play Yer Guitar.

Drive Live 2017-Photo by Melissa Cowan 42

As well as its normal in-the-studio shows, the station is well known for its regular Live-to-Air presentations. In the early days the likes of Mondo Rock, Broderick Smith’s Big Combo, The Go-Betweens, Scientists, The Triffids, TISM – to name only a handful – were heard live. Then there have been the regular PBS Benefit concerts, themed shows and other community events. Who hasn’t attended the likes of Cup Day Kaos, ANZAC Day Anarchy, Soul-a-Go-Go, Rock-a-Bye Baby Music Sessions, Jamaica Jump Up or the annual Community Cup footy day when the Megahertz (Triple R and PBS) take on the Espy Rockdogs.

There are numerous quotes from staff, announcers, listeners, musicians and industry people presented throughout the book. I find the following especially pertinent: “PBS had a profound impact on the soundtrack of my life. When I was a poor, impressionable student in the late 70s to early 80s, PBS opened my world to alternative music, particularly punk, ska and reggae. In the mid 80s, still far from being rich financially but enriched in other ways, I felt a moral obligation to become a member and give back to the PBS community.” – Steve Veale, listener and member.

“Being involved with PBS was always fun but for some reason the St Kilda days are the most vivid. We did a weekly show with the Swingin’ Sidewalks... an old time live radio show (Movin’ and Groovin’ Hour). Elroy Flicker (aka Paul Cummings) was the MC and even dressed for the part. We would knock out uptempo tunes with verve and swagger and by the end of the hour we would collapse!” – Rebecca Barnard, musician.

“I love PBS radio. Every time I switch it on I either hear a) something that I know and love or b) something that I’ve never heard before and which then opens up a whole new damn beautiful musical world to me. We are so lucky in this community to be able to share and receive music, ideas and happenings so freely.” – Courtney Barnett, musician.

“Walking into PBS is like walking into the family home on a cold winter’s night for

Park Lake Building studio

a home-cooked meal. It isn’t fancy – the vegetables are slightly overcooked and the wine is from a cask, but none of that matters because the company is 24 carat gold. At PBS, we may run on the smell of an oily rag, but the people that gravitate towards the station – staff, volunteers, listeners and members – are some of the most wonderful, generous and inspiring people I’ve ever met.

To have been in their company for the past ten years (and counting) is really quite an honour. And to be able to share little heard music with greater Melbourne every week is a joy indeed.” – Emma Peel, announcer.

Rather than give a full account of the station’s history, here are a dozen key moments: • 1979 – Announcer and founding volunteer John Roberts: “Good afternoon, the time is 4.30pm on Friday December 21st and this is 3PBS-FM commencing regular transmission on 107.7 MHz”.

• 1980 – 9 February; PBS held a Gala Opening Night at the Prince of Wales, St. Kilda, featuring live-to-air performances from several acts.

• 1985 – PBS magazine, Waves (1977-1988) won a Community Broadcast Association of Australia (CBAA) award under the editorship of Mick Geyer.

• 1987 – 16 November; PBS commenced 24/7 transmission on a new frequency of 106.7 MHz from a new transmitter at Mt Dandenong. Also, PBS commissioned its first digitally-controlled studio console.

• 1988 – April; PBS held its first Live Music Week with 50 acts playing live-to-air.

• 1990 – PBS held a full day of special programming to celebrate International Women’s Day, with the first all-women broadcast.

• 1995 – PBS won an award for its outside broadcast from WOMADelaide.

• 1997 – PBS streamed the first simultaneous broadcast over the internet during Radio Festival. The station dropped

Photo by Jeremy Smith

Easey Street Collingwood 2018 Photo by Stavros Sakellaris the ‘3’ from its call sign preferring just PBS, PBS-FM or PBS 106.7FM. • 2001 – The station moved from its home in the Park Lake Building, 171 Fitzroy Street, St. Kilda, to new premises at 47 Easey Street, Collingwood. With the move PBS built its first dedicated recording studio, Studio 5. 27 November marked the first transmission from Easey Street.

• 2010 – 24 February; PBS continued championing and protecting live music, playing a critical role with a visible presence, at the SLAM (Save Live Australian Music) Rally.

• 2011 – April; a new era commenced when PBS and eight other Melbourne community radio stations launched their first digital radio services with a joint simulcast from Federation Square.

• The Future – With the 2019 sale of the long-time Collingwood warehouse premises of PBS, the station is due to relocate to the Collingwood Arts Precinct (CAP) by the end of 2021.

47 Easey Street Collingwood PBS 43

40 Years of PBS Radio cover Design by Chris Drane

PBS Benefit 1990 44

I spoke to four of the longest serving PBS announcers to get their views on the station.

When did you start your show on PBS? David Heard – Acid Country: I started presenting back in 1979 but the Acid Country show has only been going, haha ‘only been going’, for 20 years. I have been there since the beginning presenting other programs, folk programs, blues programs, other country shows, one called Mainly Acoustic which was American folk, British folk in an acoustic setting.

Phil MacDougall – Sunglasses After Dark: I started the show around 1987, however, I’d been on PBS since September 1980. I did a late night show called Classical Gas with a friend of mine, Malcolm. That went on for a couple of years, then I did a punk show and a drive show called the Roadrunner show, after the Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers song. So, all the early shows coalesced around 1987 into what is still known as Sunglasses After Dark.

Vince Peach – Soul Time: I started Soul Time in 1984, so that’s 36 years now. It was only gonna last a couple of months. I was sharing the program with Dave Blackwell, I did one week, he did the other. Work commitments forced him to stop so I just took it over. I’ve done it every week since, which is crazy.

Helen Jennings OAM – Roots of Rhythm: I first got involved with PBS in 1984 as a volunteer. I used to help out with the fundraisers, the outside broadcasts and every Saturday morning with the Movin’ and Groovin’ Hour with the Swingin’ Sidewalks.

In 1986 I was managing The Mojos, Fiona Boyes’ first band, and their harmonica player Kaz Dellarosa was doing a show

called Women in Blues. She invited me to be part of the show and when she wasn’t able to continue, I took it on. I started Roots of Rhythm on a Wednesday, the 1st of February 1987.

What is the main focus of your show?

David: It’s to play non-mainstream country music and roots music, Americana I suppose we now call it which we didn’t know about back in 1979. Something a bit cutting edge and that’s where the name came in. The ’Acid Country’ intro I use is by American comic and musician Tim Wilson, which pretty well sums up what I do and have been trying to do for many years.

Phil: My first love is classic punk (1976-1988) and what’s broadly now known as alternative music. I started playing ’60s garage punk and the cooler elements of what’s now known as proto-punk – Iggy and the Stooges, the MC5, Velvet Underground, The Doors, Love. In the early 80s I got involved in the second wave of hardcore punk in Melbourne at the Seaview Ballroom with Depression, Vicious Circle, I Spit on Your Gravy and Civil Dissident. I love newer Melbourne bands like Eddy Current Suppression Ring, Amyl and the Sniffers. In 2020 I still focus primarily on punk, hardcore and alternative music but I have a wide variety of musical influences, so on any given week you will hear a reggae, or a dub or a ska track, or a rockabilly track, or industrial music. So, it’s everything from the Sex Pistols to newish Melbourne band Alien Nose Job. Vince: It’s definitely based on Motown and ’60s Northern Soul and the music that those styles influenced. So, it gives me an opportunity to play local bands as well, like Fulton Street, Saskwatch, Cookin’ on 3

Burners. Very funky stuff. I’m originally from Liverpool and I started going to the Northern Soul clubs in the mid-60s. It wasn’t called Northern Soul then, that’s a retrospective term coined by Dave Godin. He used to write an article every week in a magazine called Blues and Soul and he compiled the Deep Soul Treasures series of CDs. I play stuff from them. Also, as a lad I used to go down to his shop, Soul City, in London and he’d keep all the uptempo dancers aside for us. So, it was always a good shopping trip. I’ve still got all my original 45s.

Helen: When I first started I had more of a jazz background. I’d been sitting on jazz committees since the early ’70s, and jazz and blues always went hand in hand. It wasn’t really till the late ’80s that I got involved in the blues. I came up with Roots of Rhythm because I was determined not to use either jazz or blues in the title, so it was a good idea of where to go. I wasn’t bogged down with a tag, so it’s always been jazz, blues and roots music. These days it’s more blues and roots than jazz but I still do jazz interviews. You know, if it fits.

How do you program your show each week in order to remain fresh and enlivened?

David: Nowadays we can keep up to date with new releases a lot more easily with the internet. I suppose CDs now account for about 50% of what I play whereas only five years ago it would have been 100%. I usually set aside Wednesday afternoon into the evening to prepare for the show next day.

But then as soon as I leave the station I’m thinking about the next week’s show.

Vince: I still buy 45s every week, so there’s always a new supply of records coming in.

I’ve got records down in my music room that still have never made it to airplay. So, I can always play something every week that I’ve never played before. It is still exciting finding new records.

Helen: I get a lot of new releases from overseas, especially America, so that’s fantastic. I’ll play all the latest songs from Australia. I do put an emphasis on Australian releases, especially from Melbourne. I’ve been a supporter of the Teskey Brothers since Sam and Josh were 14 and 15.

Each show these days is geared around promotions, especially around this time of year, it’s usually when all the festivals are on.

I’m always telling stories about the music that I play. So, it’s quite easy to put the shows together material wise because I’ve been doing this for so long.

Can you nominate a favourite interview?

David: Without meaning to drop names I can mention people like Townes Van Zandt who I spoke to back in 1990, he was an interesting character. I’ve interviewed Steve Earle a couple of times; he’s always been very accommodating. Emmylou Harris, Lucinda Williams, Joe Henry, Patty Griffin, I’ve enjoyed all of them, either live in the studio or on the phone from America. They’re all willing to talk. I’ve been very privileged to have asked them a few questions.

Phil: I’ve interviewed Captain Sensible from The Damned twice, only on the phone, but a great guy, really lovely, switched on, funny guy. I was really proud of that. My last big interview was Jason Williamson from the Sleaford Mods, that was good.

Opening Night 1980 Design by Bill Greenwell

PBS Benefit \ 1990

Go-Betweens live to air flyer 1981 Courtesy of Jeremy Smith

Performer Drive 2013 Design by Blisterfinger

Soul a Go Go 2009 Photo and poster design by Pierre Baroni.

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Also, years ago when they came here in 1983, I did a sit down interview with Jello Biafra from the Dead Kennedys. I did a face to face interview with John Lydon when PiL toured. I’ve interviewed Jaz Coleman from Killing Joke three times. A lot of Melbourne bands. I just heard the news that Dave Thomas has passed away. He and Russell from Bored! came into the studio for an interview.

Vince: Definitely the most memorable interview was with Bettye Lavette. She wandered into the studio with a flute glass and a bottle of champagne and wouldn’t leave. She was amazing. Then we had Marva Whitney come in. Unfortunately, she had a stroke a couple of days later which was sad. She arrived at the PBS studios straight from the airport on a 42 degree day.

Yeah, she was amazing. They did the hard yards, these people for sure.

Helen: I’ve been lucky to have met so many great artists over the years. I’ve done three interviews with Tony Joe White. The first time I interviewed him, he came into the studio and I literally went weak at the knees. As soon as he said in that voice ‘hello ma’am’, I had to grab the desk. I thought that’s a strange reaction. I’ve had three interviews with Taj Mahal. The one that I remember most fondly was Long John Baldry. He’d just come from a very pedestrian interview and his young publicist said, ‘you’ve got 12 minutes’. We started talking and he got more animated by the minute, so it was fantastic, we just had this rave. He told the publicist to cancel his next interview and he stayed for 45 minutes!

Are there any standby songs or groups that you draw on regularly for your play list?

International Womens Day poster Design by Ashley Ronning 46

Sunglasses After Dark 2006 Design by Belle Piec from fiikdesign.com

David: Someone I always go back to is Steve Earle, his whole catalogue is worth playing.

The same with Emmylou Harris, Lucinda, yeah, not that you ever get stuck for things to play but there are some trusty standbys. I mean, I like to play new stuff but sometimes it’s good to go back further.

Phil: Yeah, a lot. Of course, anything by The Cramps, The Gun Club, The Saints, X (the Australian X), Ministry, The Clash, The Damned, The Stooges, MC5, Sex Pistols. The all-time great track is John Cooper Clarke’s ‘Beasley Street’; I play that probably once a month. ‘Can Your Pussy Do the Dog’ by The Cramps. Any Stooges song but probably ‘1969’ or ‘I Wanna Be Your Dog’ because that’s the basis of my kind of music, punk rock ’n’ roll. And anything by The Misfits. I’m not gonna hit them with World Music or Blues.

Vince: I suppose my standby, not so much an artist more a label, would have to be the Motown group of artists. There’s a wealth of material in there. Over the last few years they’ve released box sets of unissued 45s which are fantastic. This is stuff that was recorded in the ’60s but were unreleased until the 2000s. That’s a big focus, and there’s so much unreleased stuff being reissued on vinyl as well which is fantastic. With Motown you can identify the sound immediately whoever it is, because of the session players. It starts off and even if you don’t know who it is you know it’s a Motown record.

Helen: These days it’s more new releases, sometimes there can be so many new releases that you might not play the same track for six months or a year and then you suddenly think ‘oh, I only ever gave that one play, I better play that one again’. I know back when I first started I did have my favourites, but I always tried to mix it up though. I think if you’re smart the way you program your show you can actually get away with playing an artist every now and again.

What does PBS mean to you?

David: It’s an amazing organisation, as you would know, having been going for 40 years. To me I see my role, if I can, is to educate people about the music that I play and to basically entertain people. And at the moment we need that more than ever. Not so much the education but the entertainment.

Phil: Because I’ve been involved with PBS for 40 years it means everything to me; it means the world. I love being part of the best public broadcasting station in Australia and I love being involved in a community based broadcasting station such as PBS. I’ve met so many great people who have become great friends. I’m deeply indebted to PBS for letting someone like me come in week after week and play punk rock ’n’ roll songs, so it’s amazing.

Vince: PBS means everything to me. I love the concept, that just an ordinary person from the community can take his passion there and listeners embrace it, it’s fantastic.

Helen: I just love the community, everyone’s there for the same purpose. Occasionally you might get someone with an ego, a hidden agenda, but they don’t last long. If you look at all the people with longevity, they’re all so passionate about what they do, and they understand the community of PBS and the reason we’re there.

What do you think PBS means to the listening public and the wider community?

David: I think they like to hear something they won’t ever hear on commercial radio.

Something that we can help them discover and enjoy. Obviously, we play quite a high amount of Australian music too, and we do a lot of interviews with Australian artists. Not that they’re gigging at the moment but when they are doing gigs it’s always good to help them with exposure and promotion, we’re always happy to help.

Phil: I think with the diverse music that PBS plays 24/7 it means a lot to the listenership in Melbourne and our listeners on the internet.

With the specialist shows throughout the week, with really knowledgeable announcers within their genre, it means the world to them. Our listeners, which are a diverse lot because of the diverse music, they love us because each year they resubscribe or become new members because of the excellent programming and the excellent music that we broadcast.

Vince: I’m sure it’s a lifeline for a lot of people.

It’s how they keep in touch with what’s going on in the world. I’m amazed by the listeners; 36 years ago they were teenagers when they first started listening and now their kids are listening. It’s like wow! People come up to me at my DJ gigs and say ‘oh, my dad used to listen to you when I was a kid’ and they’re right into it as well. They’ve got more energy to get up and dance. But I suppose with the kind of soul music I like it’s happy music. Even the sad songs are happy. They’ve got a nice sing-along easy melody to them. It’s amazing sometimes with 100 people singing along to a song that’s about somebody breaking up and they’re all singing ‘come on, let’s stay together’. It’s crazy.

Helen: Ah, an oasis in a musical desert I think.

We get the regulars that ring in or text every week but every now and then you get a call from someone who would say, ‘I’ve been listening for years but have never rang you up before. I just want to say how much the music that you play means to me’. I had this kid ring me up a few years ago. He was 10 and he said, ‘I want to ask for a request’ and I thought he’s probably going to ask for Led Zeppelin. So, he said ‘sometimes you play some lovely pre-war

blues’, I was thinking ‘what kid knows about pre-war blues?’. Then he said, ‘can you play Mississippi John Hurt for me?’. I nearly fell off the chair. So, you should never assume what your listeners are like.

In these strange days of COVID-19 what does the 40th anniversary of PBS hold for you?

David: The station is moving across to the Collingwood Arts Precinct, so that will be a logistical nightmare. Even though it’s only a block or two across the road, it will be an enormous operation. The planning has already started. But other than that, I’ll just keep plodding on as best as I can, keep interviewing people. I usually do over 100 interviews in a year. Obviously, none at the moment, I’ve had to cancel quite a few in the last week which were supposed to be promoting gigs or launches.

Waves magazine 1987

Phil: PBS turned 40 last December and this coming September I will have been doing my radio show every week on PBS for 40 years.

It’s a milestone for me and it means a lot. I will be doing a special broadcast, the second Thursday in September.

Vince: That’s a bit of a blank area at the moment. We don’t know what’s gonna come out of this at the moment, but I would think PBS and Triple R will only get stronger. With more people being confined to barracks so to speak, they’re not gonna listen to the commercial stations. They’ll tune into the community stations so I can only see the upside of this virus will increase our listenership and should make us stronger.

Helen: I’m just going to keep doing what I’m doing. I think it’s amazing that our forefathers started this 40 years ago. I almost feel like a youngster and I’ve only been there for 36 years, on air for 34. There’s a whole new audience out there and that’s why it’s so important to mix up what you’re playing. Bands like Opelousas, I think with the grungy sound they’ve got they do get a younger audience, which is fantastic.

You’ve gotta be conscious of that.

Moovin’ and Groovin’ Banner Painted by Vital Signs Photo by Kalindy Williams.

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3 3 1 / 3 R E V E L AT I O N S

By Martin Jones

BY NICK CHARLES

WILL KIMBROUGH I caught up with Will at Port Fairy this year and we later corresponded as he hurriedly left for home while the live music scene began the hibernation. He’s a fine player, a wonderful songwriter and raconteur. His beautifully crafted songs cross the genres from blues to country and folk always clever, catchy and succinct.

I notice your bio mentions a love of “real” music. Who are some artists that resonated with you in your early days?

I started like most American kids in the mid-seventies, liking bands like Aerosmith and Kiss. At the same time, my local radio station was playing the first three Springsteen records, the first Elvis Costello, as well as classic Zappa, Cream, Allmans & Hendrix. My big sister had Beatles, Stones, Dylan, Cat Stevens, CSNY...I was blessed with good foundations, and soon found early blues, jazz and folk records to learn from. And my parents had Hank Williams and Leadbelly records.

After that, I was a stone music junkie.

Still am.

It seems to me that you’ve developed as a musician and as a writer simultaneously.

There’s a fine attention to detail in both.

I got a guitar on my 12th birthday, along with $4.50 ticket to see Springsteen at a 1000 seat theatre. After that, my parents had to pry the instrument from my hands. I wrote my first songs because I was tuning the guitar wrong, which made it impossible to learn covers! Then someone corrected my tuning and I spent a couple years playing covers in my band. At about 15 I began writing again.

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I met a bass player at 16, someone who encouraged my writing, and I have been writing ever since. As far as progressing, for the past 32 years I have been living in Nashville, where you are never far from someone who is a much better player and writer! Writing, singing and playing are lifetime passions. The reward for pursuing music is this- one gets to make more music.

How do you approach producing other notable songwriters? What do they expect you to bring to the table?

The great artists I’ve produced, such as Todd Snider, Steve Poltz, Radney Foster and Kate Campbell know what they’re after. I try to understand what’s in their mind and heart, learn what they are chasing. But it’s usually simpler than that.

I listen to the songs and listen to what the writer has to say about the song. I have learned to be free with my ideas, to leave

my ego out of it so I am not disappointed when someone doesn’t like my idea. And always have more ideas.

Getting back to the instrument- what particular players have informed your style both on the acoustic and the electric?

Oh, so many players: Keith Richards, Richard Thompson, Ry Cooder, Mississippi John Hurt, Skip James, Tom Verlaine, Muddy Waters, Kenny Burrell, Freddie King, James Burton. And especially my Nashville contemporaries, Doug Lancio and Joe Pisapia.

From what I’ve seen and heard you favour classic instruments such as that Gibson J45 and the Telecaster.

There is quite a cult of old Gibsons in Nashville. I favour my 70 year old J-45 and LG-3 acoustic guitars. I have a 1932 National 12 fret and a 100 year old Washburn Brazilian parlour. They are all beat up and desperate for servicing and are infinitely inspiring.

It’s a Charles Whitfill white guard Telecaster. I have an ‘80s Strat, a ‘90’s Gretsch Tennessee Rose and on and on, as well as a mandolin, and a mandola.

After your current tour here what’s coming up?

I just finished producing a powerful new Shemekia Copeland record, helped write and record a joyful new Jimmy Buffett record, and produced a lively new Two Tracks record. I have a full plate of tour dates, recording sessions (including my own), and writing planned.

When I get back to work, I get back to being a happy human!

Saved By Eno Desperately seeking sanity. One of the sanest people I knew was Stephen ‘The Ghost’ Walker and I often have cause to reflect on his advice and opinions. He had strong opinions how the modern digital medium had destroyed the subtlety of recorded music; music mixed at redline in order to shout above the cacophony.

Brian Eno never fell into that trap, no matter what medium he employed. But on vinyl, his albums are wonderworlds of subtlety and dynamics.

For some respite from the current information cacophony, I found myself turning to Eno’s meditative Ambient 1 Music For Airports record. Rarely has an album of music executed its intent so effectively.

Inspired as an antidote to the noise and chaos of an airport terminal, Eno wanted this collection of looped pianos and synths to provide “calm and a space to think.” The moment the first sparse notes ring out, you can feel that calm descending, your blood pressure dropping, your poor distracted brain beginning to function again.

I’ve repeatedly pondered what makes such a seemingly simple concept so profoundly effective. The basic elements are nothing unique – nothing was actually composed prior to recording. Loops of previously recorded and largely improvised piano collide and interact, augmented by sparse synthesizer pads and occasional human voices in a series of phrases without, apparently, any structure. The closest equivalent I can think of is gazing at a waterfall – simple elements continuously flowing in a single, inevitable direction, without ever repeating exactly. There’s no hook to this music, no melody to linger, no resolution, and yet it’s breathtakingly beautiful. For the wordless vocal tracks, for example, Eno created long loops of different lengths by winding tape around the studio through aluminium chairs and then juxtaposing them so that they would never fall into sync, the same repeated elements presenting in different interactional contexts with each loop.

By stripping away important conventions of popular western music, Eno frees our minds to stray, to perhaps even forget we’re listening. And yet, at other times, just the tone of the sounds, or a fleeting phrase, can be riveting and transformative. Eno said of the concept, “it must be as ignorable as it is interesting.”

Listeners have also pointed out that the effects can be varied depending on what medium they are experienced through – digital, analogue, etc – something Eno fully embraced.

However you choose to enjoy it, as a calming salve in these bizarre, chaotic times it is powerful.

Just as I was rediscovering Music for Airports, a stream for a new Roger Eno/Brian Eno collaboration appeared in my Inbox.

Roger Eno began his recorded career with the album Apollo, with brother Brian, in 1983, some five years after Music for Airports and followed a couple of years later with Voices.

And while hundreds of performances and recordings have taken place since, the new album, Mixing Colours can be appreciated as a kind of sequel to Airports (and a very close relative of Voices) – it certainly inspires a similarly calming, meditative response.

Mixing Colours is the result of a 15-year musical conversation between the brothers, Roger sending Brian files like a diary of his ideas. Brian would take the midi files of the notes that Roger had played (many of them on a standard piano sound) and translate them through different sounds and treatments. Said Brian in a recent interview, “Roger makes a piece of music and I make a sonic landscape for that music. That’s basically what it comes down to and they’re two completely separate processes.”

For his part Roger stops short of calling himself an “artist”. “But I do know that I’m a very, very good musician. And I know that Brian is a very, very good artist.”

The aesthetics of the recordings, manipulated into moods that match their colour-themed titles, are very similar to Airports: sparse keyboard and synthesizer notes ringing into space; short repeated phrases leaving plenty of room for contemplation and never quite resolving as expected.

Without the deliberate “as ignorable as it is interesting” agenda of Airports, there’s more conventional melodic structure in Mixing Colours, and you get the sense that Brian’s input has been designed to diffuse or distract from

convention rather than encourage it. While a melody like ‘Celeste’ is structured and relatively conventional, there are enough twists, and the landscape unconventional enough so that you’re neither challenged nor comfortable. As with Airports, this invites the listener to drift in and out of conscious listening, allowing for meditative mental wandering. It might not cure viruses, but it’s highly effective therapy for today’s insanity.

Ambient 1: Music for Airports was reissued in a deluxe, remastered vinyl format in 2018 through Virgin-EMI. Mixing Colours is available on vinyl through Deutsch Grammophon.

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By Trevor J. Leeden DATURA4

WEST COAST HIGHWAY COSMIC Alive Natural Sound/Planet

brace of four songs that close the album provides the treasure, in particular ‘Marilyn’, a soulful opus that evokes the spirit of 70’s-era Isley Brothers (and that is an accolade not easily earnt). GMH may have closed its doors but this Kingswood is purring along very nicely.

JIM LAUDERDALE

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.

ANDY FAIRWEATHER LOW Mega-Shebang WARNER BROS RECORDS BSK 3450 (1980) In the late 1960’s Andy Fairweather Low was a bona fide UK pop star. His group, AMEN CORNER scored more than a few top 40 hits and were riding high. Alas, the usual band internal problems led not to a complete breakdown but rejigging of the line-up plus a change of name to FAIR WEATHER. In line with trends the sound became more progressive and despite a few more chart entries the band joined a myriad of other acts from the period to fall by the wayside.

By the 90’s, the Welsh born Low would become a guitar toting side-man to the stars but his final solo album (at least in that period) released in 1980 is a particularly joyous freewheeling delight. Thrown together using the Stiff Records mobile 50

studio and mixed at the famous Welsh ‘cottage’ studio Rockfield, the album as engineered by Dave Charles (who also plays percussion on some tracks) is like a shuffling rhythmic behemoth with most all instrumentation blending and bending to the overall sound.

I quite honestly haven’t ever heard another album quite like this one. There is a boogie element, there is prog and there is pop. But it is all taken to a stranger place. It could be a Welsh thing, certainly the titles are indicative of ‘not the normal’ e.g. Let Ya Beedle Lam Bam, Night Time DJuke-ing, Bingerama.

They don’t give a lot of clues re lyrical intent but they shuffle and bubble along in such a joyous way that who cares? Straighter but still out to lunch on the hardwood floor are Hard Hat Boogie, 3 Step Shuffle and the finale Psyche Out. The one cover is the Dave Bartholomew/ Fats Domino classic Hello Josephine, which could give a clue to Low’s intent. Dance music for the rhythmically challenged UK crowd (ever seen them schlepping to ‘Northern Soul’?)

Certainly, the band propelled predominantly by drummer Henry Spinetti, bassist Lincoln Carr and a fine horn section do whatever is right and tight. A.F. Low’s upper range tenor vocals and instrumental riffs (no long solo’s) may point to what was happening at the time – let’s say specifically Elvis Costello…but this is no new wave pastiche in fact it’s more New Orleans ‘tiche. The fine keys of Geraint Watkins deserve a special mention, always

good, most often great and, of course, you know where he’s also from! Packaging varies between European issues and US (where most, including mine are promos) but so far as I can tell track selection is identical.

I’ve read some dismissive reviews of this album – that’s fine, like good wine it takes a while to mature. My main point is it sounds great today when other more highly touted works from that period have faded away.

Working with Eric Clapton, George Harrison, Bill Wyman’s Rhythm Kings and Roger Waters took up AFL’s time and it wasn’t until 2006 he released another solo album. Sweet Soulful Music (Proper) was produced and engineered by the great Glyn Johns with 13 fine new songs written by the artist plus the standard ‘When I Grow Too Old To Dream’ as a bonus track.

There could have been far more in the 25+ years between but the music industry is a hard mistress. A.F.Low paid the bills as a stage/session bloke and some impressive stages/sessions they were. Concert For George found him playing Harrison’s guitar; taking up a similar mantle for Water’s worldwide Dark Side Of The Moon tour and generally performing with a ‘who’s-who’ of British and American artists. He even found time for a few more solo albums. Hand him a copy of Mega-Shebang to sign and he may be bemused…hardly anybody’s looking but it’s still not that easy to find – if you do I hope you like it.

When an injection of full-tilt Downunder boogie is on the menu, Perth legend Dom Mariani and his hard driving combo is the elixir of choice. Their fourth album continues the themes of its predecessors with pulsating riffs aplenty. Each album has seen Datura4 further evolve, and the addition of keyboards (check out Bob Patient’s Hammond on the title track) and some faintly psychedelic tweaking here and there (try ‘Give’ and the reworked ‘Evil People Pt.1’ for size) keeps the journey interesting. Bottom line though, Datura4 is the purring V8 of high octane, down’n’dirty blues.

KINGSWOOD JUVENILES Universal

WHEN CAROLINA COMES HOME AGAIN Yep Roc/Planet

MAPACHE

FROM LIBERTY STREET Lauderdale’s prolific career has been a road map through the Americana genre, his last few albums being superb outpourings of country/soul. His 33rd album (that’s a mighty canon) finds him returning to his roots, both musically and geographically.

Bluegrass sound motifs dominate this collection of both originals and standards that pay homage to his home state of North Carolina. Given the bluegrass influence, most of the songs are up-tempo and joyful outpourings, yet even the breakup songs (‘As A Sign’) ooze positivity. A master songwriter and performer, Lauderdale continues to ride on the very crest of his creative wave.

JUNE TYSON The third outing for the Melbourne outfit has a ‘back to the future’ feel to it, a leaning back to the classic Oz rock sound of the first album whilst forging ahead with increasing melodicism.

Opener ‘You Make It So Easy’ is a mighty statement of intent, a thunderous rhythm section, power riffs and trademark falsetto harmonies, a calling card that screams “pay attention!”. The

For over two decades Tyson was the only female invited into the celestial galaxy of the Arkestra, her voice as intrinsic to Ra’s Avant-Garde astral explorations as any of the other musicians on board. This fascinating retrospective places the focus firmly on her contribution, and includes signature pieces ‘Somebody Else’s World’, ‘We Travel The Spaceways’ and ‘Walking On The Moon’. The inclusion of six previously unreleased Arkestra tracks is an unexpected bonus and, once heard, this explosion of interplanetary jazz freakouts is not easily forgotten; stand aside Trekkers and Kubrick fans, this truly is the final frontier.

SATURNIAN QUEEN OF THE SUN RA ARKESTRA Modern Harmonic/Planet

Yep Roc/Planet

A trans-Atlantic 4-piece outfit that features a pair of Norwegian luminaries (tub thumper Arne Kjelsrud Mathisen and guitarist Frode Stromstad) along with high-profile American practitioners Peter Buck and Scott McCaughey screams out one thing - GUITAR BAND! Thirteen songs, and from the outset it’s a frenzied maelstrom of guitar driven riffs that go from power pop to brooding psych-flavoured ballads and early Pink Floyd touchstones, from jangling Rickenbackers to flamethrower Fenders; great stuff.

VARIOUS ARTISTS PRESENTING PENROSE RECORDS Penrose Records/Planet If the classic high harmonies of the Everly Brothers were to receive a testosterone injection then this would be the end result, a captivating 70’s folk meets country sojourn. Between their impeccable acoustic vignettes that hark back to the heyday of Laurel Canyon lie some unexpected pleasures; Sara Watkins’ fiddle lights up the waltzing ‘Cactus Flower’, whilst the traditional Mexican bolero ‘Me Voy Pa’l Pueblo’, ‘Me Da Muerte’ and ‘Igual’ are all joyful outpourings sung in Spanish. From Liberty Street is close-harmony nirvana; lovers of the Milk Carton Kids take note.

THE NO ONES

THE GREAT LOST NO ONES ALBUM Yep Roc/Planet

This five-track sampler of Daptone’s new soul imprint is, quite simply, music to die for. With a new recording studio in California, four of the acts are West Coast based – San Diego soul stirrers Los Yesterdays, the sugar sweet Thee Sacred Souls, dancefloor dynamos Thee Sinners, and, best of all, the The Altons sounding for all the world like prime-time Miracles; throw in the deep soul of Miami-based Jason Joshua to complete a simmering soul stew. The classic heartbeat of soul keeps on pounding strongly.

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IS WHERE THE ACTION IS

By Christopher Hollow

LEWSBERG IN THIS HOUSE Lewsberg

Frappant! As they might say in the Netherlands. This selfreleased second album from Rotterdam band, Lewsberg, is a real treat. Think black humour delivered by David Byrne with a Dutch accent. Of course, this Europeanness makes the lyrical content slightly more off-kilter.

It’s the unique trait that saves Lewsberg from being just another Velvet Underground rip-off. ‘You threw a few stones,’ Arie van Vliet notes drily in ‘From Never to Once’, ‘you weren’t alone.’ The best songs are when the rhythms are joyfully propulsive – tracks like ‘Through the Garden’, ‘From Never to Once’ and ‘Cold Light of Day’.

Another that took my fancy was the instrumental, ‘Trained Eye’.

As they say in Holland, it’s like an angel is pissing on your tongue.

STEPHEN MALKMUS TRADITIONAL TECHNIQUES Matador

‘I’m Miles Davis better than any of you,’ sings Stephen Malkmus.

It’s so random, how could it not be true? On Traditional Techniques, Malkmus goes cosmic folk and it’s a refreshing mix that doesn’t sound like 52

Pavement or his other band, The Jicks. Opening track, ‘ACC Kirtan’, is full of Indian drums, flutes and a raga atmosphere.

But Stephen’s brilliant unexpected lyrics still jump out.

The best example here is the last line: ‘the canasta deck is missing its jacks’. Lead single, ‘Xian Man’, is a boogie workout in the vein of Steve Gunn or an even more local reference in Matt Walker.

Another track that excited is ‘Shadowbanned’ with its zig-zag vocal and great feel. As Malkmus says, ‘Peak interaction, never a dull moment.’

Electronic Circus (‘Direct Lines’), Turquoise Days (‘Grey Skies’), and Care (‘An Evening in the Ray’) are the ones that delight.

Hollywood western, The Hired Hand. It has a similar relaxed charm. Check out ‘An Opening’ and ‘A Closing’.

William Tyler

THE MONKEES

MUSIC FROM FIRST COW (Merge)

VARIOUS ARTISTS

BOB STANLEY & PETE WIGGS PRESENT THE TEARS OF TECHNOLOGY Ace

In new millennium music lore, playing guitars is retro, while playing a synth/drum machine is seen as evoking the sound of the future, still. Here Saint Etienne’s Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs take us back to the future, that late-70s, early 80s time when everything felt new again, thanks to the synth. The past five years have seen Stanley and Wiggs gift us a bunch of inspired compilations (check out English Weather, Paris in Spring, State of the Union). On those sets, their forte has been underappreciated tracks from the late 60s,early 70s. Now comes a comp that’s closer to Saint Etienne’s aesthetic – the undervalued New Wave synth-pop. Simple Minds (‘Real to Real’) are on here, Human League (‘WXJL Tonight’) and Soft Cell (‘Youth’) are too but not represented by the usual megatracks synonymous with them. Lesser known acts like

Gentle, reflective, moody. Here American guitarist William Tyler rolls out the perfect #iso soundtrack for corona times – when you’re at home, looking for respite with a red wine in hand. This record is the score to a recent existential frontier heist film set in 1820s Oregon starring Alia Shawkat from Arrested Development, which is well worth a look. It appears Tyler takes his western soundtrack cues from one of my fave film scores – Bruce Langhorne’s music to Peter Fonda’s 1971 New

THE MIKE & MICKY SHOW LIVE Rhino Saw Mike and Micky play the Palais last year in all their septuagenarian glory and it was a fabulous show. The live album is even better. Any high-waisted shakiness of voice is gone.

Just a selection of great songs, heavily skewed to the numbers Nesmith wrote for the pre-Fab Four – things like ‘You May Just Be The One’, ‘Listen to the Band’ and ‘St. Matthew’. Micky shines on the Head gem ‘As We Go Along’ while his self-penned ‘Randy Scouse Git’ is also included, unfortunately shed of its schzio-frenetic wildness.

(I was disappointed they didn’t attempt Micky’s maddest/ second greatest song, ‘Shorty Blackwell’). Also included is a modern Monkees classic, ‘Me and Magdalena’, which stands up incredibly well against all those outstanding songs of yesteryear.

BY CHRIS FAMILTON

Country Heroines

I

n recent years there have been a number of articles written about the difficulties and resistance that female country artists have faced in improving the gender parity at music festivals and getting their music played on American country radio. In April 2019, Dr. Jada Watson of the University of Ottawa, in consultation with WOMAN Nashville, released a report called Gender Representation on Country Format Radio: A Study of Published Reports from 2000-2018. In 2000, women held 33.3% of songs on the year-end country airplay reports, but by last year, they came in at 11.3% – a decline of 66% percent. The data is striking and an argument for the disparity is untenable given the volume of high-quality female songwriters in the contemporary country world.

Arguably, the Australian industry is ahead of the US in its efforts to achieve equality and opportunity.

Within the Australian Americana scene, we have an exceptional range of artists, each with their own distinct style and personality, who are all developing their songwriting and creativity in new and fascinating ways – and being recognised for it.

Two artists right at the peak of their artistry are Fanny Lumsden and Tracy McNeil. Both have given 100% commitment to their musical careers by taking partners and family on the road and embarking on tours that reach venues and regions that usually see very few visiting acts.

Lumsden has created an ecosystem around her folk/country blend, from playful, eyecatching merchandise to her unique annual Country Halls Tour. She’s in it for the long haul and the hard work is paying dividends with industry awards, chart placings, mainstream media exposure and on her latest album Fallow, her finest songwriting to date.

By contrast, Tracy McNeil’s sound is rooted in country and rock/pop – her songs draped in 70s FM radio melodies that sound both nostalgic

Tracy McNeil

Fanny Lumsden and wholly contemporary.

This year she and partner/guitarist Dan Parsons reduced their lives to the contents of a van with the intention of spending the year on the road touring her excellent new album You Be The Lightning.

That plan has been cruelly curtailed, yet the album remains, continuing to draw critical praise and new fans aplenty.

Both those artists possess huge appeal to traditional roots music fans, commercial radio and mainstream country media. Two other female songwriters that began their careers closer to those audiences but have begun to really expand their sound and draw from a wider palette of influences are Ruby Boots (Bex Chilcott) and Katie Brianna. Chilcott re-located to Nashville a few years ago and released her album Don’t Talk About It in 2018. As much glam, indie and pop-rock as it is country, it sounded like an artist throwing off any shackles and expectations of how she should sound and just following her muse and instinct.

Katie Brianna came up through the Australian country music scene like many of the bigger names – winning an award at Tamworth and

being hailed as the next big star. Instead of playing the game and chasing the bright lights she’s had a steady career, digging deep into more introspective, tear-stained and soulful country music as an independent artist. She has a new album on the way and from the sound of the first single ‘Boots’, she too is taking a brave dive into the world of artists like Jenny Lewis, Neko Case and Ruby Boots.

Finally, the two other exceptional songwriters on our radar are Freya Josephine Hollick and Jen Mize. Musically very different, they’re both clearly passionate, hardworking and musically fearless artists. Mize can sing like an R&B diva or a western plains balladeer – as she did on the Twilight On The Trail album.

Riveting as a solo artist, she also knows what she is capable of, with a new project on the way under the name Jen Mize & The Rough N’ Tumble – a seven-piece ensemble that can blast out authentic soul, blues, country and rock ’n’ roll.

Freya Josephine Hollick’s earlier work was an enchanting and otherworldly form of folk music that could haunt the mind and warm the soul. Increasingly she’s shifted her writing into more of a cosmic country realm – first on her expansive 2018 album Feral Fusion and imminently on her next record, recorded in the Californian desert with Lucinda Williams’ band Buick 6, and renowned guitarist Greg Leisz.

The first single ‘Nobody’s No Better Than No One’ hints at the atmospheric and more psychedelic path the album may take.

These are just a handful of the female artists that I consider are at the forefront of the Australian Americana scene. There are many more forging their own paths and staking their claims for an equal share of the contemporary cultural landscape.

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ROBERT JOHNSON THE COMPLETE RECORDINGS Sony Legacy - By Billy Pinnell

B

eing in the audience for so many blues concerts in the past few months when acts performed songs written by Robert Johnson reminded me that it’s 83 years since the bluesman created a catalogue of material that has remained unequalled in its influence.

Johnson died leaving a legacy of only 41 recordings,12 of them alternate takes put down over the course of four days in 1936 and 1937. Today he is recognised as the most influential bluesman of all time whose music is of seminal importance in its profound effect on the shape popular music has taken in the past eight decades.

No other songwriter in the history of blues and rock has created a quantity of music so poetic, so beautiful and so utterly unique as ‘Cross Road Blues’, ‘Traveling Riverside Blues’, ‘Dust My Broom’, ‘Love In Vain’, ‘Rambling On My Mind’, ‘32-20 Blues’,’Sweet Home Chicago’, ‘Walking Blues’, ‘Hellhound On My Trail’, ‘Come On In My Kitchen’, ‘Last Fair Deal Gone Down’, ‘I’m a Steady Rollin’ Man’, ‘If I Had Possession Over Judgment Day’.

Johnson was the consummate artist, his emotional, anguished singing and highly advanced bottleneck guitar technique (on some songs it’s like listening to two guitars) created a riveting backdrop for a body of songs whose musical and lyrical vocabulary provided prototypes for modern blues and blues based rock.

To understand the situations that inspired Johnson to write these songs, it’s important to examine his early life. Born out of wedlock on May 8, 1911 in Hazlehurst, Mississippi, Robert was brought up by his mother and step-father, a sharecropper who encouraged the youngster to pursue his attraction to music. He first took up the Jew’s harp then the harmonica, his instrument of choice over the next

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few years. Making a rack for his harp with baling wire and string he began practising on guitar while accumulating a repertoire of different kinds of music in his new found career as a street singer.

Moving from town to town so often he developed an ability to perform polkas, hillbilly tunes, square dances, ballads, old favourites, songs of the day such as ‘Yes Sir, That’s My Baby’, ‘My Blue Heaven’, ‘Tumbling Tumbleweeds’ and the blues. Like any up and coming performer, the teenager looked for inspiration from older more experienced musicians. He learned a lot from Willie Brown (later mentioned by name in (‘Cross Road Blues’), Charley Patton, Son House and Lonnie Johnson along with nameless musicians he encountered on the road.

It’s interesting to note that Johnson’s earliest efforts to master the guitar were somewhat unsuccessful so much so that he was often advised to give it up in favour of the harmonica.

In 1929 the 18 year old musician married. The following year his wife and child both died in childbirth. She was 16. Johnson sought solace in his music with a renewed determination to improve his guitar playing enough not to have to supplement his income by sharecropping and picking cotton.

He gave up the harmonica to pick the blues on his guitar often playing the same song over and over until he was satisfied.

Johnson’s musical talents didn’t develop to such an astonishing degree because of any pact he’d made with the devil to trade his immortal soul for fame, a rumour that spread when his rapid improvement came under notice.

To make it, to be accepted by his contemporaries, he knew he’d have to dedicate himself one hundred percent to his music. He practised incessantly performing as often as he could to anyone who’d listen.

By the middle of the 1930’s Robert Johnson, at least around the Mississippi Delta area, was a star attraction.

His reputation was such that visiting musicians such as Sonny Boy Williamson (then known as Little Boy Blue,) Elmore James, Howlin’ Wolf, Robert Nighthawk, Johnny Shines, Memphis Slim and Honeyboy Edwards sought him out to play with them.

For some time, he’d wanted to emulate his mentors by having his songs

recorded and on 23-25 of November 1936 in San Antonio, Texas, Johnson’s first sessions took place. On 19-20 of June 1937 in Dallas, Texas he would record again for the last time.

The earlier sessions included ‘Terraplane Blues’ which would become his best seller providing him with a wider audience who would follow him from one juke joint to another. Like a lot of his songs the lyrics of ‘Terraplane Blues’, ‘When You Got a Good Friend’, ‘Honeymoon Blues’ were racy and sexually loaded.

Others reflected his inner desperation, ‘Hellhound On My Trail’, ‘Stones In My Passway’, ‘Me And The Devil Blues’, while some were light-hearted such as ‘They’re Red Hot’, ‘Malted Milk’.

Johnson’s soulful, tortured singing and his remarkable guitar playing incorporating slide and rhythm with single note picking is powerful and deeply moving.

More than 80 years after these tracks were recorded they still provide a thrilling listening experience.

It’s ironic that the music world at large was denied the opportunity to experience Robert Johnson’s great talent by an ongoing indulgence that inspired so much of his music. Sex. A dalliance with the wife of a roadhouse owner led to him being poisoned by the woman’s jealous husband who laced his whiskey with strychnine. Young and healthy he was able to withstand the poisoning but in his weakened state contracted pneumonia for which there was no cure at the time, dying on August 16, 1938 at the age of 27.

Despite his comparatively small number of recordings Johnson occupies a foremost position in the history of blues music. While he played acoustically and was recorded on 78’s he had a profound influence on electric bluesmen like Muddy Waters, Elmore James, Hound Dog Taylor, Earl Hooker and many others.

Artists as diverse as The Rolling Stones, Cream, Led Zeppelin, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Lucinda Williams, Cassandra Wilson, Dinah Washington are just a few who have recorded songs written by Robert Johnson.

80 plus years after his death, Robert Johnson The Complete Recordings continues to be a consistent seller.

CD: Feature

BY BRIAN WISE

WILL SEXTON DON’T WALK THE DARKNESS BIG LEGAL MESS

Texas has produced some great musical family names. The Vaughan Brothers immediately spring to mind and not far behind are Will Sexton and his older brother Charlie (a member of Dylan’s band and formerly of the Arc Angels). They grew up in San Antonio and Will played with Steve Ray and other greats such as Doug Sahm, and Roky Erickson as a teenager.

His credits as a producer and songwriter include Waylon Jennings, Steve Earle and punk legend Johnny Thunders.

While Sexton released 4 solo albums between 1994 and 2010, his career was sidetracked in 2009 by a stroke which entailed a recovery during which he had to learn how to play his own songs again. For the past seven years Sexton has been based in Memphis, having married roots artist Amy LaVere, and now plays guitar in the house band at Delta-Sonic Studios, home to labels such as Fat Possum and Big Legal Mess (on which his new album is released).

For his first solo album in over a decade Sexton recruited New Orleans veterans, The Iguanas, and cut the ten basic tracks in a couple of five-hour sessions. The approach was inspired by John Hiatt’s Bring the Family, which also featured Ry Cooder, Nick Lowe and Jim Keltner and was recorded in just four days.

As you might expect, Don’t Walk The Darkness (the title is a call to ‘try to take care of yourself and make good decisions’) is a gumbo of Texas influences (‘Witness’ has a Tex-Mex feel), Louisiana rhythms (‘What My Baby Don’t Know’) and Southern soul (‘Only Forever,’ one of the two older songs, and ‘Oh, The Night (Night Owls Call). Sometimes it sounds as if it could have been recorded in Muscle Shoals. ‘Don’t Take It From Me’ was co-written with the late country music legend Waylon Jennings and finally sees the light of day here. The album marks a very welcome return to recording for Sexton.

“I love that record,” says Sexton of Bring The Family, when ask about its inspiration.

“I appreciate John Hiatt on many levels, but that’s my deepest love of his work. I’m also someone that can basically listen to anything in and around Ry Cooder or Jim Keltner – and then all of a sudden you throw Nick Lowe in the mix. It’s like kind of perfect.”

“It would be very challenging for me, having not made a record in such a long time, then have to kind of construct the whole thing on my own and conceptually dream it up,” says Sexton of why he decided to call on The Iguanas, who are somewhat of an institution in New Orleans. “There’s The Iguanas playing behind you and it’s perfect. It’s easy. They just were amazing. I’ve never really recorded with any musicians as beautiful as they were to work with.”

The album also has a really soulful Memphis sound to it, which Sexton attributes to the fact that drummer Doug Garrison and bassist René Coman played with Alex Chilton. “So, it’s got some cool Memphis traits for sure,” adds Sexton.

“The thing is I don’t really write songs very frequently,” says Sexton of the writing process. “It’s still kind of challenging. I also

still have some remainders of the stroke in the mental fatigue that happens with having to work like in the studio; it tires me out mentally, very quickly. So, I wrote most of the lyrics on the new songs when I was in one particular headspace - and it was a very healthy place.”

Sexton recalls vividly how he came to write for Waylon Jennings, a rare opportunity for a young songwriter.

“I had a staff writing job, “he explains. “I had quit touring at one point in my twenties. So, I got a job just writing songs and I had one crazy month where some of the artists on the label were looking for a younger collaborator. So, I did a session with Stephen Stills and then I get Waylon Jennings - one in Los Angeles and one in Nashville. So, it was a very surreal month, a couple of weeks, I guess it was that all that happened.

He particularly liked this one song of mine, then asked if I’d come in and write a song with him. So, we did it all, in a handful of hours, and had lunch! And that was, that was pretty much it. It was really a wonderful. The first two hours were just talking about Lubbock because I’ve collaborated with so many different Lubbock people, Terry Allen and Joe Ely and so on and so forth - and David Halley. I did a record with him and he was just telling me these great stories about Sonny Curtis and Orbison and Buddy Holly and how they all played at the talent shows against each other.”

Trying to find a way to describe the album I mention that it reminds me of the sort of music Delbert McClinton makes because it includes different musical elements, from country to soul.

“I can see that,” agrees Sexton. If I were to bring up Delbert McClinton, I would just hope that it’s like Love Rustler or something like some sort of ‘70s version of his music. It definitely has more of an organic approach, but not like the new soul records that just are imitating a Ray Charles record or something.”

Don’t Walk The Darkness is available at biglegalmessrecords.com 55

CD: Feature

BY WARWICK McFADYEN

SHANE HOWARD

DARK MATTER Goanna Arts

To believe in the possible, to live by your beliefs, to speak as your heart speaks, to act as your conscience demands, these are no small things. Shane Howard knows this, he sings it both for his own soul and to the world. These are his songlines that guide a path through an often indifferent and hostile society.

On Dark Matter, Howard’s 14th solo album, the personal credo of an artist attaining to walk this path is heard, indeed felt, perhaps more deeply than on any other of his previous efforts.

This album is the sound of a man who has found his place in the world. There is no confusion, no shades of grey. The singersongwriter knows where he is. This isn’t to say that he is happy with the state of the world, far from it. He is angry, but he doesn’t carry that anger in a swag of depression, he carries it in his hands in the touch of guitar strings, and in his voice that moves from a timeworn smooth gravelled whisper to a young man’s toss of a rebel yell.

Dark Matter is the iron fist in the velvet glove. This is folk music for modern times, borrowing from traditional ways, in the Celtic airs, the rhythms of Indigenous culture, the narratives of life. The glove is the lilt of the melodies, the fist is the words, and the philosophy behind them.

Ever since a young Howard, with Goanna, lobbed ‘Solid Rock’ into Australian society in 1982, the spirit of human and place has been the common thread of his music. It’s especially strong on Dark Matter.

The land/country shapes the man, woman and child - the man, woman and child shapes the country. As Howard sings, has sung, throughout his career this should not be the great divide; the soil and sky, soul and skin are one. It’s also been a lamentation in his work, for what should be is not always what is.

And the buttress to malevolent forces is hope, and love. These things pervade this album. Where there are 56

good people, there will be a will to change for the better, there will be hope and where there is hope there is life, and love for each other, for country, for respect for culture, for the earth.

The song ‘Writing on the Wall’ for example could be a lullaby but for the words. This is an angry song from an angry man. You could imagine Roger Waters turning this into a pyscho berserk explosion of sound and fury, but Howard, who describes it in the liner notes as a “dark hymn for our times”, takes the anger and turns it into poetry that demolishes in its beauty.

The first song, ‘What Do You Want From Me? (Job and the Goanna Man)’ sets up the album, both musically and thematically.

What can one person do? How can one person move forward, and not be transfixed by hopelessness. The atmospherics of the

production sweep in and out, amplifying the storytelling.

On many songs, Dark Matter is a collaboration of sources, inspirations and writers: Phil Butson, Archie Roach, Alesa Lajana, Trevor Adamson, Behrouz Boochani, Andy Alberts and John Schumann, “the story of Wati Ngintaka, legendary ancestor from the Tjukurpa”, and recordings from Aboriginal singers.

All go to the heart of the country, whether it be ‘Secret River’, which was commissioned for the film based on Kate Grenville’s novel Secret River of the impact of white settlement on an Aboriginal community, or ‘Palya Wiru Uluru’, written with Adamson, on the closing of the climb on Uluru, or ‘Prison Island’, written after having read Boochani’s book No Friend But The Mountains.

The song ‘Times Like These’, unites Howard and Schumann, brothers in arms as Howard says. Schumann, of course, is no stranger to railing against the injustices of the world through his Redgum days and subsequent solo career. Like his brother in arms, he has a vision of Australia. He understands where it has come from, he can see its possibilities, but in the political daze of modern times, is forever fighting the good fight.

It’s no coincidence that the final verse of the final cut ‘The Sweetest Thing’ is sung by Howard’s youngest child, Niamh. On the voices of the young is the future. Let it be said also, she has a beautiful voice. In beauty is the truth, in truth there is hope. That is the songline running through of Dark Matter.

Dark Matter is available now via shanehoward.com.au 57

CD: Feature

CD: Feature

BY MARTIN JONES

BY CHRIS LAMBIE

Feed Your Head

Sparse surf scores meet psychedelic blood-filled soccer balls in Headland’s latest opus, What Rough Beast.

Headland is a band close to my own heart. A sporadic assembly of like minded dreamers without any routine or rules or any hope of making a living out of it… instead gathering to enjoy each other’s company and occasionally stumble on something inspired. Their predilection for sparse, improvised, slow motion rambles lends itself to soundtracking surf films… so they do a fair bit of that. Indeed, when I asked unofficial spokesperson Murray Paterson for his opinion on the new Dylan song he opined, “It’s just a long, long jam… beautiful. You could take Dylan’s voice off it and put it on a Headland record!”

But I don’t want to give you the impression that the Headland boys don’t know what they’re doing… their collective experience in making music is formidable. Paterson, who gathers and plants most of the outfit’s musical seeds, has worked with Tex Perkins and has extensive experience making and scoring films. It was as a member of Perkins’ Dark Horses that Paterson formed a bond with Joel Silbersher enigmatic stalwart, author of the immortal ‘My Pal’ and, with Headland, inspired lyricist. Visual artist Les Doherty and drummer Brock Fitzgerald complete the line-up with, on their latest album, What Rough Beast, special guests including Danny Widdicombe, Luke Peacock and Amanda Brown.

“Well this is how this one worked,” Paterson revealed of the genesis of What Rough Beast.

“Joel came and stayed with me, as we do.

He likes to not work with us a team… like I’d get up and go to the studio and leave Joel at home to sit around… drinking. And I’d go and 58

work on all that nuts and bolts stuff and I’d give him an idea as I would leave the house.

And I’d go to work for the day and I’d come back and he would have mulled over that idea and worked it into a lyric.

As an example, one day I told him a story about how my ex-girlfriend wanted to get a dishwasher and I refused to do it. I stood my ground – I’m not getting a dishwasher! And of course, when we broke up out of spite I went down to the Good Guys and bought a dishwasher. So that story turned into a song!

It’s the song ‘I Will Fix This’, which has the lovely lyric, “join the team, install a Rheem”.

Most of them came as instrumental pieces and then the lyric got integrated, but some of them came as ‘let’s sit down and write a little song’.”

My favourite of Joel’s lyrics here – perhaps anywhere – are “like a blood filled soccer ball – so heavy!”

“Yeah…” Paterson gasped in agreement.

“Again, that was sitting on my back veranda.

My backyard is kind of typical white trash, redneck, skateboards and bikes and soccer balls left out in the rain, so part of the vista is the detritus of kids. And Joel locked onto it and spotted a soccer ball and suddenly in his mind it became filled with blood.”

Don’t let dishwasher ditties and blood filled balls put you off though, for the most part What Rough Beast is subtle and even beautiful. Although, sure there’s a song called ‘Ode To Death Trip’. Oh, and that cover of Motorhead’s ‘Deaf Forever’. But really, these are gentle men. And insightful. Titles like ‘Let’s Get On With It’ and ‘Build A Good Bubble’ take on new pertinence in today’s society.

“Yeah well that was a song about an emotional bubble but it rings with resonance now. We could all use a good bubble,” Paterson laughed. “Yeah and someone texted me something about ‘Deaf Forever’ – that’s their go-to track driving along at the moment. Yeah I guess everything takes a new context doesn’t it?”

Yeah, everything. Including being in a band, which is pretty much impossible right now.

Headland were lucky to squeeze in one last local gig at the Eltham pub before that kind of behaviour was outlawed. In the meantime, they’ve got busy with another entire album nearly completed. And one less than spectacular attempt at a streaming concert.

“It works pretty well if you’re a singersongwriter and you can sit in front of a computer with a guitar,” Paterson explained of the live-to-Facebook concept, “but we tried to screen a new clip from a film and play live to it and… yeah, total failure. The little camera in the computer didn’t want to focus or it overexposed the screen, so it was just a white square. And then of course we fucked around with setting up mics and the interface into the computer and then of course the computer somehow automatically clicked back to the computer internal mic and it sounded horrible. The computer was right near the piano so all you can hear is this thundering distorted piano.”

Sounds like a psychedelic triumph to me!

“Yeah….. but nah, not in a cool way,” Paterson laughed.

What Rough Beast is available on vinyl and CD through Magnetic South.

CHEDDAR ROAD ALL-STARS

NOWHERE ELSE TO FEEL ROTTEN reservoirstomp.com Run by locals for locals, the fourth annual Reservoir Stomp event was held in November at the Preston-Reservoir bowlo. The suburb’s diverse cultural offerings are celebrated with performances by artists who make up a large chunk of the demographic today. At an earlier Stomp, local legend Barry Dickins performed pieces for the kids.

Musician and Stomp co-organiser Danny Walsh tells how meeting the writer and raconteur inspired the formation of a band (Cheddar Road All-Stars) and album Nowhere Else To Feel Rotten.

“It was a labour of love. We got to know Barry after the first couple of Stomps. He told a specially written fairy story at one and we were pretty chuffed about that. We kept in touch with him for a coffee or a cake at the local shop where he’d show us some stuff he’d written. He’d worked with musicians before but it hadn’t really gone anywhere.

Looking at his prolific CV, it’s hard to get a grip on all that he’s done. He told me a story about being sent to New York by a newspaper he was writing for, staying in a real downbeat hotel, the Benjamin Franklin. I said, ‘It sounds like a Tom Waits song.’ ‘Oh yeah,’ he said. ‘He was living there at the time.’

I suggested we should do something together. He came round with an exercise book [having] written a lot in a short time for us - ‘For DW’. He read me a couple of his favourite ones in our living room. It was a real moment. Exciting and daunting.”

Dickins improvised around the written words.

“He told the story of the Baptist Church one, reciting ‘You’re all gunna burn...’ and I got the tune in my head instantly. We used the first live take we did for that one. I had the book in my satchel going to work each day, then thought about bringing more people in. I saw Leo Francis on a train and he was interested. We had a reading session with a few people and invited Barry over. Getting to know his stories and letting it sink in.

Recording the reading sessions, some were rhyming couplet type things and didn’t lend to writing choruses so we had to build that in. From verses he wrote in his very poetic style to a three minute song. The goalposts kept changing. Originally we wrote songs we could perform for a set at Reservoir Stomp, then maybe to release a single....” “ Barry writes from the view of the underdog, his love and hatred of area, the cultural cringe. After the first Stomp, he was glowing.

He’s been producing art in that area for his whole life, a lot of it unrecognised. I like writing about historical events and Leo saw it as a great challenge, different way of songwriting. Kit Warhurst, who was at one of the first reading sessions, came back in at the last minute and we made up the ‘Shit Carter’s Hat’. Then we had 12 tracks with Barry’s spoken word pieces. It kept spiralling on and we rode the wave. “ “I brought in Jorge Leiva on congas and percussion. No-one had any idea how the whole thing would sound. I had a bit

of an idea,” Walsh laughs. “Hopefully a recognisable Rezza sound, a melting pot.”

Walsh is originally from country Victoria.

Emma Peel (PBSFM) from Tasmania, Justin Bernasconi, the UK, Leo NZ and Jorge Colombia.

“Cat Canteri is probably the closest to [an original local], growing up in Northcote.

We’re all blow-ins. That demographic is what I love about living here for 12 years now. There’s some pretty real characters in the area. It’s cool to have a local shop, continental supermarket, fish and chip shop.

You see an elder Greek gent with a stubby of VB, looking at his roses and he goes, ‘Ah, what can you do?’ Perfect. That’s what you don’t wanna change too quickly. For Barry in the 50s and 60s, it was a vibrant area, kids running through the lanes, stomping in potholes.”

It also sounds somewhat like corners of Melbourne’s east where I grew up. “Hopefully it’s more universal than just Reservoir, conjuring up memories of other outer suburbs, before the sewerage pipeline went in.” I celebrate the use of language such as ‘bum’ instead of butt’ on one track. “Barry made a point of representing how people spoke at the time - even grammatically wrong phrases. The drunk saying ‘Tremendous!’ the way people used to. The accent and phrasing is a snapshot of the time and place.” Within the nostalgia are musical echoes down through the decades; 80s punk, cross-cultural fusion and Rolling Stones strut.

“We went to Barry’s flat and played him one of the final mixes on my phone. Seeing the look on his face was one of the greatest rewards. It brought him to tears hearing his own words about his father.”

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CD: Feature

BY CHRIS LAMBIE

RORY ELLIS

INNER OUTLAW

Independent

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Great songs are often born from true stories.

For singer-songwriter Rory Ellis, a longburied letter written by his grandfather with a workmate was revealed to him as if on a silver platter via a Richmond (Vic) worksite.

His song, ‘The Letter’ was inspired by voices from the past. “It’s so close to home,” Ellis says. “That somebody found a letter in a bottle underneath a load of cement, 71 years after it was written in 1940, is like a miracle.

That they found me in 2017, six years after the find is another miracle.”

“Grandfather (Colin Ellis) fought in WW1 as a driver/horseman pulling the canons. He wrote the letter with his friend Joe Eagles after the outbreak of WW2. I see it as a peace letter. A letter of lament, stuck away as a time capsule, hoping that when somebody found it things had changed. What’s the odds of finding a bottle in cement under the Church St bridge? The workers, Grant and Paul, said there’s a little plaque behind the facade, with the initials CE and JE.” “It’s almost like Grandfather has given me a job to do, to pass it on. It’s such a poignant message. He was a devout trade unionist and there were some great stories Dad used to tell me about him. At his little home in Porter St. Prahran, people like Bob Hawke and Arthur Calwell would sit out the back with him at old Uncle Jimmy’s table, necking bottles of beer. No glasses involved. You can imagine the stories flying around that table!”

His ninth album Inner Outlaw sees Ellis again baring his soul. “It’s what you do, isn’t it?” he laughs. The song ‘53rd Year’ is a reflection on aging. “My father died at 53, a heavy drinker.

I figured having a musical life, I’ve had a fair old whack of that myself. Approaching that birthday, I thought I’d better start looking after myself.” “’Cross On The Hill’ is about a little fella whose dad wasn’t really interested in him, as often happens. At the cross on the hill is where he placed his father who didn’t give a shit. Bit like burying him although he’s still alive. ‘What Happened To That Man’ is a bit tongue-in-cheek. About the man I was raised to be in my generation. It was OK to have back hair, you didn’t have to go and get waxed and curled and become a metrosexual. It was OK to have dirty hands and finger nails. It’s a reflection on the old fellas, in their 80s now; they always dressed well, never swore in front of women, all the things that showed that bit of chivalry. To open doors and hold your hand is almost shunned now. Even in ads, it’s the bloke who looks stupid. It’s another part of looking at men’s mental health.”

Ellis got the title for ‘Bitumen Cowboys’ talking to a truckie friend. “Having done so many miles as a muso, we had something in common. There’s no Country album that doesn’t have a good truckin’ song. I played recently at the Tarcutta Truckies Memorial. It was a most moving ceremony dedicated to those guys and girls who go out on the road for countless hours. It’s thankless and risky with unrealistic deadlines. They say if you’re talking to God in the passenger seat, you know it’s the last mile.”

The album is a Country/Americana combo of blues, folk and ‘all those leanings’. “Born and raised on Waylon, Willie and Johnny Cash, I loved the sentiment of the outlaw country movement. On this album I tried to portray that attitude with my own spin. ‘The Next Shipwreck’ is relatable to all musicians and people in various trades who feel they’ve probably missed the boat. Everybody strives for their 15 minutes of fame, to be recognised as songwriter or musician. Sometimes it’s not about money but being recognised by your peers. Sometimes you reach a point in life

where you think ‘I’d rather sell my soul and say that it happened; we ticked that box and happy days.”

‘Fadin’ debuted at #1 on the My Country Australia singles chart. The album, at #7 on release on the iTunes Singer-Songwriter chart. “I’ve jumped so many hurdles and tripped over, this has worked, that hasn’t...

It’s been so important, having a partner who believes you just have to try harder and not go for a change of career; to imprint that foot into your bum and get you kick-started again. Now living on the NSW mid-north coast, Ellis enlisted the accompaniment of guests including musicians who’ve played with the Emmanuels, Graeme Connors, Troy Cassar-Daley, Lee Kernigan... “All so good to work with. I worked remotely with Scotty Hills on drums. There’s Chris Haig on bass, Peter White on keys - both a joy to work with.” Inner Outlaw serves up a ‘band sound’ while the songs also work in solo or duo live formats. “It’s the essence of roots. It’s not stadium rock. It’s more interesting as a songwriter to make it different live.”

Five-time GRAMMY Award Winner and Blues Hall of Fame inductee returns with a brand new album

OUT NOW DIGITAL | LP | CD

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CD: Feature

BY CHRIS FAMILTON

NOT YOUR AVERAGE COUNTRY BAND STANLEY RECORDS

DAVE FAVOURS Q&A

I

t’s been six years since Sydney songwriter Dave Favours released his solo album Wet Suburban Sunday, but he’s spent those years building up the roster on his label Stanley Records, releasing the Australian alt-country compilation Take Me To Town and honing the sound of his band The Roadside Ashes. Having a solid group of great players has paid dividends on his new album Not Your Average Country Band, with Favours’ rock ’n’ roll and punk flavoured country songs about the trials and tribulations of modern living sounding a lot more evocative and worn-in – like a good pair of Cuban heels on city sidewalks.

In this Q&A, Favours takes Rhythms inside the album’s writing and recording process, his musical influences and the challenges and rewards of running an independent record label.

Given that this album has been ready for release for a year now, how are you feeling about it finally seeing the light of day on April 3rd?

I guess I’m relieved that people will be able to hear it and hopefully enjoy it, or at the very least be surprised by it. Looking back on when I wrote and recorded that album, things have changed so much in my life in such a short period of time since then. An album really is like a photo album from a certain period and it’s great to share it around, so we’re really looking forward to taking it on the road.

After Wet Suburban Sunday, were there different things you wanted to try on this album?

There was no conscious decision to do anything differently. When I made that first solo album, I was trying to work out who I was, as I had just left a band where I was a songwriter but not the singer. I guess you could say, it wasn’t a comfortable experience for me and I was trying too hard. These days, I just let whatever comes out, come out and I’m quite comfortable with it. Having a full-time band to share the load naturally allows you to try different things.

This is the first album you’ve recorded with your band The Roadside Ashes. What did they bring to the songs – from your original composition through to the final recordings?

The first thing they brought was beer (so was the second, third and fourth). The guys are very like-minded. When I bring in a song, it’s kind of like, “this is how it goes. Also, we’re playing it this weekend.” We tend to work things out on stage. By the time we get to recording, we normally have half a clue as to what they should sound like and it sounds like us. I mostly let them do what they want to do. This is not a solo project, it’s a band.

Michael Carpenter produced engineered and mastered the album. What were some of the key things he brought to the recording process?

Carpo is such an important part of this album. He allowed us to enjoy the process because we knew he had our backs. We are a lot looser (both musically and personally) than a lot of the classier acts that he tends to work with, but he gets where we’re coming from and helps us improve what we do, without trying to change it. We trust Michael and that’s most of the battle won. He’s a top fella as well.

The album title Not Your Average Country Band, why did you decide to call it that?

We don’t sound like any of the acts we play with. We can be a little too raucous for the country purists and a little too country for some of the more rockin’ bands, so we thought the title was perfect. It was a comment made by Michael Carpenter during recording. Our bass player had this fullblown punk rock sound happening and I sarcastically said, “that’s a nice country tone you’ve got going there, mate”. Carpo chimed in, “hey, you guys are not your average country band”.

Running a label (Stanley Records), what’s your perspective on the current state of grassroots alt-country and Australian Americana music?

It’s definitely healthy but we’re restricted by population here in Australia.

There’s only a certain amount of people in each city who are into it

but>> they’re reallytell into it. Withinofthose people, there are only The lyrics a version Young’s story.

Growing upaincertain Canada, amount who leaving will buy awhen physical product or even it. You have to his father he was a young boy,stream beat up at school, tour a lot toofconnect withleaving them, Canada but I do see growing slowly.

We by have dreams stardom, for it Hollywood, courted world-class acts who can match it with the best of them. Look at Tracy “business men” who came to hear “the golden sound.” The key McNeil, Andy Golledge, Georgia State Line, Ben Leece, Sean McMahon. verse the you fifthhear one,Katie especially coming as it did after the selfsuccess Hell, waitisuntil Brianna’s new album (shameless of Harvest.

Neillabel Young writing himself, writing to hisgrow. dead friend, promotion for the there).

Theytocan only help the genre writing to every wannabewith rockpunk star.rock and country music and There’s a strong connection many artists who played hard and in their younger are “Well, all that glitters isn’t gold/fast I guess you’ve heardyears the story drawn to country music as they get older - was that the case for you or told/ I’m ahad pauper in a naked A millionaire through a have youBut always an affinity withdisguise/ country music? business man’s eyes/ Oh friend of mine/ Don’t be denied.”

I never had an affinity with country music growing up, but it was often in theAnd background.

Dadwhich lovedat John Denver andthe Linda used the chorus, times during tourRonstadt. he wouldMum scream: to “Don’t put the be Charlie Pride Christmas albumDon’t on every year and/No myno, Uncle denied/ Don’t be denied/ be denied don’t Doug had a real thing for It’s Hard to Be Humble by Mac Davis for some be denied.” reason.

I think my journey towards loving country music really began when heard bandshowever, like the Beasts of Bourbon theverse, Gun Club.

On Ithis version he reprieves the and fourth the There’s one an honesty to both punk and country music that connects with me. about business men coming to hear the “golden sound.”

Punk rock got me through the anger and confusion of my youth whilst country helpswhere me getYoung through heartache and pain that can On a tour wasthe challenging his audience withcome an with adulthood. album’s worth of new material, perhaps with this song he was What are your punk rock your top three insisting onetop hasthree to follow theirrecords vision, and no matter the cost.country records?

Certainly, he was saying there’s more to life than money – Ohsomething wow! I’d struggle to giveknew you aby Topthen.

50 in“‘Don’t each category, so I’llhas be crafty he certainly Be Denied’ a lot with my answer. to do with Danny, I think,” Young told McDonough. “…I think that’s Three rock”life-and-death records that gotevent me through highaffected school are: the “punk first major that really me in what Hard-Ons – Dickcheese I was trying to do… you kinda reassess yourself as to what you’re Descendents – I Don’t Want to Grow doing – because you realize thatUp life is so impermanent. So, you do the best you can while you’re here, to say whatever the X –wanna Los Angeles fuck“country” it is you wanna Three recordssay. thatExpress continueyourself.” to get me through adulthood are: Johnny CashGoldberg, – At Folsom Prison Rolling Stone Senior Writer and Michael a former Steve Earle of – I the Feel original Alright Addicted To Noise online magazine, is founder author rock & roll novels including 2016’s Untitled.

Jason Isbellof– three Southeastern What are your touring plans for this album?

There’ll be extensive touring through NSW, VIC, QLD and SA from April onwards. We’ve briefed our livers thoroughly and there’ll be cardiac arrest equipment in the van, just in case.

THE NEW

RHYTHMS T-SHIRT

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

$30

Simply go to: bandtshirts.com.au/shop/rhythms-magazine 62

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CD: General

CD: General

TREVOR J. LEEDEN, IAN MCFARLANE, CHRIS FAMILTON, SUE BARRETT, MARTIN JONES, IAIN PATIENCE

TREVOR J. LEEDEN, IAN MCFARLANE, CHRIS FAMILTON, SUE BARRETT, MARTIN JONES, IAIN PATIENCE

LUCINDA WILLIAMS GOOD SOULS BETTER ANGELS HIGHWAY 20/THIRTY TIGERS/ COOKING VINYL AUSTRALIA

more, riding the deep grooves with heavy intent.

If Williams’ last couple of albums felt like she was settling into a familiar rhythm, this is her shaking things up in uncertain times. Reflecting, dissecting and reassuring the world around her with mesmerising results.

CHRIS FAMILTON

GRACE CUMMINGS REFUGE COVER Flightless Records

After a year spent looking back with her Car Wheels On A Gravel Road 20th anniversary tour, Lucinda Williams has now turned her mind to the modern world in the here and now, from internal battles of individuals to the heartless idiocy of those leading the world.

Good Souls Better Angels is a record that harnesses poetic rage, both subtle and visceral.

From the opening salve of ‘You Can’t Rule Me’ to the devastatingly beautiful closer ‘Good Souls’ where Williams sings “Keep me with all of those who help me find strength when I’m feeling hopeless, who guide me along and help me stay strong and fearless,” this is an album of anger and frustration but also optimism and resolute conviction. The devil is omnipresent through these dozen songs of gothic blues, a symbol of the battles of depression, egomania and misinformation that Williams chronicles, dragging and weaving her unique, vowel-wrangling vocal across the songs with direct, unfiltered prose.

Musically, this is the bluesiest Williams has got in an electric setting. Guitarist Stuart Mathis is a real highlight with his playing ranging from wild squalls of noise to shimmering meditative chords – from Crazy Horse (‘Pray The Devil’) to Lanois (‘Shadows And Doubts’). Correspondingly, the rhythm section know that less is 64

Listening to an album that’s so stripped back musically yet so powerful in delivery can be refreshing and invigorating.

Melbourne singer/songwriter Grace Cummings’ debut album, Refuge Cove, is a case in point.

The album has been out a few months now and the original vinyl pressing of 500 copies sold out swiftly. It’s still available for download from Bandcamp and there’s talk of a second pressing.

Cummings’ music can be described as a mix of acoustic folk and blues. While unique might be an overused term to apply, the music does possess an otherworldliness that finds its own orbit. It’s tempting to draw parallels with other singers so for some reference imagine a blend of Tim Buckley melody and Johnette Napolitano vocal soul, with a touch of Jacques Brel fatalism, and you might be getting close.

The music hinges on Cummings’ gently strummed acoustic guitar and her astonishingly emotional vocals. Most of the tracks feature only one or two additional instruments and occasionally another voice.

‘The Look You Gave’ features subtle, bluesy electric lead and

harmonica; ‘The Other Side’ and ‘Paisley’ add extra acoustic filigrees and backing vocals; ‘There Flies a Seagull’ features only ghostly harmony vocals; ‘Lullaby for Refuge Cover’ and ‘Sleep’ present piano and for mine are the standout tracks.

The unadorned ‘Lullaby for Buddy’ and ‘Just Like That’, on the other hand, are so fragile musically they’re almost not there and then Cummings’ voice is a powerhouse over the top.

The effect is mesmerising.

Lyrically it’s not all confessional, introspective angst, although there’s an element of that.

There’s a wracked grace to be found and savoured: “I’ll never be Meryl Streep / but someday I might believe in my own life” (‘Sleep’); “There flies a seagull / shoot it down so that you might smile / so that you might be happy now” (‘There Flies a Seagull’).

The album is only nine songs long, clocking in around 30 minutes, but by the last song, the piano ballad ‘In the Wind’, her voice is so world weary and cracked you feel she’s ready to expire. “Stop your pissing in the wind / it’s dark outside again” are her last words here but I feel we’ll be hearing more from Grace Cummings.

IAN MCFARLANE

ALLISON FORBES BONEDIGGER Independent

New South Wales singer/ songwriter Allison Forbes has again collaborated with producer Shane Nicholson, this time on her debut album, Bonedigger.

Rhythms subscribers recently had a sneak preview of the album, when Forbes’ single, ‘Hell Freezes Over’, appeared on the Jan/Feb 2020 Rhythms sampler.

Allison Forbes grew up near Tamworth, releasing her debut EP (What’ll Happen to Me Now?) in 2013 and three years later her follow-up EP, Augustine (whose final song was the hauntingly beautiful ‘Yesterday’s Shadows’, which she wrote after the funeral of musician Stu McKenzie of Good Corn Liquor).

On Bonedigger, Allison Forbes has added folk-rock to her repertoire, with the sound at times reminiscent of the late Cyndi Boste. Forbes and Nicholson are joined on the album by Shane Reilly (pedal steel), Clare O’Meara (fiddle) and, on vocals, The Weeping Willows and Tori Forsyth.

Bonedigger focuses on interpersonal relationships, but also spends some time despairing over the music industry. Three of the finest songs on the album are ‘Cold Moon’, ‘Sweet Old Release’ and the rollicking, yet profound, final track ‘A Pirates Life for Me’ (I’m wicked and shameless, an eye for an eye / We rob and we pillage, just to get by / Well it’s freedom, but it’s empty, a pirate’s life).

With Bonedigger, Allison Forbes shows her continued musical development and, as always, astute, penetrating (and, at times, earthy) lyrics. And if you buy Bonedigger on CD, you might strike gold and find it accompanied by a pirate’s eye patch!

(As COVID-19 strikes hard at the music industry, Allison Forbes is sharing her music and looking at funding raising ideas for the musicians on her Facebook page, AllisonForbesMusic.)

SUE BARRETT

JASON ISBELL AND THE 400 UNIT REUNIONS CAROLINE AUSTRALIA

by the wonderful playing of the 400 Unit.

CHRIS FAMILTON

LILLY HIATT WALKING PROOF New West Records

Jason Isbell cemented himself in the pantheon of 21st century songwriters with his Southeastern album in 2013. Since then he’s continued to release strong records but Reunions stands as his most consistent set of songs to date. Sure, it might not have the exquisite emotional songwriting peaks of Southeastern but it’s Isbell sounding his most assured and at the top of his game, right across the ten songs.

Opener ‘What’ve I Done To Help’ (featuring guest vocals from David Crosby) is little more than a mantra, a repeated chorus that buries itself deep in the memory bank of the listener with its infectious folk-rock and Latin groove and some superb guitar soloing. Many of the songs on Reunions are about ghosts of some kind, the memories and nostalgia for past friends and experiences. ‘Only Children’ is a gorgeous lilting reflection of growing up in Alabama, Isbell’s perfectly formed couplets and phrasing allowed the space to breathe. He’s still writing rock songs with soaring choruses.

‘Running With Our Eyes Closed’ starts like a Dire Straits track before taking flight into a beautifully melodic chorus while ‘It Gets Easier’ is a Springsteenstyled song that documents the ongoing post-sobriety struggle before hitting the Crazy Horse afterburners with a great guitar solo.

Reunions is a polished album in the hands of producer Dave Cobb, with a classic roots rock sound, but it’s the quality of songs that take centre-stage, musically framed and enhanced

With her famous surname and the album’s opening shimmering tremolo guitar chords you’d think you were in for a straight country trip. There’s certainly a strong country streak, of the Nikki Lane kind, that runs through Walking Proof, but just as equally there’s an indie rock aesthetic that runs from Liz Phair to Jenny Lewis on this strong set of songs.

Lyrically, Hiatt is right on her game on this, her fourth album.

She has a way of taking the confessional route that never feels indulgent or self-pitying.

She balances rich observational writing with sensitive and heartfelt empathy and advice for herself and others. This is an album about Hiatt and her friends and family as much as it addresses reaching that point in your life where you feel you’ve weathered the storm yet you’re still acutely aware of life’s warning signs and pitfalls.

On paper Hiatt’s words wouldn’t have the same effect but that’s the power and magic of music, and melody is king on Walking Proof. Hiatt has a knack of weaving notes into endlessly catchy patterns. ‘Some Kind Of Drug’, pushes and pulls over an equally infectious electric guitar, ‘Brightest Star ‘is a light-footed lyrical dance. ‘Never Play Guitar’ channels Tom Petty and ‘P-Town’ is a gloriously ragged soul

shakedown on yet another strong Lilly Hiatt album.

CHRIS FAMILTON

CHUCK PROPHET THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT Yep Roc/Planet

His name may be Prophet, but when it comes to rock’n’roll injected with true grit, then Chuck is undeniably a Saviour. From 1997’s roots rock opus Homemade Blood through another nine albums, Prophet’s uncanny knack for a catchy hook, a pulsating riff, and acerbic lyrical observation has continued unabated; The Land That Time Forgot takes it up a notch higher. Immediately noticeable is the increased presence of acoustic instruments (a lesson perhaps learned from his compadre Alejandro Escovedo?), although the default setting of two electric guitars, bass and drums is omnipresent.

‘Best Shirt On’ sets out the album’s stall, a spirited outburst of sun-kissed rock’n’roll that draws upon the template of American musical heartland, it’s irresistibly catchy. ‘High As Johnny Thunders’ is the kind of evocative ballad Prophet has become renowned for, his plaintive voice contemplating life in a “what if” scenario; it is, quite simply, beautifully poignant. With motorik bass and a propulsive drum machine driving him on, he trades vocal lines with wife Stephanie Finch (an increased presence throughout) on ‘Marathon’, the standout on a set of highlights.

It’s not all love on the dancefloor, indeed there is a darkness not present on previous albums, as Prophet sees the need to provide a State Of The Nation address.

‘Nixonland’, ‘Love Doesn’t Come From The Barrel Of A Gun’, and the pointed ‘Get Off The Stage’ are a collective iron fist in a velvet glove, searing words and spitting guitars that resonate with despair and frustration.

There is no pigeon-hole for a Chuck Prophet album, suffice that he is the embodiment of all the great things in rock and roll music. If you don’t know about him, then it’s time you did.

TREVOR J. LEEDEN

STEEP CANYON RANGERS & ASHEVILLE SYMPHONY BE STILL MOSES Yep Roc/Planet

Formed in 2000, although critically lauded it was their high-profile collaboration with banjoist/comedian Steve Martin that drew wider acclaim for the Asheville North Carolina quintet.

Now dripping in Grammy Awards (with and without Martin), SCR is in the vanguard of America’s bluegrass movement. Be Still Moses sees SCR take a detour into ‘interpretation’, teaming up with their hometown Asheville Symphony to re-visit their back catalogue in an orchestral setting.

In several instances, familiarity with the original versions is made redundant. Take the title track, first released in 2007, and here totally re-imagined not just with the symphony but >>> 65

CD: World Music & Folk

CD: General

BY T O N Y H I L L I E R

TREVOR J. LEEDEN, IAN MCFARLANE, CHRIS FAMILTON, SUE BARRETT, MARTIN JONES, IAIN PATIENCE >>> with the gospel infused harmonies of Philly soul legends Boyz II Men in full testifying mode; it’s as outrageously good as it is unexpected. The most notable results are on the up-tempo, propulsive songs, like ‘Radio’, ‘Let Me Out Of This Town’, and ‘Blow Me Away’, the orchestra laying down the backdrop to the mesmerising soloing of each band member.

The idea of using a symphony orchestra isn’t particularly new, and in most cases the feature artist is swamped. Not so here, SCR maintain prominence throughout, their trademark fiddles, banjo and mandolin effortlessly ride the crest of the symphonic wave behind them.

Progressive bluegrass just took another step forward; Asheville, take a bow.

TREVOR J.LEEDEN

JAMES TAYLOR AMERICAN STANDARD Fantasy Records

Well, what can be said about this one. It’s James Taylor…. and maybe that’s about enough to whet most music lovers’ appetites. And believe me this is a release that won’t just whet a musical hunger but more than amply satisfy it too. In some ways Taylor brings an unexpected focus on these songs – fourteen well-known, enormously loved classics from the historic US songbook, that might have terrified many lesser musicians while simultaneously pleasing most of his global legion of fans and working some surprising twists from his usual baseline.

Taylor’s voice and vocal delivery remain exactly on point, everything we all know and 66

adore so much. His delightful, harmonic guitar picking slips along perfectly in the mix giving the entire album that special Taylor touch with some light whimsical, jazzy flourishes and a sparse simplicity that truly carries the package along nicely, proving for once that less really can be more. Aided by some simply wonderful flashes of clarinet, B3, light percussion and even electric slide, Taylor sounds like he’s happily relaxed down-home with a warm breeze blowing through the palms. The stunning perfection of the, again sparse but striking, harp work that accompanies his fretwork on one track, ‘Moon River,’ makes it totally outstanding, a true cut to savour every time, and sounds like a song that could have been written either by or for him alone.

Other tracks include the likes of ‘Surrey With The Fringe On Top,’ ‘Pennies From Heaven,’ ‘‘God Bless The Child’ and ‘My Blue Heaven.’

No doubt there will be some fans who will feel discontent, dismayed perhaps by this guy’s venture out of the old 1970s comfort zone they identify with Mister Taylor in a general sense.

If so, they really are missing the point here. This is Taylor moving on, forging ahead while also glancing back at the music he grew up with, music that still resonates deeply with his soul and the American consciousness.

‘American Standard’ is a work of genius, of giant beauty and spiritual generosity. Instantly recognizable as a Grammy contender, it highlights just why and how important this true US music legend is to global music.

By now some may have guessed that I simply love this album. This is great music at its very best delivered by an absolute master of his craft. In short, this is as good as it gets.

IAIN PATIENCE

DAN TUFFY LETTERS OF GOLD Smoked Recordings Tuffy’s solo debut ‘Songs From Dan’ made many friends here.

The warmth, the wit, the unaffected integrity, and the

musicians (lots of favourite locals like Matt Walker and Lucie Thorne) made for an instant classic.

For Letters Of Gold, Tuffy takes the same narrator into some beguiling new territory. Yes, there’s that weathered-and-wiseas-Willie voice, and that discreet tactile guitar, and the gripping portraits. And sometimes, like on opening track, ‘Big Man’, that’s all you need (though the panoramic spaghetti Western electric guitar is a tasty condiment). These core elements make up the heart of the record, (the portrait of reformed alcoholic Arthur Stace, who devoted most of his life to writing Eternity in chalk all over Sydney, is vintage Tuffy empathy). My personal favourite is ‘Sandy Track’ – as unhurried, winding, and disarming as its subject in a Grateful Dead meets JJ Cale journey.

However, then you get to ‘Home Fires’, with its swelling, ethereal electronic treatments (for which Tuffy reunites with Wild Pumpkins At Midnight bandmember Michael Turner), and ‘Honey Flow’ with its ‘Staying Alive’-esque groove and your eyes widen.

MARTIN JONES

LAURA MARLING SONG FOR OUR DAUGHTER Chrysalis/Partisan/Inertia If you were fortunate enough to catch Laura Marling’s recent shows in Australia just before the sky fell you are, like me, living off rich memories in this current drought of live music. In short, she was jaw-droppingly amazing.

So, this new album is eagerly anticipated, Marling riding on a wave of courageous creativity with recent albums Short Movie and Semper Femina, leaving purist

folk in the dust.

For Song For Our Daughter, Marling continues to show exquisite taste in her collaborations (Blake Mills on Semper Femina and Mike Lindsay in LUMP) by teaming up with producer Ethan Johns and a small group of contributing musicians.

The link between this and Semper Femina is the title track, the guitar sounding very much like something Mills might have come up with, or at least influenced (and Marling would not resist the comparison – at her Brisbane show she named Mills “the greatest living guitarist”). But the sonic tone of Song For Our Daughter is more refined and elegant, warm piano and strings in favour of treated guitar and grooves. This treatment renders songs like the title track and ‘Fortune’ unbearably beautiful, with Marling’s command of her voice advancing in bounds.

Thematically, the album comes across as an emotional postapocalypse, the narrator gathering the pieces of broken relationships and tragedy – it’s not light listening (not that any Marling fan would expect such). The narrator’s stance is summarised in ‘Only The Strong’ – “Only the strong survive.”

However, there are some big, uplifting musical passages, such as the choir choruses and bridge of open song ‘Alexandra’ and the kinetic rhythm and anthem of ‘Strange Girl’ which, appropriately enough, has a hint of The Kinks ‘Lola’ about it.

Marling decided to bring the release date of the album forward to give us something to apply ourselves to in this forced downtime. It’s certainly going to keep me occupied – enthralled.

MARTIN JONES

JOHN MCLAUGHLIN / SHANKAR MAHADEVAN / ZAKIR HUSSAIN IS THAT SO? Abstract Logix

Reunited with Zakir Hussain, tabla supremo from their 1970s’ supergroup Shakti, John McLaughlin takes a less jazz oriented and more minimalistic approach with his latest Indian folk-jazz fusion project. Fans of yore expecting pyrotechnics from the fleet-fingered deity of jazz-rock guitar, who’s now in his late 70s, will be severely disappointed. The sound that McLaughlin produces via his strings through a computer — a system with sine waves, oscillators and filters — is closer to that of an electronic keyboard, with washes predominant rather than rapier guitar runs. Is That So? puts the emphasis on the sublime voice of Indian singer/ composer Shankar Mahadevan, whose singing and spiritually charged songs take centre stage throughout the set. Six tracks, ranging in duration from just over 7 minutes to nearly 11 minutes, were developed during improvisational sessions with the aim of blending the scales of Indian ragas with Western harmonies. The thrilling ‘Sakhi’ comes closest to Shakti’s sound.

YORKSTON / THORNE / KHAN NAVARASA: NINE EMOTIONS Domino Recording

A gently mesmerising mix of acoustic music from East and West, YTK’s third album comprises nine tracks, each relating loosely to one of the titular emotions (rasas) expressed in the art of India, from love to horror. Meditative Indian-accented compositions blend unselfconsciously with Scottish traditional folk songs such as ‘The Shearing’s Not for You’ and ‘Westlin’ Winds’, the latter juxtaposing the words of a 14th century Sufi poet with Robert Burns’ 18th century poetry. Another Caledonian classic, ‘Twa Brothers’, is rendered a cappella, Suhail Yusuf Khan’s konnakol-style “dakkatadot” scatting intertwining sublimely with James Yorkston’s soft singing. Elsewhere, the Scot’s unobtrusive guitar arpeggios and the jazz-informed double bass of Jon Thorne operate most effectively with the glissando singing and three-stringed sarangi of their Indian bandmate, whose articulate bowing is forefront in the Hindustani and Sufi pieces that form the bookends and centrepiece of an intriguing set.

BRIAN AN Ó HEADHRA & FIONA MACKENZIE TUATH Naxos World

with synthesiser and beats.

Their inventive interpretations of ancient Gaelic texts and newly written material — delivered in in Scottish and Irish Gaelic, Danish, Norwegian and Galician, often with layered harmonies — are enchanting and engaging.

THE UNTHANKS DIVERSIONS VOL. 5 Rabble Rouser/Planet

In the Diversions series so far, the Unthanks have showcased the songs of Molly Drake, the Shipyard, Robert Wyatt and Antony & The Johnsons and brass band music. With the latest volume, recorded live during a 2019 tour, founding sisters Rachel and Becky Unthank make a welcome return to a cappella format in the company of bandmate Niopha Keegan.

Singing in exquisite 3-part harmony accentuates the trio’s seductive Tyneside brogues while putting the focus on storytelling.

A dozen shortish songs draw on a range of earthy subject matter, including witchcraft, weddings, winter and death.

NOUKILLA SOLEY Naxos World

Brian Ó hEadhra and Fiona Mackenzie are accomplished singer-songwriters from the Highlands of Scotland who lean on their traditional folk heritage while exploring the nexus between the Gaels and their Nordic neighbours across the North Sea. The duo’s music is simultaneously ethereal and evocative and sonically stimulating, extending from simple arrangements involving acoustic stringed instruments, bodhran drum and piano to more expansive and experimental ambient electro-soundscapes

Noukilla radiate the sunny, effervescent music styles of the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius, via the somewhat incongruous environment of Shanghai, where the band’s founder members settled in 2005. While gigging in various covers acts around that bustling Chinese city in the intervening years, they linked up with other Mauritius expats to

play tunes inspired by their far away homeland. Featuring a set of snappy original songs suffused in the indigenous style of sega and seggae-fusion, with a soupcon of jazz and rock thrown in, Noukilla’s upbeat, feel-good debut album will be a hit with dancers.

AWALE JANT BAND YEWOULEN ARC Music

A London-based cultural melting pot of a collective led by Senegalese singer-songwriter Biram Seck and French guitaristcomposer Thibaut Remy, Awale Jant Band skilfully weaves together afro-pop, funk, soul, jazz and Latin influences.

Strategically positioned salsaesque and afrobeat-like brass stabs and solos complement competent guitar lines and combine with sabar drumming and a Western backline to lift Seck’s soulful but sometimes mediocre singing in Wolof, English and French.

SANGIT LIBRAR Cumbancha/Planet

Pan-African influences extending from gnawa and ethiojazz to afrobeat and soukous merge with contemporary RnB and soul groove in Israeli percussionist, composer and producer Sangit’s debut album via an accomplished multinational crew of 11 vocalists (singing in 9 languages) and 9 instrumentalists. Ultimately, though, this ambitious potpourri entertains more than enlightens.

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CD: Blues

CD: JAZZ AL HENSLEY

ROOMFUL OF BLUES IN A ROOMFUL OF BLUES Alligator/Only Blues Music

For over 50 years Rhode Island octet Roomful Of Blues has held court as the world’s foremost exponent of horn-fuelled blues inspired by the timeless swing, jump, R&B, soul and rock’n’roll music that evolved in the late ‘40s and ‘50s. That this ensemble is still together after all those decades of touring and recording of over 20 albums is testament to its enduring popularity. Though a live ROB recording 45 Live! kept devotees sated seven years ago, this CD is the band’s long-awaited return to the studio since its 2011 title Hook, Line & Sinker.

Despite inevitable personnel changes over the years, they’ve retained that distinctive hardedged sound, always keeping it fresh and relevant. Tenor and alto saxophonist Rich Lataille’s tenure in the band goes back to 1970. Guitarist Chris Vachon has been bandleader for the last 30 years, filling the vacancies left by greats like Duke Robillard and Ronnie Earl, while singer Phil Pemberton ably follows in the footsteps of Curtis Salgado and Sugar Ray Norcia. Buddy Ace’s 1961 R&B hit ‘What Can I Do?’ and Doc Pomus’ ‘Too Much Boogie’ complement a swag of band originals that’ll have fans cutting the rug till they drop.

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TINSLEY ELLIS

LAZY EYE

ICE CREAM IN HELL Alligator/Only Blues Music

WHISKY & GIN Only Blues Music

After nearly 40 years of consistently releasing new recorded material, and touring relentlessly across the US and abroad, Tinsley Ellis’ masterful guitar and vocal technique has lost none of its prowess. In fact, Ice Cream In hell, his 11th album for Alligator Records (his 20th overall), clearly demonstrates that the Atlanta, Georgiabased bluesman is still at the peak of his career. A certified contemporary blues statesman, Ellis’ gruff voice and incendiary fretwork are front and centre, flanked by his long-time roadtested rhythm section of Kevin McKendree on organ and piano, Steve Mackey on bass and Lynn Williams on drums. Each of Ellis’ 11 original songs bears its own creative spirit while staying within the broad landscape of the blues. While some riffs might be borrowed from the blues guitar library shelf, they’re given a fresh workout underscoring Ellis’ fervent vocals, molten licks and rousing solos. Saxophonist Jim Hoke and trumpeter Quentin Ware embellish the Albert King-styled opener ‘Last One To Know’ and the lilting minor-key slow blues ‘Hole In My Heart’.

This riveting set, co-produced

by McKendree, attests to Ellis’ widely acclaimed status as a blues guitar hero rivalling the all-time greats.

The Hammond organ trio has been a long-standing tradition in jazz, but it hasn’t been as prominent in blues music. That is, until Adelaide blues band Lazy Eye burst upon the national scene with their award-winning breakthrough 2013 CD Move On. Fast forward through six years and five more albums and they’ve arrived at the point where it’s time to bring in a horn section. Expanding to a sextet, the band now boasts muscular horn charts for tenor sax, trumpet and trombone to punctuate the arrangements on all of the nine new songs on its latest release. Band-leader Evan Whetter sings gritty lead vocals, playing notes, chords and solid bass lines on his weathered B3, Erica Graf peels off deeply informed blues licks on her smouldering guitar, drummer Mario Marino locking in tight backbeats on his skins. Whetter is the all original set’s chief songwriter, collaborating with Graf on three compositions as they traverse a cross-section of swinging shuffles, blues rumbas, jump blues and a funky smack of Stax-laced soul-blues. Emotioncharged vocal backing by Graf and Marino flavour the slow burn of ‘Please Don’t Leave’ with a weighty slab of intensity.

TONY HILLIER

PHANTOM BLUES BAND STILL COOKIN’ VizzTone/Planet Co. It’s been a long time between drinks for new releases by the Phantom Blues Band who first came together in 1993 to back Taj Mahal on his Dancing The Blues CD. But the Los Angelesbased outfit comprises a virtual who’s who of first-call west coast session players who are never short of work backing high calibre blues, rock and R&B artists. Touring internationally with Mahal and appearing as a world-class all-star act on its own behalf, it wasn’t until 2006 that the band made its own debut album Out Of The Shadows, followed up in 2007 with Footprints. This new offering is their first since re-emerging on 2012’s Inside Out. The line-up of Tony Braunagel (drums), Mike Finnigan (keyboards and vocals), Larry Fulcher (bass and vocals), Johnny Lee Schell (guitar and vocals), Joe Sublett (saxophones) and Les Lovitt (trumpet) remains basically unchanged since it was formed.

Band members wrote or cowrote more than half the songs heard here, inspired by the R&B music they grew up with from the late ‘50s onwards. Among the set’s non-originals are the Steve Cropper/Wilson Pickett powerhouse ‘Don’t Fight It’ and the incandescent ‘Blues How They Linger” by late, great Louisiana songwriter David Egan.

KURT ELLING

GILFEMA

SECRETS ARE THE BEST STORIES Edition/Planet

THREE Sounderscore

Winner of Downbeat magazine’s critics poll for a staggering 14 consecutive years, Kurt Elling is currently on a different roll.

Following last year’s live duets album with Aussie ace James Morrison, the world’s premier male jazz singer teams up with fellow Grammy garlanded Panamanian pianist Danilo Pérez to provide a companion of sorts to The Questions, his 2018 collaboration with sax supremo Branford Marsalis.

While there’s no questioning the acuity of Elling’s coruscating lyrics, the expressiveness of his singing or the brilliance of his technique, Secrets Are The Best Stories won’t appeal to all of his fans. The American’s makeover of two early-set Jaco Pastorius numbers and closing interpretations of Silvio Rodríguez and Vince Mendoza songs are among the highlights of an album that’s largely the antithesis of easy listening. Elling’s vocal gymnastics and evocative verses are encased in arrangements that extend from single double bass accompaniment to more expansive backing featuring piano and alto saxophone embellishment as well as Latin American flavoured drumming.

The singer’s narratives, which are based on various poems and personal commentaries on socio-political issues, flow in three tunes composed by Pérez.

A 3-piece suite composed by British jazzman Django Bates offers more mellow and reflective backdrops.

Twenty years has elapsed since the brilliant Benin-born guitarist Lionel Loueke first linked up with Italian bass ace Massimo Biolcati and the dynamic Hungarian drummer Ferenc Nemeth, and 15 years have passed since they last recorded together. In the interim, the West African has been busy in his role as right-hand-man to Herbie Hancock, cut a swag of solo records and made a score of albums with acts ranging from Angelique Kidjo to Aussie band The Vampires. That he has also found time to tour regularly with his aforementioned long-time mates is evident in the excellence of the trio’s belated second release and the rapport exhibited in a set recorded in a single day.

Three thrills aesthetically and cerebrally as Gilfema effortlessly weave complex rhythmic patterns with their bravura playing, arranging and writing.

Loueke sets the ball rolling with infectious West African High Life flavouring in a compelling self-penned opener. Two of his later compositions have a gentler Caribbean sway. The guitarist’s wah-wah setting combines with Biolcati’s bubbly electric bass lines and rapid drum backbeats to highlight one of Nemeth’s two compositions. Loueke/ Biolcati’s absorbing co-creations feature more complicated time signatures. Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Little Wing’, the album’s sole cover, benefits from Loueke’s African inflection and Nemeth’s NOLA drum shuffle.

VARIOUS ARTISTS

GILLES PETERSON PRESENTS: MV4 Brownswood Recordings

Highly influential French-born broadcaster and DJ Gilles Peterson has been a driving force in both the acid jazz and currently burgeoning nu-jazz scenes in the UK. The latest release from his Brownswood label, culled from a day of live recordings made in London’s legendary Maida Vale Studios in late 2018, was originally intended only for Peterson’s BBC radio show broadcast. It certainly merits wider exposure. Six of the eight tracks centre on the playing of the brilliant young pianist and MD Joe Armon-Jones, whose band Ezra Collective impressed at this year’s WOMADelaide festival.

One of the MV4 set’s highlights, the Latin-tinged ‘Hold’, features a smoking solo from Britain’s young female sax supremo Nubya Garcia. Oscar Jerome’s incisive vocals and guitar playing take centre stage in ‘Do You Really’.

Sounding like a cross between Gil Scott-Heron and Ian Dury, singer Hak Baker accompanies ArmonJones on another track. The Ishmael Ensemble’s two pieces offer a trippy alternative.

BRIAN MARSELLA

GATOS DO SUL Tzadik

Although he’s still not internationally known, Brian Marsella is finally being lauded in the USA, particularly in the competitive New York scene, as one of the most imaginative and adventurous pianists, sidemen and band leaders of his generation. In Gatos Do Sul, he leads a stellar octet through seven sizzling jazz instrumentals (a couple with wordless female vocals) inspired by Brazilian classical folkloric writers ranging from Heitor Villa-Lobos and Pixinguinha to Baden Powell and Egberto Gismonti. Impeccably arranged samba, bossa nova and choro inflected pieces exhibit ensemble excellence and solo élan.

MANDOLINMAN

BOSSANOVA ARC Music/Planet

The Belgian/Flemish quartet known as MANdolinMAN play jazzy Brazilian bossa nova flavoured instrumentals like you’ve never heard before, primarily because they perform exclusively on mandolins — the popular version as well as the tenor/bass and baritone members of the family (aka mandola and mandocello). The combination works surprisingly well for the most part, although whether the band’s original compositions come within cooee of the benchmark set by their covers of bossa nova’s co-progenitor/ premier tunesmith Antônio Carlos Jobim’s ‘Aqua de Beber’ and ‘Meditation’ — or indeed even their rendition of Suzanne Vega’s bossa-inspired ‘Caramel’ — is open to serious doubt. In a couple of their better self-penned numbers, MANdolinMAN deftly meld bossa nova with choro, tango and rumba.

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VINYL:

BY JEFF JENKINS

BAKELITE RADIO ROSARY OF TEARS Head Records Many years ago, I confessed to Joe Camilleri that I’d been mishearing the lyrics of ‘Harley and Rose’. I always thought he was singing, “Harley and Rose are reunited”, but it was actually ‘were reunited.’

It’s a wonderful song – an Aussie classic – but I must admit I prefer ‘are’, as I feel the flow of the words – Rose-are-re – perfectly suits Camilleri’s upbringing and adds a religious element to the song.

Anyway, now, in 2020, I finally get my Joe Camilleri ‘Rosary’ record, with his cover of ‘Memories of You’ providing the title (“How I wish I could forget those happy yesteryears that has left me a rosary of tears”).

Since his first album – Jo Jo Zep and The Falcons’ Don’t Waste It in 1977 – Camilleri has released records with five different acts: The Falcons, The Black Sorrows, The Revelators, Bakelite Radio and Joe Camilleri/ Nicky Bomba. He’s never done a ‘solo’ album. He once told me the reason was pretty simple: “I like playing with other people. I’m not an island.”

Bakelite Radio have always surprised. They released their first album, Bakelite Radio Volume II, in 2003. A second album, Volume III, arrived the following year. The third album, Volume IV, landed in 2007, while Volume I finally appeared in 2009.

Rosary of Tears – credited to Joey Vincent’s Bakelite Radio – is the fifth Bakelite Radio album and sees Camilleri joined by Sam Lemann on guitar, Ed Bates on pedal steel, Simon Starr on double bass, and Tony Floyd and Nicky Bomba on drums, with cameos by Melbourne’s Horns of Leroy.

It’s a collection of covers, but not a collection of hits – it’s not Joe singing the jukebox. Instead, he digs deep, delivering heartfelt renditions of the songs that shaped him, tracks such as Snooks Eaglin’s ‘Brown Skinned Woman’ and ‘Helping Hand’, Blind Willie McTell’s ‘You Was Born To Die’, ‘Blues Around Midnight’ and ‘Baby It Must Be Love’, Lightnin’ Hopkins’ ‘You Better Watch Yourself’, Sinatra’s ‘This Love of Mine’, and the Stones’ ‘Down Home Girl’.

As he sings in Lena Horne’s ‘Stormy Weather’, “The blues walked in and met me.”

In a note accompanying the record, Rhythms founder Brian Wise described it beautifully: “Listening to the album you might think that he had been born somewhere in the Mississippi Delta or the Louisiana bayous rather than an island in the Mediterranean. He doesn’t just interpret the songs, he inhabits them.”

I couldn’t agree more: Joe Camilleri is a peerless song interpreter.

Seeing him in the recording studio, or playing a song live on the radio, provides an insight into why he’s such a great singer. He never oversings. Often, he’s right up against the microphone and his voice is barely louder than a whisper. Initially, you wonder, “How is this going to sound?” But then you hear a playback and it sounds magical. Check out his take on Lonnie Johnson’s ‘Tomorrow Night’. He makes these words his own: 70

Tomorrow night/ Will it just be another memory/ Or just another lovely song/ That’s in my heart to linger on?

Rosary of Tears is both exquisite entertainment and a masterful musical education.

Glenn A. Baker calls Camilleri “a musical sponge”, adding that “he prefers to make music when and how he likes it, for whomever might be listening at the time. Sometimes that approach sells large numbers of records and sometimes it slips right by the public unnoticed.”

The start of ‘I’ll Get Along Somehow’ perhaps sums up that approach: You’re tired of me, so plain to see I was just a mere sensation And now that you’re through, I’ll get along somehow Yep, whether he’s going platinum or struggling to pay for the plastic, Joe Camilleri will always be making music. It’s what he does.

“You should remember that you were born to die,” Camilleri notes in ‘You Was Born To Die’. But for Camilleri, the finish line is not even in sight. As he turns 72, I recall the words that he told me many years ago: “My biggest asset is my will. And I hope I die on the tour bus.”

Fifty albums into his storied career, Joe Camilleri is still doing things his own way. You never know what’s coming next; you just know that it will be quality. As he sang in ‘Harley and Rose’, “You know we all can change direction, ain’t nothing to it, just relax.”

With Rosary of Tears, he adds one more to his collection. And it’s a treat.

ONCE WERE BROTHERS: ROBBIE ROBERTSON & THE BAND MAGNOLIA PICTURES

They say that history is written by the victors and it is certainly true in the case of Robbie Robertson and his colleagues in The Band.

(Garth Hudson is the only other survivor but was not interviewed for this film). Perhaps the title says it all. It was never Robbie Robertson and The Band, it was simply the latter.

Robertson did indeed write the group’s most brilliant songs – and by the second album was the major writer - and his guitar playing was exceptional. Yet he was undoubtedly assisted by his incredibly talented band mates, three brilliant singers: Levon Helm, Richard Manuel, Rick Danko and Garth Hudson (a maestro of the keyboards and multi-instrumentalist). Has any other male group – besides some soul or gospel ensembles - ever enjoyed such vocal talents?

Robertson was writing for singers who could bring his songs to life far better than he would ever be able to. You only have to listen to any of his solo albums to know this.

Robertson has already penned his side of the story in Testimony, published in 2016. It is a great story: tracing his path from Indian reservation to Dylan and The Band and forming the basis of this documentary.

So, given that the story is driven by Robertson we have to make allowances for the fact that this is inevitably his interpretation of events, in the same way that Paul McCartney has re-interpreted the history of The Beatles through his own lens.

(Did John Lennon and Brian Epstein really agree to alternate song writing credits so that fifty per cent would be McCartneyLennon?).

Guitarist Jimmy Vivino, a friend of Levon Helm’s, says that, “Families can go to the grave feuding” and you only have to consider the bitterness between Lennon and

McCartney to understand how Levon Helm might have felt at getting few songs on the Band album and no credit at all for any of the group’s songs to which he thought they had all made a contribution. Helm certainly didn’t hold back his feelings in his autobiography This Wheel’s On Fire and you have to hand it to him for keeping the feud going for 35 years. Even then we are not sure if the rift was healed when Robertson visited him on his deathbed.

Naturally, the bitterness and ill-feeling are not a major part of Robertson’s story and it is a pity that they detract from an otherwise substantial legend. They definitely should not detract from the power of the music and its influence, both detailed in this documentary.

The members of The Band, having honed their skills backing bluesman Ronnie Hawkins as The Hawks joined Dylan, who loved their playing, almost fully-fledged. They were behind Dylan for some of his most famous shows of the era. By the time they were ready to make their first album they were already veterans and in photos they looked like they had stepped out of another era.

Eric Clapton was so taken by their music that

he wanted to join! Other fans interviewed include Bruce Springsteen, Van Morrison, Peter Gabriel and Taj Mahal. Robertson’s wife Dominique also plays an important role in elaborating the story.

A mere eight years after their debut album The Band assembled at The Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco for their final performance, famously filmed by Martin Scorsese (who is an executive producer and is also interviewed and seems to have made a habit of being in his own documentaries. The Canadian director of this film, Daniel Roher, even uses footage from The Last Waltz, with the finale being “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down’ from the latter. As Scorsese is a close friend of Robertson’s I suppose it is inevitable that the film is skewed towards his friend’s point of view. It is a pity Hudson does not speak to balance the ledger and we are left with archival footage.

The later years of the group, when they reformed using the name without Robertson were not as glorious. In fact, they toured Australia at the end of the ‘80s. Manuel committed suicide in 1986 at 42 and Danko died in 1999 of heart-failure, aged 55.)

Despite its shortcomings this is still a must see for all fans of The Band and Dylan, as well as anyone interested in some of the most important music of the ‘60s and ’70s.

Next month, I will write about a completely contrasting group of musicians – ZZ Top. You can watch That Lil’ Ol’ Band From Texas on Netflix. Consider it homework.

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Acid for the Children: A Memoir

By Flea (Headline Publishing, p/b)

Music Streaming for Music Lovers Whilst we all love our vinyl, streaming music at home is booming and has been for quite a while. As CD and digital download sales are falling, streaming opens the window to a large variety of music as tracks or complete albums. You can enjoy total freedom with one monthly or annual fee with most streaming services also offering a free trial period to sample their service.

However, all this convenience typically comes at another cost. Music streaming is often an inferior sound-quality option to Vinyl and CD but there are some streaming options which - matched with the right equipment - can sound just as good (or sometimes even better).

The biggest players in the Australian music streaming market are: Tidal, Spotify, Deezer, Google Play, Amazon and Apple music.

Fees

Google Play, Spotify and Deezer all offer free streaming options - with advertising - in low MP3 quality.

In order to access a more enjoyable sound quality and remove the ads, expect to pay a monthly fee of around $11.99 for 256 kbps to 320 kbps streaming (less than CD quality). For CD quality streaming you’ll be charged around $ 23.99 per month or $ 287.88 annually for Tidal and Deezer respectively.

Amazon Music Unlimited

At $11.99 per month with a free 30-day trial, Amazon Music gives you unlimited access to 50 million songs at up to a respectable 320kbps bitrate. The newly launched Amazon Music HD plan improves performance to a minimum 850kbps and up to an impressive 3,730kpbs (which Amazon refers to as Ultra HD) on selected content.

Apple Music

Apple Music streams over 50 million tracks, can integrate your iTunes music collection, and features curated radio stations. Sound quality is respectable despite its modest 256kbps bitrate thanks to Apple’s efficient AAC encoding. Apple don’t offer a free version.

Google Play Music

At 320kbps, Google Play Music’s performance is good but bettered elsewhere. The interface is quite easy to navigate through, a free ad supported version is available and over 30 million tracks are available.

Spotify

For most people Spotify is the first name they think of when it comes to streaming thanks to its huge user base, free and premium versions and extensive library and collaborative playlists. However, whilst Spotify’s audio performance is adequate for your Bluetooth speaker or portable headphones, it falls short in comparison to some of the competition – especially the lossless services offered by the likes of Tidal and Deezer when played back on higher performance systems.

Tidal

Highly regarded for its excellent sound quality, Tidal’s High-Fidelity plan offers CD quality 16-bit, 44.1 kHz FLAC audio at a 1411 Kbps bitrate, plus MQA Masters Hi-Res on selected content (MQA compatible equipment is required) make it one of the best options for critical music enthusiasts.

This is a streaming service owned by recording artists, resulting in access to some exclusive content too.

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Deezer

Its high-fidelity option Deezer Elite, which offers 16-bit, 44.1 kHz FLAC audio at a 1411 Kbps bitrate, makes it attractive to critical music enthusiasts. Unlike Tidal it does offer a free version (at a slightly lacklustre 128kbps) but lacks Tidal’s MQA Hi-Res abilities.

Streaming Music to Your HiFi System

So, how do you take advantage of these streaming abilities when it comes to your HiFi system? Dedicated streaming components have many benefits for those chasing the ultimate sound quality, however, for those who value simplicity the NAD Masters M10 could be all you ever need. With the M10, NAD has combined state-of-the-art amplification with some of the best streaming software around. The result is a spacesaving all-in-one solution with very little compromise.

Just Add Speakers

The M10 utilises sophisticated HydridDigital nCore amplification to deliver a huge 100 watts per channel despite its compact size. This ensures that it has the ability to drive nearly any loudspeaker within reason. As for streaming duties, the M10 incorporates the latest generation BluOS network streaming and multi-room operating system.

BluOS supports all the major music streaming services such as Spotify, Tidal (including MQA Hi-Res), Deezer, Amazon and TuneIn radio. For Apple music users, AirPlay 2 integration is on board plus Bluetooth is also available. Control, for the most part, is via Bluesound’s excellent BluOS app, or its large touch screen display. Internet connection is via dual-band Wi-Fi or ethernet.

As for physical inputs, the M10 includes digital and analog line-level inputs to cater for devices such as TV, CD player or turntable (although no phono pre-amplifier is built-in). Whilst all these inputs are a given, less so is the inclusion of HDMI-ARC allowing easy integration of TV sound.

If your TV also features HDMI-ARC (most do) and with an HDMI cable between the two, your TV remote can then also control the volume of the M10 for very simple operation. With many stereo amplifiers now featuring onboard digital-to-analog conversion, it’s a feature we’re surprised to not see more of and a very welcome addition here.

Design

With its colour touch screen display, solid brushed aluminium casing and smooth glass top panel, the M10 looks very modern. Its slender, minimalist design gives it a modern look not usually associated with this level of performance.

Operation is excellent. The BluOS app is one of the best in the business and the touch screen works faultlessly. Nice touches are the ability to dim (or have time-out) the screen and lights and the large artwork and now playing information. Or, you can also choose to be accompanied by virtual VU meters!

The M10 has another trick up its sleeve though. Dirac Live Room Correction is also included. Considered the most advanced room correction software available, With Dirac Room Calibration™, you can easily correct your listening room and speakers with your smartphone or tablet.

The NAD Masters M10 has an RRP of $4,499 and is highly recommended option for high quality streaming.

Watching Flea perform onstage with the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, it’s hard not to like him.

Head bobbing and weaving, he’s in constant motion, slapping his bass, playing with jazzy inflections, equal parts funk and rock. While I’ve always been a bit ambivalent about their music, there’s no doubting the Chilli Peppers hit a sweet spot in the nineties, book-ended by 1991’s Blood Sugar Sex Magic and 1999’s mega-selling Californication.

Given Flea’s relatively brief stint growing up in Australia, it seems a bit of a stretch for us to claim him as one of our own. Born in Melbourne in 1962, he was christened Michael Peter Balzary; though, if his memoir is anything to go by, he has few memories of that time. Before he’d turned five, he was whisked away to New York, after his father was appointed to a four-year position at the Australian consulate there. If things had panned out, he’d have been back in Australia after that, and who knows what his story might have been. Instead, his mother ran off with her guitar teacher Walter, taking young Michael and his sister Karyn with her, leaving his dad to return to Australia on his own. After a further five years living in New York, his mother and Walter pulled up stumps in 1972 and re-located to California. Harking back to the Chilli’s lyrics – “Space may be the final frontier but it’s made in a Hollywood basement” – it somehow feels like destiny.

Am I alone in thinking there has been a recent tendency for memoirs to ignore the actual stuff readers are most likely to be interested in? Don Walker’s Shots shied away from his time with the Chisels (though, to his credit, he delivered a literary masterpiece in the process). Jimmy Barnes’ Working Class Boy stuck steadfast to his growing up in Glasgow and Adelaide. Flea’s Acid for the Children is part of that trend, taking us from his childhood through to around age twenty. True, he does rub shoulders with soul mate Anthony Keidis, but his book ends – and this, after nearly 400 pages – just as the Chilli Peppers are forming. Guitar whiz John Frusciante, who doesn’t come on board until 1989’s Mother’s Milk, doesn’t come close to getting a look-in. And forget hearing about what it’s like to record with Rick Rubin.

So, what do we get? We get an account of Flea’s semi-dysfunctional family, including step-dad Walter, who lives in his parent’s New York basement. Walter is a jazz bassist, though, in one of life’s twists, he refuses to teach young Flea the instrument. Walt instils in Flea a genuine love of the music, and one of the delights of this book is learning of Flea’s deep abiding passion for Dizzy Gillespie, Monk, Miles, Lee Morgan, Sam Rivers and others. His childhood is filled with a party atmosphere: musicians and bohemian characters come and go, weed and booze are plentiful, and there are few rules. But Walter equally has his dark side, prone to depression and tantrums. One Halloween, Flea learns that someone has gone crazy and is firing a gun in his street. He arrives home to discover his house demolished inside, and his step-dad sitting in his underwear, smeared in blood, a gun on the floor beside him.

In the absence of parental guidance, Flea cuts loose at an early age. He admits to becoming a regular shoplifter by age seven, he wanders the streets till 3am, and is a confirmed pothead by age twelve. But it’s not all bravado and machismo, he’s equally intent on divulging his shortcomings. He’s a bed wetter till age ten; he can be a bully, but is terrified when a younger kid fights back. He’s small for his age, and lacks all confidence when it comes to girls. For much of the time, frankly, he’s a bit of a dick. It’s to his credit that his book doubles as a public apology to some of the people he’s wronged along the way.

Flea’s first instrument was trumpet, emulating his jazz heroes. He meets future Chilli singer Anthony Keidis in 1976, but they are too busy getting up to no good to even think of starting a band. It was friend and future Chilli guitarist Hillel Slovak who first suggested to Flea he might take up bass to join his band Anthym. Sadly, Hillel’s fate, dead from a heroin overdose in 1988, remains one of Flea’s greatest regrets. His open letter to his former friend is one of the book’s touching moments.

The final third of Flea’s book sees him navigating his passion for jazz, funk, rock, and the nascent punk scene. In the end, all of these influences would coalesce in the Chilli’s future music. Thankfully, he also finally gets laid.

Flea’s book is a bit of a hit and miss affair. His style is impressionistic, in the vein of his literary hero Charles Bukowski, but too often lacks detail. He scatterguns anecdotes, many of which feel exaggerated for effect. It is full of asides, with little sense of over-arching narrative. But equally, he manages to instil in the reader a passion for music and life. That, and the vagaries that might lead to a troublesome child metamorphosing into a dead-set musical legend. After all, not everyone gets to introduce their book with a Patti Smith poem written especially for them. More to the point, despite his warts and all confessions, Flea still comes across as likeable. Can we expect a second volume covering the Chilli Peppers’ years? Place your bets now.

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By Stuart Coupe

Self-Isolation – what is it good for? Absolutely HEAPS. OK, aside from keeping us all safe and healthy this is an unprecedented time for all the important things in life – filling your vinyl and CD collections (hell, even listening to lots of things you haven’t played in years), watching the huge list of streaming TV you’ve promised yourself you’d eventually get to – or even working your way through that old-fashioned technology and checking all those previously never watched DVDs. And then there’s reading. That thing involving turning pieces of paper with words on them.

Now, as you well know, I read a lot – but the past few weeks have meant that even I have found time to delve deeper into the piles (let’s be honest and call them mountains) of books around my home. I’ve looked at every single one of them at various times, but many have then been put on a ‘must really read properly soon’ pile which is then obscured by another pile with a similar title.

To that end here’s some notes on some recent explorations.

Years ago – maybe 1981 – in the 3RRR magazine I received what I still consider the greatest compliment ever paid to my writing. In an article in the aforementioned mag RRR presenter Helen Thomas compared me with Ralph J Gleason. Totally undeserved I might add as he’s always been one of my biggest influences, but, well, I’ve always kept that issue of the magazine.

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As co-founder of Rolling Stone with Jann S Wenner and one of the finest ever writers about music Gleason’s work has never been particularly easy to find – except on sleeve notes for jazz and Lenny Bruce albums. Until not so long ago there was a hard-to-find paperback on the Jefferson Airplane and the San Francisco sound, and a collection published in 1975 entitled Celebrating The Duke & Louis, Bessie, Billie, Bird, Carmen, Miles, Dizzy, & Other Heroes – which as you’ve no doubt figured out was devoted to Gleason’s writings on jazz.

Now there are two more volumes available to give a more comprehensive look at the work of the writer – a contender for the titled of The Ultimate Hipster – who died young from a heart attack at just 58.

Dylan or his ultimate greatest love – Duke Ellington.

Gleason was a trailblazer in terms of cultural commentary.

He realised that great art wasn’t created in a vacuum and his writings were shot through with insights into the life, times and culture that spawned these creations. He observed the minutiae but saw the big picture. And boy could he write.

In America by Jason Weiss is that crazily wonderful detailed rock’n’roll nerd book that takes the legendary cult New York record label and dissects its entire history – first through the recollections of founder Bernard Stollman, and then a huge array of the artists who recorded for the label that championed and chronicled the free jazz movement in NYC but also took under its wing the likes of The Fugs and Pearls Before Swine.

Obviously, there’s nothing directly from the label’s most influential artists, Albert Ayler and Sun Ra, but the oral recollections come from the likes of Sonny Murray, Roswell Rudd, Tom Rapp, Peter Stamfel, Marion Brown, Ishmael Reed, Sonny Simmons and others. It’s a fascinating examination of a unique record label.

Conversations In Jazz: The Ralph J Gleason Interviews is also edited by Toby Gleason and contains insightful conversations with the likes of John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie et al.

And briefly, two other books that have found their way from the shelves to the bedside reading table during these surreal times.

Music In The Air: The Selected Writings Of Ralph J Gleason has been edited by Gleason’s son Toby and comes with a Foreword from Jann Wenner.

Across its nearly 300 pages it shows the breadth of Gleason’s writing – with sections on Jazz and Blues, Folk, Pop and Rock, Comedy, and Politics And Culture.

Within its pages is so much to savour but if you’ve never read it then the book is worth the price of admission just for his piece Hank Williams, Roy Acuff and Then God!! But Gleason is great on everything he turned to – be it the Monterey Pop Festival, Lenny Bruce, Bob

Always In Trouble: An Oral History Of ESP-DISK, The Most Outrageous Record Label

Moondog: The Viking Of 6th Avenue is an authorised biography of that most unusual of musicians by Robert Scotto and comes with a preface by Philip Glass.

This is a totally fascinating book that reveals so much about someone who was truly one of America’s great originals, the blind and largely homeless musician who performed on the streets of New York City and became for a time a major label recording artist and an internationally respected composer.

That’s it for this month. Stay safe – and keep reading.

The Last Word TIME TO SPARE Andy Shauf is in no hurry, and his music is what benefits, writes Samuel J. Fell.

W

hen it comes to creating music, writing songs, moulding it all into a full album, time is of little consequence to Andy Shauf.

The Toronto-based singer and songwriter moves at the speed he’s most happy, which judging by his discography and (relative to many other artists) how far apart his releases are spaced, is a slower speed, a more relaxed and considered speed.

His latest release, The Neon Skyline, comes four years after 2016’s The Party, which in turn came the same amount of time after The Bearer Of Bad News, his third record since his 2006 debut, Love & The Memories Of It. For Shauf, it’s about the songs, the concept of the album, and however long that takes, is however long that takes.

“I’m of the mindset that if you’re going to make something, it’s probably more beneficial to spend a lot of time with it,” he muses. “For me to be happy with it, I need to work on it a lot. This [new] album had many different versions and many different points where I thought, I’m so close to being done and so stepped back for a bit [but realised] it wasn’t going to work.

I work slow, I don’t rush myself.”

“I have to remind myself,” he adds, “that when it’s getting super dark and I’m like, ‘Let’s scrap this whole thing’, I just have to remember that I guess the reason why people like [my] music is because they trust [my] taste, and I’m kinda the only person who can decide [that].”

The Neon Skyline, no matter how long it’s been since its preceding release, continues a theme for Shauf in that

the songwriting method which adorns the record is the same. Shauf’s style is incredibly narrative, almost conversational in how he phrases things, truly telling it like it is.

The Neon Skyline is, in essence, a concept album – it’s protagonist hangs out at a bar, the bar is full of various people whose stories intertwine, and there’s an ex-partner who’s back in town, who eventually ends up in the titular dive bar; Shauf writes it all like you’re sitting there along the bar from him, watching it all unfurl.

“I think I read an interview somewhere, and someone quoted Randy Newman saying that songs should be, or could be… songwriters should be able to approach a song as if it’s a short story,” Shauf recalls on how he came to develop this style of songwriting.

“That, [to me], was an interesting perspective, because I was writing a lot of songs about complaining about failed love

lives and feeling boxed in, what’s this song supposed to be about? So reading that, I thought OK, a song is a way to tell a story – make it fictional, make it based on myself, whatever. So yeah, that was a turning point.

“And once I started writing songs like that, the next natural move in my mind was to try and connect them together and make more cohesive albums.”

The result of Shauf’s writing style (set as it is to a folk backdrop, elements of country included, wrought with both melancholy and a quiet joy), along with the cohesion that runs through the collection of eleven songs, makes it all seem so very personal.

Shauf, aside from writing the whole record, also played all the instruments and produced it himself – add to this how personal the lyricism is, and you’ve got an album you almost feel like you shouldn’t be listening to, so much is it Andy Shauf’s.

“Yeah,” he smiles. “Well, that’s the way I work I guess. If this album didn’t come out, it’d still be a milestone, a mile-marker, a place-holder for me, I can look back at it, and that was 2017-2019, whenever I was working on it. But I get more opportunity to explore ideas when I’m working by myself, there’s no clock, there’s not someone else sitting there bored while I explore something.”

Shauf isn’t, of course, able to tour this record, a situation he could be forgiven for thinking makes for horrible timing.

However, I venture that given the amount of joy people need right now, the ingestion of new music could be more important than he realises.

“Yeah, I feel there’s a possibility that people are spending a lot more time with music at the moment,” he says. “You hope that people aren’t just putting your record aside. People need to be spending time with music.”

The Neon Skyline is

BY C O L I N M E D L E Y available now via ANTI. 75

Bill Withers

Don Burrows

Ellis Marsalis

Julie Felix

John Prine

Wallace Roney

COMPILED BY SUE BARRETT

HELLO

Virtual hugs to everyone adversely affected by COVID-19. The impact on the music industry was immediate and immense – but the Government’s JobKeeper Payment might provide some relief (fact sheets issued on 30 March included: supporting businesses; employers; employees).

Victorian singer/songwriter Rosie Burgess has reported in on how the Tuck Shop Ladies (Rosie Burgess & Sam Lohs – www.tuckshopladies. com) are coping with the COVID-19 crisis: We’re actually writing a bunch of stupid songs, just to amuse ourselves. The other day we wrote a song about how irritating it is when the only thing left to do on your to-do list is your tax.

Not even a COVID-19 lock down is going to inspire me to do my tax…We’re spending lots of fun time playing with our kid and our dog and cats – it’s pretty amazing to have this enforced down time together as a family, as we spend such a lot of time on the move with gigs and stuff that life can seem like a bit of a juggle. Our suburb has started up a “kindness” Facebook page where people post if they need something and we can all help each other out.

There seems to be a real sense of community springing out of the enforced distancing which is ironic but beautiful.

Ireland’s The Journal of Music has begun compiling a Digital Concert Planner – you can sign up to the newsletter and/or visit the website (www. journalofmusic.com). And our very own Rhythms magazine has a variety of subscription options – including gift subscriptions (as my cousins Paul and Jenni have just discovered!).

Also reporting in on the COVID-19 crisis is veteran Australian musician and Australian Songwriters Association (ASA) Chairman Denny Burgess (who apparently isn’t related to Rosie Burgess!). He says: As ASA Chairman, the best advice I can give is to keep writing and playing. These harrowing days will not last forever and when better times come, there will be a surge of people getting out and about again to live shows, concerts and events.

After the rain comes the rainbow, so please let your experiences in these dark days inspire you to greater glory in your song writing and musicianship endeavours. The ASA is still planning to hold its 2020 National Songwriting Competition. Obviously, we have to negotiate with sponsors, suppliers etc., but we are resolute in our desire to make it happen, not only for our members, but for all Australians. Although songwriters and musicians can’t ply their trade in these tough times, it certainly gladdens my heart to see so many of us taking to all forms of social media to entertain and to bring joy to others. It really does make me feel we are all in this. Music is beneficial to our health, so take care, stay strong and through music let us march forward together.

Canada’s Onstage Live (www.onstagelive.tv) has launched The Isolation Sessions (Unplugged & Connected). And Signature Sounds has launched The Parlor Room Home Sessions – www.signaturesounds.com/ homesessions.

Every January, Rhythms publishes its writers poll, with lists of the best albums from the previous year. Musicians might be currently finding it a bit hard to post out physical product, but many offer music and music services via their website, Facebook page and/or online store, including bandcamp. Looking at Australian musicians who’ve appeared in my best album lists of the past decade, I found Jenny Biddle using Skype to deliver music lessons; Tiffany Eckhardt, Jack Carty and Jodi Martin selling digital downloads from their website; and Kristy Apps selling digital downloads via iTunes and pre-selling her next album from her Facebook page. Among the musicians with a bandcamp store (www.bandcamp.com) 76

are: Rosie Burgess; Alison Avron; Catherine Britt; Deline Briscoe; Greta Stanley; Holly Throsby; Hussy Hicks; Jasmine Rae; Kate Burke & Ruth Hazleton; Kelly Brouhaha; Kerryn Fields; Little Wise; Mandy Connell; Maxine Kauter Band. (NOTE: To see all items on a bandcamp page, you sometimes need to toggle between the music & merch tabs)

…AND GOODBYE

(As we went to press, COVID-19 had already been a factor in the death of several musicians, with other musicians reportedly unwell.)

Joseph Shabalala (78), of Ladysmith Black Mambazo, died South Africa (Feb) Canadian-born pedal steel guitarist Buddy Cage (73) of New Riders of the Purple Sage and American blues musician Henry Gray (95), died in February Paul English (87), drummer for Willie Nelson, died Texas, USA (Feb) Trumpeter Victor Olaiya (89), died Nigeria (Feb) Grammy-winning American jazz musician Lyle Mays (66), died California, USA (Feb) Kofi B (73), Ghanaian musician, died Ghana (Feb) English musician / producer Andy Gill (64), of Gang of Four, died London, England (Feb) Don Burrows (91), Australian jazz musican, died NSW, Australia (March) Canadian singer/songwriter Laura Smith (67), died Canada (March) Keith Olsen (74), American record producer / sound engineer, died Nevada, USA (March) American singer/songwriter Eric Taylor (70), died in March Eric Weissberg (80), multi-instrumentalist and banjo player, died Michigan, USA (March) American performer Kenny Rogers (81), died Georgia, USA (March) Jan Howard (91), American country singer/songwriter, died Tennessee, USA (March) American songwriter and musician Alan Merrill (69), died New York, USA (March) Wallace Roney (59), Grammy-winning American jazz musician, died Paterson, New Jersey, USA (March) Cameroon jazz musician Manu Dibango (86), died France (March) Pete Lusty (49), Australian music label founder and band manager, died in March American-born folk singer Julie Felix (81), died England (March) Bob Andy (75) and Delroy Washington (67), Jamaican-born musicians, died in March Scottish songwriter, record producer and music publisher Bill Martin (81), died in March Bill Withers (81), singer songwriter, died March 30 Ellis Marsalis (85), patriarch of the Marsalis jazz clan, died April 1 Adam Schlesinger (52), singer and songwriter for The Fountains of Wayne, died April 1.

Hal Willner (64), music producer, died April 7 of symptoms of Covid-19.

John Prine (73), singer-songwriter, died April 7 of complications caused by Covid-19.

ORDER: 106727 pgs 4-1

CHEDDAR ROAD ALL-STARS Debut album ‘Nowhere Else to Feel Rotten: The Verses of Barry Dickins’

OUT NOW from reservoirstomp.com

A collaboration between Reservoir-based songwriters and prolific Australian playwright and long-time Reservoir resident, Barry Dickins. Together they vividly capture in song the beauty, terror and humour of life in Reservoir, an often scorned outer suburb of Melbourne, during the 1950’s and 1960’s.

“Raucous rock, alt-folk and spoken word gems make for compelling listening...a lovingly local and most worthy tribute” Rhythms Magazine

PRE-ORDER NOW!

Album released 5 June 2020

JOEL SUTTON RHYTHM & BLUES REVUE VOL 1

11 classic tracks featuring 24 special guests including Vika Bull, Jeff Lang, Shane Pacey, Steve Hoy and many more!

PRE-ORDER DIGITAL DOWNLOAD From Apple Music or iTunes PRE-ORDER HARD COPY CD www.lonesomebellemusic.com Available from all good record stores and for digital download from 5 June 2020.

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NEW IN MAY 2020 * available on vinyl LP

• BEBEL GILBERTO 'Agora' • BOB CORRITORE, JOHN PRIMER 'The Gypsy Woman Told Me' • CAR SEAT HEADREST 'Making a Door Less Open' * • YO YO MA, STUART DUNCAN, EDGAR MEYER & CHRIS THILE 'Not Our First Goat Rodeo' * • CORB LUND 'Agricultural Tragic' • DARREL SCOTT 'Sings the Blues of Hank Williams' • DIANA JONES 'Song to a Refugee' • DIXIE CHICKS 'Gaslighter' • JOAN AS POLICE WOMAN 'Cover Two' * • LARKIN POE 'Self Made Man' • PRETENDERS 'Hate For Sale' * • SUZANNE VEGA 'An Evening of New York Songs & Stories' • WILLIAM ELLIOTT WHITMORE 'I'm With You' • BLAKE MILLS 'Mutable Set' * • JOHN STEWART 'Old Forgotten Altars: The 1960's Demos' * • MARGO PRICE 'That's How Rumors Get Started' • MARK LANEGAN 'Straight Songs of Sorrow' * • NORAH JONES 'Pick Me UP Off The Floor' * • RICHARD THOMPSON 'Live at Rock City Nottingham, Nov.86' • CHATHAM COUNTY LINE 'Strange Fascination' * • CHUCK PROPHET 'Land That Time Forgot' * • JASON ISBELL & THE 400 UNIT 'Reunions' * • MARISA ANDERSON & JIM WHITE 'The Quickening' • RUTHIE FOSTER 'Live at the Paramount' • SIMON PHILLIPS 'Studio Live Session' • WILLIE NILE 'New York At Night' • BILL WITHERS 'Complete Sussex & Columbia Album Masters (9CD) • INDIGO GIRLS 'Look Long' * • STEVE EARLE & THE DUKES 'Ghosts of West Virginia' * • VICTOR WAINWRIGHT & THE TRAIN 'Memphis Loud' • ALLAN HOLDSWORTH 'Frankfurt '86' • BRUFORD 'Live at the Venue/4th Album Rehearsal Sess' • ELIZABETH COOK 'Aftermath' • GARY OLSON 'self titled' • KING GIZZARD & THE LIZARD WIZARD 'Chunky Shrapnel' • PRINCE 'One Nite Alone..' One Nite Alone.. Live! * • PRINCE w. NEW POWER GENERATION 'One Nite Alone..The Aftershow..' • JIMMY BUFFETT 'Life On The Flip Side'

NEW RELEASES JUNE

• JOE LOUIS WALKER 'Blues Comin' On' • SARAH JAROSZ 'World On The Ground' • BONEY JAMES 'Solid' • PAUL WELLER 'On Sunset' • STEVEN WILSON 'The Future Bites' *

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BASEMENT DISCS HIGHLY RECOMMEND LARKIN POE ‘Self Made Man’

New album ‘Self Made Man’ blends the honeyed sibling harmonies with thunderous riffs and Megan’s snaking lap steel counterpoints. It’s no surprise to hear that the sisters view the record as a culmination of sorts, following the feverish work ethic that has helped them put out five full-length album in six years whilst simultaneously touring the World. According to Rebecca...‘I think what comes out in the album, is more vulnerability, with more space, and a lot more harmony that harks back to our childhood growing up with the blues.’

JASON ISBELL & THE 400 UNIT ‘Reunions’

Americana singer-songwriter JASON ISBELL AND THE 400 UNIT release their sixth album, ‘Reunions’. To Isbell, writing empty songs or making vacuous art is the worst one can do at this point in American history. ‘If your words add up to nothing then you’re making a choice, to sing a cover when we need a battle cry,’ he sings before returning to the final chorus of ‘Be afraid, be very afraid/do it anyway, do it anyway.’

STEVE EARLE & THE DUKES ‘Ghosts of West Virginia’

STEVE EARLE & THE DUKES are set to release a powerful new record called ‘Ghosts of West Virginia’ that centers around the 2010 Upper Big Branch coal mine explosion. That tragedy killed 29 miners and is now known as one of the worst mining disasters in American history. Earle’s songs give context to the tragedy, which stemmed from various safety violations that were later found to have been covered up by the mine’s owners.

BILL WITHERS (R.I.P.) ‘Complete Sussex & Columbia Album Masters’ 9CD

This 9-CD box including the hit-singles ‘Ain’t No Sunshine’, ‘Lean On Me’ and ‘Lovely Day’ features all nine albums which the poet laureate of Slab Fork, West Virginia, released in his bold, beautiful, brilliant but short-lived recording career. Right from the opening acoustic strum of ‘Harlem’ on his fabulous debut album ‘Just As I Am’ and onto the gutsy pump of ‘Lonely Town, Lonely Street’ which opens the equally brill follow up LP ‘Still Bill’ the sound quality is truly glorious throughout. The live double ‘Carnegie Hall’ like Donny Hathaway ‘Live’ from 1972 has garnished a legendary reputation amongst soul aficionados. All the albums are re-mastered from the original analog tapes.

DIANA JONES 'Song to a Refugee'

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Acclaimed for earlier albums inspired by the almost mystical connection to her birth family and the music of rural Tennessee, DIANA JONES is known for giving voice to dispossessed people from the past. ‘Song To A Refugee’ finds Diana looking into the wider world to shine a light on current issues close to her heart.

Guests include RICHARD THOMPSON, STEVE EARLE & PEGGY SEEGER.

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