Rhythms Magazine September/October 2020

FREE RHYTHMS DOWNLOAD SAMPLER

“ We were at home embroiled in tornado recovery but with time on our hands ....because of being locked down. So we just concentrated on playing.

“

Every night we would just play folk songs.

d n a h c l e W n a i l l i G s g n i l w a R d i v a D $12.95 inc GST SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2020 ISSUE: 301

Avett Brothers Van Walker Icecream Hands Jack Howard Kimberley Wheeler Joshua Batten Gareth Leach Catherine Britt Joel Sutton Kathleen Edwards LEGENDS Dion Dan Penn HISTORY: Mark Gillespie Paul Kelly Triple R-FM: The EarlyYears Stooges

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Volume No. 301 September/October 2020

UPFRONT 09 10

The Word.

The End of The World As We Know It.

By Brian Wise.

Rhythms Sampler #8.

Our Download Card!

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JOHN MCLAUGHLIN’S LOCKDOWN BLUES

Iain Patience finds out that lockdown hasn’t stopped the master guitarist.

WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE

Dion was a ‘50s and 60’s hitmaker who discovered the blues and has some handy friends to help him on his latest album.

By Brian Wise.

Only available to subscribers!

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Music News

Bluesfest: The Director speaks out.

Vale Peter Green.

13

By Nick Charles.

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43

STOOGING AROUND

44

FROM ST KILDA TO TOWNSVILLE

46

THE LONG STRANGE TRRRIP!

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ONLY HUMAN: MARK GILLESPIE

Nashville Skyline

Shake Your Hips!

By Anne McCue.

COVER STORY

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HISTORY

GILLIAN WELCH & DAVID RAWLINGS

Rejoice. Americana’s first couple have released an album of covers and the first volume of three archival recordings, all due by the end of the year! By Brian Wise.

NEW RELEASES

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CITIZEN BOB

17

LOVE IS THE WEAPON

18

LOVE LETTER TO THE BLUES

19

KIMBERLEY WHEELER

20

BLOWING HIS OWN TRUMPET

22

GHOST STORIES

24

QUITTERS SOMETIMES WIN

26

BATTEN DOWN THE HATCHES

27

TRIGGER HAPPY

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A GLEAM IN THEIR EYES

Bob Geldof reforms The Boomtown Rats, with a new album, documentary and book. By Jonathan Alley.

After a 13-year break, Icecream Hands return, armed with an arsenal of pop hits. By Jeff Jenkins.

Joel Sutton enlists some friends to help on his rhythm and blues revue. By Sam Fell.

Kimberley Wheeler has put a roadside holiday on hold but released a new album. By Denise Hylands.

Jack Howard is one of Australian music’s great quiet achievers and has now documented his remarkable life in music.

By Jeff Jenkins.

Van Walker’s new album completes a painstaking personal rebuilding process. By Chris Lambie.

Canadian Kathleen Edwards took a hiatus from music to start a café, Quitters. Now she’s back with a new album.

By Denise Hylands.

Josh Batten is a young roots rocker on the rise. By Jeff Jenkins.

Country rocker Gareth Leach aims his music at both the head and the feet. By Martin Jones.

The Avett Brothers celebrate their latest album The Third Gleam.

By Jo Roberts.

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LEAP OF FAITH

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PENNING THE CLASSICS

Catherine Britt starts her own record label and re-starts her bush pubs tour. By Chris Familton.

Dan Penn, surely one of the greatest songwriters of all time, talks about his new album. By Stuart Coupe.

Ben Blackwell from Third Man Records talks about the final show from the band’s original line-up.

By Christopher Hollow.

An extract from Paul Kelly: The Man, The Music and The Life In Between By Stuart Coupe.

The early days of Melbourne’s revered Triple R-FM involved a host of well-known names. By Geoff King.

Ian McFarlane celebrates the 40th anniversary of one of the greatest debut albums of all time.

COLUMNS 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61

Technology.

By John Cornell.

Musician: Anna Scionti. By Nick Charles 33 1/3 Revelations: All The Good Times. By Martin Jones.

Lost In The Shuffle:

Paris. By Keith Glass.

You Won’t Hear This On Radio: By Trevor J. Leeden Underwater Is Where The Action Is.

By Christopher Hollow

Waitin’ Around To Die: Creativity During The Pandemic.

By Chris Familton.

Classic Album: Steve Miller Band. By Billy Pinnell.

Twang! Americana. By Denise Hylands.

REVIEWS 63

FEATURE REVIEWS: Corb Lund, Shirley Collins, Lucie Tiger, Luka Bloom, Emily Barker, Rufus Wainwright and Fantastic Negrito.

73 World Music & Folk: By Tony Hillier 74 Blues: By Al Hensley 75 Jazz: By Tony Hillier 76 Jazz 2: By Des Cowley 77 Vinyl: By Steve Bell.

78 Film: Echo In The Valley. By Brian Wise.

80 Books. By Des Cowley.

82 Books Too! By Stuart Coupe 83 Hello & Goodbye By Sue Barrett.

84 The Last Word: Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever. By Sam Fell.5

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

CONTRIBUTORS Sue Barrett

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

Michael Goldberg (San Francisco) Billy Pinnell Al Hensley

Jo Roberts

Tony Hillier

Michael Smith

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

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sincerely hope all of you are staying safe out there and doing well. Thank you to all our subscribers and advertisers for sustaining us during this uncertain time.

Thanks for emails of encouragement that you have sent. Thank you also to Creative Victoria and the City of Melbourne for their support.

I am writing from my ‘Cellar of Sound’ in the middle of a Melbourne lockdown that is not due to end until mid-September and which may go on longer if we are unlucky.

If you are somewhere where you can actually go out and you are not under a curfew then please enjoy it for us.

We are longing for a time when we can just go beyond our state border. Reminds me of when I returned home after living in England for some years. I needed to re-experience the space our country had to offer so I flew into Perth and hitchhiked across the Nullarbor, stopping in Kalgoorlie where I had once worked. I knocked back many rides just to sit for a few hours and enjoy the isolation. But that isolation was voluntary!

Maybe this time has offered an opportunity to take stock and reflect on what we are doing. It has certainly had implications for the magazine. At least one benefit has been to enable us to focus time rather than trying to complete things on the road. Apart from that one year at home in 2013 after a motorcycle accident every other year has seen me travelling at this time: to the Americana Festival in Nashville and other events. My work would give me leave for an extra few weeks (yes, I did have a real job!). So, is it surprising that I have a huge case of itchy feet? There is no known mental foot powder for my condition. (If not being able to travel is my greatest problem then I have little to complain about). What is even worse is not being able to see live music here and I feel for musicians who must be going through tough times indeed.

In March, as our first lockdown was called, I installed a new turntable, amplifier/tuner and speakers and resurrected my vinyl collection.

Usually, during my travels, I have brought back a little vinyl, especially from Amoeba in

San Francisco or Waterloo in Austin during Record Store Days. A few years back I was in Nashville and lined up at Jack White’s Third Man Records in Nashville to get Neil Young’s lo-fi album on vinyl for myself and a friend.

Never thought I would see 300 people lining up to buy vinyl! Never thought I would be paying $35 - $50 for a new vinyl album either.

Gillian Welch and David Rawlings – our cover story this month.

Now, I have discovered what can only be described as a treasure trove of music. Also, I have been surprised at how many records I still have from my teenage and university years and even more surprised at how a lot of it is still in good condition. I thought that the old HMV stereo might have gouged out a little too much of the grooves. Then there is a batch of Miles Davis double albums pressed in Japan that I bought sometime in the ‘70s on sale for $8 each at John Clements basement store in Bourke Street. They sound fabulous and I have to agree with many friends when they assert that vinyl sounds better. (But maybe that is because we recall hearing the albums first that way). For some reason I have kept a copy of Pink Floyd’s Atom Heart Mother which fell off the back of my motorcycle and was run over by a truck. One side has gravel indentations, the other side is fine. (I do have another copy).

Marty Jones has been running Valiant Music

in Brunswick Heads for a few years and, when I dropped in to see him last year, I was impressed with the vinyl he was stocking that I still needed to own.

It has been an exciting time in the family with the arrival of Grady Brian to our daughter Alicia and her partner Mark. I am hoping he becomes a hipster and will perhaps want my vinyl collection. No one else seems to be that interested in many of the gems such as my beloved original copy of Brinsley Schwarz’s Despite It All (50 years old this November).

Of course, I have also been reading. Stuart Coupe’s new biography of Paul Kelly from which we have an excerpt in this issue - is excellent and thoroughly recommended. (We also have features coming up on books by Jeff Lang, Ben Sidran, producer Mark Howard and Chris Frantz from Talking Heads).

It is another packed edition. Our cover story is on Gillian Welch and David Rawlings and what a delight it was to be able to talk to them. If there is one undoubted benefit of the current situation it is that we are getting to hear 4 albums from them this year! I was also delighted to talk to Dion, who surely has a right to be called a legend. Jo Roberts has written a feature on the Avett Brothers and their new album while Stuart Coupe spoke to song writing legend Dan Penn and Iain Patience caught up with jazz legend John McLaughlin. Jonathan Alley spoke to Bob Geldof while Christopher Hollow spoke to Ben Blackwell from Third Man about a Stooges live album. Jeff Jenkins covers some local stalwarts in the Icecream Hands and Jack Howard. We also have features on newer artists such as Van Walker, Joshua Batten, Gareth Leach and Kimberley Wheeler. Former editor Catherine Britt also makes a return appearance as a musician.

Ian McFarlane examines Only Human by Mark Gillespie, one of the greatest Australian albums of all time. In this issue we present yet another Rhythms sampler for your enjoyment. We thank all the artists and the record labels for allowing us to bring this to you.

I hope you enjoy it all.

Until next month, Brian Wise Editor 9

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elcome to our 8th Rhythms Sampler this time with 24 superb new tracks of musical goodness in the handy download card format. This is available to all print plus print & digital subscribers ONLY. You can add the songs to your library, or you can also create your own CDs with the tracks.

We are very excited to have several rare tracks from Mark Gillespie, one of our feature artists, and we thank him for allowing us to use them. In addition, we have some more superb cover versions recorded in isolation by Shane O’Mara and friends at Yikesville. Thanks also to Anne McCue for organising some tracks from Nashville.

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.

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

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

4. I’M A COUNTRY SONG

Catherine Britt Inspired by a Nashville friend, this is the first song taken from a new album that will be released in January 2021 (to coincide with the Tamworth Festival). Catherine’s Bush Bash Tour runs through until late November.

5. FIREBALL

Corey Legge From the forthcoming album Some Days, launching with exclusive shows in NSW. Check out coreylegge.com for details.

6. ALL I NEED

Anne McCue Nashvile-based Australian songwriter and guitarists offers this song from her album From The Blue Curtain. You can hear her present her radio show at wxnafm.org.

7. 3 MINUTE MOVIE

Angus Gill Golden Guitar nominated singer/ songwriter and producer teams up with the members of Paul Kelly’s band for a new project, entitled Angus Gill & Seasons of Change. 3 Minute Movie, is a Farfisa driven nostalgic labyrinth, co-written with hit songwriter Alissa Moreno. The song describes personal snapshots of déjà vu.

8. MAMMA

SIDE A

1. NATURE OF THE BEAST

Mark Gillespie Recorded and mixed in 1983 with the Ring of Truth album. Engineered and mixed by John French. Produced

by Mark Gillespie wo also played all instruments (except drums by Geoff Bridgford). A song for the times. “For better or worse, it’s either famine or a feast.”

2. I WANT TO BREAK FREE (J.Deacon)

Rebecca Barnard & Monique DiMattina A simply brilliant cover of the Queen classic performed in a way that transcends the original version and takes it to a whole new place.

3. THE BEST IS YET TO COME Glenn Cardier Cardier, whose 11th album Wild At Heart also includes a 24 page lyric booklet, has been called ‘...a true Australian music legend’ by none other than Peter Noble, Director of Bluesfest.

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Little Wise (Live from Truettes podcast featuring Tuck Shop Ladies).

From I want to really see you, and you see me – a live EP, featuring reworking of songs from the 2019 ‘Want it All’ album, plus a cover of Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Dancing in the Dark’.

9. SWEET CAROLINE

Dave Wright & The Midnight Ramblers From the creators of the superb album Turn Out The Lights comes a new song: an uptempo singalong about regret and heartbreak disguised as a three minute knees up.

10. STORY FOR THE KIDS

Arna George Yes Girl is the second release for Sydney based country music singer Arna Georgia and is her first full length album.

The album was recorded at Troubadour House Studios in Nashville, Tennessee with Australian producer Nash Chambers (Kasey Chambers, Jamie McDell, Adam Harvey) and an absolute all-star band including Jedd Hughes on mandolin, acoustic, resonator and electric guitars, Tony Lucido on bass, Jerry Roe

on drums and Catherine Britt, Camille French and Sam Hawksley on backing vocals.

11. DEVIL’S CURSE

Helen Townshend From her upcoming EP release Love Lies ‘n’ Leaving. Introducing Shannon Smith and showcasing the duo’s vocal harmony blend that can only be likened to that which exists in kin.

12. ST KILDA BAY

Martin Cilia & Joe Matera From the self-titled album. Two of Australia’s popular guitarists with a shared love of 1960s instrumental bands, come together on this uplifting guitar instrumental that’s infused with a high dose of melody and a surf inspired, feel good groove.

SIDE B

13. HURDY GURDY

Mark Gillespie From the cassette version of Ring of Truth (1983). Credits as for Track 1.

Except: harmony vocals by Lisa Bade.

A rarity that makes you realise how good the album was if Mark could leave this off!

14. ACROSS THE UNIVERSE (Lennon-McCartney) Adrian Whitehead/Billy Miller/ Shane O’Mara One of the standout songs on Let It Be, The Beatles’ final album. Did we already use the word brilliant to describe one of Shane O’Mara’s productions? Let’s use it again: brilliant.

15. GIVE ME LOVE (G.Harrison)

Sunday Someday Anne McCue also features in this great interpretation of George’s classic song from Living In The Material World (1973).

16. WHEELS WON’T ROLL

The Weeping Willows Laura Coates and Andy Wrigglesworth return to the timeless country-folk roots of their beloved Americana canon. A reflection on the inertia and malaise that plagues us all. Recorded, engineered and mixed by Ryan Freeland (Justin Townes Earle, Tift Merritt, Bonnie Raitt) at Los Angeles’ hallowed Stampede Origin Studio.

17. HONEY

Gareth Leach Lifted from the forthcoming new album, Trigger (out September 4).

A strong and rebellious alt country

rock track with all the right grooves, it raises its middle-finger at those preconceptions that you must conform.

18. GREENWOOD

Lucie Tiger From EP, Gasoline, recorded at the fabled Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals.

Tiger told Meg Crawford for this issue that, “It was a hoot, but a tad intimidating to record.”

19. SILVER DOLLARS

Joshua Batten From The City Within. “I’d say [my sound] is James Taylor meets Eric Clapton, or Jackson Browne meets Eric Clapton,” he told Jeff Jenkins for this issue of Rhythms.

20. LAST CIGARETTE

Melody Moko “Last Cigarette” compares the grip of nicotine to a troubled relationship, co-written with Catherine Britt.

From Melody’s sophomore album, recorded in Nashville with acclaimed producer Neilson Hubbard (Mary Gauthier, Kim Richey, Matthew Ryan and Caroline Spence) and co-producer Michael Moko.

21. YOU REMIND ME OF MYSELF

Lachlan Bryan & The Wildes With its infectious electric guitar figure and vintage drum machine groove, the track borrows as much from pop and electronica, as it does from Americana. It’s a track for fans of Wilco, Elvis Costello and the alternative but accessible edges of Country and Americana.

22. BAD TRIP

Bonshaw Three years on from their self-titled debut album, Bonshaw return with their second offering, No Fills. The album draws its basic tracks from a blistering 10 hour session at the world famous Abbey Road Studios, with Harmonica added at Everland Studios in Sydney by harp guru, Continental Robert Susz.

23. I’M NOT YOUR MAN

Chris Moyse Chris was a Kerrville Folk Festival winner in 2017 after moving to Nashville. His latest album is Bitter Ballads and Cynical Prayers.

24. CURE FOR THE PAIN

WTR + PWR Featuring singer, this is new band from Nashville is creating plenty of interest and have already featured on Sirius XM’s Outlaw Country show.

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

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SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2020 RHYTHMS SAMPLER

SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 2020

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

THE RHYTHMS SAMPLER!

EXCLUSIVELY FOR RHYTHMSSUBSCRIBERS: Adrian Whitehead/Billy Miller/ Shane O’Mara , Anne McCue, Angus Gill, Arna George, Bonshaw, Catherine Britt, Chris Moyse, Corey Legge , Dave Wright & The Midnight Ramblers, Gareth Leach, Helen Townshend, Joshua Batten, Lachlan Bryan & The Wildes, Little Wise, Lucie Tiger, Anne McCue, Mark Gillespie, Melody Moko, Martin Cilia & Joe Matera, Rebecca Barnard & Monique DiMattina, Sunday Someday, The Weeping Willows, WTR+PWR.

.

rhythms.com.au

11

Peter Noble

by Dane Beesley

BY BRIAN WISE

BLUESFEST

2021!

While this year’s event was a non-starter due to Covid-19, Festival Director Peter Noble has been busy making plans for next year.

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ever feel envy for the lives of music promoters or festival directors. While the rewards might seem abundant to the outside, it is really the equivalent of being a high-wire walker. At least the acrobats in the circus have a safety net these days.

Imagine the feeling of organising a festival for 30,000 people with dozens of local musicians and international artists flying in from all over the world and then having to cancel it just a few weeks before the event.

The complications – not the least of which were the ticket refunds – are mind-boggling.

“We’ve never had an event like it,” says Peter Noble on the phone from the festival office. “We did everything to be ready for the festival, except have the festival. We actually printed the t-shirts and for a while the only income that we had, was selling the 31st festival t-shirt and merchandise, to try to pay our wages.”

“All we knew was that the previous week, there were a few festivals that were lucky enough to have occurred,” says Noble and adds that he had been at the Port Fairy Folk Festival then just a week later the country went into lockdown.

Noble recalls spending the entire weekend on the phone to federal and state politicians.

The bind was that the government had to cancel Bluesfest so that the festival’s insurance policy would be valid. The government finally acted on the day equipment and tents were due to be loaded into the site.

“We literally had semi- trailers at the gates. If you think back, it’s incredible.”

Noble explains that the reason the festival had insurance to cover the pandemic – which travellers couldn’t get from January onwards – was because medical advisors suggested he take it after a gastro outbreak up north a few 12

years ago and the concern that if it ever got into the festival’s camping area it would be shut down.

“We weren’t the seers of the future,” he says.

“We couldn’t see that there was going to be COVID-19 on the horizon.” But luckily for ticket holders he heeded advice.

Noble’s reaction to the cancellation was to head into the office the next day and tell the staff that they still had jobs, telling them, “We’re not letting any of you go. Not one of you. Not even the casual staff, because we’re a festival and we’re going to be another festival next year. People that work in my industry, that I work with, are professionals.

They’re creative people. They can’t be replaced easily. We’re compassionate. We care. So, that was the start of it. Everybody since then has had to work less days. So, here we are pulling off the festival next year, working three to four days a week.”

Noble offered stallholders credit for next year and also reached arrangements with every creditor. He then went about re-scheduling as many of this year’s acts as he could for 2021 and beefing up the Australian line-up just in case. By the time of our conversation the festival had only about 700 refunds left to fulfill or rollover out of 30,000 ticketholders.

“Who knows what’s going to happen” replies Noble when I ask him about next year. “But I could not say to all those artists, managers, that ‘We don’t back you.’ I couldn’t just say to George Benson or Patti, you know, The Gipsy Kings, “Just go away.” I couldn’t do that.”

“If a point comes where the internationals can’t happen, they will be replaced and it won’t be a bill of artists that are second level,” continues Noble. “Everybody wants to play Bluesfest next year because, truly, we’re the only event out there at the moment.

But to be the only event out there is not like being idiots or stupid about it. We’re in deep conversations with our health ministry and our epidemiologists at the Department of Health and people that can actually set out COVID-19 safety plans, so that it can happen.

“We’re not just saying this. To make that decision means that hundreds of decisions have to be made. In the end, you may have great artists on the stage - but it has to be a safe event.”

“Even if we have a two meter, two square meter social distancing between people, how do you make sure that people actually do that?” muses Noble when I ask him to describe what he thinks the site will look like.

“So, to put an event on, that’s a standing event, where people will be expected to social distance you’ve still got to think about how you get them to their position and how you have lane ways where they can go to the toilet and buy a beer, or whatever. Get some food.”

Noble thinks that Bluesfest might have to be a seated event and maybe even outdoors.

But there are still 6 months to go and anything could happen.

“It’s a new world of presenting entertainment,” says Noble, “and we’ve got to do it at a level where people not only go, ‘Wow, it’s safe’ but it actually is entertainment, where it actually is something that you go, ‘I’m glad I came and was a part of this, because not only did I help the Australian music industry get back off its knees, I enjoyed it. It was professional and it was safe.” That’s what we have to do. It’s big shit, mate. And we have to do it right.”

Bluesfest is scheduled for Easter weekend 2021. Information is available at bluesfest.com.au

PETER GREEN R.I.P. (29/10/46 – 25/7/20)

BY NICK CHARLES In 1967 when John Mayall began recording his follow-up to the sensational first Bluesbreakers album featuring Eric Clapton, producer Mike Vernon asked “where’s Eric” to which Mayall replied “this guy’s better”! Peter Green set A Hard Road alight in the same way that Clapton had done the previous year.

Born Peter Greenbaum in 1946 he is of the British generation initially inspired by Hank B Marvin’s guitar work in the Shadowslisten to his take on Midnight on the 1996 tribute to Hank titled Twang.

His greatest influences were the black blues masters of the 50s and 60s in particular the three kings, BB, Freddie and Albert, a trait he shared with Clapton.

Following Clapton’s version of Freddie King’s Hideaway, Peter delivered a fiery rendition of Freddie’s The Stumble. This tradition continued during Mick Taylor’s tenure with Mayall and his version of Freddie’s Driving Sideways on the album Crusade.

On A Hard Road we hear the first version of what would become a Green standard – The Supernatural.

Green bonded with Mayall’s bassist John McVie and occasional Mayall drummer Mick Fleetwood and Fleetwood Mac was born. Mike Vernon suggested Elmore James fanatic Jeremy Spencer as a second guitarist and with the later addition of prodigy Danny Kirwan the classic Mac blues lineup was formed.

The early Fleetwood Mac albums feature blues classics and highlight the emerging writing talents of Green and Kirwan.

Green’s musical maturity at such a young age is startling – his tone and phrasing is impeccable both on a Stratocaster and his famous 1959 Les Paul (Peter called it his magical guitar, later bought and used

by Gary Moore on his Peter Green tribute album Blues for Greeny). The guitar is currently owned by Kirk Hammett.

My first Mac purchase was the EP simply titled Fleetwood Mac. Yes, Albatross was the feature but the beautiful slow blues Merry Go Round is a knockout.

Later I found Fleetwood Mac in Chicago.

The opening track Watch Out another

exemplary track brimming with classic licks. A benchmark for guitarists at that time is a wonderful instrumental that pops up on various compilations called Greeny.

Perhaps his finest early vocal is the stellar version of Little Willie John’s 1955 song I Need Your Love So Bad released as a single in 1968.

Green possessed effortless lyrical phrasing and a tone that BB King called “the sweetest sound I ever heard”. But Peter could also rock with the best of them and proved so on the single Oh Well Part 1, a raging timeless blues rock riff. The flip side Oh Well Part 2 was a slow and moody instrumental and was originally meant to be the A side. On Part 2 the band play in a symphonic fashion and Green even plays cello.

Much has been written of his personal struggles and subsequent departure from Fleetwood Mac but those 3 or 4 years produced some of the most influential music to come out of England in the late 60s. Here’s a short list of some “must hear” tracks: 1. The Stumble – from A Hard Road (John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers) 1967 2. Greeny – various compilations 3. Watch Out – Fleetwood Mac in Chicago (1969) 4. Love That Burns- Fleetwood Mac (1968)

5. The World Keep on Turning – Fleetwood Mac (1968) Green solo acoustic 6. Stop Messing Around – from Mr Wonderful (1968) 7. I Need Your Love So Bad – single release (1968) 8. Oh Well , Parts 1 and 2 – single release (1969) later added to Then Play On 9. Rattlesnake Shake – Then Play On (1969) 10. Underway – Then Play On (1969) After his departure from Fleetwood Mac in 1970, Green released a solo album aptly titled The End of the Game, a collection of loose jams (and a startling front cover!) and some of the esoteric themes begun on Then Play On. Then follows a silent period of over twenty years before something of a resurrection with Peter Green’s Splinter Group. There is a certain triumph in those performances but Green never approached the intensity and virtuosity of his Mac heyday.

Fleetwood Mac 1969 – 1974 will be released by Warner Music on September 4. The 8-CD version includes remastered versions of seven studio albums plus an unreleased 1974 concert. A 4-LP Fleetwood Mac 1973-1974 vinyl collection features Penguin, Mystery To Me, and Heroes Are Hard To Find, Plus 1974 Concert And A 7” single.

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ANNE MCCUE

A

friend of mine who grew up in Texas in the ‘60s says that he originally thought that blues music came from England because the first time he ever heard The Blues was on an early Rolling Stones record.

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WHAT’S GOIN’ ON

Ever wondered where the phrase ‘from the wrong side of the tracks’ comes from?

Towns were literally divided in two by railroad tracks and were segregated along those lines. Radio stations were designated as either white or ‘race.’ Yes, music was segregated along with every other facet of American life.

Twenty years ago, I visited Memphis and Nashville on the same day and wondered, how are these two cities even in the same country, let alone the same state? You just got a completely different feeling from each one.

The African American culture in Memphis is palpable - from the many soul food restaurants to the feeling of the blues and soul music that pervades the town. Stax Records casts an epic legend over the city. Beale Street, though commercialized beyond

recognition by white business interests, is still all about The Blues. The Mississippi River has a swampy ambience that pervades the city.

Not far from Memphis is Clarksdale, Mississippi - a town in which, until recently, time had stood still. The Riverside Inn (previously the G.T. Thomas Hospital) where Bessie Smith passed away after a terrible car accident seemingly had not changed one iota since the that tragic night in 1937.

Travel east 3 hours on Interstate 40 and you arrive in Nashville, a city whose myth is built on white country music. How can Nashville be so different? And what happened to that rich r’n’b culture that is briefly mentioned every now and then in passing when we talk about the history of Nashville?

In his new book, Shake Your Hips, The Excello Records Story, author Randy Fox gets into the nitty gritty of that other, and to me, more interesting Nashville music history - that of r’n’b, rock’n’roll and gospel music.

In the ‘40s, ‘50s and ‘60s there was a thriving rhythm’n’blues scene on Jefferson Street in North Nashville and semiintegrated audiences packed the clubs to hear the likes of Jimi Hendrix and Little Richard perform.

When I ask people what happened to this scene, they say ‘they put a freeway though it.’ And that turns out to be a fact. The

construction of the I-40 Interstate cut the area off and led to its decline as a thriving musical hotspot.

Today, places like Club Baron - one of the jumpin’-est joints back in the day, is an Elk’s Club. But there has been a movement in the

last few years to honour this historic musical legacy. Murals have been painted to pay homage to those musical heroes of the past who performed on Jefferson Street - a list that includes Ray Charles, Etta James and Otis Redding.

The fact that Mick Jagger and Keith Richards bonded over records such as the Excello release ‘King Bee’ by Slim Harpo brings us full circle. So odd that a song recorded in Nashville makes its way to London, is recorded by a band of young Englishman, the record of which in turn makes its way to Houston, Texas and is heard by a budding bass player there who thinks it must be English music.

According to Fox, “The story behind the beloved blue and orange label has even more twists and turns than the fascinating and funky music produced by Excello. It’s the tale of how a former grocer, restaurateur, and pinball machine operator in his late fifties launched black gospel and rollicking R&B record labels in the ‘country music capital of the world’ and, in fact, helped spark the British rock ’n’ roll invasion.”

I knew something was missing in this town.

It’s this particular history I’ve been detecting but not knowing. Occasionally, someone will say, ‘Jimi Hendrix lived here for a while.’ And I’ll just shake my head in wonder. That’s the scene I want to know about!

Randy Fox’s book ‘Shake Your Hips, The Excello Records Story’ is part of BMG’s RPM Series.

CITIZEN OF BOOMTOWN

RETURNS Bob Geldof reforms The Boomtown Rats, with a new album, documentary and book in tow, because the band makes sense in strange, troubled times.

By Jonathan Alley

F

or an old punk, Bob Geldof – ‘Sir Bob’ if you have a plum in your mouth, and he doesn’t – is still pretty bankable.

Rising to prominence in the late ’70s as the mouthy, outspoken front-person of The Boomtown Rats, he later founded Band Aid to feed the victims of the Ethiopian famine and staged the first pre-internet live global music broadcast, Live Aid, from London and Philadelphia, in 1985.

He also acted, in the late Alan Parker’s 1982 adaptation of Pink Floyd’s concept album The Wall and in 1985’s Number One. Later, the hurdles and tragedies of his private life were garishly picked to death by the tabloid media (his ex-wife, Paula Yates, died of a heroin overdose in 2000, followed by their daughter Peaches in 2014).

Geldof, by definition, is a survivor.

For all his historical extra-curricular interests, the line that snaps into so many heads on the mention of his name remains, ‘Tell me why/I don’t like Mondays’ – one of the few global top ten smashes about a mass shooting.

Geldof remains only, ineffably, himself – one of Woody Guthrie’s ‘boomtown rat curs’, depicted in the folk singer’s autobiography Bound for Glory (you’ve read it, right?).

With all this history behind him, Geldof resurrected the Rats for shows in 2013, with a few years of reunion shows culminating in March’s Citizens of Boomtown (accompanied by a documentary of the same name, tracing the band’s history). There was always a sense of unfinished business with The Boomtown Rats. But history – and their better albums – cement The Boomtown Rats as one of the era’s most important acts; their post-punk grenades The Fine Art of Surfacing and Mondo Bongo remaining records that truly changed Ireland, and the wider world’s perception of the country. After their Live Aid triumph, they played only one more show in 1986.

Their 1984 album In the Long Grass – defended by Geldof to this day, but forgotten by most – was an uneasy swansong.

“I’m not being wilfully perverse, but I really like that record’ he tells Rhythms from his South London home.

While Covid-19 upended the band’s comeback, Citizens of Boomtown – if slightly

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uneven, does make a genuine case that the Rats proto-post-punk-pub-rock remains a heady beast. Tracks like ‘She Said No’ and the blasting dirty blues of ‘Monster Monkeys’, while hardly blazing new territory, do possess the indomitable spirit of The Rats. So, the question remains, why now?

“Those songs are touchstones to an earlier time …. But for me, The Rats seem to make sense in periods of confusion and chaos.

You need The Brexit fuck-up. You need the pandemic. Just like in 1975 you needed a zero economy in Ireland, and in effect in a Civil War, a great claustrophobia of silence; a culture so moribund and so perverse it needed to be called out. The band essentially works, to me, in those periods.”

The mid-‘70s pub rock of The Boomtown Rats – in the era of Dr Feelgood and Eddie and the Hotrods – collided easily with punk.

“Some of The Rats first Dublin gigs were with these bands we’d never heard of, call ‘Talking Heads’ and ‘The Ramones’!”

Geldof grew up in the claustrophobia of yesterday’s Ireland, a grim and divided country, economically crippled and dominated by The Catholic Church.

“People like Dylan, Pete Townshend, John and Paul, Mick and Keith – I was listening to their music, but I was also listening to them. They were all rock ’n’ roll missionaries – particularly Jagger and Richards – ‘Here, listen to Howlin’ Wolf, have you heard Muddy Waters?” But I was also reading John Steinbeck, Studs Terkel – I was ill one summer and just read all of Dickens. But it all culminates in this romance of poverty. Except that – it’s shit, there is no romance in poverty, it’s a denial of human opportunity.”

The documentary, also called Citizens of Boomtown reports on Geldof returning to Ireland from Canada in 1975 (as a brief sojourn as a radio journalist) determined to ‘change the country’, the film makes a strong case the band partially succeeded.

With same-sex marriage laws enacted in Ireland before Australia, and remarkably – abortion law reform in the deeply religiously conservative country, Ireland has undoubtedly changed. But how real is it in society? Geldof, who’s lived in England since the ’70s, says he now feels more at home in the nation of his birth.

“The change in Ireland is very real: the Ireland I was railing against, to try and achieve the Ireland we have now, was recognised by someone like a young Sinead O’ Connor sitting at home. They imagined a normal, healthy late 20th century country. Once we got out of the shadow, into the EU, and had an equal voice amongst nations, we were plunged into the 21st century. We just said ‘that’s enough of the Catholic Church’: we just put in the bin. During the abortion debate I was in Limerick. There was one group of people, arguing one case, at a table. Right next to them, were people of the opposing view. It was elegant and civil. Of course, there’s still the layover of the past, it’s not oppressive anymore. But it was a very perverse country.”

For all his pragmatism lobbying conservatives and centre-left moderates, he cannot abide Donald Trump and won’t entertain speaking to him. “I wouldn’t sit with him: he’s man with no empathy. Beyond that, he’s repulsive. Even though it may be grist to my particular mill, I could not sit in the Oval Office with Donald Trump... he’s made that room filthy”.

After all his years of punk, life in public, lobbying and spit and vinegar, it could just be that Geldof remains the man inspired by Woody Guthrie’s Bound for Glory. There’s a scene in the book, Woody is 11 years old, head of the new gang, goes to the head of the old gang. The leader of the old gang says ‘so, is there gonna be a war?” and Woody says ‘guess so.” The leader of the old gang says ‘you….. you Boomtown Rat curs.”

Citizens of Boomtown is available now via BMG. The documentary of the same name is distributed by Beyond International. Bob Geldof’s book Tales of Boomtown Glory is published by Faber.

ALL YOU

NEED IS LOVE

After a 13-year break, Icecream Hands return, armed with an arsenal of pop hits.

By Jeff Jenkins

C

harles Jenkins says he didn’t realise his band, the Icecream Hands, hadn’t released an album for 13 years until he read it in the press release.

In the same announcement, the Icecream Hands were called “Australia’s iconic power pop group”. “Oh,” Jenkins laughs, “I put that line in.”

The new Icecream Hands album, No Weapon But Love – a title inspired by Mahatma Gandhi, a pacifist, who said he had “no weapon but non-violence” – follows 2007’s The Good China. But Jenkins (no relation to this writer) points out it was just a long break, not a break-up. So why the long gap between records? “There’s just no money in being iconic,” he smiles. “There’s no coin in iconic.”

The rest of that Gandhi quote was, “I may be unconsciously led astray for a while, but not for all time.”

In 2008, when he released his third solo album, Blue Atlas, Rhythms asked Jenkins what the future held for the Hands. “I don’t

know,” he replied. “I’m not sure if we’re going to do anything more. Did we go to the well one too many times? I was always trying to make different records with the Icecream Hands, but we never really did. Artistically, we were just going back to the same old well.”

But then Jenkins made the 2017 solo record The Last Polaroid. “And I realised, ‘This sounds just like an Icecream Hands record, why don’t I just put the band back together?’”

Jenkins has been surprised by the youthful zest of his bandmates – bass player and singer Douglas Lee Robertson, drummer Derek G Smiley and guitarist Marcus Goodwin. “Some of the guys look younger than they did 13 years ago, I don’t know how they did that,” he says. “Or my eyesight might be failing.”

The multi-talented Robertson produced the album. “He’s just such a wonderful vocal producer. You’ll sing a line and he’ll say, ‘Why don’t you put a slightly different inflection on the second half of that syllable?’ You want to strangle him, but he’s great to make a record with.”

The band gives thanks on the album for all the things they love and for still being around, making music. “Thanks for The Only Ones and the Ramones,” Jenkins sings.

“Thanks for the Pretty Things and the Stones.

Thanks for the everlasting Nina Simone.

Thanks most of all for Spencer P. Jones.” It’s a stirring celebration. “Thanks for the songs that rattle your bones. Thanks for getting us through the nights all alone.”

All of Jenkins’ superior songwriting skills are on show in the heartbreaking ‘Somehow We Never Got Together’. “Now when we talk, it’s of lovers not together,” he sings. “So lost they don’t know where they are.”

Then there’s the glorious ‘Ten Thousand Reasons’. “There are places in the heart where only songs can start,” Jenkins declares. “Let me give you one, five, ten thousand reasons to be alive.”

Commercial success might have eluded the Icecream Hands – they have been called our greatest band to never have a Top 40 hit – but they remain a critics’ fave. When the title track was released as the album’s first single, noted Sydney critic Bernard Zuel called the band “one of the best purveyors of melodic pop music made with guitars/bass/drums this country has given us”.

Jenkins is not overly concerned about being a commercially underappreciated critics’ darling. “Well, it’s better than having no sales and the critics hating you,” he points out. The Hands seem happy with their place in the world. As Robertson sings on the new record, “We’ve got nothing to prove.”

No Weapon But Love – the band’s sixth studio album – comes 21 years after the band’s biggest “hit”, ‘Nipple’, which received high rotation on Triple J. Jenkins remembers an interview with a Perth journalist who remarked, “You’re most famous for writing a song about a body part.”

The Icecream Hands started in Melbourne in 1992. “It was the second band for most of us and it was intended to be very selfindulgent,” recalls Jenkins, who had released two albums with the awkwardly named Adelaide band The Mad Turks From Istanbul.

Over the years, the Icecream Hands indulgence has morphed into heavenly pop hits. Who cares that they’ve gone back to the well when the well has been so plentiful?

No Weapon But Love is out now.

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FIVE STAR Joel Sutton, drawing on his considerable experience on the Australian blues & roots scene, brings together a who’s who on a love letter to the blues, writes Samuel J. Fell.

Joel Sutton may not be a household name, but if you’ve been across the Australian blues and roots scene at any point over the past three decades, chances are you’ve seen him play.

Behind the kit is where he’s most at home, whether for Larry Cook’s Hard Blues Band (where he got his start as a 15-year-old), the legendary Cairns-based Johnno’s Blues Band, Mal Eastick, The Bondi Cigars, Vika and Linda Bull, D Harry Fenton, James Reyne, The Hippos, The Flood, The Foreday Riders, the list is almost endless. Either as a fully-fledge band member or as a pickup drummer, Sutton has done it all, with almost everyone – he’s the real deal.

In the past few years however, it’s been behind the scenes that Sutton has brought his focus, both recording and producing, and it’s in this guise that his latest project has come to be. Rhythm & Blues Revue VOL.1 is the name of the game, and it’s just as it sounds – ten tried and tested blues tunes, performed by a range of Australian players (with Sutton himself on the kit for each track), all wrangled by Joel Sutton. “Like herding cats,” he laughs, but well worth the effort.

“I’ve always been interested in production…

I found a real passion for it,” he explains on the origin of the record, which he began work on around two years ago. “Anyway, I had a recording thing on the go, and I was being stuffed around by a client… I had all this time planned for this client, and so thought, what am I going to do [to fill this space]? And it just kinda hit me – you’ve been a drummer for all these people for thirty years. I thought, why don’t you make a tribute album to the music that influenced you, and include all the musicians you either worked with or admired?”

And so it came to be. “The songs were all chosen for reasons, there’s a story behind basically everything, so it was really a love letter from me to blues and roots music, by Australian players, these magnificent players we have,” Sutton enthuses. “And some of them are well known, like Jeff Lang and Vika Bull and Shane Pacey, but there are a lot who are unknown who are amazing.”

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REVUE

The list of collaborators runs to two dozen, highlighting the pull Sutton has within the industry. “I knew I had to get somebody on board with a profile, so I could entice other people to take me seriously,” he laughs.

“So, I had to lure someone in, and that was Shane Pacey. I wanted to do an Albert Collins song, and I always remembered him being killer with Albert tones and all of that. So, he agreed, great, and then it was on for the next person; you know, Shane Pacey is on board, are you interested?”

This is how it all came together, the players recording their parts in various small studios around the country, shooting their contributions back to Sutton in his studio in Townsville, who then began the laborious task of tying it all together.

The results speak for themselves. Blues covers albums are a dime-a-dozen to be sure, but this isn’t so much a covers album as it is a showcase, a revue, a tribute. Tracks like Tom Waits’ ‘Down In The Hole’ (which gets a reprise later on the record); Junior Wells’ ‘Messin’ With The Kid’; Freddie King’s ‘Going

Down’; Johnny ‘Guitar’ Watson’s ‘Too Tired’, all are done lovingly by Australian players who truly connect with the music. This isn’t a covers album, it’s a happening, it’s real – you recognise the players’ styles, it makes it something other than a by-the-numbers release.

“I’m pretty proud of it,” Sutton says. “A lot of time and a lot of effort went into it, it wasn’t just a slapped together [thing], we’ll wack a couple of covers on there and we’ll let it go.

No, there was a lot of thought behind it. I wanted it to be the best it could be. I tried,” he laughs.

Given it’s a VOL.1, I venture that surely there’ll be a volume two, a comment which elicits a half laugh, half groan, as Sutton remembers all the work that went in, but he’s open to it. “I’ve already started thinking of musicians [for the next volume],” he confirms – his love letter to blues and roots music ain’t done yet.

Rhythm & Blues Revue – VOL.1 is available now via Lonesome Belle Music.

SITTING IN LIMBO

Kimberley Wheeler’s planned roadside holiday is on hold but her new album it out.

By Denise Hylands Kimberley Wheeler isn’t having the roadside holiday she had planned for her debut solo release, Pokerface Limbo instead let’s hope this music reaches just as many people while waiting for live music to get back up and running.

Wheeler’s musical background is diverse: from classical piano and clarinet in school. “I think that would be a whole different story at the time if when I was learning clarinet, they said, “But hey, there is also this thing called klezmer,” I might’ve still been playing the clarinet.”

Playing bass in a heavy metal band is also on the CV. “Well, I occasionally turn a corner and discover new music, and it seemed the right thing to do after years of classical music. And you start meeting up with other people, and I played in a folk pop band, and I played in a contemporary Greek band for a while. Wow! “I love music. I love good music and it doesn’t matter too much what it is.”

So, what was the next corner you turned?

It wasn’t until a lot more recently where there was a turning point album, Tim O’Brien’s Red on Blonde, I just thought, hey, that’s pretty cool. And that opened me up to that whole roots Americana country avenue, and it’s where I’ve been floating around ever since.

You’ve also played with Dan Hicks as one of his Innocent Bystanders, playing jazz and swing?

That’s right, yes. And I’ve had the opportunity to be part of Dan’s Australian Hot Licks, on his little Australian tour. That was something else.

Then there’s bluegrass. You also played in Uncle Bill.

That’d be right, yes.

That, I think was Uncle Bill’s third incarnation.

Your main instrument has been the bass moving from electric bass to the upright bass to play bluegrass and old timey music.

What else are you playing now?

Over the years, I’ve picked up guitar and mandolin as well. I have aspirations that one day I may too be a banjo player. But I don’t mention that to too many people because sometimes they start crossing me off their Christmas card list and that sort of thing.

Which leads us to your love of bluegrass and old-time music. You were even the president of the Australasian Bluegrass & Old Time Music Association?

This is true. I just thought that it was about time I did some work on the front line because it is a genre that does need to be directed or it will fade away eventually.

Tell us about your Roadside Holiday.

Well, off and on, it’s been a thing for a couple of years. And it’s been a side project around all the other things I’ve been doing with other bands. And it wasn’t till the start of last year that I stopped playing with other people to give myself the time to be able to make this a thing. And it was at that time I sat down, consolidated my songs and actually put them to metaphorical tape.

This is not necessarily bluegrass though is it? Maybe your own sound and take on everything you’ve played over the years?

Yeah, for sure. On the CD, there are a couple of the songs that I’ve released with other bluegrass acts, and I’ve given them some new life. Like the fourth track was released with a band called Little Rabbit. And then I’ve got three brand new tracks on this as well. So that’s that. And you’re right, it isn’t bluegrass.

The last track is a little bit bluegrassy, but I just feel that I wanted to do something that transcended that area that I’ve been playing in for six or seven years now.

Who’s in the Roadside Holiday band?

Well, in my band at the time of the recording was a lady called Liz Frencham and another lady called Tanya Bradley. And believe it or not, Liz couldn’t come over the whole month to any of the recording sessions. But as I’m a bass player, I just laid down everything I could. And I got Tanya to come in when she could. Tanya came in at the end and put some fiddle down. Kat Mear and I played in Little Rabbit. She came and put fiddles and vocals down and Pepi Emmerichs (Oh Pep!).

Cat Leahy came in and worked her magic on it, and so on and so forth. And eventually, we just got this wonderful set of five songs.

I think we recorded six. There’s one that just didn’t quite make it.

With all of this time that we have indoors these days, I wouldn’t be surprised if the next one might be in the works?

It is most definitely in the works.

Pokerface Limbo by Kimberley Wheeler’s Roadside Holiday is available now at bandcamp.com

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By Jeff Jenkins The great Lobby Loyde believed there were two kinds of people in the world: musical enthusiasts and the rest. “Jack Howard is certainly an enthusiast,” says Paulie Stewart, the Painters and Dockers leader, who has shared a stage with Howard many times.

Jack Howard has never been one to blow his own trumpet. Unless, of course, he’s on stage. (Fun fact: Howard is the only trumpet player in the ARIA Hall of Fame.)

A few years back, Howard asked if I could provide a quote for a press release. When I started writing, I couldn’t stop, so I decided to write the whole release instead. “Jack Howard is a true musician,” I started the missive. “While many of his contemporaries worry about record deals, budgets and the size of the gig, Jack simply focuses on one thing – making music.”

I ended the piece: “And whether it’s on stage playing for thousands of people, or at a small club, Jack Howard always delivers. He just loves to play.”

That, in a nutshell, is why I love Jack Howard.

I’ve seen him play with famous acts – including Hunters & Collectors, Midnight Oil, Rodriguez, The Living End, Models, X and Harem Scarem. And I’ve seen him perform with bands I’ve never heard of. And he always plays with the same passion.

Jack Howard & the Long Lost Brothers

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During Midnight Oil’s Great Circle World Tour in 2017, Howard found himself holed up in hotel rooms around the world, so he started writing a blog. “I recalled how much I used to write back in the day: half-baked detective stories, lyrics, poems, music newsletters, endless postcards and letters and journals.”

That love of writing has now become an autobiography – Small Moments of Glory.

The story starts in Oak Park, a nondescript Melbourne suburb that also gave the world Brian Mannix and the Uncanny X-Men. “The tall guy with the trumpet” grew up in a quiet and clean-living family – his mum, Pat, and dad, Bert, didn’t smoke, drink or swear. But they were music fans. Howard recalls being perched on his dad’s shoulders, waving at The Beatles as they drove from Essendon Airport to the city in 1964. He was five years old.

Howard started taking music seriously when he got a scholarship to Wesley College, a school where he is now a music teacher. In Year 12, the college band supported AC/ DC at the school dance and Howard helped to smuggle a bottle of Johnnie Walker backstage for Bon. Howard and his school mate Mark “Wal” Burchett (who later managed the Huxton Creepers and became a major Melbourne booking agent) became regulars at St Kilda’s Seaview Ballroom and the Oxford Scholar on

Swanston Street. “I think at one point I’d seen Flowers about 40 times and Models 30 … Wal told me about one new band, Hunters & Collectors, who had seemingly sprung up out of nowhere and were blowing everyone away. He also mentioned that they occasionally used a brass section … the radar was humming.”

Howard approached the band’s singer, Mark Seymour, after a show at the Oxford. “Hey, fantastic gig,” he said hesitantly. “If you’re ever looking for a trumpet player …”

Howard says Seymour “nodded in a fairly surly and impatient manner, ‘Sure, sounds good,’ shrugged and continued on his way.

Not much to go on, but a glimmer of light.”

Howard started playing with Hunters & Collectors in August 1981, becoming a mainstay of The Horns of Contempt (“originally, The Horns of Friendliness and Goodwill but, geez, what a naff name!”).

Soon after joining the band, they played with Simple Minds and Ian Dury, joining the Englishman for his encore. “I walked out on stage with a metal rubbish bin over my head and Jeremy [Smith, the H&C French horn player] playing it as loudly as he could. Those were the days.”

The band recorded the classic ‘Talking To A Stranger’ and signed to Michael Gudinski’s Mushroom Records and Virgin in the UK. Later, they had international deals with I.R.S. and Atlantic.

Virgin released the band’s second album, The Fireman’s Curse, produced by German legend Conny Plank. “I thought that it was amazing – the greatest record ever made, destined to blow Australian audiences away when we got home,” Howard recalls. But he now reflects, “Whenever a band is in the bubble of recording, it’s easy to delude yourselves into thinking that you’re on to something super special.” The Fireman’s Curse was not a hit.

In England, Howard reports, “we hilariously sold one cassette”.

Things improved for Hunters & Collectors when Michael Roberts became their manager in 1984. A Seymour quote about the Melbourne scene at the time is instructive: “It’s alive and well and provincial as hell.

Every band hates the next band. The same as Melbourne’s always been – really sullen.

But there’s all of these great things going on. I think the reason you get good bands coming out of Melbourne is that they don’t identify with a larger group. They have a sort of stand-off attitude. So you get all of these odd little idiosyncratic qualities in one band, totally different from another.”

As well as the Melbourne scene in the ’80s, Small Moments of Glory provides a rare insight into band politics and personalities.

“And H&C, or some of them anyway, were a pack of emotional hardnuts prone to vicious jokes and putdowns,” Howard writes.

“If someone spotted a weakness, he’d be picking at that scab in a flash.

“I would have loved to have been able to discuss Foucault and Baudelaire and The Velvet Underground with the intellectuals in the band,” Howard adds. “But I was happier with Jesaulenko, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and Bruce Springsteen.”

He is also brutally honest about the music.

Of ‘Living Daylight’, the title track of their 1987 EP, he writes, “It was over-earnest and pretty character-less. We’d make a few more of these kind of tracks in the years to come.

Songs that would fool you – they seemed to have all the necessary components for a big single but weren’t actually very interesting.”

The band – beloved as “the Hunnas” – became a legendary live act, but the shows, for Howard, are a haze of memories. “In a

lot of ways, a gig is a gig is a gig. There’s not much to write about them. Another bar, another sticky carpet, another dingy backstage area. You rock or you don’t, but you’re inside it and in the moment (hopefully) and they tend to blur together.”

Howard eloquently captures the tedium of being in a band. “We wrote, we recorded, we released, we toured, then we did it all over again. A thing happened, then another thing happened. It was never that simple or orderly, of course, but that is the life cycle of a rock ’n’ roll band.”

Paul Kelly has called the book “an insider’s account of what it’s really like to be in a band. Many moments of truth.” While Rob Hirst described it as “beautifully written, authentic, darkly humorous”.

Howard draws on his journal entries, which are often revealing. One example: Jan 3 1988: Perth Entertainment Centre (with Hoodoo Gurus) – really nervous on stage but it was very good to 7500 punters. Some nights, I want to leave this band altogether. I’m really not doing very much that is interesting.

Playing loud. And then this quote: ‘In this country, encouragement is the absence of derision.’

In 1990, H&C toured the US and Europe with Midnight Oil. “And the difference between the Oils and us?” Howard wrote in his diary.

“One hit single – ‘Beds Are Burning’. That’s all we need, but that’s the hardest, the luckiest and the most unpredictable element.”

R.E.M’s manager told Howard he’d always doubted the validity of brass sections in rock ’n’ roll until he heard Hunters & Collectors.

And they got to play on the Letterman show.

But that international hit proved elusive.

Howard looks back on the band as “a lot of alpha males grinding their egos and agendas together”. But they also became part of the Australian culture, playing at Grand Finals, re-forming to play with Springsteen, and

being inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame in 2005.

When Hunters & Collectors called it quits in 1998, Howard never looked back. He has released as many solo records as Mark Seymour, done a successful Burt Bacharach tribute show, played trucking tycoon Lindsay Fox in the Molly mini-series, and spearheaded the “Epic Brass” live show, celebrating the great horn hits of Australian music.

James Young, the owner of Melbourne’s Cherry Bar, calls Howard “The Trumpet of Oz”.

As well as the book, Howard has a new solo album, Dog Songs, which celebrates his longrunning residency at St Kilda’s Dogs Bar. It includes a new recording of ‘City Lights’, the song that inspired the title of the book: Small moments of glory, etched like a turning point in the epic novel of my life.

Howard’s solo road hasn’t been paved with gold. “I’ve had the conversation with Mark where we both assumed that the huge army of H&C fans would immediately be interested in our new music and we’d have an instant audience.

“How wrong we were!”

Towards the end of the book, Howard reflects on his life. “James Reyne once said to me, ‘At 40, you stop being the man you want to be and you become the man you are.’

“That stuck with me, but I don’t know. I still feel like I’m working towards a resolution.”

Who knows what the future holds for Jack Howard … beyond many more gigs.

You see, he just loves to play.

And he writes pretty damn well, too.

Small Moments of Glory is published by Brolga Publishing. Jack Howard & The Long Lost Brothers’ Dog Songs is out September 20.

21

Van Walker’s new album completes a painstaking personal rebuilding process.

By Chris Lambie

T

“Men are taught or encouraged to shut down or pretend like they’ve got everything under control.

That’s absolute rubbish.”

Photo by Shannon McDonald 22

hey say time heals all wounds.

After a heavy serve of heartache, Van Walker certainly took time to complete his musical expression of the experience - 10 years after his last solo release. The writing and recording of 15 tracks for new album Ghosting faltered with the onset of personal struggles and the global pandemic. The delay in completing the recording however, brought renewed light and insight to the collection.

“We’d planned a national tour to have started in March,” the singer-songwriter says. “But then I had a lot of physical and mental issues that put the brakes on it, after a long-term relationship suddenly ended. I remember trying to listen to my ex-partner’s album. I couldn’t listen objectively, being too paranoid I suppose. Writing music saved me though. When the newer songs were written, I could see light at the end of the tunnel. The album’s called Ghosting because it attempts to cover the initial shock and injury, then this painstaking process to rebuild in the darkness without answers, before the ultimate realisation and recovery. You’re hurt and deluded, thinking, ‘Maybe she’ll come back’ until realising that won’t happen.

I thought the album might hammer the point a bit too much, but you need that reality drummed into your head. I tried to make it so you’re on the rollercoaster with the person,” he says. “Hopefully it can be cathartic for the listener too.”

Starting out with Jeff Lang in the producer’s seat in 2015, Walker tried out ‘a few songs.’ Forty, no less. “We did one take of each, seeing what worked. Then I had this sort of breakdown, a period

of anxiety like an extended panic attack where all the self-recrimination builds up. I was self-medicating and not sleeping, still trying to tour and [work]. Then I decided to stop beating around the bush and wrote new songs that were more true to what was going on. Even though there were other songs and Langy was going ‘But what about this song?

I love this song!’ I’ll put them on another album one day. This needs to be like this.

It’s a risk. People might say ‘It’s just another love song on another love album’. But this is human stuff. You can’t invent new subjects.

It’s not an album for everybody or for Saturday night parties. First and foremost, it’s for me. I’ve been talking to people about men’s health in particular. Men are taught or encouraged to shut down or pretend like they’ve got everything under control. That’s absolute rubbish. There’s lots of violence because of that, men trying to control women… I’m not like that luckily. I eventually got through my trouble by communicating, creating. The more we talk about that and encourage that, the better it is for boys growing up.”

The production baton was handed to Dave Walker for Phase #2 of the recording. The remaining songs were laid down in Van Walker’s loungeroom at his new home in Geelong. “…with big wooden floorboards, open fire and a pool table. Perfect to record acoustic music.” Phil Georges from Green South Records mastered the album while Jeff Lang mixed some tracks. Walker says, “I generally like to do things pretty quickly because If I overthink things, I just won’t do anything. And I like music to be raw and heartfelt rather than shmick; to do one take [even] if it’s a bit rough. I quite like hearing a chair squeak, a dog bark, fire crackling. Leave in the sound of a breath. Your fans know that it’s you.”

Originally from Tasmania, Walker has become a favourite son of the Melbourne music scene. Collaborations have included duo performances with brother Cal, power pop outfit The Livingstone Daisies, Heartbrokers with Jeff Lang, Ezra Lee & Ash Davies and blues-boogie trio Goatpiss Gasoline. He also participated in Mick Thomas’ Vandemonian Lags stage production. Ghosting is not his first release to have a long gestation. “The Heartbrokers album was recorded in a day but took five years to come out,” he says. “The music writing and recording – is easy. But life gets in the way. If you’re not in a healthy place, the rest (the interviews, artwork etc) is difficult. I know lots of great musicians who don’t put records out because they don’t have the energy or drive for all that and be critiqued at the end of it. I like to because it creates a vacuum where you’ll go on to create more. Whereas, if you don’t, you’ll just hold onto your 10 cool songs for your whole life. Some people will like ‘em and some not. Then you can do your next thing. As a songwriter, you’ve taken so much from other people’s songs, it’s good to give back a little

bit. To add to the mix. Honour the influences you’ve gathered.”

Having said that, Walker doesn’t listen to much other music during the writing phase.

“You don’t want to be influenced but just let the influences from over your life come out. I’m at an age where I have no idea what’s ‘popular music’ anymore. [Laughs.]

I keep going back in time and it seems to get better the further you go back. Back to the fringes where all the great art comes from. You realise people were writing more interesting topics, straight out strange and eccentric. Early Blues was rude and playful, full of double entendres and [veiled] social comment.”

Of Ghosting, he concedes, “It’s only one side of the story. As a songwriter, you’re aware that you can paint yourself any way you want. Be the star of your own story. It’s called a record because it’s a record of a time. Like a scrapbook, an expression of an emotional process. I am shitting bricks about the fact that it’s so frank and so public. It’s never my intention to upset my ex-partner but…I think the album gets more ‘up’ towards the end of the arc. Suddenly you’ve got your head out of your arse and gone, ‘OK. This is actually happening.’ Then you’re on your way out of it. You’ve gotta be honest but still aware that people are going to be affected by it. Dylan regretted making Blood On The Tracks but imagine how poorer we’d have been if he hadn’t. Some times are naturally darker but that’s what makes us appreciate what we’ve got. Since [social restrictions], people go, ‘I’d love to be in a beer garden on a sunny day.’

We appreciate the simple things now. It’s like, ‘You’ve taken everything away from me but nothing from me.’ People have a paradoxical feeling towards the lockdown, embarrassed to say they’ve enjoyed escaping the endless treadmill and anxiety. Having to be busy to feel validated.”

“At first I thought this COVID thing was bullshit. Then one night I went down a rabbit hole and read all these articles and thought ‘Fuck, this is a pandemic.’” When it looked like live gigs for small audiences were returning in Victoria, the lockdown of public housing towers prompted Walker to rethink a series of re-scheduled launches.

“Like a lot of other artists, I rang venues and said, ‘Look, I’m going to have to cancel these shows.’ It didn’t seem right to go ahead [at that time]. This happens every 100 years.

We just have to go into lockdown. Nothing else you can do. But weirdly, I’ve spoken to people who say it’s a great time to put out records because everyone’s home and wants music - need music more than ever. I’ve still managed to sell the singles I’ve been putting out, maybe as much as when I’ve been out on the road. “But nothing beats a live crowd.

The first gigs [back] are gunna be magic. I reckon rock’n’roll gigs will be loud!”

Ghosting is out now and available through ramblinvanwalker.com.

VAN WALKER

GHOSTING Green South Records The upbeat rolling rhythm and strum of ‘Above As Below’ belies the serious, somewhat delicate story behind Van Walker’s first solo album in a decade. A salty coastal vibe steers the watchful eye of a lighthouse as a troubled relationship hits the rocks. Dobro (Dan Musil), pipes and backing vocals add to its catchy appeal. The forsaken lover concedes: “I don’t want you to believe I only have your interests at heart”. When staying together gets too hard, one party may ‘ghost’ the other, precluding further opportunity for ‘right of reply’. Disarming frankness describes regret and despair.

Self-pity, self-doubt, too much drink and denial all stalled Walker’s creative momentum. Between the recording’s outset and completion, Walker emerged from the stages of break-up grief with the perspective to salvage wisdom out of woe. The result is a stunning musical narrative.

Gravelly vocals, barroom piano and the wail of Shane Reilly’s pedal steel carry the weight of heartache and a quest for forgiveness on Country-styled ‘Long Night’s Journey To Day’. Looking beyond hearth and home, Walker follows the thread of self-interest and neglect to the degradation of our natural world on ‘Nobody Knows’. The energetic pace returns with misguidedly hopeful ‘Borderline’. On several songs, the simple duo of Walker (guitar, vocals) and bass (Jeff Lang/Mitch Dillon) delivers both texture and space. Cello cries across the haunting ‘Crystal Ball’ in a search for meaning. Back at water’s edge, Matt Walker’s harmonica and Lang’s electric guitar take a lonesome stroll toward sunset on ‘Drifting Too Far From Shore’.

Walker resists the call of ‘last drinks’ on the fabulous bluesy ‘Closing Time’. The final track extends gratitude, allowing some closure for a hopeful new reality.

To blokes in pain, this chronicle suggests: Man up and talk (or sing) about it.

23

Kathleen Edwards Returns With Her First Album in Eight Years

By Brett Leigh Dicks

24

Kathleen Edwards is no stranger to change.

The Canadian singer-songwriter spent most of her childhood moving from place to place with her diplomat family. After finding refuge in music and recording an EP, Edwards up and moved again, touring relentlessly as she set about carving out a career. All the while she poignantly channeled the emotions and consequences that have come with successive changes into songs.

Change also played a hand in 2012. After the release of her acclaimed fourth album, Voyageur, Edwards famously stepped away from music. One of the most lauded and hardworking singers-songwriters in contemporary Canadian music, she was exhausted and depleted. Instead of continuing to pour her heart and soul into song, Edwards instead decided to channel her energy into a coffeehouse she opened on the outskirts of Ottawa, Ontario.

In 2017, when a call came from rising country star Maren Morris to write a few songs together, Edwards’ life changed again.

“When Maren Morris asked me to go down to Nashville to write she had just wrapped up her debut record that had done really well,” Edwards recently told Rhythms Magazine. “I wasn’t too familiar with her work and I wasn’t a cowriter. Nashville’s not the town I knew from when I was touring between 2002 and 2012. So, when she called, I thought it would be interesting to go down and dip my toe in the water and see what it’s like.

“When I came home it was like I’d been on a sugar-free diet for five years and had opened the door of a candy store – I realized how much I still loved sugar! The success of my café has been wonderfully rewarding but with that comes an unrelenting workload.

Nashville gave me a really wonderful break where I was at the mercy of only being immersed in music again and it made me realized what a wonderful gift music is.”

Edwards is about to release her first new album in almost eight years. Appropriately titled Total Freedom, the record is brimming with heartfelt songs nurtured by a refreshed creative outlook and a new sense of freedom.

Across the album’s eleven songs, Edwards revisits past relationships with a new perspective, explores her own resilience and optimism, and, for the first time, pursues what she feels is right rather than what is expected.

After returning home to Stittsville from the Nashville sessions, Edwards set about prying herself away from the café so she could concentrate on writing music.

“I knew I couldn’t do both,” she said.

“They’re just two things that I have found really incompatible for a long time. And it took a while for the songs to come. I remember the first couple of weeks of sitting down with my guitar I had to remind myself several times about not being too hard on myself.

Creating something out of thin air isn’t easy. It took some time and there was trial and error and lots of false starts on songs. I started

writing in late 2017, by March 2019 I started to record, and then finished the record just before Christmas.”

Having grown up traveling the world pursuing the postings of her diplomat father, after completing high school Edwards took to the road herself. Along with over a decade of classical violin studies, Edwards learned guitar and started writing songs and in 1999 recorded and released a six-song EP. She went out on the road, booking her own shows and managing her career, all the while sleeping in her car. It was during that time she wrote the songs for her debut album, Failer.

After the release of Failer in 2002, Edwards recorded and released three further albums – Back to Me (2005), Asking for Flowers (2008), and Voyageur (2012). On the back of Voyageur - her most lauded record to date - what should have been a heralding moment in the Canadian singer-songwriter’s ascending career became a defining one for very different reasons. It was around the time of Voyageur’s release that Edwards fell into a state of depression.

“I was more than just vulnerable at the time, I was clinically depressed but didn’t know it,” Edwards recalled after taking a moment to gather her thoughts. “I took the time I needed to find my footing. So, in this whole process of returning to music, anything that comes of it - whether it’s an interview or a live show - I’m not going to worry about whether I come across cool enough or if people think I’m worthy enough. None of that stuff has an impact on my feelings about myself now.

“I went through a really tough last year. When I was going through that I was incredibly vulnerable but I surrounded myself with really good people and knew I didn’t have to be so hard on myself. I think that I have now had enough life experience that when I’m feeling vulnerable or having a day when I’m not on my fucking game, it’s alright because it’s just today and I know tomorrow will be different. I didn’t have that coping mechanism before.”

Life experience is something that has served Edwards well in her creative arena. Always already to wear her heart on her sleeve, across her past four albums Edwards has fearlessly channeled her passage through life into song. Total Freedom is no different.

Across the album’s 11 songs Edwards reassesses past relationships, honors friends and companions gone too soon, dissects bad situations, and celebrates new-found freedoms, all with style and grace.

There is arguably no better example of the candidness Edwards displays throughout Total Freedom then on the album’s opening track, “Glenfern.”

“This was one of the first songs I wrote that broke my stalled years of writing,” Edwards said. “I had the overwhelming urge to express my gratitude to my Colin Cripps, who had shared so many of my formative music and life experiences. When Voyageur came out, the public narrative of that album was always perceived to be songs about our breakup, when in fact, they were songs I’d written when we were still married. I just had this

wave of nostalgia for the funny things you navigate as a couple and how life is always reminding you of memories you hold close in your heart.”

Given the integrity Edwards has long applied to music, it comes as no surprise that she has long commanded the admiration and respect of her contemporaries. From working with musicians and producers the caliber of Justin Vernon and Ian Fitchuk to collaborations with the likes of Blue Rodeo’s Jim Cuddy to John Doe – who famously once described Edwards as the “the Katharine Hepburn of music” - she is constantly name checked by her peers.

It seems that absence has also made the heart grow fonder in terms of Edwards and her music. The adulation is something that also has seemingly gathered momentum during her hiatus with her music frequently appearing as a point of reference for the current generation of singer-songwriters.

“I’m humbled and flattered to hear that,” Edwards said as her eyes started to well with tears. “It takes me by surprise every time and I can’t tell you how gratifying it is to hear that. I’ve always been a selfdeprecating person and that’s always been part of my armor, I guess. So, I’ve consciously deflected compliments. In the past I gave self-deprecation too much space but now I’ve learned how to accept a compliment.”

Part of that comes through putting it in context.

“I love Tom Petty and he was one of the reasons I started writing songs,” Edwards continued. “Everything about Tom Petty and his music informed me at my core. His music was my companion and my friend. His death really upset me, which I thought was kind of silly because I didn’t know him and had no right to any form of ownership of him. But then a friend made me realize I was grieving the loss of a dream and that I would on day meet him and tell me that I’ve got to do what I love in music because he was there and informed me. That hit the nail on the head.”

Which poses the obvious question - what is Kathleen Edward’s measure of success?

“Well, I really lost perspective of the answer to that,” Edwards said after another long pause. “I think that was a huge catalyst in me not being well and having to stop making music. I literally didn’t know what success for me was anymore, so I felt like a failure. I looked at my friends and musical colleagues, people like Fiesta and Bon Iver, who had these incredibly large audiences and thought I wasn’t going to get there.

“Success for me is now knowing that all of this is entirely on my own terms. Not that I was ever exploited, but I didn’t know how to draw boundaries. So, success for me is still trying as earnestly as I did when I put out my first record but it’s also maintaining a really good perspective where I don’t need to make myself small in order to protect myself from being disappointed. I can accept whatever comes my way a little more easily.”

Total Freedom is out now on Dualtone Records.

25

BATTEN DOWN THE HATCHES A young roots rocker R is on the rise.

By Jeff Jenkins.

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adio legend and Rhythms contributor Billy Pinnell introduced me to young Melbourne artist Joshua Batten. “Check him out,” Billy said. “He’s good.”

I attended the launch of Batten’s debut album, The City Within, at Melbourne’s David Williamson Theatre. Despite the large crowd, it was a welcoming, intimate gig. “It’s like a dinner party,” Batten said.

“Without the food.

“I consider you guys friends,” he added.

“I’m not popular enough yet to have fans.”

I enjoyed the show so much, I bought the album afterwards.

A few months later, I tuned into The Hard Rock Show, one of my favourite programs on Channel 31. It’s like a real-life Beavis and Butt-Head, but their musical opinions are astute. On this episode, they reviewed The City Within, even though they admitted it didn’t fall within their “hard rock” remit. Co-host Jimmy Van Zeno gave the album 10 out of 10 and took a swipe at “reality” singing shows such as The Voice.

“This guy, Joshua Batten, is clearly more talented than 99 per cent of the people that go on those types of shows,” Van Zeno said. “I’m giving an example of a real artist, a real performer and songwriter … I think the whole world should know about this bloke.”

Batten has enjoyed the plaudits, though the album is filled with songs about selfdoubt and the high expectations he places on himself. “It’s so hard to stay on track,” he confides in ‘Bleeding Truth’, “worrying about the things I lack.”

In ‘The Fox And The Hound’, he reveals, “Been taking lessons from the best in the world, but I still feel like I’m the worst.”

And in ‘Falling Behind’, he wonders: “At 23, am I too old?”

Ah, the impetuosity and impatience of youth!

The City Within is not all introspective, however. It also features a song called Behind Closed Doors, which Batten wrote after hearing plans to bulldoze Melbourne’s Festival Hall, the only surviving Australian venue that hosted The Beatles in 1964. “Behind closed doors,” Batten sings, “they’re tearing down our history.”

Asked to describe his sound, Batten says it’s folk rock meets blues, with a bit of country in there as well, “but more traditional country, not your Americanaccent country”.

“Depending on who I’m talking to, I’d say [my sound] is James Taylor meets Eric

Clapton, or Jackson Browne meets Eric Clapton. Or for someone younger, it’d be Lior meets Joe Bonamassa. But I listen to all sorts of stuff.”

He also loves prog rock and fantasises about assembling a Rush tribute band.

Batten is an old-school troubadour. “Out there on the highway is where I need to be,” he sings. “Playing show after show every night.”

Like every gigging musician, iso hasn’t been easy. But Batten has kept busy, doing a Wednesday night “Quaranstream” show on his Facebook page. As well as his own songs, he’s ripped through Sgt. Pepper’s, Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours as well as some ’80s hits.

He also did a James Bond theme (a cover of Chris Cornell’s Casino Royale song, ‘You Know My Name’) for Channel 31’s The Reel Thing. And he teamed up with a friend, Jourdain (the runner-up on 2008’s Australia’s Got Talent), for an impressive YouTube cover of the Philip Bailey and Phil Collins hit ‘Easy Lover’, which was released a decade before Batten was born.

Batten credits his parents as his biggest musical influences and supporters. His mum got him into The Beatles, while his dad – who went to boarding school in South Africa – led him to bands such as Bad Company, Kansas, The Police, ELO and Queen.

The City Within follows 2017’s mini-album, Searching For Answers. Explaining the album title, Batten says, “I spend a lot of time observing the city of Melbourne and the people who live in it, never really feeling like I belong to any particular group or clique.”

In the opening track, ‘Silver Dollars’, he laments $5 coffees and $10 beers, and a city that has lost sight of what really matters. “But,” he concludes, “we can turn it all around and start our lives again if we open our eyes.”

Batten wants to be a part of the Melbourne music story, but he knows it’s a hard road. “Can I run up that hill?” he asks in the Mariachi-inspired ‘The Slide’.

“Don’t know where I’m bound, but I’m on one hell of a ride.”

The City Within is out now.

Gareth Leach’s new country rock album, Trigger, aims at both the head and the feet.

By Martin Jones “It is a really interesting time to be releasing a record,” laughs young country rocker Gareth Leach. “I’ve been super emotional, man.

Like I’ve been ummming and ahhhing about whether I should be doing it, because I’m limited with touring and limited with how I can promote the record…. For me it’s been therapy but also the biggest form of anxiety in my life putting out an album. It’s been magnificent, such a great distraction from the outside world, but at the same time it’s anxiety magnified tenfold I suppose.”

In a normal world, Leach would be gathering his bandmates and preparing to tour behind his second album, Trigger.

Obviously, that’s not happening now. Gigs have been cancelled. Leach, a teacher, has been forced to set up a home office in his daughter’s nursery. Like the rest of us, Leach is reassessing his priorities and how he will live his life.

It puts his latest single ‘Honey’, a song questioning traditional notions of success, in a whole new context.

“Oh yeah, that song’s got a bit of a go get stuffed sort of attitude, about being judged on the way you live your life,” Leach agrees.

“And I think in this post-apocalyptic world we’re all living in I think it’s probably going to be even more so. I think there’s going to be an even bigger divide because there’s going to be so many more people struggling with jobs, you know, the expectations of being able to own a home, and things that we’re all brought up being told we’ll be able to do, I think they’re all going to become even more unachievable. I think for mental health, there needs to be an element of trying to let go of that. We’re all brought up on this idea of what we need to do to be successful and I think that this situation is really making us look at what makes us happy… we’re enjoying simple things that we take for granted at the moment.”

That’s another reason why it’s a really unusual time for musicians to be releasing new songs.

Words and ideas set to music twelve months ago have taken on new meanings in the context of the post-Covid world.

“Well there’s one song ‘Never Been One’,” Leach raises an example, “which is about trying to find gravity for things in life, trying to think about the positives while looking

at the stupid shit you’ve done in your life, I guess. And in a time like this when I listen to that song, it was really funny to hear what I thought I was grateful for twelve months ago when I was writing it and what I’m grateful for now. Like I’m grateful to be able to go outside and go for a run! I went for a run today!”

If such philosophising all sounds a bit intellectual for a country artist, well Leach is unapologetic about that. Much of the material on Trigger aims for both the head and the feet.

“Look we can talk about what country music is and what real country music is,” Leach sighs, “but I’m a big fan of the outlaws, I’m a big fan of the outlaw song writing of people like Johnny Cash and especially Willie Nelson,

he’s been one of the biggest influences on my music of the last decade. He’s become one of my biggest idols. And, look, I come from a punk rock, heavy metal background, so it’s all about riffs for me when it comes to guitar and song writing “But it’s kind of embarrassing to hear all these songs come out about mundane things that don’t really mean anything and I’ve always been of the mindset that if it doesn’t mean anything then what’s the point of bloody well saying it? And I think that that resonates with some people and some people get a little bit frightened off by it because it hasn’t got me talking about girls and utes (laughs).”

Trigger is available on September 4 through Social Family Records.

27

The Avett Brothers return to their North Carolina roots for a third instalment of their intimate low-fi recordings, the ‘Gleam’ series.

By Jo Roberts.

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I

t took 12 years to arrive, but Seth Avett says there was always going to be The Third Gleam. In fact, from the time he and his brother Scott recorded its first instalment, The Gleam, in 2006, the plan was always for more to come.

In fact, The Second Gleam arrived just two years later, in 2008. But that was before the North Carolina siblings had any inkling that, just around the corner, was the beginning of a long and fruitful relationship with iconic producer Rick Rubin, which has so far led to five albums, three Grammy nominations, and even a Judd Apatow documentary.

Since The Second Gleam, the Avett Brothers – who also include double bassist Bob Crawford and cellist Joe Kwon – have made five albums with Rubin, exploring sonic terrains hitherto

unimagined from a band founded 20 years ago on guitar (Seth), banjo (Scott) and double bass (Bob). Early albums – starting with their 2002 debut ‘Country Was’ – and exhilarating live shows showcased a gorgeous, at times raucous fusion of bluegrass, folk, country and ‘60s Beatle-esque pop, with the icing on the cake the sibling harmonies of Scott and Seth.

Their first album with Rubin, 2009’s I And Love And You, propelled the band to the next level, and also brought them to Australia for the first time in 2010, as part of Bluesfest.

It seemed a world away from when I first saw them in 2008, at a cosy but boisterous outdoor venue in Tampa, Florida, called Skipper’s Smokehouse.

Seth Avett laughs hard at the memory. “You just took me on quite a journey in my mind

from Byron Bay to suddenly being pulled all the way over to Skipper’s Smokehouse, that was an exhausting trip!”

Not exhausting enough. That 2010 Australian tour remains the band’s only visit here.

“Oh man, we gotta get back there, have mercy!” says Seth. “It’s so beautiful there, that trip really stands out.”

It would be nice to get anywhere these days.

Even in Concord, North Carolina – where the Avetts grew up and continue to live – the band is “sticking pretty close to home”, confirms Seth, as COVID-19 continues to keep much of the world tethered.

In fact, a few days before we speak, Seth and Scott announce a special ‘drive-in’ show at a nearby speedway, which will be their first

live show in six months. The show will be on August 29, the day after ‘The Third Gleam’ is released. All car spots were snapped up quickly.

A record launch of sorts, for now – but not an album launch. The Gleams have always been referred to as EPs, though they generally come in at album length (this one clocks up about 32 minutes).

The impending release of The Third Gleam was announced in July via a sombre video from Seth and Scott. In it, Seth explains that its eight songs of “isolation, incarceration, and injustice, as well as resilience, redemption, and love” were written and recorded well before the emergence of the pandemic, and the murder of George Floyd, two events that have deeply informed American life this year.

Two singles have already been released from it, ‘Victory’ and ‘I Go To My Heart,’ both penned by Scott, though the brothers always share equal songwriting duties on the Gleams. In fact, knowing that each other has four songs ready to go is part of the gentle impetus for making a Gleam.

“It is a pretty natural process I think,” says Seth. “We had talked about it a couple of times ... and it’s funny, because on any given project Scott and I will take turns at being excited about it, like, ‘we gotta do this thing!’, but it’s the moments when we’re both equally inspired to see things through, that’s when things get made. Somehow the planets lined up and we were both like ‘yes, this is it. Now’s the time’. We both knew the songs were there, we each had four songs, four solid statements that we wanted to make.’”

Both brothers have always been gifted songwriters. But their evolution over the past 20 years becomes all the more apparent when they return to the bare bones of their beginnings. The Gleam is where the brothers come back together to “clear the table a little bit and just check in with each other” says Seth. “[The Gleam] makes sense to Scott and I as an exhalation, of something that creates a space rather than fills it,” says Seth.

Bereft of Rubin embellishments, the songs stand alone. And so very, very tall.

In one of his songs, ‘I Should have Spent the Day with My Family’, Seth vividly sketches out a morning scene of rising and reading news of “another shooting”. While he offers a deeply personal take – “and the child who lost his life looked an awful lot like mine” – and even namechecks his own son and wife in the song, he invites the listener to open their heart even further.

“It’s very easy to be heartbroken over a child losing their life,” he says. “The difficult part is loving the shooter, loving the enemy; to see these lost souls who inflict pain on others, that’s the challenge y’know, that’s what I believe has to be attempted and looked at.

It’s like the grand opportunity for the highest contemplation, the highest understanding of the golden rule”.

The ‘golden rule’ comes from the Bible’s Gospel of Matthew and is, essentially, ‘do

unto others’. Seth and Scott’s grandfather was a Methodist minister. For his part, Seth says he is “certainly in concert with God”.

“I believe in God, I don’t know how to articulate what I think God is, I don’t think it’s limited to a certain group … I feel like a lot of people have gotten it right; that if it’s based in love, if your experience is based in love and your efforts are based in love, then you’re in accordance with God,” he says. “I was raised Methodist and I connect with quite a lot of what is said in that sect of Christianity, but I do learn and take quite a lot from a lot of other sources.”

The record’s eighth and final song is the astonishing six-minute epic, ‘The Fire’.

Penned by Seth, one of the inspirations for the song was a book on meditation that he often returns to, titled Wherever You Go, There You Are. “There’s a chapter in that book about looking into fire, the value of spending time with fire because it does something for us, for our contemplation and for our ‘quiet’ and that was certainly a part of developing the song,” he says.

The fascination of looking into a fire and contemplating is an almost universal experience. The song features a series of characters who do just that – a child filled with possibilities, a prison inmate, a preacher, a college girl – who look into the fire to look within themselves.

The Third Gleam is, in many ways, a perfect record for the times, when many of us are pausing and sitting with ourselves – contemplating the ‘quiet’.

“We do have this opportunity for calm, for quiet and contemplation on a different level,” says Seth. “And yet – I don’t know how this is for you – but from what I’ve seen, a lot of us, we want to immediately fill that space with every digital buzzing and beeping we can, and I think that needs to be looked at, cause if we go to that quiet place and it scares us and it makes us feel the crushing blackness of existence and the deep despair of it, I think that’s OK, y’know? I think that is an OK thing to check into.

“And I think you’re right, I think this is a great time to check in with whatever comes up from that time alone and that time in quiet.

It can be a bit of a rough moment, but it can also be quite useful.”

The quiet time will pass. And the Avett Brothers will, one day soon, return to the studio with Rick Rubin to make a new album; they are now a band of seven, with the addition of a drummer, keyboardist and fiddle player.

“I’ve emailed with Rick some. Who knows what will happen, I hope that we can, we’ve definitely been in contact with new songs,” says Seth. “It’s pretty wide open now so I would expect another record is coming with Rick for sure. God willing, yes, that’s something we hope will happen.”

The Third Gleam is out now through Loma Vista Recordings.

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Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, Americana’s first couple, have been in a frenzy of activity spurred by a tornado and the pandemic.

30

Good Times

meet her and David Rawlings on the phone there and did some other recording. We to talk about the new albums. You can see were able to be in there for a little over a the impressive looking Woodland Studio if year back, roundabout when was that, 2000 you visit the Five Points intersection in East or so.”

If there is anything good at all that has come Nashville, an area rich in good cafes and for music fans from this turbulent year then “So, it was rather poor timing,” adds restaurants. “So, it looked normal, except it has to be the fact that Gillian Welch and Rawlings, as we return to the subject of the if you were to see it from the top, it had no David Rawlings are releasing four album’s tornado. “Literally everything, all the eggs roof.” worth of material. You read right. Four. First were officially in one basket at that point. there was the album of ten cover versions, “The studio itself, it’s in an old theatre Then came the storm and we were able All The Good Times, quickly followed by the building,” explains Rawlings when I ask him to keep most of the things out of harm’s archival 16-song Boots No.2. Vol.1 – recorded to describe the building. “The Woodland way and, and hopefully when all is said and in one weekend in December 2002. These Street Theater would have been built in the done, and we’re going to be able to test are soon to be joined by two more Boots teens - the last teens, not these teens - and most of the equipment and everything. If volumes. That’s 58 songs in all! That is more roundabout the early 1960s it had closed we’d been out of town or hadn’t been able songs than Gillian has recorded on her five down as a theater and a guy named Glen to get over here and move stuff out of the studio albums to date. To put it into further Snoddy bought it. Glen had worked for way of water pouring in everywhere, we perspective, her last ‘solo’ studio album, The Acuff-Rose and he had built a few studios probably would’ve lost 90% of everything, Harrow & The Harvest, was released nine in town and he was a great engineer. He honestly.” years ago! bought the building and he built an A-room “It kind of flipped the roof over onto the inside what was the old theatre. He had Of course, we cannot really talk about ‘solo’ street in front of it,” continues Welch about success recording there albums for Welch the tornado. “That in and of itself wouldn’t “Our entire life’s work and added an addition without including have been so horrific except that then it and put on a B room.

David Rawlings, her rained for four hours, torrential rain. So, the is in that building.

Then there was a great partner in life and bulk of our scramble was running around It’s really kind of the mastering room and music, whose own last trying to save everything from catastrophic recording, Poor David’s Citadel of all that we’ve through the seventies destruction really. It was kind of miraculous, and eighties, this Almanack, is already basically, because David, and I, and our tour ever done.” was one of the hotter three years old. Their manager, Glen, and our engineer, Matt, studios in Nashville and music is inextricably were all in town and were all over on the site – Gillian Welch kind of in the country. entwined: Rawlings’ within about half an hour. We managed to Honestly, it had a real heyday. guitar is the foil to Welch’s voice and in basically save everything. If we’d been gone, many ways is a major character in itself.

“So, we had both the A-room and the I think we would’ve lost everything.

B-room up and working and we had all of You might describe the duo’s approach “Eventually most of the ceilings collapsed our gear, everything was sort of set up in the to releasing music as ‘leisurely’ but it is from the water and whatnot and there was A-room to record when the tornado hit. We probably more accurate to think of them as just cascading waters, collapsing ceilings, recently moved our record lathe – we were perfectionists. Each release is crafted with and our entire life’s work is in that building. actually cutting our own lacquers for making care and an inherent timeless quality, like so It’s really kind of the Citadel of all that vinyl. That had been in a mastering studio in many of the old equipment they like to use we’ve ever done. Every guitar we owned, California for a period of time because our and the artifacts they celebrated in Nashville every microphone, every master tape, just mastering engineer had worked out there, Obsolete in 2015. everything. It was pretty harrowing. We but we had just sort of loaded up most of his didn’t really sleep for about three days.

But 2020 has changed all that. First came studio in ……..I don’t know what the longest It just kept rolling. We had to stay on the the tornado that swept through East U-haul thing you can rent is, it was some premises and, of course, there was no Nashville in early March and ripped the truck that was thirty-something feet long power in the whole area; it was just pretty roof off their Woodland Studios which they …….and I had driven it across the country surreal actually. Then that just kind of had owned since 2001. The couple had to and unloaded.” segued directly into rush there to save their master recordings, the pandemic for us.

“The A-room is instruments and recording equipment from “So, it’s really a hi-fi The shorthand as we probably thirty by forty, the subsequent inundation. twenty-foot ceilings, way to go about it: just call it, is the double Then came the pandemic and all live in our little big room,” he continues performances were put on hold for the one microphone and a whammy neighbourhood. It’s describing the setup. “It foreseeable future. All the gigs they had quarter inch machine. just been dealing with was one of the bigger scheduled for the remainder of the year, the double whammy.” rooms in Nashville I didn’t want the and which would have provided the bulk of when they built that. first major effect their income, were put on hold. recording to really get The Honestly, they did a lot of that doubleFaced with twin disasters, the couple did of strings here for ’70s in the way of music.” whammy was the what musicians do best – they played and and ‘80s records and for impetus to record at – David Rawlings recorded – at home, while their studio was commercial dates and home, something so out of action. Then, after salvaging most of things. The B-room is many other musicians were suddenly forced their archival recordings - especially those roughly modelled on the great RCA Studio to do as well. made between Time (The Revelator) in 2001 B here in Nashville. It’s about the same size “We were at home, kind of embroiled in and Soul Journey in 2003 - they thought as that in about the same construction. RCA tornado recovery, but also sort of with time they better get them out there. We are the Studio B is actually what Gil and I were lucky on our hands, as everyone has been because beneficiaries. enough to rent while they were building the of being locked down,” explains Welch. “And “The best way I can describe it is that our new hall of fame. And that’s where we made so, you want to stay as normal as you can. studio got the roof peeled off kind of like a Time (The Revelator). I got the first half of You want to try to do what you do. >>> sardine can,” recalls Gillian Welch when I the first Old Crow Medicine Show record

ALL THE

ARE HERE

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“You sit and you play and something comes out and you think, ‘Oh, that was pretty cool.’ Most of the time it’s just gone off into the ether,” he adds and laughs as he >>> We couldn’t work at the studio. The recalls the selection process. “In this case studio was totally non-functional and I could play it back and go, ‘Yes, there was honestly, Dave and I couldn’t really write something there.’ Or sometimes you go, ‘No very much. I think there was just too much we’re delusional.” going on. There had been too much of a sort All The Good Times takes its optimistic of cataclysmic sea change, for my thoughts title from the traditional song previously to settle enough to write. recorded by Ralph “So, we just Stanley and Jimmy “What is prompting concentrated on Martin; however, the playing. Every this is our own sanity subtitle adds the codicil night we would just and trying to find a way ‘Are Past And Gone,’ to write and play folk bring us back to reality. songs, really. We just forward. The only thing The album features gravitated toward we know how to do is songs from Bob Dylan those songs. Then (‘Señor’ and ‘Abandoned make music.” when we realised Love’), Elizabeth Cotten that was sort of – Gillian Welch (‘Oh Babe, It Ain’t No our response to Lie’), Norman Blake this moment, this (‘Ginseng Sullivan’) and peculiar chapter in history, it was so much a magnificent reading of John Prine’s ‘Hello what was getting us through every day. I in There.’ There is also a terrific version of don’t know how else to put it except to say ‘Jackson,’ the hit song for Lee Hazelwood that I kind of felt like we had to honour, and Nancy Sinatra (and Johnny Cash and balance it and record it and share it with June Carter Cash). There are also new people. There’s a tremendous strength in arrangements of traditional tunes such as folk music, I don’t know if it’s partly because ‘Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss,’ ‘Y’All it has endured, there’s something really Come,’ and ‘Poor Ellen Smith.’ lasting and for me, very hopeful about it.

“We did play a lot of songs. We do play a lot So, I know I was sort of drawing on that in of songs,” responds Welch when I mention the darker moments of this whole chapter.” that there must have been hundreds of Rawlings explains how a few years ago songs that they could have chosen for the he brought an Atari quarter inch 2-track album. “This is still continuing every night, machine from a friend and installed it in a cupboard at home. He also added an Ampex tube mixer from the ‘50s or ‘60s and a Telefunken microphone to complete a home studio.

“After the tornado messed everything up, that was all there was like. So, the microphone just sat on the coffee table and I was recording using just the one microphone going onto the two-track.

When I’m cutting it to the Lacquer, mastering it, I’m just doing it straight from that tape. So, it’s really a hi-fi way to go about it: just one microphone and a quarter inch machine. But it’s a very unvarnished kind of sound, but it’s also a very easy way to... I didn’t want the recording to really get in the way of music.

“I wanted to just be able to hit record when we felt like it,” continues Rawlings about the recording process. “It’s a different thing when you sit down in a studio: you see all the microphones and you’re not really thinking the same way that you think when you’re just sitting around in the living room playing. I want to try to capture that more. I knew we played music differently there and some of the songs that ended up on this certainly weren’t the songs I expected that we were going to release. But you know it’s as it is.”

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Brian. Dave, and I still eat dinner and then sit on the sofa and play songs.

“I don’t think we over-thought it too much.

These were just the first songs that made it to tape. Literally, ‘Poor Ellen Smith’, I think, is the first song that we recorded when we finally decided that we should probably record this stuff.”

Welch also credits two friends of theirs – Paul Kennerley and Ken Scott, engineers and producers in their own right – with having urged them to record their home recording sessions.

“I was corresponding with both of them and got soundly berated, when I told them that Dave and I were playing every night,” she recalls. “Both of them said, ‘I hope to God, you’re recording this’ and I said, ‘Well, no, we’re just doing it.’ Recording and doing are two different things.”

“I did kind of take it to heart,” she adds, “but Dave, was the one who actually walked over to the studio, got the tape, got a microphone and came back and set it up.

We didn’t overthink the song selection too much. I’d say both Dave and I, had a good chuckle the day we played, ‘All the Good Times Are Past and Gone’ because it had some current resonance that I found darkly humorous. So, early on, that was kind of a cornerstone and ended up being the title.”

“Well, we did play a lot of songs,” agrees Rawlings. “Weirdly, the two Dylan songs and another song that I sang, ‘Poor Ellen Smith’, those were all on the first reel we

ran. Those were tests. I didn’t even know it. I hadn’t even heard a thing back when we did those. So, they were all just first takes but they did seem to capture a little of the spirit with or after. So, we went ahead and used them.”

He adds that they then thought about how they would get some variety on the recording by including a ‘fun’ song such as ‘Jackson, “which we’ve played live for a long time but sitting down to record that has never really felt right to us, even though it’s always felt good at the end of a show.”

“So, one day we just whipped that one off and thought it sounded good,” he continues, “and we’re always playing Bill Monroe songs or just different bluegrass songs. So, the title track and ‘Y’all Come’ came out that way. We play a lot of Norman Blake’s music. I mean, I almost did a couple of his songs, but we ended up using that one,’ Ginseng Sullivan’, that Gillian sang really beautifully. So, the thing is, we could do five or six volumes without too much trouble!”: When I tell him that I hope they do, he adds, “Well, there are maybe three real nice things that just didn’t honestly fit on. So, I’m thinking I will, at some point, we’ll turn the microphone on again and start to fill out another one, I hope.”

Welch admits that ’Hello In There’ has always been her favourite John Prine song when I tell her that it was great to see it included on All The Good Times, which takes it to new even more emotional level.

“Of course, when he got sick and then when he passed, he was just so foremost in our thoughts,” says Welch, referring to Prine’s passing on April 7, near the start of the pandemic. “And again, Nashville took it really hard. It was just like a punch in the guts with everything.”

“Oh, it hurts to lose him,” she continues. “So, we were thinking about him and I’ve never sung that song because I get so emotional with it. I was talking with John’s widow, Fiona Prine, because I played her the song before we released it. I wanted her to know we’d cut it and to hear the version, then she wanted to know if it’s something I’ve been singing for years and I said, ‘No, I don’t sing it because I can’t sing it without crying.’

Because it’s a masterpiece in that every time it does it (to me).

“Every time it brings about this complex and profound emotional response, every time and that’s a masterpiece, it never fails.

It’s all in the song. Again, it was Dave, he said, ‘Why don’t you sing, ‘Hello in There.’ I said, ‘Because I can’t get through it, without crying.” He’s like, “Yeah. You can.” So, I sang it. That was the one take, that was the first take. Most of this album is first takes, we just sing something. A few of them we had to do a couple more times.”

“Well, yes,” agrees Welch when I ask if making the recordings was cathartic, “but also to hear people say, ‘Thank you. I needed some more music’ - that simple statement of ‘Thanks, I needed that’ as really kept us going. This is such a dislocated time and

literally, for so many people, such an isolated time. I know myself and a lot of artists have been struggling with a feeling of being non-essential. Because when things get really, really tough, you need food, you need shelter, you need medical attention. You don’t necessarily need folk music: except I’m hearing from people they do, for all the other things, for mental and emotional wellbeing, for spiritual wellbeing, for entertainment, with a capital E. So, that’s kind of my thought process with all of these.”

THESE BOOTS ARE MADE FOR LISTENING The Boots 2 collection of songs was recorded even more spontaneously than All The Good Times. A single weekend back 20 years ago – between Time (The Revelator) and Soul Journey - has provided the material for three albums and we’ll hear all three before the end of the year. The marathon session was prompted by the fact that Welch had to complete a publishing contract.

However, these were not just throwaway ditties: Solomon Burke recorded ‘Valley of Tears’ while Alison Krauss took Welch and Rawlings’ ‘Wouldn’t Be So Bad’, having already recorded their song ‘New Favorite.’

“I started to fall behind on fulfilling that yearly minimum,” recalls Welch, “because, I don’t write on the road. I only write at home.

So, it came to pass that I owed them over 50 songs because I’d been in the deal for a long time. Every year I fell a little short. So, my deal was going to automatically renew January 1st. Then I was just going to get even more behind. We thought, well, what if I just get caught up? What if I somehow give them all the songs I owed them? So that’s what happened. That’s what the songs were. They were not written for an album. They were not even written with myself in mind. Really.

They were just pulled from my notebooks.

I always have notebooks with song ideas.

Then we just pulled out all the notebooks and just started mopping up these songs.

And soon as we got one done, we would record it. And that’s what these recordings are.”

“I want to stress, that publishing deal had been very important to me,” adds Welch when I mention that some writers had not been so assiduous when it came to completing a deal. “I didn’t want to go out with bad feelings. David Conrad, the man who had signed me, basically is the first man who ever gave me a job in the music business. So, even though that chapter had run its course, I wasn’t going to give them garbage. I thought too much of them, but at the same time I had to get done with the deal. I had no business being in a staff writing deal anymore.”

“These two projects are kind of motivated by everything that’s been going >>> 33

>>> on,” explains Welch. “Those tapes are some of the tapes that we rescued after the tornado. You know, after you do something like that, it kind of puts a finer point on it.

If it’s so important to me to rescue these, why? Why is it so important? Why do I care?

We’ve had these tapes for so long, what were we going to do with them? Were we going to play them for anybody? Were we going to release them? What? So, I do think there’s been some kind of a shift in our curating process, editorial process, and we’ve sort of cracked open the flood gates a little bit, and then just decided to not censure ourselves so strictly.”

I suppose if there’s one good thing we could say out of this terrible situation is that we get to hear all of this music that we might not otherwise have got to hear, particularly as musicians who would probably make a living mainly out of touring this could be another way of earning an income, at least in the short term anyway.

“Yeah, it’s true,” agrees Welch. “It is a very topsy turvy time and we won’t be making any money on the road for quite some time - and we still have a largely demolished studio. So, if people want to buy these records, that’d be good, but that’s just never the primary focus for us. It doesn’t even make the Top Five, really.

“What is prompting this is our own sanity and trying to find a way forward. The only thing we know how to do is make music. So, you’re witnessing us doubling down and just seeing how much music we can make. We keep using the words ‘clearing the decks’.

We’ve had these projects that have been lingering forever, and the last songs that’s been on lingering long-term project. We never really forgot about the tapes. They just got now shoved into the forefront.”

“I think, I’m a very patient person, very, very patient, and I think, possibly to a fault,” says Welch continuing the theme. “I might’ve thought, ‘Oh, well, we could do that sometime and we had this brutal reminder that. No, we had two brutal reminders. As a matter of fact, you can’t always do these things sometime. Sometimes they just get blown away. Sometimes they pass away, things happen. It’s an old story. So many people before us have had the wake-up call of, ‘Oh, maybe I should just go ahead and do this.’ So, that’s what we’re doing. Yeah, it’s been a rough time knowing what the right response is. What is the best thing I can do right now? Some days it really tears me up, not knowing what is the best thing I can do right now.

“I’ve never been a political person. I’ve never been a very public person. I’m a very, very

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private person. That’s how I write. At least I kind of had that realisation that maybe the best thing I can do right now, is just do what I do and just make more music. I’m not supposed to change what I do. I think I’m just supposed to do what I do.”

“There was a decent amount of technical stuff that needed to happen with those,” responds Rawlings when I ask him if much work had to be done on the archival recordings, “because they’d been done in such a quick manner, there were sort of some buzzes and some things to deal with. I was glad that when we went back and revisited them. I certainly did some post-production on them in terms of compressing them some and doing some work on them that way to kind of get up as close to a studio sound as we could out of them. Some of the stuff doesn’t sound like it’d be out of place on some of our earlier records, which, I hope people feel that way.”

Certainly, the strength of these songs is that fans will wonder why some were left off the original recordings.

“You can kind of feel where some of them might have landed in on a record or two,” agrees Rawlings. “I guess the time period we were coming off of - doing Time (The Revelator) and heading into doing Soul Journey, which was a little more of almost a solo record - was that some songs needed a back beat in a way.

“What was wonderful going back and revisiting the tapes was feeling like there was a cohesive flavour there to some degree. Most of them are cut from a little bit of a simpler cloth compositionally, but that gives them a flavour of their own that I think I can appreciate more now than certainly we did then. We probably should have put them out, you know.”

While Volume 1 of Boots 2 has some songs with a gospel influence, Rawlings says that Volume 3 is the most varied stylistically.

“That was a little bit more of a grab bag,” he explains, “but for the people who have heard all three volumes, I know a lot of people who that’s their favourite stuff.

So, I think that’s kind of exciting. I think if I take the songs in, I think volume two is my personal favourite. If I had to choose one to listen to, I think there’s a good blues number on there and there’s some stuff that, again, I really wonder why we didn’t put out on all of them.”

“From the outside, it may appear that way,” laughs Rawlings when I tell him that four albums in six months is like a frenzy of activity from them after their previous history.

“I think there’s always been this much activity. I just don’t know that there’s been that much release to show for it,” he adds.

“The combination of the tornado, and of course the situation with the pandemic now with the country kind of being shut down, it does let you look at things through a different lens.”

“I tend to work very long days, always. It’s just how I’ve always been,” he continues.

“So, I’m really happy to have as much to show for this little piece of time as we have had the show. In the case of Boots, we’re finally getting around to doing some stuff we always intended to do, and the same with the home recording. Of course, there’ll be new music coming hopefully sooner than later too. So, we’ll just try to see what it’s like. You’ll be getting sick of hearing new songs.”

I confide in Rawlings that I don’t think that’s going to happen!

“Well, maybe by the time you’ve heard 48 of these Boots songs,” he offers. “But I feel really good if people are appreciating it. It feels good that somebody cares.”

All The Good Times is available at gillianwelch.bandcamp.com while Boots 2 Vol2.1-3 are available at gillianwelch.com

Catherine Britt is beginning the exciting next phase of her twenty-year career with a new album, the first release on her own record label.

by Chris Familton

A

I

LEAP FOR INDEPENDENCE

t’s a strange time in the world when you have to quickly pack up your things, gather your family and hightail it to the Queensland border.

“We just had to make a last-minute decision otherwise we wouldn’t have been able to start the tour, which begins up in QLD.” explains Catherine Britt. Five months earlier she was doing the opposite, enjoying being out on the road, playing to enthusiastic audiences, when it all came to a dramatic halt. “That’s never happened to me before. It was such a strange feeling. We were on the road and everything was great and within a day I had to cancel my whole tour and drive home from Queensland.”

Britt was thankfully in a fortuitous position, having just successfully crowdfunded her new album. She quickly pivoted from touring mode into finishing writing for the album and then hit the studio in Newcastle with what she describes as Australia’s best country ‘hot band’, to quote Emmylou Harris.

“It was just pure luck with the timing, and I was so grateful for it,” she says.

“We were able to get the album, photo and video shoots all done in that little window of time and now I’m looking forward to hitting the road and releasing some music,” enthuses Britt.

The album is slated for release at start of the Tamworth Festival in January 2020 and sees Britt returning to more of a commercial country-pop flavoured Americana sound, somewhere between her albums Always Never Enough (2012) and Too Far Gone (2006).

She describes it as “straighter country stuff with pedal steel and fiddle - think mid- ‘90s Dixie Chicks!” Lyrically Britt has approached the songs as stories and less purely autobiographical in nature.

“I always found that fascinating when I sat down with people like Guy Clark and they’d tell me they’d just listen to people talk and then write down their stories. I wanted to write a whole record that wasn’t all about me. I wanted everyone to be able to see themselves in these songs and not necessarily have to know Catherine Britt.”

The first single from the album has the intriguing name: ‘I Am A Country Song’. It’s a song title Britt has had in her back pocket for a few years, inspired by a Nashville friend.

“She was my best friend when I moved over there at 17. She’s been married a few times and her husbands were abusive. The third one was an alcoholic and he was out fox hunting and fell off his horse and it rolled on him and he was in a coma and then disabled for a year before he died.”

“We went over there for AmericanaFest, just after it happened, and on the way from the airport I asked her what was new on the radio in Nashville and she said, “Oh girl, I don’t even listen to the radio. I am a country song!” recalls Britt in perfect Nashville twang.

Fast forward to writing the song and Britt found that the phrase applied to so many people she encounters on her travels. “In the outback I meet all these country people who live the country life – hardcore people. I had them in mind when i was writing it. They live country music. They don’t need George Jones to tell them how to live their life.”

In 2020, Britt has also added record label owner to her resume after requesting an amicable release from Lost Highway Records and starting her own independent label, Beverley Hillbilly Records. “I realised my kids weren’t going to own any of my music and reap the benefits of it and that felt wrong,” she explains.

“I was thinking about that a lot and I talked to friends where were independent and doing well. I feel a lot more in control and I love the challenge. It’s a lot of work but you reap the rewards. I’ve gone down the path of buying out my publishing and I’m also looking at my back catalogue. I’m learning lots of new things now about running a label and now feels like the right time and I’m ready for it. I’m making the leap!”

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Dan Penn’s songwriting credentials place him amongst the greats of all time. His new album helps confirm that status.

“Well thank you Stuart, it’s the same one I’ve had for awhile, so you just give it what you’ve got and sometimes it turns out all right,” laughs the legendary Dan Penn when I remark that his voice is still sounding mighty fine.

And, yes, legendary is a word that really can be used when you talk about the writer or co-writer of songs like ‘The Dark End Of The Street’, ‘Do Right Woman, Do Right Man’, ‘You Left The Water Running’, ‘Cry Like A Baby’ and ‘I’m Your Puppet’.

Penn is in a good mood when we chat. He’s sitting outside on the porch of his home in Alabama, which is where he hangs out when he’s not in Nashville. The songwriter and singer has forgotten I’m calling but that doesn’t seem to phase the amiable sounding Penn.

We’re discussing Living On Mercy, Penn’s first real album since 1994’s sublime Do Right Man. In between there’s been a few collections of what Penn refers to as demo albums.

“They were pretty basic recordings with just a few musicians,” he says. “They were really just to let people know I was still alive. I sold a few on the internet and some at gigs. But I got the chance to do this record with real people and I used my own money.”

Living On Mercy is exquisite. The now 78 year old Penn recorded it in Muscle Shoals and Nashville with a band that includes Milton Sledge on drums, Michael Rhodes on bass, guitarist Will McFarlane and keyboards player Clayton Ivey.

“I’m happy with it,” Penn says. “I’m surprised how it came out. We worked hard on it and then, boom. There it was. I’m happy with the players and the songs and how it came out.”

The album contains a mixture of new and older songs, some typical Penn collaborations and a few he wrote by himself.

“There’s a couple of new songs I wrote my myself over the last couple of years, and some I wrote with Will, my guitar player. He and I wrote two songs together. And then I had a few songs that I’d written for the Cate Brothers, songs that Wayne Carson and I write. They never did cut them but they’d demo’d them and I loved the demoes they did and I wanted to cut those songs. And then there were a couple of real old ones. I can’t think of the names of them Stuart, but you know the ones I’m talking about.”

I of course have no idea of which songs are older or newer but venture that one I’ve been walking around my home singing to is ‘Clean 36

Slate’. And that may well have been one of the songs Penn was referring to.

“That’s a fairly old song,” Penn says. “Maybe 15 or 20 years old. I wrote that with some other writers – Carson Whitsett and Gary Nicholson – and nothing really happened with it. Some guy cut it but it didn’t really do anything, well nothing particular that I heard about, and then when I was getting ready to cut this album I sent the stuff down to Clayton who was doing the chord sheets and is kind of leader of the group, and I included that song and he said, ‘man, let’s cut Clean Slate’. He was adamant.

He wanted to play on it. So that’s how we got 13 songs. It’s a good little song.”

Another stand out on Living On Mercy is ‘Down On Music Row’, Penn’s reflections on that city which he calls home a lot of the time, and the people who gravitate there trying to make it in the music business.

“It’s just got this bigness about it now,” Penn says of Nashville. “They seem to be trying to make Atlanta out of it. It was quite quaint there for a long time but now they’re building houses as fast as they can build them. Progress is definitely being made but also taxes are going up.

“People come there. They get off trains, planes and buses and they want to make it as a country music star. Some of them make it but I guess most of them don’t – and I wrote that song about it.”

Penn clearly loves having people around him in the creative process – both when it comes to recording and song writing.

“I still believe that two is better than one,” he says. “I mean, it’s a lot more fun. Writing by yourself is OK. You can do well that way but you’re not really having a lot of fun. It’s a lot of work – especially if you have to play the piano and you don’t really know how. I wrote two of these songs on the piano and I’m not a piano player so I had to struggle through them. I mean they came out fine and I love the songs but I’d much rather be working with someone.

“And when I’m writing, that’s when I figure I’m alive – and if I’m alive I like to have a little fun. And having fun can be having a joke or if nothing’s happening you might go boating.

But if you’re by yourself not much fun is going to happen. At least that’s the way it is for me.

Some people are different. Wayne Carson could get up at 8am and write 40 songs in a day and all of them would be viable. Was he having fun? I think maybe he was (laughs) in his own way, but I can’t do that. First of all I ain’t going

By Stuart Coupe

to get up at 8.30, but I do like co-writing. And I need a better musician than I am to write – and if you’ve got a really good musician with you it really helps.”

And the same goes for recording. Penn likes to record quickly and with everyone in the room when it’s all going down. “ I like to see it all go down together,” he says.

“I like everyone to be playing and singing at the same time. If you get a good piano player he can take you there, to places I can’t really go with my guitar playing, or a really good guitar player like Will McFarlane, he was really good to write with. He made you forget about a piano because he played so good. And that’s saying something.

“It’s still the same with the writing – I don’t write a lyric to a melody. A lot of people do that but I don’t. It’s no fun to me. It’s a heart thing. More than a brain thing. If you think it up but you don’t feel it then chances are no one else is going to feel it either. That’s my take on it. Other people think different and do it differently. And that’s OK. There are no rules.

This is a loose, do it how you want to type deal.

“But that’s the way I’ve always done it. I’ve always backed away from people who want to write on a computer or want to write by phone or something like that. I go, ‘no man, I want to feel the body heat. I want somebody else in the room with me, otherwise I’ll just do it myself and that way you’ve got to deal with nobody’.

So, I wrote two of the songs on this album by myself. That’s what made me decide I wanted to cut another record.

“I went to Japan last year and made a little bit of money and put it away and then decided I wanted to cut myself a record, so I called these really good musicians and booked a studio and started cutting and we had a lot of fun. I hadn’t cut a record like that in a real long time.”

And, of course, when you get to chat to Dan Penn you want to ask some of the obvious questions – such as what’s his favourite version of one of his songs. “ “I guess it was Aretha with ‘Do Right Woman’,” Penn says without hesitating.

“They cut it but I had to go over and write some words to the bridge. Mr Wexler came to me and said, ‘I’d cut that ‘Do Right’ song but we don’t have any words for the bridge’ and I said I’d get some words, and he helped me and Aretha helped me. Then the next thing I know I’m out on the studio floor tracking that song because she ain’t ready to commit to it and I had to do a pilot vocal and try and get near her key.

of that’, because it was pitiful. It had nothing on it, but she played it so beautifully when she got it.”

“Then everyone was leaving the studio.

Wexler was pulling her out of town because the record had gone over time and she had got in a fight with her husband at the motel and he was taking her out of there and back to New York. So, we all went to New York to finish the record.

“I think Trump will be back in,” Penn volunteered. “I think he’ll win it again. The other guy don’t seem like he can hardly talk. I hope we get him back again. We need to have some strength in there.”

“When we got there Mr Wexler said ‘you and Chips (Moman) come with me’ and he took us to the control room at Atlantic Studios and he played the version Aretha had done – she’d played piano and sung on it. That was unreal. Because when I heard it coming out of Alabama I said ‘I ain’t making any money out

Things were going really well. Penn was chatty and I was getting to natter with one of my heroes.

Then I happened to mention the upcoming American election. I wish I hadn’t.

I let that one slide and said my goodbyes. I went back to listening to my favourite song on Living On Mercy and hoped that Penn had written and recorded an anthem for a new, Trumpless America. That in fact come November that country really does start with something approximating a ‘Clean Slate’.

Living On Mercy is available through The Last Music Company.

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Guitar great John McLaughlin hasn’t let the pandemic stop his music.

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here are guitarists who are maybe known as being ‘big-hitters’ then there are a few, a handful at most, who might merit the moniker of being ‘huge-hitters.’ UK picker John McLaughlin falls into the latter camp, with a truly astonishing ability and drive that has never slowed, drifted or faltered in what is now over sixty years at the top of the musical tree. Catching up with the guy who is in selfimposed lockdown at home in Monaco, it’s a relief to find him laid-back, interesting and chatty.

McLaughlin has worked with so many of the giants of modern music that it’s hard not to pinch myself as the names slip past like the

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years, all indicators of his own place in the general scheme, not to suggest theme of things. He confirms he’d hoped to be out on the road touring with 4th Dimension around now, summer 2020, but Covid has laid low his plans, though he hopes the gigs will be rescheduled and possible again next year in 2021. If there’s a difficulty with McLaughlin, it’s probably where to start a conversation!

I elect to go back in time, to his roots and what inspired him personally as a budding guitarist many years ago: “I was about fourteen years old, I think, when I first heard Django Reinhardt. It was amazing, shaped my thinking and gave me some direction in so many ways,”

he laughs. When I suggest that may have been a bit surprising at a time when rock and pop were ruling the airwaves, he agrees. “Yea, jazz was not so well known though there were great musicians out there back then. For me personally, Tony Williams was amazing and helpful,” he recalls with a still near-wondrous tone of voice.

Williams was then drummer with jazz giant and pioneer Miles Davis, a band and a musician McLaughlin absolutely loved. “Tony was a revolutionary drummer, the greatest drummer of the twentieth century in my opinion. He was of my own generation and had heard me play on a recording – old style – at a jam at Ronnie Scott’s club in London. He liked what he heard and played it to Miles. I got a call and he asked me to come along to the studio and meet Miles. I was real lucky cause Miles was looking for a guitarist at the time. He was disenchanted with the way jazz was moving. He wanted something else. At the time Herbie (Hancock) was moving away into free-form jazz. I like a sobriety of form and admired what Miles was doing. I went into the studio and played, a baptism of fire, or more accurately a baptism of sweat. I was so tense, I guess. It was a test, I knew, and I passed it and got the job.”

From this start, McLaughlin went on to repeatedly record with Miles Davis, including almost immediately by sitting in on Davis’s ambient jazz release In a Silent Way. “Out there in the States, I’d visit his home in Malibu several times a week and we’d play together.

I’d played R&B, funk, rock and all those things in the 1960s. With Miles, it was around Autumn 1970, I had a bad night once, playing guitar can be a bitch at times! But Miles knew where I was coming from. He told me it was time I had

By Iain Patience my own band. So, when Miles Davis says that, you just have to do it!”

The result was one of the most extraordinary bands of the twentieth century modern music movement, the Mahavishnu Orchestra.

McLaughlin remembers it well and was blown away by the immediate success and the way the band were almost instantly embraced by the fans in the USA: “It was all such an unexpected thing. America was so good to us.

We couldn’t seem to do anything wrong at the time for the fans. Miles used to come along to gigs and watch us. I’d written a concerto which was recorded by the London Symphony Orchestra. We had a part for flugelhorn and one night after a gig he turned to me and said – ‘Now you can die, John!’ It was an amazing compliment from a guy like Miles. Something I’ll never forget.”

Looking back, he recalls teaching Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page a bit and him being a guy “…with determination and ability. He knew what he wanted.” In addition, he worked in sixties London as a session-man, a life he found unsatisfactory and boring at times, despite working with almost everyone of note at the time from the Stones, Brian Augur, Graham Bond, Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker to a spell with Georgie Fame’s Blue Flames. “It was just how it was back then. I had other ideas. I knew I had to get out to the USA.” Stateside, he then found himself also working and playing with one of the world’s most acclaimed pickers, Jimi Hendrix, with whom he developed a good relationship: “I was working with Georgie Fame and got to know Jimi’s drummer, Mitch Mitchell. Mitch was a huge fan of my buddy, Miles’ drummer, Tony Williams.

He’d come along to hang out whenever the

John, Chick, Carlos and Herbie chance arose with Tony. He worshipped Tony and his playing. I always say, listen to the Jimi Hendrix Experience and Mitch in particular.

There’s a real jazz vibe in there that filtered into Jimi’s playing too. Jimi was living in Greenwich Village so I got to meet him a lot. One time he was at Electric Ladyland and Mitch said, ‘Come on, let’s go.’ I went into the studio and I had a hollow body guitar with me. There were a lot of players there and we had a great time playing together, though I still wish I’d had a solid-body guitar with me! But Jimi was just so sweet, so unassuming. It was amazing what he did and could do. Back then he was really pioneering with a guitar, amazing. Listen to ‘Star Spangled Banner.’ Just Jimi, a Strat, a Wha-Wah pedal and a Marshall amp. Astonishing, even now.”

“I feel that Jimi was in ways a bit like John Coltrane. As John developed after A Love Supreme, he was always looking for more tone and so was Jimi. It was never about noise, always about tone, though Tony Williams always wanted to be loud with his music at the end, John Coltrane’s drummer, Elvin Jones, was another great drummer I knew and admired enormously. He was another great with true vision.”

With enormous global success and acclaim already in the bag, McLaughlin moved on to a new venture with Shakti, a fusion of jazz, funkblues and Indian Raga-style music that again hit the musical mark. He had a Gibson J200 guitar with a specially scalloped fretboard and an additional seven strings, each individually tuned, that gave him an edge and allowed him to play the Indian rhythmic style and bend notes in a unique way. Sadly, the guitar is no more: “It’s gone now, sadly. An accident wrecked it,” he explains.

Before forming his current band, 4th Dimension, McLaughlin picked up a Grammy for Best Instrumental Jazz Album with his short-lived outfit, the Five Peace Band in 2009.

Again, he recalls the pleasure of the award and the album, Five Peace Band Live, which he

describes as: “Straight-on jazz fusion really.

And Chick (Corea) was in a real experimental period at the time. So, it was great to get the award but it was also a surprise in a way!”

When I ask how he found the transition from playing intimate jazz club venues to filling arenas, McLaughlin pauses before responding: “That was unexpected and strange at times.

I remember playing with Eric Clapton. – he’s done his bit for guitar too – at his Crossroads Guitar Festival in Illinois. I looked down and there was 110,000 people! Weird to play for such a huge crowd. Eric’s used to that, like Carlos Santana, but it was new for me in reality.”

Asked what he’s up to now, he confirms he’s working at home, like most musicians, and is concerned that many musicians will face particularly tough times in the future with Covid and its effects still an unkown. Working on a project to provide some support to his musical colleagues, he has just released a digital download and video performance, ‘Lockdown Blues’, in support of the Jazz Foundation of America, his first recording in around five years.

And with such an endlessly evolving musical history and legacy behind him, it’s maybe worth noting the thoughts of a few other musicians when referring to McLaughlin.

Carlos Santana recently told me he considered McLaughlin the greatest guitarist ever. Jeff Beck is quoted as saying: “…..I’d say he was the best guitarist alive.” And his old, late buddy, Miles Davis once said of him: “I heard him play…..and he was a motherfucker!”

As we part company, I wish him well and ask what we might expect in the future: “Well, the tour, hopefully in 2021.Come along and say hello. I’m always working on projects. I can’t imagine life without a guitar to hand. ‘Oobladee, Oobla-dah,life goes on,” he sings with a laugh.

‘Lockdown Blues’ is available at Bandcamp.

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“John Hammond tapped me on the shoulder, because he was in the office right across the hallway, and he said, ‘Dion, you really have a flair for the blues’.”

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DION’S WITH FRIENDS

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With a history that dates back to the doo-wop era of the ‘50s this legend has his roots in the blues. By Brian Wise

t is hardly a surprise to learn that there is a stage musical of the life of Dion DiMucci.

After all, Jersey Boys, the musical about the Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons was a huge international hit (and movie) and Dion’s story is even more entertaining. (He dropped the surname when he went solo in the early ‘60s) Now 81, Dion can still be heard on classic hits stations with ‘Runaround Sue,’ ‘The Wanderer,’ ‘Ruby Baby’, ‘Donna Prima Donna’ and ‘Drip Drop.’ You might even occasionally hear him with The Belmonts on ‘A Teenager In Love,’ his first No.1 hit in 1958! After a slew of chart hits Dion, who began as a doo-wop singer, was the first rock ‘n’ roll artist to sign with Columbia Records and was enlisted by John Hammond Sr, the same man who signed Dylan. (Some stories suggest that it was Dion and producer Tom Wilson who first had the idea to put an electric band behind Dylan). In 1965 he recorded the album ‘Kickin’ Child’ with several Dylan covers and then left the label when the album was shelved. (It was finally released in 2017).

Seeing his friend Frankie Lymon die of a drug overdose was enough to make Dion swear off drugs and alcohol in 1968 and he hasn’t had a drink in 52 years. He went through a Christian era just like Dylan (he still runs a ministry), and he also recorded the album Born To Be With You with Phil Spector in 1975. Dion kept touring and recording until he re-discovered the blues in 2000 and released the Grammy-nominated Bronx In Blue a few years later. Since then, he has been immersed in the blues – his 2007 album was titled Son of Skip James - and has just released his 7th album in the genre.

Blues With Friends features some impressive guests, many of whom would have idolised Dion in their youth: Paul Simon, Van Morrison, Bruce Springsteen and Patty Scialfa, Steven Van Zandt, Jeff Beck, John Hammond Jr, Billy Gibbons, Joe Bonamassa, Paul Simon, Samantha Fish and Brian Setzer, Sonny Landreth. The album also has an array of strong original songs, including a re-recording of ‘Kickin’ Child.’

When I catch up with Dion to talk about Blues With Friends, he is not in his hometown of New York but living down in Florida.

“I’m in kind of a good spot down here because I live on a lake,” he explains. “It’s not too bad where I am. So, I’m trying to do the deal like everybody else.”

He recalls touring Australia back in the early ‘60s with Roy Orbison. “I remember the flight with Roy Orbison going over and coming back,” he recalls. “It was great. He taught me a lot about song writing, or we taught each other. It was a great conversation.”

“It’s been at the heart of my music ever since I started,” he replies when I mention that it is a long way from those days as a pop idol to being a blues player. “I heard Jimmy Reed and Lightnin’ Hopkins when I was a kid. Forget about it, I was taken. That’s what got me on the road early on.

“I always had a feel for it. It was, I think, in my DNA predominantly, but I was in the record business. Back then you’d try to get hit records.

That’s what it was about. But I think that was the foundation of the heart of where I was at.”

It might be a surprise learn that Dion’s voice is as strong and powerful as ever and he fits into the blues perfectly. A few years ago, I saw him performing at the Blues Awards in Memphis and was not only delighted but knew immediately that here was someone who was a genuine blues player not a pretender. After all, even on those early hits like ‘The Wanderer,’ the then 22-year-old sounded like a man in his forties and was much more rock ‘n’ roll than many of his contemporaries such as Bobby Vee, Ricky Nelson, Bobby Rydell, Pat Boone and others who emerged when Elvis Presley went into the army.

“Well, to be honest,” explains Dion. “In the mid ‘60s I was taking a lot of drugs. I was drinking like crazy. I was just partying too hard. My friend Frankie Lymon died in 1968, in February.

He was a few years younger than me and it just rocked me and one night I just got on my knees. I said, ‘God, If you’re real, I need help.’

I stood up and I was changed. I haven’t had a drug or a drink in 52 years. I think it helped my voice because you could get kind of husky smoking and drinking, but I haven’t done that.

Just living healthy, you know what I’m saying?

So, people tell me I don’t sound older than 40 when I sing, I say, ‘Thank you, I’ll take it’.”

It is definitely no surprise to find out that Bob

Dylan, who once briefly played in Bobby Vee’s band, has written an introduction to Blues With Friends in which he says, “Dion knows how to sing, and he knows just the right way to craft these songs, these blues songs. He’s got some friends here to help him out and they are true luminaries. But in the end, it’s Dion by himself alone, and that masterful voice of his that will keep you returning to share blues songs with him”.

Dion also recalls that it was an interview with renowned presenter Terry Gross on NPR back in 2000 that sparked a renewal. After punctuating his stories with songs during the two hour chat he received a call from a producer who offered to record an album with him.

“I said, ‘Those are songs I grew up with.’ So, I went into the studio,” says Dion. “I just sang what I learned as a kid and I knocked out maybe 13 songs, 14 songs, in two days – and it was up for a Grammy. When I was riding home from the studio, the engineer gave me a CD of it to listen to in my truck and I thought, ‘Wow, this comes so easy to me. I don’t even have to think, it’s really at the centre of my being. This is where I live.’ And it became more apparent as I got older.”

There is a back story to Dion’s obsession with the blues involving John Hammond Sr. who introduced him to the blues. (Fittingly, John Hammond Jr, is on the album).

“Well, I’ve been friends with John Hammond Jr. for years since the early ‘60s,” remembers Dion, “but his dad did bring Bob Dylan up to Columbia Records. They were the biggest record company in the world at the time. I was sitting on a piano bench with Aretha Franklin, and I was singing the songs ‘Kickin’ Child’ and ‘Drip Drop’. John Hammond tapped me on the shoulder, because he was in the office right across the hallway, and he said, ‘Dion, you really have a flair for the blues.’ This was about 1961. He played Robert Johnson’s ‘Preachin’ Blues’ to me, and he showed me the album King of the Delta Blues. He played some Fred McDowell and Lightnin’ Hopkins and gave me an arm full of albums. I was really excited over what he was playing because I ain’t never heard that before. He told me I had a flair for the blues. I’ll never forget it. I thought, ‘Yeah,I do’.” >>> 41

DION’S WITH FRIENDS Of course, Bob Dylan has also released a new album with a heavy dose of blues on it. They almost have parallel careers at the moment, with Bob being just a couple of years younger than Dion.

“Well, Bob Dylan is like the greatest song writer of the 20th century and beyond,” proclaims Dion. “But not a lot of people know him as a great blues singer. I think he’s a great blues singer. When I finished this album, I didn’t have any songs left. I wrote these 14 songs. I just had such a good time knocking these songs out and when I was finished, I thought I should get somebody to listen and say something about it.

“I thought of Bob and I sent him the album and he really liked it. He sent me back what he thought of it and I am grateful for that.”

In fact, there’s a ballad on Dion’s album titled ‘Can’t Start Over Again’ with Jeff Beck guesting on guitar, that would be perfect for Dylan to interpret if he wants to record another album of covers.

“It was such a great song. I loved it,” says Dion.

“And I thought, ‘Who can play on this? I know.

Jeff Beck, he’s the only guitar player who can make me cry. Because I heard his rendition of Puccini’s aria ‘La Traviata’, and I thought, ‘This guy can play.’ I mean, well, I’ve known Jeff a long time, and he is just the gold standard. And I asked him to play on it and he said yes.

“I knew I was into something after that because, I tell you the truth, I couldn’t plan this if I tried. It just took off. I recorded these 14 songs and Joe Bonamassa had come over to the house and he heard one and he said, ‘Dion, I’d love to play on that.’ I said, ‘Be my guest’ and when he did it just ignited the vision for the whole album. I thought, ‘This is fantastic.’

A lot of it was done in the studio, but it was so smooth. It was like, I caught a wave and just started riding it. Billy Gibbons is like John Lee Hooker on steroids. I thought, ‘He belongs on this track.’ [‘Bam Bang Boom’]. So, I sent it to him. He sent it back. He did it because he was in LA. Jeff Beck did it, he was in the UK. So, it had to be done like that. But a lot of the guys like Stevie Van Zandt, John Hammond - when I was in New York - we just went into the studio and knocked them out. It was a lot of fun.”

An unexpected guest on the album is Van Morrison who appears on the song ‘I Got Nothin,’ with Joe Louis Walker playing guitar.

“Let me tell you, you haven’t lived until you get in the studio with Van Morrison to do a song,” enthuses Dion. “That’s something special. My wife is a big Van Morrison fan; you get in the car with my wife, she has twelve Van Morrison CDs. So, I always told her, I said, ‘Susan, we’re soul brothers.’ So, then I did this song and I’m in with my wife for the next 30 years. Forget about it. I am in.

“Van and I, we have the same roots: John Lee Hooker, the jazz guys, the blues guys. We have 42

a lot in common and I just love singing with him because he’s just like so distinctive. There’s nobody like him. Nobody. It’s just fun listening to him because he just comes from the centre, and he’s not thinking. He just doing it and it’s fun. It’s exciting to sing with a guy like that.

You just don’t ring up Van Morrison and say, ‘Can you appear on the album’ do you?

“No. I know him,” laughs Dion. “I go way back.

We were on the same show with the Moody Blues when he made Moondance, and we became friends and every time he comes to town, he rings me up and we go out to dinner, and we talk shop. We talk about a lot of things, but mostly about music and all the nuances in it and all the stuff we love. When you love the music, you just want to know more about it. So, we share on that level and catch each other up. But yes, we’ve been friends.

Originally, I wanted him to play saxophone on a song because he’s become really good…… but he goes, ‘No, I want to sing with you.’ If you listen to the song with Van Morrison and myself, listen to Joe Louis Walker, he is such an intricate part of that song: he kind of enhances lines, he anticipates, then he’s just great. He’s just great.”

One of the absolute stand-out tracks on Blues With Friends is ‘Song for Sam Cooke (Here in America)’, featuring Paul Simon on harmonies and fiddle. It’s a personal account about Dion’s friendship trip with Sam Cooke and their trip to Memphis in 1961 and the racism that they faced.

“Sam was a very refined, intelligent guy,” says Dion. “I was from the Bronx. I was rough around the edges. I travelled with him in 1960 and 1961. We’d been on two tours together.

Sam was a preacher’s kid and I saw him in a lot of difficult situations in the South. I knew nothing about Jim Crow. We had racism in New York, but not like the South. It just was different. So, I saw Sam in a lot of situations, and I’d say to him, ‘Hey, why don’t you punch that guy’s lights out? How could you take that?’ and he said to me, ‘I wouldn’t lower myself to think like that.’

“He was basically like in a higher reality or something. He taught me that racism was a peculiar way to become a man and that if race matters to you, you’re a racist. Race didn’t matter to us. He never reacted the way I thought he would or respond the way I thought he would in all these difficult situations. One day it dawned on me, he’s the smartest guy in the room. He was really something to behold.

He was a beautiful looking guy, tall, sang really great. He was really a cool guy, man.”

“So, I put this song together a while ago and I never recorded it, it was too personal,” he continues, “but last year I saw Green Book and I said, ‘Wow, they made a story like almost about my songs.’ I pulled it out and I rang Paul Simon. I said, ‘Paul, this is a song about brotherhood. This is a song about understanding and Sam Cooke understanding me and what he taught me.’ Paul knew where I was coming from. So, I think with Paul it came out sublime. I think it really rocks and it’s a beautiful song. I’m proud of it.”

Certainly, the song is even more relevant given the Black Lives Matter campaign and as timely

as Dion’s 1968 song, ‘Abraham, Martin and John.’

“Absolutely. Absolutely,” he agrees, “and it still goes on. People are ignorant. When I look at somebody, I don’t see colour. I see a man. It’s crazy. So, that’s why I said lately I’ve just been looking at the news and I go, ‘Sam was right.’ It occurs to me a lot recently.”

“That came about in almost the same way,” he says of ‘Abraham, Martin and John.’ “Because that’s what I learned long time ago. My parents had problems, but I never heard an ugly word about any culture, they just didn’t. That wasn’t them.

“Sam talked about God; he wasn’t afraid to talk about God. He used to tell me stories on the bus. We travelled long and wide and he protected me in a lot of situations. We went out to see James Brown one night, nobody knew who I was, and everybody wanted to know who the white kid was. He said, ‘He’s with me, don’t worry about it.’ He was a good guy, man. I miss him and I miss him because of the love and brotherhood he showed me. He was interested in changing his little corner of the world and he did it through his music, his art, his singing.

But most of all, he did it through friendship. I miss him.”

“I’ve known him a while,” says Dion when I ask him about Springsteen, “and recently we did an interview and he was telling Alan Paul from The Wall Street Journal that’s how he got the idea for Clarence and the [E Street] band: because I had Buddy Lucas - big Buddy Lucas from the Apollo Theater - in my band. He played on ‘The Wanderer’ – he played that solo - and Bruce was taken with that. He really liked hearing the sax on ‘Runaround Sue’, and a few of my other songs. He was telling me how much he was influenced by that and that’s good to hear because, man, I tell you if it wasn’t for Jimmy Reed, I wouldn’t even be talking to you. You know what I’m saying?”

“Jimmy Reed. I saw him at the Apollo Theater way back in the day,” he continues. “He knew how to roll. You say rock and roll, well, he knew how to roll. I always wanted to roll like that.

I call it grooving. That’s my thing. If it’s not grooving, forget about it. Who needs it? I want to communicate like Hank Williams. So that’s a big part of what I grabbed onto as a kid and I’ve never forgotten it - and it’s a big part of me today.”

Blues With Friends is available locally, online or at shop.jbonamassa.com

STOOGING Live At Goose Lake marks the last show of the Stooge’s original line-up.

AROUND

By Christopher Hollow Picture this: two hundred thousand people converged in Michigan for the Goose Lake Festival, on the weekend of August 7-9, 1970.

It’s billed as the ‘Woodstock of the mid-West’ with bands like The Faces, Chicago, Jethro Tull, Bob Seger, and the Flying Burrito Brothers playing on a high-tech revolving stage.

For the Stooges, it should have been their greatest triumph, a moment to bask in the glory of a massive, hometown crowd, with a new album, Fun House, to unveil. But it turned into a nightmare. They thought they blew it.

The plug was pulled on their set, the police tried to arrest them for inciting a riot and the original bassist, Dave Alexander, was said to have frozen doing the performance, unable to play a note due to either stage-fright, overindulging or both.

Even Wikipedia states: ‘Dave Alexander of the Stooges was dismissed by the band after a disastrous performance.’

But now, right on 50 years later, a recording of that ‘disastrous performance’ has been unearthed in the basement of a Michigan farmhouse and, it turns out, isn’t so disastrous after all. Indeed, it’s being touted as the redemption of Dave Alexander.

The person responsible for releasing this fabled Stooges set is Ben Blackwell, co-founder of Third Man Records (along with his uncle Jack White of the White Stripes).

All my friends growing up were Stooges fans. That wasn’t up for debate. But where it got interesting was the fierce demarcation between being a Stooges/Fun House Stooges fan or being a Raw Power Stooges fan. What kind of Stooges fan were you?

Well, growing up in Detroit, I feel that Detroit was pretty much a Fun House town. Raw Power, while a great record, is more connected to the punk world whereas Fun House is just a feral rock and roll record. So, I was a Fun House guy. I started with the first record, The Stooges, at the urging of my uncle, Jack White, and I remember him telling me, ‘The first album is good but Fun House is where it’s at, that’s the one’. I would’ve been 16 and I was like, ‘I don’t know if I hear it.’ Fun House really is the next step. You must absorb that first album for Fun House to really make sense and connect.

When I first heard Fun House, I had to bend an ear. I had to change who I was to like it.

I had to work at it in the same way as I did with jazz, someone like John Coltrane.

In the grand scheme of the rock and roll canon, Fun House is not the most lauded album. It’s not Sgt. Pepper’s or Dark Side of the Moon.

But none of those albums have been released with every take, every note played. But for Fun House, every note of that session has

been released. The only reason behind it was because it was recorded live like a jazz record.

This leads to The Live at Goose Lake, where the Stooges play Fun House from start to finish, in order, to an audience that had never heard the record.

I think about this in the context of today. If you went and saw a band that you loved, say Arcade Fire, and they played a set of all-new unreleased songs, would you be stoked or would you be like, ‘Yeah, but I wanna hear the songs I know’. The Stooges did that on every record. They never played anything that’s not new. And I respect that. That’s bold.

One of the biggest queries in Stooges history gets answered. Dave Alexander did play bass at Goose Lake.

The legend is he didn’t play a note, on stage, at all. And that’s why Iggy sacked him after the gig. Sure enough, he did play bass. He played all over it. In Iggy’s memory, it was a bad show.

But you listen to that version of ‘Fun House’ and it’s ripping, it’s nasty in a good way. If this is a bad Stooges show, and Iggy didn’t rate it, then what did a good Stooges show sound like?

It’s like, holy shit, what’s the range here.

I can’t hear them inciting a riot.

(Guitarist) Ron Asheton told the story about trying to incite a riot and being asked to get off stage. Danny Fields, their manager, had to play a DJ copy of ‘Down on the Street’ and show the law enforcement it has the lyric, ‘No walls’. Iggy wasn’t telling them to tear down the walls, he was just singing the lyric. The band that played directly after the Stooges were called the Third Power and it’s just chaos. There’s interruptions and they’re telling the crowd to chill out, that everything is going too crazy. So, I’m like, ‘Shit, maybe they were trying to tear down the barrier between the stage and the crowd’.

My bachelor party was celebrated at the 2006 Melbourne Big Day Out where the two headlining bands were the Stooges and the Wild Stripes.

(Laughs) I remember being at Melbourne and the White Stripes were playing after the Stooges. So, we were helping the band get ready and the Stooges are playing in the background. I said to Jack and Meg (White), ‘Can you imagine, if someone were to say to you 10 years ago that the Stooges would be playing 100 feet from you and you wouldn’t be watching them. Wow, how lucky and spoilt are we?’ Then, after a minute, it was like, ‘Yeah, we should probably go check them out.’

43

FROM ST KILDA TO KING’S

In this extract from Paul Kelly: The Man, The Music and the singer and guitarist Steve Connolly travelled north

J

ust before Post was officially released, Paul and Steve Connolly travelled to Townsville to do an extended residency at the Townsville International, a hotel better known as the Sugar Shaker because of its appearance. They spent seven weeks honing their performance skills there.

‘Going to Townsville was a pretty crucial time,’ Paul says. ‘We’d just made Post, and via a friend we got a job playing there. Steve was adventurous and up for it so we headed up.

We played a lot of Gram Parsons, Beatles and Stones. We started to get this gang from James Cook University coming down to see us. Initially it was just the suits coming in after work. We’d be playing things like “Dead Flowers” by the Stones and lots of other covers, and slipping in the Post songs without saying anything. I learnt very early on that you don’t say, “And now we’re going to play a new – or original – song,” as it’d clear the dance floor. It was a really good training ground, and after a while we noticed people coming down who weren’t businessmen.’

John Watson, who would go on to become one of Australia’s most successful music managers, worked part-time in a Townsville record shop and after work every Thursday for two months in 1985 he and Gary Hunn, who ran Wavelength Records, would close up and wander over to the Sugar Shaker to watch Paul and Connolly do a couple of sets.

‘It was super exciting,’ Watson says. ‘Because of seeing these shows, when Post came out, we knew a lot of the songs. It was quite possible too that they were working out some new songs that would later appear on Gossip.

‘The set-up was very basic. A little PA with a small speaker on each side of the tiny stage.

Usually there were maybe ten people at tables watching. Nobody knew who he was. He’d had a minor hit with “Billy Baxter” so you’d be walking up thinking, I hope he plays “Billy Baxter”. They did a lot of pretty cool covers.

I remember an amazing version of “Your Cheatin’ Heart”.’

Jon Schofield was also in Townsville at the time, playing bass with Jeremy Oxley’s soul band, Chinless Elite.

‘I thought I’d be playing guitar as that’s what I was doing in my previous band The Grooveyard,’ Jon says, ‘but I rolled up to rehearsal and Marcus Phelan was playing guitar and he was a much better guitarist than me.

Jeremy said I should play bass, but I’d never played bass before. Marcus offered to lend me one, so he went and got it and I plugged it into a Marshall amp and started learning to play soul songs, and it was so much fun.’

Oxley wanted to get out of Sydney during a freezing cold winter so Chinless Elite headed north where they found a residency at the Seaview Hotel in Townsville. Paul and Connolly were in town doing pretty much the same thing but Schofield says it wasn’t just the weather that attracted Paul to that part of the world, he also wanted to get healthy and save money to pay off some debts.

Paul Kelly Band at Bondi Beach: Michael Barclay, Alan Brooker, Maurice Frawley, Steve Connolly and Paul.

44

CROSS VIA TOWNSVILLE

The Life In Between author Stuart Coupe tells how h to hone their performance skills.

‘Why else would you be playing to American businessmen who weren’t listening?’

And there were no hard drugs to be found in Townsville at the time. It was earn money and get healthy time.

‘They were going nuts and so was I … Anyway, Mark Fuccilli, the sax player in the Chinless Elite, had an advance cassette of Post.

‘I wasn’t a big Paul Kelly fan. The Dots used to come over to Adelaide a week after bands like Jo Jo Zep and The Falcons and play the same venues like the Tivoli. The Falcons were as tight as hell and disciplined, and then Paul and co turned up acting a bit too cool for Adelaide.

They were a bit rough around the edges and I just didn’t get it.

‘But I heard Post and it blew my mind. Before I knew it, I knew every song. And Paul and Steve were the only other AFL fans in Townsville and it was footy season. I didn’t have an AFL team at the time as there was no Adelaide team. But it didn’t take long to become a Bombers fan like Steve as they won two premierships on the trot. Paul and Steve invited me to come and sit in with them – and vice versa.

‘They came to see us on their day off. There was nothing else to do. I sat in and played bass on blues covers they were doing and played everything from Post. They were doing three or four sets a night.

‘Then the Chinless Elite moved to Magnetic Island. There was some benefit show at the racecourse on Magnetic Island and Paul and Steve came over and played on the bill.’

‘We used to go and see Chinless Elite who were at the Seaview on our nights off,’ Paul says. ‘I can still remember them doing “Love and Happiness” by Al Green. They did a great version of it, totally killed it. They were a great soul band and I loved them.’

By this time Schofield, Paul and Connolly enjoyed each other’s company and knew they could play together.

At the end of their run at the Sugar Shaker, Paul and Connolly headed back to Sydney and Paul called Barclay about doing a tour. Without hesitation Barclay threw his drums on the next train to Sydney. ‘I got to Central Station with five bucks in my pocket on a steamy summer’s night and asked someone which way it was to the Hopetoun. Paul was playing there that night with the Five Believers and I walked into this packed, heaving inner-city Sydney pub and it was fantastic.’

Weddings, Parties, Anything songwriter and singer Michael Thomas recalls seeing Paul playing with Steve Connolly in Melbourne around this time. He thinks Michael Barclay jumped onstage and shook a tambourine and sang a few harmonies and Alan Brooker played double bass.

‘But it was basically Steve and Paul. Post had just come out and that was the first time I remember thinking, He’s better than just good, this is really something else.

‘I remember someone saying to me, “Paul’s taking this really seriously.” The reason being that Paul had walked into a venue carrying a briefcase. He was running the band.’

Despite Post not selling particularly well it was well received by music critics and Michelle Higgins believes it was a credibility breakthrough for Paul.

‘God, it was the breakthrough with the media.

Journalists all jumped on it.

‘I asked Bill Page at 5MMM in Adelaide, “Are you playing it twenty-four hours a day?” He said, “No, but we are playing it after 6 pm,” and that was enough to get Festival really excited and put the album in the stores … In those days Festival was the only label that had warehouses in every state so they had a big staff compared to other record companies and a lot of those people started to really like Paul as he started to tour. In South Australia, when Post came out with the song “Adelaide” on it, and Festival there really got behind it, he got proper FM radio play.’

Higgins still has specific memories of Paul’s reluctance when it came to interviews, despite the fact that many in the media had fallen for Post.

‘I remember Paul saying early on that he didn’t want to talk about his songs and I said, “Paul, this is Mushroom Records – home of Shirley Strachan, Ted Mulry, Dave Warner – what are you going to talk about if you won’t talk about your songs?” Before that I’d worked with Phil Judd [of Split Enz] who really didn’t want to talk about his songs either.

‘Paul was really uncomfortable. Really shy.

That’s all it was. Everyone in his family is very eloquent. And so is he.

He’s just very shy.’

This extract from Paul Kelly: The Man, The Music and The Life In Between

by Stuart Coupe was made available courtesy of Hachette Australia.

Stuart Coupe: Author 45

Triple R is one of Australia’s most successful and influential community radio stations but it rose from humble beginnings.

By Geoff King There are few moments in a person’s life when you can say, “This is what I’ll be doing for decades to come”. When I walked into the office of 3RMT-FM in 1978, it was not one of those moments, but forty-odd years later they’ll have to hose me out the door, having been a staff member, then a volunteer announcer for a couple of decades, and a RRR Board member for even longer…..

3RMT had two small rooms in building 9 on the Carlton edge of the RMIT city campus.

46

Station Manager Sue Mathews greeted me.

We’d been friends for years. She’d got me to do some work for her at the ABC, and had helped me and a fellow worker at Euphoria Records land a Saturday night spot on the fledgling 3CR, a station that was a good starting point for quite a few community radio announcers.

Sue introduced me to a bloke named Greig Pickhaver as we walked over to the City Baths cafe to talk about the job I was about to take up as Music Producer/Coordinator. I was

clutching a copy of Colin Escott’s Sun Records history. Greig said “Great book, isn’t it?”and I knew I was in the right company.

By this stage, the station was fairly well formed with many of the jobs filled and operating. The station had started almost by accident at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in 1976, initially funded by it (hence the 3RMT name), and run by students out of the Student Radio Association studios.

Sue took on the job of Manager in 1977 after

proposing that ‘educational radio’ could be an all-encompassing approach which didn’t mean lectures-on-air. Playing music wouldn’t be just a means to attract an audience; popular music, and popular culture generally, could be looked at just as critically and interestingly as anything out of ‘high’ culture and the arts and sciences could be. There was no reason to segregate talk programs from music. This set the template that the station has followed ever since.

Soon enough, the students who had been running the programs were replaced by the kind of music-buff riffraff that began to define the station, and they jacked up on our sharing of their studios. We moved up the road to a Cardigan Street terrace house. Space was still clearly a problem, though. All the broadcast electronics were in the hallway outside the one on-air studio. One night someone sneaked in, stuck in a cassette and switched it to air while the announcer - who couldn’t see out of the studio and was not monitoring the on-air signal - played on, oblivious to a quite filthy pirate tape. Until the calls started flooding in. The Broadcasting Tribunal cut us some slack on that one, unlike the Richard Pryor album that cost us two years off the licence we were awarded when we changed the name to 3RRR at the end of ‘78.

Actually, Danny Robinson from Hit and Run solved the lack of studio visuals by kicking out some of the panels in the door in order to stick his head through and abuse Nadya Anderson, the volunteer coordinator. Nadya had just fired him for being regularly somewhat resistant to a certain level of sobriety on the Country Show.

In those pre-digital days, part of my job was to go round to the record companies and pick up new releases. Back then we were too insignificant for them to deliver. Most of the PR blokes were nice enough; it was just that we had pretty dissimilar views on what constituted interesting music. I would get shit in the mail like a broken bit of a coloured vinyl album every day for a week. I was supposed to be so incredibly intrigued by what it was going to be that we’d just be dying to add it to our groovy playlist. A Styx album for chrissake.

We curated the weekly new records for the announcers by leaving them in the studio, their covers slathered with “stolen from 3RMT / RRR”. Still, records would go missing through accident or design. There was nothing more irritating than coming in to do your shift and finding a gap in the crate. One day an announcer walked in with at least 50 albums in hand. He’d been to a party, discovered this stolen stash and just picked them up and walked out, no names, no pack drill.

Initially, it was me and Greig and sometimes Sue who would meet over at the City Baths coffee shop and construct a “chart” as a way of giving some curated focus for both new and older releases. Greig felt there should always be a place for any Who album. Buddy Holly’s Greatest Hits made our first chart. Martin Armiger started joining us and we contrived a ‘chart show’ that he hosted on a Sunday.

Martin presented the astonishing “Nouvelle Vague” breakfast show beginning at 8.30 am

weekdays, where he read stories from various newspapers in a style that was his alone. And he was always late. Martin was, of course, a terrific musician in the High Rise Bombers (with Paul Kelly), the Bleeding Hearts and the Sports.

He had really good ears and we used to argue, but later I’d often realise he was right about Wire, or Chic or whatever it was.

After just straight chart rigging for a while, we started checking the logs of what announcers played and marked them off on the chart, thus indicating chart ‘movement.’ This proved to be a double-edged sword because announcers started playing their favourites to get ‘em up the chart. The industry began paying attention and getting narky if their artists weren’t doing well. We had to kill it after a couple of years.

Funnily enough, Styx never troubled the scorers.

Early on, it wasn’t easy getting access to international artists we wanted to interview.

PR people and record companies had little clue about us. Sue and I got good at hanging out at press conferences and buttonholing managers. Once you had their ear it wasn’t so hard because they realised we knew our stuff and our idea of good radio was theirs. Getting McGuinn and Hillman from the Byrds was a beauty, even though getting high with Chris Hillman back at his hotel room wasn’t as much fun as it sounds because we just sat around watching tv, as you do. Playing pinball with Midnight Oil was more like it. Later, when the station was becoming known, we were given better opportunities, such as an exclusive interview with Dusty Springfield, one of my personal highlights.

Skills had to be developed. Mannerisms crept in. Helen Garner, who we’d broadcast reading ‘Monkey Grip’ - which had got us into a bit of strife re its rude words - wrote a letter to the station complaining about the announcers all having an upwards inflection at the end of sentences. The reason for it was straightforward enough. When you hit the button on the direct-drive turntables it made a loud clunk. The upward inflection and emphasised final syllables were to hide the sound of the turntable.

We were an inner-city station because that was as far as our crappy signal reached. I remember a fundraiser we held to pay for the new transmitter on Mt Dandenong, which eventually broadened our audience across all of Melbourne. Dorland Bray (my co-host on the New Releases Show and later the drummer/ writer in Do Re Mi) and I ran the last session on a Saturday night. Lots of people passed through the on-air shenanigans and by its end I’d got fairly pissed. I woke up on the floor of the studio, Dorland still happily spinning records, as the Hell’s Angel who was due to do the following shift had had to split the city in a hurry. We continued on till 2 am then staggered off into the night.

A couple of years later I was opening a radiothon in the new studios in Fitzroy. John Clarke, Greig Pickhaver and another local comedian were my guests. John had started giving the station his Fred Dagg tapes because he was so pissed off with the treatment

he received at the ABC. He came in to the radiothon and suggested we all take on the names of famous people but play them in our normal voices. John was Barbara Streisand.

As well, he invented names for the various denominations listeners pledged, based around political figures of the day (I wish I could remember how many Keatings made up a Hawkie.) John and Greig had started their legendary Grand Final calls from a TV set in the studio around then too. Not so long after that I met Bryan Dawe somewhere and he contributed a heavily produced summer comedy series. That took him to the ABC where he met John and one of the great partnerships was formed. That was how it often worked and still does. People approach the station or people meet people, talent is suspected, invitations issued. I met Stephen Walker at a mutual friend’s party. He confessed that he was ‘kind of a fan”, he obviously knew his music and had a great manner, and thus was a future Station Legend born.

Was it a good job? You bet. As a paid producer I had a number of shows including an interview program called “Off The Record”. Good name that. Someone should use it...

I wish I could talk about all the characters around then, some of whom are still around the station and plenty who have stayed friends, because it was just a fantastic time to be starting a radio station: great music everywhere, lots of bands who couldn’t get heard on the commercials welcomed our attention; in fact just about every local band we were into had a member doing a show.

But, as the Grateful Dead sang, “When life looks like easy street, there is danger at your door.”

Despite its strong programming foundation, financially it was a house of cards, and the ground shifted beneath us when the Fraser government slashed education spending.

Most of the tertiary institution consortium members - formed when RMIT couldn’t fund it alone - withdrew, and we couldn’t find substitute sponsorship income. (Amazingly, RMIT and Melbourne Uni are still involved with the station.) There was a tremendous response from the music industry and especially from our listeners who absolutely did not want the station to go under. Obviously, it didn’t, but it was touch-and-go. Most of us lost our jobs or just moved on. Reece Lamshed was appointed manager and we shifted to Fitzroy with a skeleton staff to rebuild, and great years ahead. Its influence as a cultural institution has stretched well beyond Melbourne and it’s still full of terrific people and a fun place to be around.

Now there is danger at the door. As you well know, Covid-19 has shut down the live music industry, and there goes RRR’s sponsorship base. This year’s radiothon will be the most vital since the last great financial crisis in the early 90s which definitely put the station at risk. Listeners: it’s your call just as it was back in 1981.

You can subscribe to Triple R at rrr.org.au.

Deadline to enter the Radiothon prize draw is September 30.

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July of this year marked the 40th anniversary of the release of one of the great Australian debut albums, Mark Gillespie’s Only Human.

arlane

By Ian McF

48

Thanks to Mark Gillespie and Joe Creighton. Thanks also to Jacqueline Mitelman for the main photo of Mark Gillespie.

Mark on Countdown

E

ven though Mark Gillespie created a remarkable body of work in a short space of time, in the greater scheme of things he seems to be thought of as a footnote in Australian music history now.

He was a reluctant rock star in many ways, but his recorded legacy should not be overlooked.

Gillespie had an academic background and prior to playing live and recording, he’d been recognised as a poet, issuing Make Up, a collection of prose and poetry published by Outback Press. He turned to applying his writings to songs, and one could even suggest he was similar to Leonard Cohen in that regard. As it turned out he had a knack for song composition and arrangement, so was set on his new path as a singer / songwriter / guitarist.

He possessed a silky baritone voice, which when combined with his laconic, world weary delivery stood out on the local scene.

His first recordings, the jokey ‘I’m A Kite (Won’t You Be My Hurricane)’ and ‘The Joke’s On You’, were included on the Oz label’s Various Artists album The Debutantes (1977). As his song writing developed rapidly, he took the tentative step of getting a band on the road, connecting with a strong cult following on the Melbourne pub scene. His heartfelt roots rock style mixed R&B, soul, funk and a touch of reggae.

His band in 1978 comprised Mick ‘The Reverend’ O’Connor (keyboards), Bruno De Stanislo (bass) and Peter Reed (drums).

That October he recorded a set of demos, issued privately on cassette as The Black Tape. It proved to be a seminal session, including ‘Suicide Sister’ and ‘Nothing Special’, which he re-recorded, plus others such as ‘Talkin’ To The Devil’, ‘Just Wanna Ball’ and ‘Stormy Bed’ and it formed the basis for all he did subsequently. One of the tracks, ‘Savanarola’, was issued as a single in 1984, credited to Mark Gillespie and the Victims.

Gillespie issued a brilliant, one-off single on Infinity, ‘Comin’ Back For More’, in April 1979, attracting wider attention when he supported Maria Muldaur, Tom Waits and Rodriguez on their respective Australian tours that year. Gillespie’s touring band comprised O’Connor, ex-Dingoes frontman Broderick Smith (harmonica), Stephen Cooney (guitar), Clive Harrison (bass), Trevor Courtney (drums), Stewart Watson (fiddle, mandolin, guitar) and Pat and Gay L’Nane (backing vocals).

Music industry heavyweight Glenn Wheatley saw something special in Gillespie’s songs and signed him to his Wheatley Brothers Entertainment (W.B.E. ) label. With a modest budget, he set about forming a session band. He selected well, recruiting Daddy Cool’s Ross Hannaford on guitar and harmony vocals, Joe Creighton on bass and harmony vocals and Mark Meyers on drums. Hannaford and Creighton had already worked together in Billy T, while Creighton and Meyers had just been backing Peter Cupples. As it transpired this was one of the funkiest, sprightliest and most cohesive ensembles assembled in living memory. In addition, Rex Bullen added organ to a couple of tracks and Lisa Bade sang harmony vocals on one track.

Joe Creighton, who has gone on to carve out an impressive career as an in-demand session player, recalls how he connected with Gillespie.

“It was strange in a way. I’d never met him before but one day I got a knock on my door and Mark was standing there, all dressed in black. This was before black was really cool and he looked quite ominous.

He’s about 6’2”. He said, ‘my name’s Mark Gillespie, can I have a chat with you?’. So, I made him a cup of tea and he sat down.

He said, ‘I want you to play bass in my band’ and I said ‘you want me? I’m a singer, why don’t you get Barry Sullivan, that’s his thing, playing bass’. ‘No, I want you’ he said. I said, ‘do you want me to sing some of my songs?’. ‘No, I don’t want you to sing, I just want you to play bass and maybe do a bit of harmony vocals.

“That was the first time anyone had ever asked me to do that, you know. It was in some ways the beginning of my career as a session player, a hired gun. I took bass seriously, but I didn’t think I was that good.

I’d just picked up that role. I’d gone back to Ireland in 1969 and I was lead singer in a band called Doll’s House and the bass player had decided to leave on the spot and we had a whole lot of gigs all around the country. I said ‘well, maybe I could fill in until we find another bass player’. I bought this beautiful old Gretch bass for 50 pounds and started playing.

“Then I came back to Australia and joined Melissa playing bass, but I still saw my focus as a singer. When Mark asked me, I was reluctant at first but that’s how it started. He said, ‘by the way, I’ve just been around to see Ross Hannaford and he said yes’. Ross and I had already formed a good combination in Billy T. I suggested we get Mark Meyers in and said, ‘let’s have a play and see’. The chemistry was magical from the start.”

SOUNDS OF THE CITY

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The players set up in Music Farm studios (Byron Bay, NSW) with producer / engineer John Sayers. Gillespie had a definite sound and delivery in mind, so while each musician adhered to his parts, he played electric, acoustic and slide guitar, synthesizer, acoustic grand piano, Hammond organ and mandolin guitar. Sayers was an important catalyst in creating the right vibe and sound for the session. There was no individual instrumental grand-standing, the musicians letting the songs speak for themselves.

The songs have a particular Melbourne resonance and sound about them, even though lyrically they never reference the city directly.

The introduction to Sayers’ web site (John Sayers Productions) says: “Music Farm was built in 1979 and quickly became one of Australia’s top studios. Most of the leading bands of the period recorded there, namely Australian Crawl, Mi-Sex, Midnight Oil, Mondo Rock, Split Enz, Cold Chisel etc. The console was an MCI 500 fully automated with a JH24 track. There was also a luxury accommodation building.”

“From day one it was quite a mystical experience,” says Creighton. “That whole area has quite a mystique about it, a certain energy. The studio definitely carried that kind of a feeling. John had designed it. It was like going inside the cabin of an old ship because it was all varnished wood and brass fittings. He’d designed it like a Westlake system, which is a style of studio that came out of Los Angeles. It had a very tight drum yield. Later on, everyone wanted that big, expansive, ‘gated’ drum sound. It was all big rooms by then. This

50

was a new system, very compact in a smaller room. There was no putting the mics up in the ceiling to get that ambient sound, as with the big rooms. You listen to the album, that snare drum sound is very tight.”

Gillespie had written the songs and they formed a unified whole, a carefully programmed sequence of music when those sorts of things mattered. As with his already developed sound, the music encompassed blue-eyed soul, R&B, pop rock and funk with a touch of Gospel in the backing vocals. Lyrically, the songs are enigmatic yet hold to many truths. He focuses on such deep subjects as forlorn love, drug addiction and suicide but the music remains accessible and enticing.

“I was really able to get inside Mark’s music,” Creighton continues. “There was a certain thing about his music that enabled me to play at my optimum. He had some of the bass lines already worked out and so I’d take his lines and change them a bit to suit me and that suited him too. He really liked what we contributed. He was very creative.

Certain times he wanted something specific but other times he’d let us go, that’s what the strength of it was. Even though we were the hired guns we were playing what we wanted to play. There was a lot of improvisation, Hanna was great at that and so was Mark Meyers.

“Everyone got to make an input. We would be involved with the arrangements. I’m into doo wop and gospel. I love Bobby and Terry who used to sing with Ry Cooder doing the backing vocals, a sort of gospel sound. And I kind of really tried to make that sound with Mark’s songs. Ross would sing the bass part, I’d do my harmony part. It was that black vocal sound happening which kind of gave the album a bit of an edge as well.”

The title track was issued as the first single.

Gillespie had added a curious ‘chicken scratch’ guitar interjection while Sayers applied Vocoder manipulation to the backing vocals. It was an unusual sound, and as if to play up the oddball sensation, the film clip featured a cameo appearance by... guess what? A chicken!

In the 2010, remastered CD reissue of Only Human on Aztec Records, Gillespie provided his summary of the song: “Key of F, ordinary tuning, allowing me to hammeron (banjo term) E to F, funky. ‘Only Human’ the song was the last one recorded. The music conceived of first, then the idea for the chorus line, then came the verse lyrics while sitting at the studio grand. The band track was recorded as an instrumental, in fact before the lyrics were written. I normally don’t play guitar that way – a bit too busy with singing usually. Me panning on one side (chook guitar), Ross panned on the other. Me on keyboards, rolling boogie left-hand, stabs and accents on the right.” “ ‘Only Human’ was just a jam,” says Creighton. “Mark had that chicken picking groove and Ross did the wah thing and I had this bass line which anchored it really well. Mark Meyers had a great feel. His heroes were people like Steve Gadd and Jim Keltner, so he had all the chops to play around my bass lines.”

‘Shake It’ was a reworking of ‘Savonarola’ and is reminiscent of what David Bowie was doing simultaneously on his album Scary Monsters, crossed with Garland Jeffreys street credibility. ‘Mercury’ slows the pace, a gentle ballad with mysterious lyrics: “She’s as wispy as the breeze /

Yeah and she lifts me like the leaves / As they’re falling from the trees / When you hold me underneath, like mercury”.

The vibrant ‘Small Mercies’ follows. Even though it was a failed single Gillespie made an appearance on ABC-TV’s pop show Countdown, wearing a ‘SUCK’ badge which he’d promised to take off after sound check but didn’t.

He wrote: “ ‘Small Mercies’ kicks off with a quote from Monsieur Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Social Contact, remembered from my time studying the Age of Enlightenment, when Kings had Divine Right, and were said to be enlightened rulers, and were called So-and-So the Great. Frederick, Catherine, etc. ‘Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains...’ ” The soulful ‘Long & Strong’ gets to the heart of the matter. Gillespie wrote: “ ‘Long & Strong’ has got to do with ‘Beauty’, nothing to do with ‘Desire’ or ‘Sexuality’.

One of my favourites. I still go weak at the knees when the band comes in just before the first chorus, the ‘well alright now...’.

So nice. Question / answer format. I like phrases that repeat and repeat, so that you can vary the delivery a little each time. Call and holler, like in the cotton fields. Singing from the heart, that ol’ stone thing. Oldstyle song – repetition with variations like many old Gospel songs. Talking about ‘True Love’ here, not sicko panting hanky-panky.

This is about as soulful as I could get.”

‘Suicide Sister’ is an absolute gem, a tragic love song set to a stately melody and cruising rhythm. The refrain of “Mogadon Madonna suicide sister” is startling and sticks in the mind long after you’ve heard

it. Again, from his notes, Gillespie explains: “The ‘sister’ in ‘Suicide Sister’ is of course the feminist generic, not familial. The Self, and self-mutilation for effect. I should know – I bear the scars of love. I got burned! I got blisters! Man-drax and the saddest epitaph, ‘No-one even missed her’. Eulogistic. ” ‘Black Angels’ features a driving, funky rhythm that calls to mind the best of Little Feat. When Hannaford and Creighton were in Billy T, they supported the American visitors on their 1977 Australian tour. They also jammed with them at the Bondi Lifesaver, so it’s safe to say they were familiar with Little Feat’s funky brand of roots rock. On ‘Bad Scene’ the band pick up the pace, making for another engaging rocker. The mid-tempo ‘Mayday In Arcadia’ and a final ballad, ‘Damsel in Distress’, bring the record to a close. “Goodbye baby so long / Won’t you tell me where did I go wrong”. You did nothing wrong at all Mark, it’s been a marvellous listening experience.

The singer played a few low-key gigs around Melbourne to promote the album’s release but it seems his heart really wasn’t in it, so he set off to travel around Asia.

He recorded two more brilliant albums, Sweet Nothing (March 1982) and Mark Gillespie (aka Ring of Truth) (January 1984), following which he disappeared from view. As it turned out, he went on a spiritual quest into the wilds of Bangladesh and eventually founded an orphanage there. He re-emerged briefly in 1992, issuing the album Flame on Mushroom’s Aurora label then he was gone again.

Creighton offers this view of his friend: “Mark was always very good with children, he had a great joy for working

with children. Going to Bangladesh was a bit of a spiritual quest for him, he just wanted to do something completely different. He was a reluctant rock star. That whole thing of rock’n’roll, management and the press, he was anti all that. I don’t want to speculate too much, but this is what it seemed like to me: he just wanted a break from it all. And then he would come back, record a bit more and then he went again and just didn’t come back. He’s married a girl there as well.

“I’d been trying to talk him into coming back for ages. There were people who offered him an airfare and to put him up.

He could have made good money playing at the Caravan Club, because there was still an audience for him. That was a long time ago. I had to give up, I just moved on with what I had to do. I think he’s left it too long now.”

Only Human was re-released on Aztec Records in 2010 with 16 bonus tracks.

SOUNDS OF THE CITY

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ONLY HUMAN don’t know if you’re up don’t know if you’re down somebody told me you’ve been sleepin’ around yeah, so what’s new man? i’m off on a bender and returnin’ to sender just another big spender hey! where’s that man with the Fender? time you got a new man in your life it’s just a ship-board romance babe, you’ve had your last chance it’s just a ship-board romance you wanna go out dancin’? babe i’m only human it’s time you got a new man in your life i’m only human not a mechanical man i’m getting’ edgy and manic and i’m tryin’ not to panic i know what you’re thinkin’ ship-of-fools is sinkin’ – that’s cool! yeah, on board the Titanic that great oceanic well iceburg lady i’m not the only man in your life babe, i’m only human what’d i do to you? babe, i’m only human i can hurt too! i’m only human yeah, i hear you’ve got a new man in your life yeah, the ring don’t mean a thing! i’m only.......... babe, i’m only human i hear you’ve got a new man in your life

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Mark Gillespie’s Notes Key of F, allowing me to hammer-on (a banjo term) from E to F. One of only 2 songs in F, the other being the mirror version of Only Human, Flame, first and last albums, first songs.

Up & down. Mood swings.

Like the toilet seat at a party.........(my late father’s droll saying).

That man with the Fender – Ross, on Strat, like Mr. Brown introducing his band during the song.

Mechanical man – i like Ross doing this.

His basso profundo is bellissimo.

Only Human the album was the first record on Glen Wheatley’s new label, and he got it on a platter.

Only Human the song was the last recorded, the music conceived of first, then the idea for the chorus line, then came the verse lyrics, written while sitting at the studio grand-piano, it having more of a stride-piano feel on solo piano.

The band-track was recorded as an instrumental, lyric-less – in fact before the lyrics were written. I normally don’t play guitar that way – a bit too busy with the singing usually. Me panned on one side (chook guitar) and Ross panned on the other.

(From what i can make out on my system, the ‘re-mastering’ has reversed the sides of the guitars for some reason. I used to be on the ‘left’, and now i seem to be on the right). Me on keyboards, rolling boogie on the left hand, stabs and accents with the right.

Actually the intro and re-intro later are musically a bit odd.

Sliding semi-tones like my other song in the key of F, Flame – like backwards music, mummy-

music, Egyptian Pharoah music (perhaps got from listening to Fairuz so much), heralding the Grand Entry of.........in the video a stupid-looking chook, echoing my guitar sound. Like Beethoven’s muchparodied intro.

As usual, Ross’ playing is beyond good, the rhythm-section too. My only recorded drum-solo (apart from a partial one in Ring of Truth) – i hate drum solos. Have you listened to ‘Take 5’ recently? Thanks to the BBC SW I have. Even tabla solos give me the willies.

The Only Human groove so laid-back the stick-man almost loses it. A Sydney boy – a paradiddling show-off.

In fact, nobody, apart from Margaret RoadKnight (who recorded ‘Nothing Special’), has ever in over 35 years done a cover of one of my songs, discounting Lisa Bade, as she did them with me playing, singing and producing.

As the good and manic Professor used to say, “Why is it so?”

Actually a very good question. They can’t all be that bad – not even a bit of a song!

SOUNDS OF THE CITY

Soundbar Killers - By John Cornell

R

ight around the turn of the century, the consumer TV industry was about to experience a technology revolution that, 20 years later, we now take for granted - the introduction of the first flat screen TV. The result of a collaboration between The Sharp Corporation and Sony in 1999, the first Plasma TV went on sale and whilst the technology would eventually lose out to LCD (which would go on to dominate the market), one of the victims of the format war for the thinnest television was the speakers.

Fast-forward 20 years and we’re left with extremely poor sound emanating from the equally slim speakers in today’s LED and OLED TVs. This gave rise to the popularity of the soundbar. The first soundbar/subwoofer combination was developed in 1998 by Altec Lansing and taken to the next level with DSP Processing by Yamaha in 2005. However, one of the biggest misconceptions in the world of home entertainment is that a soundbar will give you a quality music-listening experience.

The reality is, soundbars are primarily designed to improve the listening experience for live-to-air television and movies when compared to the poor-quality emanating from the current crop of flat screen televisions. And whilst the best soundbars are capable of some amazing feats in this regard, music listening is a whole other ballgame. Sadly, with their limited driver size and lack of stereo separation, the resulting music-listening experience is often a little underwhelming.

Luckily, there are some alternatives to a soundbar for those looking for a simple and stylish TV & movie experience whilst retaining the integrity of your music listening. Enter Klipsch Audio, the great American audio company founded in 1946

by Paul Klipsch and renowned for their proprietary acoustic horn-loaded technology.

As well as bringing your movie watching to life, Klipsch have produced a very real solution to the shortcomings of most soundbars when it comes to enjoyable music listening.

When it comes to music, Klipsch’s The Fives powered speakers (powered meaning the amplification is built into the speaker) runs rings around any sound bar of an equivalent price (and even many that cost much more).

Indeed, I would go as far as to say they are soundbar killers thanks to their powerful, room filling stereo sound (that creates a ‘Phantom’ centre channel effect for TV), and extensive connectivity including HDMI ARC (direct plug and play to your TV and as far as I know the only powered bookshelf speakers with this feature), phono input, USB DAC input for laptop connection, analogue 3.5 mini jack, optical, Bluetooth 5 and subwoofer output (although, unlike most soundbars which struggle to produce any audible bass without purchasing their respective ‘optional’ subwoofer, The Fives are more than capable on their own).

Beautifully finished in hand-crafted real wood veneer or matte black finishes and

with everything you need to get connected right in the box including HDMI cable and IR remote, these speakers are the hi-fi equivalent of the swiss army knife - a compact one box solution that produces a wonderful listening experience not only for TV & movies, but also one that will provide a genuine, hi-fi quality music listening experience that a soundbar can only dream of.

In short, a lot of soundbars need to start looking over their shoulder, because at $1,599.00 RRP The Fives are coming for them.

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BY NICK CHARLES

Anna’s a relatively new dynamo on the Australian blues scene, bringing heartfelt earthy feels and passionate lyrics to the stage. She also has a fondness for the classics which she delivers to her growing fan base by way of unique cigar-box guitars and some vintage beauties. There’s a new release on the horizon.

Lyrically you do step outside the blues box.

What are some other key influences that inform your music?

I listened to alternative rock and grunge music in my 20’s loving guitar driven bands and falling in love with artists like PJ Harvey, Jeff Buckley, Ben Harper, Lucinda Williams, Rickie Lee Jones and Leonard Cohen - to name a few. Their songwriting is exquisite and full of emotion musically and lyrically.

You’re relatively new in the scene - What sort of musical journey did you have before you solo career kicked off?

I grew up in East Gippsland and started playing the drums in the high school band. At the age of 16 I started playing guitar. I’ve not had any formal training. I’ve played in bands with friends, including alternative folk-rock to county-blues. About 6 years ago I decided to make playing, songwriting and releasing some recordings my priority. Better late than never I say!

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ANNA SCIONTI In the world of blues who are your main influences and are there some particular recordings that you revere?

Big Mama Thornton is one of my favourite blues women as well as Jessie Mae Hemphill.

I love Jimmy Reed and Junior Wells and have listened to a lot of their recordings.

Two albums my brother gave me that probably turned me on to the blues in my early years were Blues, Blues, Blues by The Jimmy Rogers All-Stars and Short Cool Ones by Chris Wilson & Johnny Diesel. I gave both these albums a hammering!

You’ve got quite a collection of guitars and amps. Tell me about some of your favourites.

My favourite guitar is a Gibson Melody Maker (double cutaway & dual pickup) from the 60’s.

It was my first electric guitar and I purchased it about 1998 and has inspired many songs.

I have a collection of Australian made valve amplifiers, my favourite being a Rex Mascota 60’s Australian 5 watt valve amp, and a MOODY GA40. Both feature on my recordings.

There’s quite a movement afoot with “cigarbox” style guitars. Why the fascination?

Each Cigar Box Guitar is unique and they all have a different sound and inspire different songs, and that’s what I love about them.

How are you motivated in these weird times and what’s in store when things open up again?

I’ve found the second lockdown harder. Setting small daily goals has helped as well as walking my dog Arkie while listening to songwriting podcasts and hearing what other creatives are up to. Video calls to friends and family have also been important. I have a newly recorded album to release so I look forward to sharing this at some live shows soon!

Do you find it all a chore in these times, perhaps with the end game not so obvious?

Are these times informing your writing?

You know I was probably writing more prelockdown. In saying that I have written a lot of lyrics, thoughts and ideas and a collection of guitar riffs. None have been completed to a song as yet however. 2020 was looking to be a great year for me musically having finished recording a ten track album in February. Then came March lockdown and now lockdown 2.0.

It’s disheartening not being able to release the album in the traditional sense and not knowing when Victorian live music will recommence.

The real beauty of songwriting is seeing people’s reactions when you sing one of your tunes. I miss this. Regardless, I’m planning a spring release. Whether this will be at a live gig or via video - time will tell. New music doesn’t have to be locked down - even though we are!

Visit www.annascionti.com

By Martin Jones

GILLIAN WELCH & DAVID RAWLINGS ALL THE GOOD TIMES Acony

I

t would be a rewarding (though arduous) task to compile a detailed annotation for Gillian Welch’s and David Rawlings’ discography. From “Make me a pallet on your floor” to “They caught the Katy and left me a mule to ride” to “quicksilver girl” to “itching like a man in a fuzzy tree”, Welch’s and Rawlings’ music ripples with their infatuation with popular music.

It’s just one of the many aspects through which you can enjoy their work. At its most elemental, their music is, seemingly, outrageously simple – two (unamplified) acoustic guitars, two voices, one microphone, one song. But anyone who has been deceived by that apparent simplicity enough to try and emulate it understands how much more is involved. Beyond the inimitable talent and chemistry there is a deep, deep appreciation for the history of modern Western music that informs what they do.

And on All the Good Times, the discerning duo offer us a more literal list of their loves and influences with a collection of others’ compositions.

You don’t have to dig too deep to trace the less mysterious inclusions on All the Good Times. How could they not pay tribute to the recently departed John Prine? They choose one of Prine’s lives staples ‘Hello in There’ (Prine once said, “I don’t think I’ve done a show without singing ‘Hello in There.’ Nothing in it wears on me.”)

Would there even be a Gillian Welch and David Rawlings without John Prine? Maybe, but the Loretta and Rudy in ‘Hello in There’ are exactly the kind of people who populate their own songs. Easily the most poignant performance on the record.

There’s not one but two Dylan compositions on All the Good Times – a big ole nod to Bob. Did Welch and Rawlings deliberately exclude the bracketed title (‘Tales of Yankee Power’) from ‘Senor’ to deemphasise the obvious political relevance? Certainly, the opening lines “do you know where we’re headin’? Lincoln County Road or Armageddon?” are easy to apply to present day America – by referencing the Lincoln County Wars (in which Billy the Kid apparently came to fame) Dylan asked, are we facing just another local squabble or the war to end all wars?

‘Abandoned Love’ is a more curious selection. Dylan recorded the song in ’75 but didn’t release it until ’85 and has reportedly performed it only once, shortly before it was recorded. Maybe he might reconsider that after hearing Rawlings sing it.

Some will love the light-hearted take of the Cash/Carter icon ‘Jackson’, false start and all. However, if you said, “I don’t ever need to hear that song again,” you wouldn’t have to look far to find some concurrence.

Much of the rest of the album digs deeper into the roots of American folk music that so informs Welch and Rawlings. The album opens with a take on Elizabeth Cotten’s ‘Oh Babe It Ain’t

No Lie’ that sounds as old as the song itself. The very source of the term “Cotten Picking”, Cotten’s Seeger-rediscovered canon is crucial in American folklore. (Incidentally, Jerry Garcia covered both Cotten’s ‘Freight Train’ and Dylan’s ‘Senor’ – something that any self-respecting “little Deadhead” would surely be aware of.)

Another great American hero, Norman Blake, is honoured in ‘Ginseng Sullivan’. Blake’s tendrils reach all through this album, from Johnny Cash to Bob Dylan to O Brother, Where Art Thou? and here Welch and Rawlings openly acknowledge his influence on their writing and flat-picking.

From there, Welch and Rawlings take us further back into “traditional” territory with a trio of arrangements: ‘Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss’, ‘Poor Ellen Smith’ and the title track ‘All the Good Times Are Past and Gone’. All are examples of turn of the century American folk whose earliest recordings date to the ‘20s or ‘30s and whose influence branches through the birth of bluegrass.

The album closes with another bluegrass staple, ‘Y’all Come’, written by Arlie Duff and recorded soon after by Bill Monroe among others. Welch and Rawlings’ take was recorded in the midst of Covid lockdown and its lyrics hanker for more sociable times, when “kin folks are comin’, they’re comin’ by the dozen, eatin’ everything from soup to hay’ (itself a reference to Fred Rose’s 1946 song ‘Roly Poly’).

All recorded live to tape, minor slips (including running out of tape during one take) and all, it is, praise the lord, available on vinyl, where it belongs.

All The Good Times is available now at bandcamp.com

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BY KEITH GLASS In the 60’s/70’s/80’s major record labels worldwide maintained a massive album release schedule.

Only a comparatively few artists scored a hit, others became ‘cult’ classics. Beyond that exists an underbelly of almost totally ignored work, (much never reissued) that time has been kind to. This is a page for the crate diggers.

PARIS

S/T

Capitol ST-11464 (1976) When singer-guitarist Bob Welch quit Fleetwood Mac in 1974 estranged from the McVies and exhausted from touring, he’d guided them through five albums that kept their band name alive, selling well enough to feature in mid-range positions on the US Billboard and Cashbox Top 100 charts. Their metamorphosis from British Blues band to one with a more ‘pop’ sensibility occurred during his tenure. By 1975 both parties had begun to re-group with Welch honing in on a trio format and the name Paris, a city where he had lived and played music early on in his career.

On bass & keyboards was Glenn Cornick from Jethro Tull/Wild Turkey and on drums 56

Thom Mooney – originally a member of Nazz, Todd Rungren’s lift-off group. The main inspiration behind Paris was pretty plain and simple - Led Zeppelin. Obviously, Zep’s forged a fresh take on blues, proto prog-rock but by ’76 had their last good album well behind them. There was an opening and perhaps Welch could fill it. I find the album fairly unabashed in this task and therein lies some of the appeal. No overt Robert Plant posturing is O.K too! Paris strips down the trio sound with some well-crafted songs all composed by Welch and sets up stellar performances by good musicians.

The LP cover of a neon Eiffel Tower Paris is fairly unremarkable and vague for the innards but the way the contents re-imagine the sound that shook the world a few years earlier would not be matched again until teen sensations Greta Van Fleet released the e.p Black Smoke Rising in 2017! The latter really was just a whole lotta fun even if those young lads have been unable to replicate it with later releases.

Later in life Welch called his work here ‘unfocused’ but he was being extremely hard on himself, a comment perhaps more driven by the lack of success. Certainly, by Paris album #2 where the drum stool was occupied

by Hunt Sales and a funkier edge was forged that theory might be more accurate. Here, however, the songs are contrite, witty and refined. Constant listening brings forth new fave licks, lyric lines and melodies. More recent favourable reviews back this up. This was a power trio to be reckoned with.

Right from the git-go ‘Black Book’ (incorrectly listed on the original album cover as song two) hits the groove, which is heavily phased guitars, yelping vocals, inventive bass work and sledgehammer drumming. Nine songs later ‘Red Rain’ takes it out much the same way. What raised the quality of the content are the facts that Welch is basically a pop music writer and there is always a well-constructed melody and clever lyrics.

He proved he could write a few near hits with the Mac before this line-up and later with a couple of high charting singles on his own - Ebony Eyes being the main, still played on radio, example. There are a few on here that could have and should have gained some traction, ‘Beautiful Youth’, ‘Rock Of Ages’ even the slightly controversial ‘Religion’.

The resounding flop on release of this album still found Welsh trying with the second group album Big Towne 2061 before finally finding traction (for a short while) as a solo artist. His first singular release (originally planned as a Paris album) hit big so that must have brought the artist some relief and recompense.

Despite setting the pattern for Fleetwood Mac’s subsequent major success Welch was not present at their induction into the R&R Hall Of Fame (probably because he was taking legal action against them for back royalties at the time). Thankfully, both sides forgave all with Mick Fleetwood even managing him in later years prior to Welch sadly taking his own life in 2012.

By Trevor J. Leeden TOO SLIM AND THE TAILDRAGGERS

them first time round, here’s your chance to atone for that oversight; when too much twang is never enough.

‘Someday We’re Gonna Love Again’, Barbara Lewis placed an indelible stamp on 60’s R&B; pure majesty.

‘Walk Don’t Run’.

VizzTone/Planet

TOBIN SPROUT

GREYHOUNDS

PLAY THE STOOGES

Fire Records

Nine Mile Records/Planet

THE REMEDY

EMPTY HORSES

For a three-piece outfit, Tim Langford and his trusty sidekicks make one hell of a racket. Langford’s signature grizzled vocals and greasy guitar licks have been the band’s bedrock for over three decades, but with the injection of banjo and guest appearances from ace harpists Sheldon Ziro, Jason Ricci and Rosy Rosenblatt, their thunderous take on blues-rock continues to evolve. Most of the ten originals bear the trademark motifs of Texas blues legends like ZZ Top, Stevie Ray and Johnny Winter, whilst the sole cover on the album, Elmore James’ classic ‘Sunnyland Train’, is a scintillating homage to the slide guitarist.

PRIMATES

BILL KIRCHEN

There are undeniable echoes of John Prine and Townes Van Zandt permeating through Sprout’s singing and songwriting, interspersed with the occasional Neil Young moment (as on the title track). An overriding sense of melancholy enshrouds a set of songs that chart a conceptual course through the American state of mind, from the deep division of the Civil War (exquisitely portrayed in ‘On Golden Rivers’) to the current struggles experienced in the land of the free. Not unlike Bill Fay, Sprout has the uncanny knack of sounding sombre whilst lifting the spirits, and the poignancy of Empty Horses is all-consuming.

Since reinventing themselves with 2014’s Accumulator, Austin’s Anthony Farrell (vocals/keyboards) and Andrew Trube (vocals/guitar) have settled into a perfect bluesy soul/funk groove. The mantra would seem to be ‘if it isn’t broken then don’t fix it’, and with Los Lobos’ Steve Berlin producing, the formula hasn’t been tampered with too much on Primates. A set of songs addressing personal, social and cultural issues, there are still retro-inspired moments such as the Hall & Oates sounding ‘Stay Here Tonight’. Full of elastic rhythms, propulsive grooves and impassioned vocals, this is dancefloor music for the discerning.

Last Music Company/Planet

BARBARA LEWIS

VARIOUS ARTISTS

SoulMusic Records/Planet

Planet

THE PROPER YEARS

DON’T FORGET ABOUT ME

Rockabilly, country, western swing, honky-tonk or just good ol’ rock’n’roll, the Titan Of The Telecaster does it all on this 2-disc set that brings together his three superb albums recorded for the label, as well as a few tasty added extras. Each album brings its own delights, whether it be a Telecaster masterclass on the eclectic Hammer Of The HonkyTonk Gods, a bulging guest list (Nick Lowe, Elvis Costello, Paul Carrack, Maria Muldaur, Norton Buffalo, Dan Hicks) on Word To The Wise, or revisiting old favourites on Seeds And Stems. If you missed

Decades before indie rockers Arctic Monkeys hit with ‘Baby I’m Yours’, there was the sumptuous original version by the Michigan-born R&B/soul siren Barbara Lewis. This superbly annotated 3-disc collection brings together in their entirety all five of her albums recorded for the Atlantic and Reprise labels, including many tracks not previously issued on CD. From melting hearts with the self-penned heartbreaker ‘Hello Stranger’ to filling dancefloors with up-tempo stompers like

THE RIDICULOUS TRIO Modern Harmonic/Planet

What better way to celebrate 50 years of the venerated punk progenitors than to thrash out – literally – off-the-wall drum and brass re-imaginings of nine Iggy & The Stooges classics. Shannon Morrow’s drums and cymbals have a mind of their own, Rob Pleshar’s tuba is a relentless beast, and Mike Hagedorn’s slide trombone writhes and wriggles out front as he emulates the vocal and guitar parts – often at the same time! It’s a palpitating, cacophonous, punkadelic explosion of sound that, once heard, is not easily forgotten; a bit like The Stooges really.

VARIOUS ARTISTS

SURRENDER TO THE RHYTHM Cherry Red Records/Planet

BLUE COXSONE BOX SET

When it comes to exposure in the world of roots music, it’s fair to say that reggae and its offshoots is the poor cousin. That’s a pity, because releases like this collection of six single 45’s are a genuine delight.

Reproduced with the distinctive original blue Coxsone label, the dozen hard to come by rocksteady tracks feature some of the finest performers from Jamaica’s legendary Studio One, including Joe Higgs, Zoot Simms, Winston Jarrett, The Melodians, and the Sound Dimension’s long-lost

The definitive statement on an era that would provide the blueprint for British rock music. Spread across 3-discs, the 71 tracks and accompanying 48-page booklet document the rise of pub rock from its 1971 origins in London’s Tally Ho pub. Embracing myriad musical styles, the performers featured who got their start here reads like a Who’s Who of British rock – Nick Lowe, Elvis Costello, Graham Parker, Paul Weller, Chris Rea, Dave Edmunds, Joe Strummer, Dr. Feelgood…and the surface is barely scratched.

History lessons never sounded so good.

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IS WHERE THE ACTION IS

By Christopher Hollow

KIKAGAKU MOYO GYPSY DAVEY Sub Pop

Japan’s Kikagaku Moyo are easily the most interesting cosmic band of the moment – whip-thin hippies, dressed in their pj’s, strumming electric sitars, with a drummer that does most of the talking. If you’re new to the band, I recommend the shape-shifting ‘Green Sugar’ from their back pages (off 2016’s House in the Tall Grass LP).

The latest release sees them go a bit straighter with a cover of the British traditional folk tune, ‘Gypsy Davey’, taking their inspiration from Fotheringay, who did it back in 1970. This modern version has guest vocalist, Kandice Holmes (a.k.a.

Bells), taking the Sandy Denny role and doing it justice. B-side, ‘Mushi No Uta’, is kaleidoscopic sky-gazing music at its most introspective. A bit dreamy, a bit doomy but delivering you home safely at the end.

THE STOOGES

LIVE AT GOOSE LAKE: AUGUST 8th, 1970 Third Man

What I love about this show from the original line-up of The Stooges is that they played the album, Fun House, to 200,000 people at Michigan’s Goose Lake Festival before that record was even released. They refused to play tracks from their 1969 debut, played no covers to curry favour, offered no apologies.

It’s the unreleased Fun House album, played, in order, from go to whoa. And woah! What a show. The band give a great account of the album. They’re selling these songs; they have to, no one knows what the hell they’re hearing. So, it’s just the band’s enthusiasm for this new material that gets it across. But, as you can hear, the audience digs it. Bassist Dave Alexander, who was rumoured not to have played a note during this performance, and was subsequently sacked because of it, actually plays ok especially on bass-driven songs like ‘Fun House’ and ‘Dirt’. Iggy does his thing, which must’ve been incredible to watch, mostly crooning and cooing his way through the set ’til he gets to fever-pitch on ‘1970 (I Feel Alright)’; but it’s the Asheton brothers, Ron on guitar and Scott on drums, who unload on these numbers and make them move.

BONES AND JONES

GINGER GOLD (FARM SINGLES) Rice Is Nice

Back in 2017, when Geelong band, Bones and Jones, had a 58

crack at The Creation’s 1967 freak-beat number, ‘If I Stay Too Long’, the results conveyed more than any press release could. It showed they were super-confident, discerning, and young. Each release since then has seen them getting better (check out ‘Sunday Morning’ and ‘Head and Throat’ off the early 2020 album, Bees). Now comes Ginger Gold, the first of a series of iso-recorded singles.

The A-side is ‘It’s Time’, which is a real winner with an inventive melody, fabulous backing vocals and a real hint of Jimmy Campbell’s early 70s band, Rockin’ Horse (definitely check out their 1971 LP, Yes It Is). The way that the lyric, ‘Telefunken microphone’, is used is a brilliant hook.

and watches mourning birds with Abraham (Wednesday)’ or the unforgettable ‘James and Ira demonstrate mysticism and some confusion holds (Monday)’. This is not the record that will convert your heathen friends to the joys of YLT but it’s still compelling if you’ve got time and space in your life to surrender.

EASY LOVE WANDER FEELER Loantaka Records

YO LA TENGO WE HAVE AMNESIA SOMETIMES Matador

‘37 Record-Store Clerks Feared Dead in Yo La Tengo Concert Disaster.’ So goes the 2002 joke from The Onion, that’s still amusing today. I find it funny because I’m one of those music-nerds that has always loved Hoboken band, Yo La Tengo, and listen to anything and everything they put out.

This latest release is definitely in the anything and everything category. It’s a bunch of rehearsal space instrumental jams under titles like, ‘Georgia thinks it’s probably okay (Tuesday)’ and ‘James gets up

Trawling through the new music of the month, I was struck by the stunning turquoise felt jacket (with ivory lace cuffs) worn on the cover of Wander Feeler

by Easy Love. Turns out, Easy Love is the nom de plume of California singer-songwriter Justine Brown. The back-story is that Justine played drums in a breezy, stripy t-shirt indie band called Summer Twins with her sister, Sweet Chelsea Brown, before going solo. Wander Feeler is Justine’s second record and is reminiscent of the breezy, stripy t-shirt 90s-style indie pop I grew up with, and feel extremely comfortable with, in the vein of the Lemonheads, Smudge and Juliana Hatfield.

My faves include romance-gonewrong ‘Cool Type’, the opening instrumental ‘Intro’ and ‘Never Alone’, which has a magnificent slacker drum feel, impressive close harmonies and feels like a great two-minute outro refrain couched as a song.

BY CHRIS FAMILTON

T

CREATIVITY DURING A PANDEMIC

he events of 2020 have been an international societal jolt that has affected all of us, in a multitude of ways. The financial, emotional and physical repercussions have been devastating for many and the creative community is one group that has been hit particularly hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. The ripples run wide and deep, from the musicians to the venues and crews, festivals and the associated media network, including magazines like this. In this issue we speak to three musicians to see how they have been affected by the events of this year and how it has shaped and influenced their creativity.

Michael Carpenter is a musician, songwriter and producer who has worked with a huge number of Australian musicians, particularly within the folk and country communities.

In the last few months, among many other things, he’s released new singles with his alt-country trio The April Family and a new country/honky-tonk project with The Banks Brothers, created collaborative online streaming performances and recorded fun covers. On the surface there’s a sense that the creative process is rolling along but as he explains, the pandemic has been “a really challenging roller coaster for everyone,” with mixed emotions about both lost and potential new opportunities.

“Within a week or so I’d gone through ALL of the emotions!! I spent lots of time walking and thinking and soon saw this as an opportunity. I started to methodically make lists of things I wanted to do,” Carpenter explains. “Projects I wanted to develop that I knew weren’t ‘money projects’. Skills I wanted to refine, like my lap steel and piano playing. And writing songs is always something I want to do more of, so I dived into an aggressive round of co-writing.”

Acclaimed Melbourne songwriter Lachlan Bryan initially felt little compulsion to write in the first stages of the pandemic but with conditions subsequently worsening in his state, he reconnected with his songwriting muse, with some surprising results. “Second time round, after a little break in between (which I can barely remember), things seem darker. It feels like we’re staring down the same kind of horror our friends in Europe and the US have been facing and all of a sudden the stakes are very high,” Bryan says grimly. “ I can’t hide the fact that I’m finding it very difficult and I’ve been really low. However, this time round I have been writing. Unfortunately, I seem to be one of those artists who needs a bit of misery and dysfunction before I put pen to paper, so

now the songs are flowing. Strangely, they’re not sad songs -perhaps there’s some kind of subconscious optimism there that’s trying to fight its way to the surface?”

Around the time the coronavirus first entered our lexicon, Sydney songwriter Caitlin Harnett was readying a new single and video.

All of a sudden that changed. Harnett put that release on hold and has used the last few months to focus her energy on new songs. “The pandemic has been very fruitful for me,” she admits. “I feel guilty saying this as I know a lot of people are really struggling at the moment, but it’s given me time to just step back from working and playing shows and allowed me to start writing again. I haven’t felt this creative space for such a long time, and I am very grateful for that! I’ve just been writing new songs and then preparing for when this is all over to release some new music that I’ve been sitting on for a while now.”

However, to differing degrees, there is a sense of optimism that many musicians share when looking ahead to the future of their industry.

Carpenter sees a number of ways in which the landscape has, and will, change for the better. “I think this is a time when good progressive creatives will see that the ball has literally landed at their feet. They can just stare at it, or they can see that they’re more in control of the game than they ever have been,” he says, citing the use of technology in recording remotely, live-streaming and “a greater push towards artistic autonomy and taking more ownership of your own artistic ‘brand’.”

Bryan’s focus is on his core role as a songwriter and performer, ensuring that he’ll “focus on trying to make sure when I get up in front of people, I keep them entertained - whether they’re there in the room or somewhere else on a computer screen, or both.”

For Harnett, the pandemic has made her realise and value the importance her songwriting process. “I realise that it’s important for me to have some sort of discipline and routine when it comes to writing and the pandemic has really brought that to light.”

“Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns in order to look at things in a different way.”

– Edward de Bono

Caitlin Harnett

The April Family

Lachlan Bryan and the Wildes 59

STEVE MILLER BAND Billy Pinnell

SAILOR

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Capitol As a child in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Steve Miller was exposed to numerous musical influences. His physician father who, in addition to his profession as a pathologist, was a jazz enthusiast and accomplished amateur recording engineer. Moreover, guitar virtuoso Les Paul, a close family friend (Steve’s parents were best man and maid of honour at Paul and Mary Ford’s wedding) was a regular visitor sometimes offering five year old Steve guitar lessons. Jazz legends Charles Mingus, Red Norvo and Tal Farlowe would often drop by along with blues guitarist/singer T-Bone Walker who once performed for the Millers at a private party in their home.

In 1950 the family relocated to Texas enrolling seven year old Steve in preparatory school where, about eight years later, he formed his first band teaching classmate Boz Scaggs a few guitar chords so he could join.

In 1965 he moved to Chicago to immerse himself in the burgeoning blues scene forming a band with keyboard player/songwriter Barry Goldberg.

Calling themselves the GoldbergMiller Blues Band they released an unsuccessful single prior to Miller leaving the band in 1967 to relocate to San Francisco where he formed the Steve Miller Band with Scaggs, drummer Tim Davis, keyboard player Jim Peterman and bass guitarist Lonnie Turner.

Capitol Records were impressed enough to offer the band a recording

deal on the eve of their impressive performance at the Monterey Pop Festival in June of 1967. The following year they released the first in a series of albums rooted solidly in the psychedelic blues style that prevailed in San Francisco at that time.

Like their musically adventurous debut release Children Of The Future, the band’s follow-up album Sailor was engineered and produced in London

by Glyn Johns who needed to fit their recording into his tight schedule working on the first Led Zeppelin album and The Rolling Stones’ Beggars Banquet.

Throughout the sessions for their first album Miller insisted that Johns include electronic passages composed of sound effects, tape manipulation and feedback, tricks he’d learned from Les Paul and his dad. This time Johns was an enthusiastic participant.

In 1968 not too many guitar players steeped in the blues like Miller was, had the balls to open what was only their second album with an ambitious six minute instrumental.

On ‘Song For Our Ancestors’ Johns and the band collected foghorn sounds from San Pedro Harbour for the intro, created walls of sound for Miller to solo through a Leslie speaker finishing the piece with sound effects of falling rain that segued into the opening of the gentle, atmospheric ballad ‘Dear Mary’ that featured a ‘Penny Lane’ like piccolo trumpet.

Other songs written and sung by Miller included the rocking ‘Living In The U.S.A.’ with lyrics borrowed from Chuck

Berry’s ‘Too Much Monkey Business’ and another ballad ‘Quicksilver Girl’ enhanced by his overdubbed vocal harmonies.

Miller’s blues roots are represented by covers of Jimmy Reed’s ‘You’re So Fine’ (at age fifteen he’d played guitar in the legendary bluesman’s backing band) and Johnny ‘Guitar’ Watson’s ‘Gangster Of Love’ a song he would reference in his 1974 hit ‘The Joker’. Scaggs who hadn’t yet found his true vocal sound sings lead on two songs he wrote, the Bo Diddley like ‘Overdrive’ and the rocking ‘Dime-a-Dance Romance’.

Also, unusual was the democratic sharing of vocal duties, Davis sings lead on ‘My Lucky Friend’ a co-write with Scaggs while Peterman did the same on the acoustic, folky, ‘Lucky Man’ a song he wrote during the sessions.

Sailor proved to be one of the most musically adventurous albums of its era.

It was the beginning of a vision that Miller would expand upon, one that culminated in the enormous success of his million selling albums Fly Like An Eagle (1976) and Book of Dreams (1977).

Never far away from his blues roots, Miller’s most recent studio albums Bingo (2010) and its companion release Let Your Hair Down (2011) consist of blues and R&B covers.

Earlier in 2020 Welcome To The Vault a career spanning 2 CD and DVD Box Set collection containing 52 audio tracks and 21 live performances on DVD with 38 previously unreleased recordings and alternative versions of his best known songs was released.

By Denise Hylands

A

mericana Music: “contemporary music that incorporates elements of various American roots music styles, including country, roots rock, folk, gospel and bluegrass resulting in a distinctive roots-oriented sound that lives in a world apart from the pure forms of the genres upon which it may draw.”

While being in lockdown, isolation and just plain social distancing we find ourselves with time to sit down with some of our favourite artists to watch streams of intimate performances. Pretty much you can search anyone whose music you like and more than likely they are offering you something live or otherwise.

If you haven’t already, check out The Mavericks, who also have just released a new album, En Espanol, their first album entireIy in Spanish. Guaranteed to get you dancing in the kitchen. Since April, Raul Malo has been offering up one on one performances which have over the months started to incorporate other people who have come by the house, to the band socially distanced and masked getting together in the studio.

THAT voice is sure to lure you into watching more than one episode of his Quarantunes, while also paying tribute to folks who have passed from Morricone to Prine.

I’ve only just come across, Hartland Hootenanny, YouTube channel, hosted by Ketch Secor from Old Crow Medicine Show.

A rollicking old-time barn dance overflowing with music, humour and storytelling with guests that have included Molly Tuttle, Sierra Ferrell, The War & Treaty, Pokey LaFarge,

Joshua Hedley and more. This is also worth going back and watching from the beginning.

Coming to you live from Nashville Tennessee every Saturday night (their time). Also, OCMS will be doing a live performance at Live At The Ryman on September 18.

Seeing that we can’t go traveling, so many festivals and music conferences are cancelled or have gone online. Americanafest which happens every September in Nashville is not happening this year, but next year’s dates are September 21-26, 2021, and you can get in early for that. However, this year, Americanafest has recreated itself as Thriving Roots: A Virtual Community Music Conference.

Highlights include Emmylou Harris in conversation with Ken Burns about his recent documentary Country Music, Brandi Carlile & Yola as well as Jackson & Mavis Staples in conversation. As well as many more with Elvin Bishop, Rosanne Cash, Ry Cooder, Angela Davis, Bonnie Raitt, Alice Randall, Paul Thorn and more. Check it out.

As for another great festival, Hardly Strictly Bluegrass in San Francisco were set to celebrate their 20th anniversary, but the real thing is cancelled. However, on the weekend of October 2 - 4, Let The Music Play On will happen, an online celebration including newly recorded performances, archival footage from fans and their own archives, interviews and a history of HSB. And closer to home, it’s sad to say that our much loved Out On The Weekend in Melbourne will not be going ahead this October. I’m sure next year’s event will be bigger and better than ever.

How about some Elvis? From Elvis In Nashville, will be released in November as

Album releases I hope you didn’t miss: The Avett Brothers - The Third Gleam The Mavericks - En Espanol Lori McKenna - The Balladeer The Texas Gentleman - Floor It!!

Gillian Welch & David Rawlings - All The Good Times Gillian Welch - Boots 2: The Lost Songs Vol 1.

Courtney Marie Andrews - Old Flowers Charley Crockett - Welcome To Hard Times Kathleen Edwards - Total Freedom Emma Swift - Blonde On The Tracks Zephaniah O’Hora - Listening To The Music Willie Nelson - First Rose Of Spring (his 70th studio album) Dan Penn - Living On Mercy Corb Lund - Agricultural Tragic Arlo McKinley - Die Midwestern Colter Wall - Western Swing & Waltzes And Other Punchy Songs Molly Tuttle - …But I’d Rather Be With You Van Walker - Ghosting Bobby Rush - Rawer Than Raw Blind Boys of Alabama - Almost Home Waterboys - Good Luck, Seeker Bruce Hornsby - Non Secure Connection Mary Chapin Carpenter - The Dirt & The Stars August was a busy month for new releases…

Upcoming releases Grant Lee Phillips - Lightning, Show Us Your Stuff Steep Canyon Rangers - Arm In Arm Gillian Welch - Boots 2 : The Lost Songs Vol. 2 & Vol. 3 Emily Barker - A Dark Murmuration of Words Loudon Wainwright III - I’d Rather Lead A Band Joan Osborne - Trouble & Strife a 4cd box set/2 LP vinyl (select highlights).

Taken from a marathon 5-day recording session that took place in June 1970 with Elvis and some Nashville Cats, Charlie McCoy and Norbert Putman amongst others. Recorded at RCA Studio B on Music Row. The first track is out there and available to listen to, ‘I Washed My Hands In Muddy Water’.

A bio pic of the late great Merle Haggard is on the cards. To be based on the singer’s memoir Sing Me Back Home and to focus on his tumultuous rise from prison inmate to country music legend. Sam Rockwell is most likely to be playing Haggard. Let’s hope that a better job is done of this bio pic than the Hank Williams one.

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CD: Feature

BY DENISE HYLANDS

CORB LUND

AGRICULTURAL TRAGIC NEW WEST

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Canadian musician Corb Lund pioneers his own new genre: Ag Trag!

When I catch up with Corb Lund he’s on his way to his first live show in 4 months. Having had to cancel the tour for his new album back in early March. Travelling from the family ranch in the Rocky Mountains Alberta where he’s been bunkered down, he’s heading to Regina Saskatchewan to play a concert with a difference. ”It’s a strange one,” he explains.”Every room on the back of the hotel has a balcony, and it faces the parkade, so we’re setting up on the roof of the parkade and playing up to the people on the balconies…”

“I kind of tried doing a record more spontaneously, without doing as much preparation, and it turns out it doesn’t work for me very well,” he replies when I mention that the new record is his first. “So, for a couple of years I had nothing to say. I was kind of stuck…the field lay fallow for a while, and then me and my band got a second wind and we wrote Photo by Noah Fallis a bunch of songs, more than usual. We rehearsed more than usual and we put more work into recording, and it turned out pretty well.”

Agricultural Tragic seems to be an album about everything that is very close to him, about the life that he lives, his own reality.

He’s not wearing a cowboy hat just because it looks good, it’s part of who he is.

“Yeah, that’s right. Lots of personal stuff on this one. It’s my heritage, for sure. I think we’ve been raising cattle in the West for about six or seven generations, yeah. We’ve been four generations on the place we are now, but before that, my family was from Utah, in the US, and we ranched down there for a long time.

He’s calling this music Ag Trag?

“Yeah, that’s kind of a joke,” he says. “We called the record Agricultural Tragic but I’ve been saying for the last two years that that’s sort of our selfinvented subgenre, because we don’t really fit anywhere.”

You’re bringing us that Western style of country, more so than a lot of people do. “There’s hardly

any cowboy in most Americana. It’s mostly urban, yeah, which is fine, but it’s not what I do. I do Agricultural Tragic.”

Lund writes about his life with great humour but also with great sincerity. There are songs about old men, drinking whiskey, rats, grizzly bears, ranching, horses, horses and horses.

There’s even one for his mum: ‘Never Not Had Horses.’

“Yeah. It’s about my mother,” he explains.”She grew up a cowgirl on horseback, ranching, raising cows her whole life, and yeah, she’s probably 78 now, 78, 79, but a couple of years ago we had to put down the last couple horses on the place because they were just too old to get through the winter. It was very sad. We were waiting for the veterinarian to show up, and she just kind of looked at me and said that she’d never not had horses, meaning from the moment she was born until right then. She’d never not had horses before.”

Does she love the song? “She does. Yeah, it made her cry.”

There’s also a little touch of classic Johnny & June, George & Tammy, Loretta & Conway kind of country on ‘I Think You Oughta Drink Whiskey’ with the very country sounding Jaida Dreyer.

“Her voice is pretty country, huh? She’s an awesome singer,” says Lund, ”and we’re sort of song writing partners. She helped me write a song on the record called ‘Raining Horse’. She was in the studio, and we needed a demo of ‘Whiskey’ because we were going to try to get Dolly or Reba….. or somebody to do it for us, But we had Jaida just do a demo for us so we’d have something to show them, and then we liked her version so much, we just used it, because it was awesome. We’re going to do more. We’re going to do an EP, I think, someday.”

“You know what’s really fun about this record- well, most of them,”he continues,”but this one especially is we have a bunch of different styles on it. I get bored easily, so we like to dabble in all kinds of old school country styles, like Western swing and rockabilly and cowboy ballad and all that kind of stuff, ’70’s country all of it….we put it in a big blender and spew it out.”

Lund and his band The Hurtin’ Albertans were due to make their Grand Ol’ Opry debut in August but when we spoke he was still waiting to hear about a rescheduled date.

“It’s really cool,” he says. “I think we’re going to reschedule it when the border opens. It’s really exciting. I would imagine it’s probably like playing the AFL Finals or something if you’re a football player.”

CD: Feature

BY BRIAN WISE

SHIRLEY COLLINS

HEART’S EASE Domino

UK folk legend releases her second album in 38 years!

A thirty-eight year absence from recording is more than just a hiatus. For most musicians it would mean retirement but, at the age of 81, Shirley Collins made the comeback album Lodestar in 2016 and has now followed it up with Heart’s Ease.

The near four decade absence from the recording studio and performance was not the result of disillusionment with the music industry or lack of success; rather it was a more complicated story.

At the time of her disappearance Collins was already a legend on the British folk music scene and one of those responsible – along with her sister Dolly - for the revival of folk music there in the ‘60s and ‘70s. She had appeared with the elite of the folk scene and early on met musicologist Alan Lomax and assisted him on various projects, including a trip to the USA to collect obscure folk and blues songs. One of the results of their collaboration was the book America Over The Water.

After her first marriage to producer, songwriter, poet Austin John Marshall ended she married renowned musician Ashley Hutchings. But after seven years the relationship ended when Hutchings left and left Collins in shock – something so profound that it caused a condition called dysphonia caused by psychological trauma that left her unable to sing. (Linda Thompson also suffered from this). However, she still worked in a variety of jobs archiving music and chronicling folk music in Britain. Interest in Collins’ music was kept alive by fans such as Billy Bragg, The Decemberists’ Colin Meloy, Blur’s Graham Coxon and record producer Joe Boyd.

In 2014 Collins finally agreed to sing several songs for a special event at the Union Chapel in Islington, London. Then she was convinced to return to recording and released Lodestar, which she recorded at home. It was a tentative first step back into recording. In 2017 she was featured in the documentary, The Ballad of Shirley Collins and in 2018 she published her memoir, All The Downs. The recently released Heart’s Ease saw Collins back in a recording studio and feeling much more confident.

“I think it’s partly psychological because there was nothing wrong with me physically,” says Collins from her cottage in Lewes in East Sussex when we catch up by phone and I ask her about her prolonged absence from recording. “It was just in my head. I was just too scared to even attempt to open my mouth and sing.”

Collins explains that it was the persistence of singer David Tibet, of avant garde band Current 93, that finally got her back into performance and then recording.

“He kept encouraging me, trying to make me sing,” she recalls, “and indeed I did sing a couple of verses of a nursery rhyme and later a hymn on one of his albums, which wasn’t very good. It still didn’t make me feel that I could do it. He kept asking me if I’d go to one of his concerts and just sing one or two songs. I kept saying, no, this is over years, it lasted some years.

“Then one day he said, I’ve got a concert at the Union Chapel in London. Just come and sing two songs and then go home.’ And I was so fed up with saying no, I said, yes. And I took Ian Kearey [of the Oysterband] with me, who is the music director of the new album and of Lodestar as well, and an old friend, so I felt very comfortable with him. We went on and we did two songs. So that’s how that broke the ice.”

“Now I just really enjoy singing to people,” continues Collins, “because I can talk about the songs as well and tell them about the songs and then sing them. They’re lovely concerts. They seem to go down really well.

And it’s just great. It’s great for me. And I think it’s also good for the music as well.

Aren’t many of us who stick to traditional songs all the time.”

Heart’s Ease contains some traditional songs, along with a song from Austin John Marshall and one from her sister Dolly. However, it is the most unusual ‘song’ on the album, ‘Crowlink’, that captures my attention. More of a drone than a song it features a hurdygurdy.

“I’ve got two lines in it,” says Colins. “That’s quite a departure for me, Crowlink is one of the great cliffs on the Seven Sisters that rise up out of the English channel, on the South Downs. It’s a place where I loved, I can’t walk so much nowadays, but I used to spend so much time up there, walking, listening to the seagulls and skylarks and Crowlink is my favourite place there.

“I’m interested to see how people are going to take that last track because that’s not usual for my albums. It’s quite an original piece, but I do think it fits in, I think it fits beautifully.”

Collins hints that ‘Crowlink’ is also a hint of what might be on a new album to come soon.

“You can’t stand still,” laughs Collins, who turned 85 just a few days before we caught up.

Heart’s Ease is available through Domino.

You can read a longer version of this feature at rhythms.com.au 63

CD: Feature

BY MEG CRAWFORD

LUCIE TIGER

GASOLINE EP Independent

Photo by Jay Seeney

64

A postcard to road tripping, recorded at Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals.

With travel off the table for the foreseeable future, Lucie Tiger’s latest EP Gasoline is just the ticket to see us through until borders open and we can hit the road again for ourselves. Inspired by Tiger’s previous forays into the Mississippi Delta, Gasoline is a postcard to road tripping. “I’m not a great flyer, so I tend to just drive everywhere,” she admits. “I just love being on the road, especially in the States where every little town has its own flavour. There’s a brandnew feeling around every corner.”

That Tiger’s toe-tapping, Americana-steeped EP is an ode to the joys of a long drive is also born of the 70’s guitar-rock diet her Dad fed her as a kid on trips across country.

Thankfully, his taste was impeccable. “We did a lot of driving when I was a kid and on all of these drives my Dad would be playing his music,” she says.

“Somehow he was always the one who picked the tunes. We’d be listening to Crosby Stills and Nash, James Taylor, the Rolling Stones, the Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd – all of those great guitardriven bands and I just loved it.”

After bringing home a half-size Valencia guitar for a pint-sized Tiger, the singer-songwriter also owes her Dad for teaching her her first chords.

Tiger’s next stop was to nut out how to play the songs her old man played in the car. “The chord charts weren’t up online at all back then, so I’d figure them out them out by ear,” she recalls.

The next port of call was writing her own songs.

“I’d try to understand how those guys wrote theirs by figuring out how to play them. Then, I’d wonder, ‘what would happen if I swapped out that chord progression for this chord progression?’.

All of my first songs were so inspired by the music

that I loved to listen to, that great seventies country rock, that they all sounded a little bit like that.”

Recorded at the fabled Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals, Gasoline, Tiger’s third EP was a hoot, but a tad intimidating to record.

Tiger cites an example of working Grammy nominated engineer John Gifford, who worked on Greg Allman’s last album before he passed away, Southern Blood. “He was so kind, but he’d say things like, ‘okay now, stand here, and just so you know, this is where Aretha stood,’ and I was like, ‘this is not making me feel better’,” Tiger says, now chortling.

The lineup for the musicians assembled for the EP was equally awe-inspiring: bassist Bob Wray has recorded with everyone from Willie Nelson to Johnny Cash, lead guitar and slide guitarist Will McFarlane was in Bonnie Raitt’s band and Justin Holder is the drummer of choice for a slew of Hall of Fame inductees.

“They had a sign above the studios saying something like, ‘through these doors have walked some of the greatest musicians and songwriters the world has ever seen’. When you do walk through those doors, I had equal parts feeling ‘oh my gosh, am I actually up for this task’, and on the other hand ‘look, I’m walking through these doors, so I better be’.”

Of course, Tiger stepped up to the plate. “It turned out to be one of the best days of my life.”

Casting her mind back, the whole trip was a blast – even ride-sharing became an adventure. Walking out of another recording session, this time in Nashville, with a guitar slung over her back, Tiger hailed an Uber.

“The driver was this lovely lady who says, ‘I see your guitar, I’m guessing you’re a singer?’ I played her some of my music and she says, ‘that’s cool – my husband is on tonight at AJ’s Good Time Bar, you should go, he’ll have you up on stage’. Ok. So, we go down to Broadway and the guy on the door doesn’t want to let me in with my guitar, so I said, “I’m playing tonight’. I lied my way in basically, but when her husband got there, who’s this incredibly talented country singer, he did ask me to get up on stage and I ended up playing a half-hour set.”

Tiger’s stoked with the response she’s getting for Gasoline. In fact, it’s pretty perfect, given that her aim was to play music for the next person heading down the highway.

“Someone told me they’d driven up the coast with it on repeat. That’s exactly the sort of feedback I want. That’s what this music is for.”

Gasoline is available now at lucietigermusic.com

CD: Feature

BY BRIAN WISE

LUKA BLOOM

BITTERSWEET CRIMSON Blue Sky Records

Luka Bloom didn’t let the lockdown stop him from recording a new album.

After thirteen tours of Australia, 14 studio, three live and two anthology albums, Luka Bloom’s latest album arrived under entirely different circumstances to any that we have ever experienced before.

When we catch up at the end of July to talk about his new album, I ask him where he is, given that he tours so much.

“I’m in the People’s Republic of North Clare, in the West of Ireland, in County Clare,” he says. “I’m about three kilometres from the cliffs of Moore, which look out across the Atlantic ocean - and the next bit of land is a place called America. I have to be completely honest about this and I feel bad when I share this with people who are living in cities, in apartment blocks or housing estates, that my version of lockdown has been somewhat luxurious, simply because it’s a low population and very fresh air.”

Bloom has finally got his new album released after a few months’ intense effort. He spent a couple of days in mid-February at Dublin’s famous Windmill Lane Studios rehearsing a batch of songs that he had accumulated over the previous two years. A small ensemble assisted: guitarist Steve Cooney, percussionist Robbie Harris and bassist and multi-instrumentalist Jon O’Connell, along with Brian Masterson and Sarah Branigan on the desk.

Then the lockdown happened. “I thought I was going to suspend the records until everything opened up,” he explains, “and then I thought, ‘Hang on a second, some of these songs are very relevant to what’s happening in the world right now.’ And so, I made a conscious decision in mid-May, that I was going to become the CEO of my new album and to try and find a way to get this album out into the world with no gigs, which is completely bizarre and crazy. But here we are. So, I’ve been focused almost exclusively on this album for the last two months.”

“I guess I was blessed in that all the songs had been written, and we had had these two magical days of recording in February,” he continues. I think it was the magic of what happened in Windmill Lane in February that drove me on, it was like as though this album wasn’t going to let me feel sorry for myself and go into a trough. I had such a good feeling about it, that I decided to really see it through actually, at a level that I haven’t done, perhaps in a number of years.”

He asked O’Connell to add some electric guitars and vocals, and some keyboards and Adam Shapiro to play some fiddle. Then he

set out to find a woman’s voice to complete the album.

“This is the real story for me, this story is the icing on the cake of an already beautiful record that I was very proud of,” he explains when I ask him how he came to find another vocalist. “I shouldn’t be calling my own record beautiful but it kind of is how I feel about it. I’m very proud of this album and one of the reasons I’m very proud of this album is because of a woman called Niamh Farrell, whose background is in traditional music. She comes from County Sligo, but she also happens to be a nurse in a very busy hospital in Dublin. One of the things I felt very strongly, that was needed, was a really strong woman’s voice.

Bloom says that he listened to “a lot of singers, beautiful singers’ until a family member recommended that he listen to Farrell, whom he found online and who sings on seven of the songs. “I instantly realised that hers was the voice I wanted on my record. I still have yet to meet her!” (Bloom adds that he is hoping to meet Farrell at a socially distanced album launch).

Bittersweet Crimson (the title is inspired by the pomegranate) is a quiet reflection on life.

It begins with an appreciation , ‘The Beauty of Everyday Things’ and traverses personal subjects (‘Keepsake’), as well as politics (‘Front Door Key’), nature (‘My Old Friend The Oak Tree’), travel (‘Love To Mali’) and the year unfolding now (Vision for 2020). There is also an Australian connection in the song, ‘Who Will Heal The Land?’

“I think anyone who knows me now in Australia, knows of my deep love for Australia, it’s the only other country in the world I’ve ever considered living in,” says bloom. “I’ve been 14 times and I miss it; I really miss it. When a year passes after the last tour, I just start to ache a little bit for places and for people, and friends that I have in Australia. When I saw the fires at the turn of the year, I was really, really heartbroken actually. I did a [Facebook] post on new year’s eve and it was inspired by what I’d seen in Eden and around Braidwood in New South Wales, and other places and it’s the biggest reaction I’ve ever gotten to a post.

It was the new year and we should have been celebrating, but I was just so aware of the people who were struggling within their communities, to try and save their homes and the first responders and just ordinary people trying to save the lives of people and of animals, and to save buildings and trees.

Oh, man, it just broke my heart. So, I wrote this song, Who Will Heal The Land, dedicated to all my friends in Australia and just sending out my love to the people in Australia.”

Bittersweet Crimson is available at lukabloom.com 65

CD: Feature

BY MEG CRAWFORD

EMILY BARKER

A DARK MURMURATION OF WORDS Independent

An album that is a mirror for the times.

The view from folk singer Emily Barker’s Stroud window is a proper English idyll – verdant rolling hills, veggie plots and livestock are just over the verge. So blissful is this vista that economic oppression, sexism, climate disaster and systemic racism all seem distant. Not so for the WA born, but UK-based Barker, whose latest solo album, A Dark Murmuration of Words, squares up to each of these topics. So current are the album’s themes in fact, that it seems oddly prescient. Take the first line of ‘Where Have The Sparrows Gone’, which talks about dusting off gran’s mask (a gas mask, but a mask nonetheless). Then there’s ‘Machine’ – an admission from a come-to-life statue of a confederate general. Barker started writing this album two years ago though, so well before the pandemic or recent toppling of slaver statues. It was brewing though, wasn’t it?

Of the batch of songs Barker chose for the album, it turns out that ‘Machine’ was one of the first. “I was touring in America a lot and I was realising that there was such a divide in so many ways societally – poverty lines meet where racial lines meet,” she reflects. “In particular, I was in Charleston and learning about its history – it was the major slave port – and noticing how affluent that city is and all the buildings. It actually reminded me very much of Australia in some ways and our 66

history of exploiting a nation of people for our own gain.

“That’s something I’ve written about a lot and explored on previous albums – what it means to be ‘home’ as a non-indigenous Australian and looking at our very traumatic and complex history there. Applying that to America, because I was touring there a lot, I also realised that I’ve lived in Britain a long time, and that was one of the empires responsible for the slave trade. So, I wanted to start learning more about the history of blackness in Britain.”

Indeed, Barker dug deep and educated herself, starting with Reni Eddo-Lodge’s excellent book, Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race and her podcast.

“I got really studious about it,” Barker says.

“The song ‘Machine’ comes from feeling very passionate about this issue, but I decided to write it from the white-male, patriarchy point of view. In Australia, we have our celebrated colonialists who are the statues in the park too. It’s pretty crazy and amazing that there’s an awakening in the mainstream now as to the symbolism of those statues.”

The next step was to draw the link between the oppression of people and the oppression of the environment, a topic which also features large on the album. “It took me a while to figure out what it was, but it’s the same attitude that is being applied,” Barker observes. “We oppress our environment and we oppress groups of people and they’re absolutely linked. So then, the album became about how all of these really big issues

connect and trying to incite an emotional response in people to look into them.”

While it doesn’t shy away from difficult subjects, A Dark Murmuration of Words is far from bleak. Specifically, by urging us to also address what’s close to home, Barker reminds us that we’re not powerless – a comforting message in the face of overwhelm. For example, the album’s current single, ‘The Woman Who Planted Trees’, was inspired by Kenyan activist and founder of the Green Belt Movement, Wangari Maathai and illustrates the power of taking care of people and place on your doorstep.

“Wangari started the Movement in 1977 in response to the soil erosion caused by deforestation.

The community was really suffering and they weren’t able to grow vegetables and support themselves. Wangari was a biologist and understood that by planting trees she would not only restore soil health, but empower her community and women in particular who didn’t have the same opportunities as the men. They’ve planted over 50 million trees, which reduces carbon for our collective home on earth. It’s a lush, beautiful forest now and they’re able to grow their own foods and the community has learned all of these skills, including forestry, beekeeping and permaculture. I think that’s an amazing example. I love the idea of how simple the action of planting a tree is with an incredible global, positive impact.”

A Dark Murmuration of Words is available now at emilybarker.bandcamp.com

CD: Feature

BY BRIAN WISE

RUFUS WAINWRIGHT

UNFOLLOW THE RULES BMG

The tenth studio album is a lush ode to domestic happiness.

After nearly eight years being diverted by a variety of projects, Rufus Wainwright has finally released a new album of original songs. It is lush, overflowing with ideas and thoughts on his life and returns him to some of the music of his earlier recordings.

Since the more pop-oriented Mark Ronson-produced Out of The Game in 2012, Wainwright has written, staged and filmed the opera Prima Donna, written his second opera Hadrian (which premiered in Toronto in 2018) and recorded an album based on Shakespeare’s sonnets.

In 2018 he also released the anti-Trump song, ‘Sword of Damocles’ as well as the fabulous covers album ‘Northern Stars’ – a tribute album (that he sells for charity at concerts) to great Canadian musicians such as his mother Kate McGarrigle and aunt Anna McGarrigle, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen and others. Of course, he also appeared as one of the main singers at the Joni 75 celebrations in Los Angeles in November 2018.

The son of folk icons Loudon Wainwright III and the late Kate McGarrigle and brother to singers Martha Wainwright and Lucy Wainwright Roche, it is fair to say that Rufus has now eclipsed his parents and siblings in terms of profile and versatility. On his tour here last year, we witnessed what can only be described as adulation, as he gave some theatrical, dramatic and entertaining performances.

Since we last spoke a few years back Wainwright has also moved to Laurel Canyon with his husband Jorn and shares time looking after the daughter he had with Lorca Cohen, daughter of Leonard.

When we talk by phone about the new album, Wainwright is looking out across the canyon at a house once owned by silent screen star Louise Brooks. He is not far, I imagine, from where Joni Mitchell once lived when the Canyon was a hotbed of musical fertility. In fact, one of the songs on the new album, ‘Damsel In Distress,’ is dedicated to Mitchell.

“Well, it’s an ode to her,” explains Wainwright. “It’s not about her. I was listening to a lot of her music and actually performing a lot of her music around her 75th birthday. I think the chord structure approach to the whole song in terms of production and vibe is very Mitchell-esque, for sure.

“That was one of the highlights, really, of my career, getting to celebrate her with other great artists,” he says when I mention the

Joni 75 concerts. “I was very fortunate to be a part of that.”

“My husband put together the first big tribute to her for her 70th in Toronto,” he adds. “We really did a lot of hanging out at that point, late nights backstage and the whole shebang. Of course, this last one was a little more subdued, because she’s slightly incapacitated but nonetheless it was a nice memory, especially because all of Hollywood came out to see her that evening.”

I also mention to Wainwright that ‘Damsel’ just might be the first song ever to feature the word ‘harbinger.

“Well, I wouldn’t be surprised if that showed up somewhere, speaking of the ‘20s and ‘30s,” he laughs. “There was a lot of very sophisticated song writing going on back then. So, I wouldn’t bet on that, necessarily.”

Though their music is quite different, one thing that Mitchell and Wainwright share is a sophistication and complexity that is usually lacking in most popular music.

“Oh, that’s very sweet of you,” says Rufus.

(I make a mental note that this is the first time anyone has ever called me sweet!).

“I’m very touched by your observation. I guess sophistication has been one of my themes, mainly because I love the American Songbook, the classic American Songbook, which is really one of the most well-built, nuanced jungles of music ever created. But I also, of course, love opera, which is also pretty sturdy in terms of sophistication. Yes, that’s one of my goals for sure.”

Unfollow the Rules was recorded at the legendary Sound City Studio (where he recorded his debut album) and was produced

by Mitchell Froom with Blake Mills adding guitar. It sounds fantastic. I note that Joni Mitchell certainly didn’t follow the rules when I ask how he came about the title.

“Of course, unfollowing the rules is currently the opposite of what we’re being told exactly at the moment,” he replies, referring to the current pandemic. “Unfollowing the rules would not apply to today’s situation. But on the other hand, for me, it’s not really about breaking the rules, either. It’s something my daughter said one day. She just said, ‘Daddy, I’d like to unfollow the rules.’ That little line stayed with me. But the way I interpreted it was not so much about being an iconoclast and breaking things, but more about actually looking at the rules and why they exist and turning around and going back down the path that led you to where this rule is and really examining why it’s there in the first place and then deciding whether to break it or not. I view it more as a re-examination of rules before you make your decision on what to do.”

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CD: Feature

BY SAMUEL J. FELL

BOMBASTIC FANTASTIC

Releasing his new record, Have You Lost Your Mind Yet?, Fantastic Negrito is out to make you think.

“[I’m] smashing down walls, breaking barriers, trying to make people think, keep people a little uncomfortable, that’s kinda what I love doing.”

Fantastic Negrito, aka Xavier Dphrepaulezz, isn’t passing COVID lockdown time by baking bread or learning to knit. No, he’s in his studio, doing what he does best. “I tell you man, I’m a middle-aged black dude, so I’m just rolling with it,” he shrugs. “It’s not stuff I haven’t been through before, always obstacles all the time, you know, that’s the time you get down and dig deep and that’s what I love doing.”

Smashing down walls and breaking barriers, keeping people uncomfortable, this is what the man has done over the course of his career. His past is well documented, a hard past that could have ended badly, he’s used to hard knocks and having nothing gifted to him – this has always come across in his music, and it comes across in how he’s navigating COVID, the Black Lives Matter movement, the sickness that has infected his country, America, and which is dragging it further down and down.

“I’m a pretty positive motherfucker, as I always tell people, and I always have been,” he says. “I’m the guy who wrote that song [saying], ‘Take that bullshit, turn it into good shit’. I think that’s probably my statement, I believe in that statement.”

His latest statement is Have You Lost Your Mind Yet?, his third full-length record under 68

the Fantastic Negrito moniker, and one which further emphasises his positivity in the face of often overwhelming odds. The man has always worn his heart on his sleeve – his first two records, the eponymous debut (2014) and 2016’s The Last Days Of Oakland were calls to arms for the oppressed masses, pounding, blues-drenched paeans to people in trouble, but people uniting.

Indeed, this power is prevalent on his new record, but Have You Lost Your Mind Yet? is much more about the people, as opposed to the issues. “Have You Lost Your Mind Yet?, that whole concept, boy does that look right [for now]!” he laughs.

“But yeah, with this album I wanted to go more micro than macro,” he explains.

“With Last Days Of Oakland, there were these big themes like big corporations and pharmaceutical companies and gun violence and race and class… but with this one, I really wanted to confront and explore mental illness, and not the kind where people are walking down the street talking to themselves, I’m talking about you bro, I’m talking about me and my friends and my colleagues living in this era of information, especially this country.

“So, I’d done these bigger themes, and I wanted to do something different. I like having my finger on the pulse, and I think that’s what we needed now. I think we’ve been sick for a very long time, but I think COVID-19 has just exposed it, especially here in America.”

He talks with such passion that you can’t help be empowered to overcome it all, whatever ‘all’ may mean to you. Set this too, to a thumping sound that brings in all manner of American musics, and you’ve got another album from Fantastic Negrito that speaks, and is real and alive.

“When purists shake their heads at me, that’s my happiest moment,” he laughs.

He’s always been based in the blues, and Have You Lost Your Mind Yet? is no different, but here he infuses elements of hip hop, funk, soul and rock ‘n’ roll to create an album that, despite its powerful messaging, isn’t so much a listening album, as it is a moving album.

“Yeah, you got me there, I don’t know!” he smiles. “I listened to the album again for the first time in months, a couple of weeks ago. And I thought it was very powerful, there’s

a lot of power in this record, it’s shaking, it’s cooking, it’s baking, so yeah, maybe you’re right. I don’t know, I try not to get too heady about it, I just listen to it and [hopefully] go, ‘Yeah, this is good’. And that’s what it takes.

Because sometimes I don’t know.”

The album’s lead single was ‘Chocolate Samurai’, the filmclip for which features quick grabs from quarantined people all over the world – this track is up and about, it’s a moving track, and it’s a precursor for the record. Have You Lost Your Mind Yet? is an album for right now, straddling the line between ‘These are the issues’, and ‘This is how we unite against them’. Indeed, it’s vintage Negrito, it’s smashing down walls.

Have You Lost Your Mind Yet? is available now via Cooking Vinyl.

CD: General MOJO BUFORD

LEAH FLANAGAN

MOJO WORKIN’ Americana Anthropology/ Planet

COLOUR BY NUMBER Small Change Records

the buoyant to the lusciously languid. In the vein of Augie March hit ‘One Crowded Hour’, the strident surging tempo of ‘Fight The Night’ wraps a collegiate arm around the listener. It’s the sound of someone emerging from the shadows to claim a rightful place in the sun.

CHRIS LAMBIE

FIONA JOY HAWKINS From the second Sonny Boy’s ‘Help Me’ rolls out of the speakers it’s patently evident that back in 1969, when all these tracks were recorded, someone messed up by not releasing the album. Replacing Little Walter in the Muddy Waters Band, George Buford was obviously more than your average Mississippi saxophone player, as these recordings attest to. Indeed, he was the only musician to play with Waters in every decade from the 1950s to the 1980s.

Mojo Workin’ was recorded over three studio sessions with Buford supported by lead guitarist Tony Andreason, a founding member of 60s surf rockers The Trashmen. The eight tracks are an equal mix of covers and originals. Aside from slow rumble of ‘Help Me’, there’s a superb telling of fellow Waters sidekick Otis Spann’s ‘Blues Is A Botheration’ as well as a steamrolling take of Waters’ own ‘Got My Mojo Working’ (a live favourite and source of Buford’s nickname).

The originals more than hold their own; ‘Deep Sea Diver’ is a 12-bar slice of heaving sludge with harp and guitar trading white hot blows, ‘Love Without Jealousy’ is a smokin’ three minutes of Chicago blues, and the funky ‘Stingin’ Bee Blues’ is propelled by stabbing B3 runs.

Like most of the bluesmen from the halcyon days, George Buford is no longer around, and that’s a pity; the very least he deserved was to see (and hear) this fine slice of Chicago blues see the light of day.

TREVOR J. LEEDEN

In recent years, audiences have mostly heard singer-songwriter Leah Flanagan among line-ups of prestigious ensemble works and special events. Her glorious vocals have adorned projects created by Archie Roach, Shane Howard, Jessie Lloyd and Yothu Yindi, to name a few. But this return to solo recording declares the moment in time when Flanagan truly owns the next stage of her career. A voice so crystalline, effortlessly impassioned and inviting belongs centre-stage. Reflecting on past struggles and ill-chosen coping strategies, her lyrics though beautifully crafted - are but a bonus. Her vocals alone paint each mood perfectly.

Raised in Darwin, Flanagan’s mix of Italian, Aboriginal (Alyawarre) and Irish heritage suggest a gift for storytelling runs through her veins. Orchestral strings and a warm jazz shuffle introduce the title track, a sophisticated declaration of new-found resilience with vocals reminiscent of a soulful Kate Bush. ‘Linen Girls’ has an 80s pop feel complete with electro effects courtesy of guitarist/DJ Dave Rodriguez (AKA ‘Godriguez’). Piano and bass place ‘Starlight’s verses in uber-cool Elvis Costello territory.

Single ‘Love Like Water’ confronts the corporate villainy behind our compromised water supply and safety. Flanagan’s classical training informs the whole with Sydney producer Sarah Belkner arranging strings, backing vocals and band in seamless balance. Drummer Evan Mannell nails the restraint as compositions move from

MOVING THROUGH WORLDS Little Hartley Music

Three years on from their musical collaboration, Flow, in which they performed together alongside guitarist Lawrence Blatt and trumpeter Jeff Oster, American composer, guitarist, producer and owner of Windham Hill Records, along with keyboards player and mixing engineer Tom Eaton, has renewed the friendship to coproduce this latest album from Australian singer, songwriter and pianist Fiona Joy Hawkins. Ackerman produced Fiona’s most internationally successful album, 2008’s Blue Dream, so their association goes back a good dozen years, which means he really understands her music and the way she approaches composition.

Various component parts of Moving Through Worlds were recorded in Ackerman’s studio in Vermont, in Sydney and near Fiona’s home in Taree on the northern NSW coast – the wonders of contemporary recording technology – but for all that, the result is a seamless, limpidly beautiful collection of songs. Four of these songs were written and

recorded at the height of the fires of the past summer, which came disconcertingly close to home – Fiona marketed them at the time as fundraisers for fire-fighters and wildlife rescue – but the album embraces compositions from across her career, in fact right back to when she was a young schoolgirl, ‘For the Roses’ written for her grandmother’s funeral. On those tunes not simply Fiona on piano, a variety of musicians contribute the subtlest of embellishments, among them, naturally, Ackerman and Eaton, the latter playing bass on ‘All That is Left’, which also features former Shadowfax member Charlie Bisharat on violin, while it’s no less a stellar bass player than Tony Levin quietly underpinning parts of opening piece ‘Calling County Clare’, a song made all the more haunting by the Irish whistle of Australian multiinstrumentalist Paul Jarman.

Another violinist, the Australian Chamber Orchestra’s Rebecca Daniel, who performs in the Blue Dream Ensemble with Hawkins, features on ‘Desert of Crystal’ and ‘Song for Louise’, adding her voice to Fiona’s on ‘Prayer for Rain’. Gently meditative, Moving Through Worlds is as gentle and soothing a balm for these trying times as you could hope to find.

MICHAEL SMITH

ARLO MCKINLEY DIE MIDWESTERN Oh Boy/Thirty Tigers/Cooking Vinyl

It’s not difficult to hear why John Prine fell for Arlo McKinley’s singing and songwriting. The voice is utterly honest. The writing is rich in the vernacular of classic honky-tonk with McKinley’s own twist. ‘She’s >>> 69

CD: General >>> Always Been Around’, for example, takes ‘Close Up The Honky Tonks’ and puts the girl lurking in the dark corner waiting for the hero to break down and succumb. And it’s all George Jones classic ache and croon.

Whereas ‘Bag of Pills’ is utterly modern, sounding like a countrified take on Bon Iver.

There’s a sinister undercurrent here, something that I’m sure Prine would have appreciated. In ‘Bag of Pills’ McKinley has “a bag of pills I’ve been dealing so I can take you drinking” and exclaims “life I don’t want it if it’s so easy to die” over an ominous guitar/ piano background. Then there’s ‘Suicidal Saturday Night’, a title that surely would have caught Prine’s attention. Let’s all sing, “Suicidal Saturday night for everyone, the things we did we knew weren’t right just for fun!”

This is McKinley’s solo debut – at 40 years of age. He’d just about given up on music when Prine and his son Jody signed him to Oh Boy Records. Oh Boy indeed, this record has it all – songs that make you weep and chuckle, great performances (Will Sexton’s guitar playing is a revelation) and a sweet recording courtesy of the Sam Phillips studio.

MARTIN JONES

JASON MOLINA EIGHT GATES Secretly Canadian/Inertia

H.E.A.V.Y. I mean Molina’s music has often been on the desolate side of poignant… and this collection of recordings would be weighty enough without the extra consequence of them being the last he made before his death. The world literally stops in its tracks around you as 70

the opening three minutes of the album ‘Whisper Away’ roll through birdsong to droning cello strings to viscous swipes of guitar to yowls that come from some place Robert Johnson would have fled in terror and then back to bird song. Holy shit. You need to suck deep and summon courage to continue.

Just this song alone could have been released as a definitive final statement.

But there are eight more to get through, as enthralling and harrowing as a swarm of sirens.

Molina had a knack for saying much with little and arranging such minimal elements for greatest effect. ‘Shadow Answers The Wall’ is essentially just grinding bass, shuffling drums and voice and 2.36 minutes later you swear you’ve just conversed with a genuine ghost, hairs-on-end and all.

Might be because some of these recordings were just sketches or demos, but their brevity and austerity render them all the more frightening. What was that? Did I really just hear that or just imagine it? Was he here in the room singing that just now? Or was this recorded a hundred years ago? ‘Old Worry’ indeed – a spook moaning through distorted organs, erratic heartbeats and… ages.

Then there are the snippets of dialogue (and those unnerving birds) that bring the spirit abruptly back to life. At the beginning of ‘She Says’ Molina says to the engineer, “The perfect take is just as long as the person is still alive”!!!

Then on closing track ‘The Crossroad + The Emptiness’ (did I already mention Robert Johnson?), Molina snaps, “Everybody shut up. This is my record. Everybody has to go to sleep. And I want to play this song.” Goodnight and goodbye.

MARTIN JONES

MZAZA THE BIRTH AND DEATH OF STARS Flamenco guitar and enticing French vocals on opening track ‘The Ether’ took me straight to a happy place. No worthy

World Music festival program is complete without a little Balkan folk fusion and this album instantly evokes nostalgia for such joyous events. This third album by QMA winners MZAZA was recorded at Sierra Studios in Athens, with Greek engineer Vangelis Lappas. Members originate from Bosnia, France, Latvia, Turkey, Greece and Australia, flinging all influences onto the dancefloor.

As suggested by the title, themes of astronomy, philosophy and Greek mythology are woven into the ebullient tunes. The dazzling, at times dizzying, musicianship is itself divine. The line-up also features violin, Persian shahkaman, double bass, accordion and an atlas of percussion from Jordan Stamos.

‘Stardust’ is sung in Australianaccented English by FrenchSephardic vocalist Pauline Maudy. The single riffs on humanity’s bit part on the Big Picture stage of our universe.

Even the minor key of tracks such as ‘Lucifer’ are warmer than the work of similar acts that lean toward the darker side. Despite informed dedication to ancient traditions, MZAZA sounds as fresh and accessible as any rockers might on a neighbouring festival stage. They up the excitement factor to inspire unbridled celebration. If this collection doesn’t get your body moving, you may need a COVID test.

CHRIS LAMBIE

DAN PENN LIVING ON MERCY Last Music Co./Planet As he closes in on octogenarian status, Dann Penn could be forgiven for putting the feet up and chilling out to his own

recordings. Truth is, he’s become an icon, the personification of the Muscle Shoals and Memphis soul sound by writing a cavalcade of hits for others (‘I’m Your Puppet’, ‘Do Right Woman’ and ‘Dark End Of The Street’ come easily to mind), rarely venturing into the studio in his own right.

Given that Penn has only felt it necessary to release two prior albums in his storied career, 1973’s Nobody’s Fool and 1994’s Do Right Man, then the arrival of Living On Mercy means Dan’s got something to say. Songwriting credits are shared with a host of his most trusted collaborators, including long-time sidekick Spooner Oldham, Wayne Carson, Bucky Lindsay, Carson Whitsett and the Cate Brothers, all with unquestionable bona fides. Harnessing a crack studio ensemble that included Will McFarlane (guitar), Clayton Ivey (keyboards), Michael Rhodes (bass), and Milton Sledge (drums), Penn delivers 13 songs that sound like words of wisdom from a trusted friend. He has an innate ability to get to the truth of emotions both in word and sound, offering restrained warmth through his soulful voice and intimate observations.

Along with the title track, ‘Blue Motel’ encapsulates the mood of hope and faith perfectly, whilst he steps it up a notch with a full horn section employed on the strutting ‘Edge Of Love’. From his first hit song written for Conway Twitty in 1960, the boy from Vernon, Alabama has written and performed songs that define the sound the South; Living On Mercy, is testament that Dan Penn has still got plenty left to say.

TREVOR J. LEEDEN

CD: General COLTER WALL WESTERN SWING & WALTZES AND OTHER PUNCHY SONGS La Honda/Thirty Tigers/Cooking Vinyl

takes a swipe at Nashville cowboys who are “trying to look cool but… can’t tell a pretty palomino from a mule.” Take that!

MARTIN JONES

JOSHUA RAY WALKER

statement for last, with the widescreen quiet/loud fuzz-out of ‘D.B. Cooper’.

MARTIN JONES

BEN WILSON

PROVE Independent

WHITNEY

CANDID Secretly Canadian/Inertia

GLAD YOU MADE IT State Fair Records

Inspired by cowpunching rural folk in Swift Current, Saskatchewan and carrying on the work of the likes of Carl Sandburg and Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Colter Wall digs deep into the North American cowboy tradition for his third album.

Though Wall recorded his 2017 eponymous debut with Nashville guru Dave Cobb, for Western Swing & Waltzes… he decided to take a more intimate, autonomous approach, gathering his own touring band in a small Texas town.

Sometimes, like on ‘Talkin’ Prarie Boy’, the results sound like impromptu kitchen table demos, squeaky chairs and all.

But there’s a frankness and intimacy to the record, the kind of recording that Ramblin’ Jack would approve of.

Song choices are split between unearthed cowboy nuggets and Wall’s own compositions. The album includes takes on: ‘I Rid an Old Paint’, first recorded by Carl Sandburg in the late ‘20s but also performed by Linda Ronstadt, Loudon Wainwright III, and Johnny Cash (who was an influence on Wall growing up); Marty Robbins’ gunfightin’ ballad ‘Big Iron’, ‘Diamond Joe’, written in the ‘40s for The Chisholm Trail and also performed by Ramblin’ Jack and Bob Dylan; and bull riding philosopher Lewis Martin Pederson III’s ‘High and Mighty’.

In the opening title track, Wall’s deep, old-time voice relives the world of his cowboy heroes honouring hard work and swing waltz dancing in Saskatchewan and in ‘Talkin’ Prarie Boy’ he

Joshua Ray Walker is not your typical Nashville up-and-comer.

He’s a Kyuss loving, fashion trailblazing giant who is as comfortable with Slim Whitman as he is with stoner rock. On his second album, Glad You Made It, he comes off sounding something like Dwight Yoakam fronting the Drive-By Truckers.

While his voice is all cracks and drawls, he’s not afraid to confront the darker corners of life, nor turn up the guitars.

He steps straight up to stare you down with opening song, ‘Voices’, pairing one of the album’s most traditional arrangements (acoustic guitar and pedal steel dominate) with a story of suicidal temptation. It’s immediately arresting.

From subsequent song ‘True Love’, however, things quickly get more raw and loose. This is country with a healthy dose of rock… even on slower songs like ‘Cupboard’ there’s a loping grind where guitars are as gritty as the vocals: “I can’t do much for too long.”

On ‘Boat Show Girl’ Walker explores his redneck sports childhood where bikini girls from poor backgrounds were exploited to promote everything and anything and in Bronco Billy’s he declares his preference for Dallas over Austin.

Walker saves the most emphatic

Sure, you could accuse Whitney of self-indulgence in recording an entire album of covers – particularly given the obscure song choices. But they sound like they’re having so much fun doing it, you have to join in. Besides, their song choices illuminate the band’s wide and varied influences – from modern urban soul to cheesy country to experimental.

And it’s great to hear them make all of it their own – it sounds like no one but Whitney. What started out as a throwaway two-orthree-song project gathered an unstoppable momentum, the band aiming to learn and record a song a day in the eight-day studio session (two songs were already recorded).

At its most obvious, we get John Denver’s ‘Country Road’ turned into a duet with Katie Crutchfield of Waxahatchee. It pairs up nicely with closing song, Blaze Foley’s ‘Rainbows & Ridges’.

At the other end of the spectrum, we get Whitney-ized versions of modern R&B tunes ‘Bank Head’ (Kalela) and ‘Rain’ (SWV), and then there’s a nod to Brian Eno and David Byrne’s underrated Everything That Happens Will Happen Today, with a funky take on ‘Strange Overtones’, an album highlight for me. And the lyrics seem to sum up the whole project: “strange overtones in the music you are playing, we’re not alone.”

In between these extremes, the range goes from contemporary label mate Damien Jurado (‘A.M. A.M.’) to blind Viking visionary Moondog (‘High On a Rocky Ledge’).

MARTIN JONES

Another fine example of the talent proliferating in the Northern Rivers hinterland towns, Ben Wilson is a great guitarist and songwriter. Here he delivers an “accidental” album, Prove. Set up with tape recorders, a concrete water tank for natural reverb, and an ancient tape echo, Wilson set about getting down a sound to sketch out some ideas. Maybe he had Springsteen’s ‘Nebraska’ in mind. Definitely he had Sun Studios and Buddy Holly somewhere in the periphery.

Before he knew it, Wilson found himself with a full album of material, enjoying playing off the echo and the reverb with his acoustic guitar, harmonica, and candid vocals. Album opener ‘You Were One’ puts Wilson’s deft fingerpicking on display in a bluesy love song and ‘Adeline’ is a heart wrenching tale of a lost child with more beautiful fingerpicking.

But Wilson is also up for rocking out, albeit acoustically.

Duetting with the tape Echo, Wilson’s voice yelps and cracks as ‘Volvo Door’, ‘World On Fire’, and ‘Buried Alive’ leap and lope with vigour.

In the middle of the record, Wilson reaches back to early 1900s cowboy song tradition with the haunting five-anda-half-minute ‘Lonesome Cowboy’, the vocals and harmonica echoing across a hundred years.

MARTIN JONES

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CD: World Music & Folk

BY T O N Y H I L L I E R

SHIRLEY COLLINS HEART’S EASE Domino

The lavish acclaim that accompanied Shirley Collins’s surprise 2016 comeback album Lodestar was totally understandable given that it followed a nigh-40 years dysphonia (vocal impairment) dictated hiatus, even if it piggybacked goodwill sentiment.

The grand dame of traditional English and American folk music sings less tentatively in this quite charming follow-up, though her voice still reflects the frailty of a mid-octogenarian.

It’s the excellence and elegance of the production, the quality of the backing musicians and imaginative arranging that makes Heart’s Ease a superior release to Lodestar. Simpatico slide guitar accompaniment lifts otherwise quite mundane readings of folk and gospel standards ‘Barbara Allen’ and ‘Wondrous Love’. Fingerpicked guitar and fiddle combine with slide to lend ‘Sweet Greens And Blues’ — a song written

by Collins’ late husband — an admirable rural aesthetic.

Concertina and clogging in tandem drive a disappointingly abbreviated late-set instrumental. Unfortunately, some uncharacteristic heavyhandedness results in the artist being drowned out in the sign-off track.

NICK CHARLES GUITAR MUSIC Black Market Music

Those that have seen him perform live over the past 30 years or so, listened to his recordings or read his excellent Rhythms column will be well aware of Nick Charles’s considerable prowess as an acoustic guitar finger picker and his expertise over a wide range of roots music. The Victorian’s penchant for producing engaging and eclectic albums that encompass folk, blues and beyond is endorsed by Guitar Music, in which eight of his own melodic compositions are scattered among immaculately delivered covers of Davey Graham’s well-thumbed solo study ‘Anji’, Duane Allman’s ‘Little Martha’, Mississippi John Hurt’s ‘Monday Morning Blues’, John Fahey’s ‘Last Steam Engine Train’ and the Farina brothers standard ‘Sleepwalk’. Vocally, Charles excels on a lovely song co-written by his sister that chronicles their mother’s journey “from sadness to happiness”.

TIM MCMILLAN & RACHEL SNOW REVERIES T3 Records

Tim McMillan & Rachel Snow, a globe-trotting Melburnian duo that’s currently taking Covid-19 refuge in Germany, play acoustic neo-folk music of haunting beauty and elegance, in which the former’s intricate guitar figures and harmonic runs are perfectly complemented by his classically-trained violinist partner-in-rhyme’s playing, in general, and pizzicato, in particular. The pair’s self-tagged “goblincore” compositions — recorded analogue and live in a Saxony studio — take a left-ofcentre path that encompasses inventive chord progressions and unusually complex

melodies. Surprise nuances in the structure of their work radiates in soundscapes that range from an ambient Celticinformed air to up-tempo romps.

Percussive inserts add impetus in requisite places. McMillan & Snow’s singing conjures ethereal harmony in strategic places. As the album title suggests, their music has a dream-like quality.

Track titles such as ‘Sommerfugl’ and ‘Kopfkino’ reflect their current residency in Germany.

BUSTER SLEDGE SPIRIT Fjorden Music

Like the Argentinian equivalent twin sister act Las Hermanas Caronni, Colombian siblings Valentina and Juanita Añez are making a merited impact on the international scene with exquisite high-register lead singing and sublime harmony vocals that ring with the celestial dynamics of a Tibetan bowl.

Several of their a cappella pieces exhibit ecclesiastic overtones.

Elsewhere, Las Áñez meld Latin and Andean folklore and contemporary electronica via a small keyboard and loop pedal, though the music gels better when they use their voices to simulate percussion or utilise minimal guitar and violin rather than thudding doof beats.

BAB L’BLUZ NAYDA! Real World/Planet Buster Sledge is a super-tight trio from Norway that, judged on their admirable debut album, performs and arranges original bluegrass repertoire with as much aplomb as any current act in America. Californian expat singer and fiddler extraordinaire Michael Donovan and his Norse comrades-in-arms on guitar and banjo shine throughout, excelling in both ballads and breakneck romps, especially in their solos. They also cut loose in the lyrics department with words you’d be hard pressed to hear at Telluride or any other US hoedown, like “judiciously” and “empirically”. The boys expand beyond their bluegrass base as the set progresses, finishing with a skewed instrumental and a song memorably entitled ‘Grandpa Buster’s Asparagus Garden’.

LAS ÁÑEZ REFLEXIÓN Las Áñez

With Led Zep-like rock intensity, Moroccan-French quartet Bab L’ Bluz physically and psychologically drags the North African genre of poetry-informed traditional trance music known as gnawa into the modern world.

Defying gnawa’s previous male dominance, the band is led by a dynamic ululating lead female singer and a heavily amplified 3-stringed, camel-skinned bass guembri lute. It’s an intoxicating electric brew that’s only diluted by a couple of token diversions into more conventional acoustic ambience. Propelled by shamanic drumming, castanetlike karkabs and low om chanting and supported by screaming axe and sampling pad, Bab L’Bluz adds elements of desert blues and Andalusian/Berber informed chaabi to the mix while expressing sentiments that echo the revolutionary drive of the freedom-seeking ‘nayda’ youth music movement.

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CD: Blues AL HENSLEY

ANNIKA CHAMBERS

LINSEY ALEXANDER

KISS MY SASS VizzTone/Planet Co.

LIVE AT ROSA’S Delmark

Following close behind her 2019 Blues Music Award for Soul Blues Female Artist Of The Year, Houston, Texas native Annika Chambers releases her fourth CD since her 2014 debut Making My Mark. Chambers grew up singing in church, realising her natural powerhouse vocal talents during two tours of duty in the army. With a huge voice soulful enough to rival Shemekia Copeland, Chambers channels elements of Tina Turner, Aretha Franklin and Koko Taylor.

Kiss My Sass kicks off with attitude and sauciness on RB Stone’s shufflling ‘Let The Sass Out’, then launches into Gary Nicholson’s smoky ‘That’s What You Made Me’ before getting funky on Michael Jackson’s ‘You Can’t Win’. Chambers preaches love and peace on the Staple Singers’ ‘What’s Your Thing’, paying homage to fellow Texas blues women Angela Strehli and Carolyn Wonderland on ‘Two Bit Texas Town’ and ‘Stay’ respectively. Chambers co-wrote the slow blues ‘Brand New Day’ with Phantom Blues Band’s Larry Fulcher who co-produced the album. The horn-laden ‘World of Hurt’ and Etta James and Sugar Pie Desanto’s rousing rug-cutter ‘In The Basement’ give way to the Chris Smitherpenned acoustic finale ‘I Feel The Same’.

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Born in the Mississippi hill country town of Holly Springs in 1942, Linsey Alexander was raised in Memphis, Tennessee where he learned to play guitar while absorbing a wide range of music from country and soul to blues and rock’n’roll. Alexander moved to Chicago in 1959 and was drawn to the city’s south side where he became deeply ensconced in the area’s thriving blues scene. Appearing regularly in local clubs, it wasn’t long before he perfected the art of performing his own brand of blues.

For decades now Alexander has been a fixture on the booming north side club circuit. This live set captured at Rosa’s popular lounge showcases Alexander’s fervent baritone vocals and searing fretwork backed by a four-piece rhythm section of veterans including stellar keyboardist Roosevelt Purifoy.

Alexander’s fourth Delmark release since 2012, the CD offers a batch of new self-penned songs, three originals from his 2014 title Come Back Baby, and readings of B.B. King’s ‘Please Love Me’, Junior Wells’ ‘Ships Out On The Ocean’, Latimore’s R&B ballad ‘Somethin’ ‘Bout Cha’, and Freddie King’s ‘Have You Ever Loved A Woman’. A traditional bluesman with a contemporary flair, Alexander’s boundless energy belies his age.

JOHNNY BURGIN NO BORDER BLUES Delmark

Johnny Burgin now has 10 CD releases to his credit as a singersongwriter/guitarist and bandleader having embarked on a solo career in the late nineties.

Raised in the US South, Burgin arrived in Chicago in 1987 aged 18 where he honed his guitar chops recording as a sideman for top tier traditional blues artists.

He specialises in post-war Chicago blues tastefully played with finesse and swing. Burgin has a breezy voice like Billy Boy Arnold and a playing style that quotes from role models such as Luther Tucker and Fenton Robinson while retaining a distinctive air of originality.

Burgin has toured Japan four times since 1996 and drew on his long relationships with Japanese musicians to co-produce with Stephanie Rice this recording made last year at Fukada Studios in Osaka. Tours of Japan in the ‘70s by Otis Rush, Jimmy Dawkins and others created an intense following there for Chicago blues which forty years later bursts open with fresh young talent. Here Burgin plays and sings originals and songs

by Carey Bell, Little Walter and Elmore James with 12 of the best Japanese blues musicians and singers in a session of authentic gutbucket rawness.

RICK ESTRIN & THE NIGHTCATS CONTEMPORARY Alligator/Only Blues Music Rick Estrin & The Nightcats have garnered hordes of fans worldwide since their 2009 debut CD Twisted was released.

They’ve also kept the huge following accumulated in the wake of their genesis in 1976 as Little Charlie & The Nightcats. A witty, insightful songwriter, Estrin’s hipster style vocals, hep-cat persona and dazzling harmonica licks ideally complement the biting guitar chops Kid Andersen, the outstanding keyboard and bass prowess of Lorenzo Farrell and solid grooves of drummer Derrick D’Mar Martin. Their contemporary blues has never lost its familiar throwback vibe, but this new album may sideline some of the band’s loyal fanbase. Whether they’ve run out of original ideas or aim to crack the mainstream market is a matter of conjecture.

Once clear of the first few cuts with synthesisers, drum machines, background vocals and sound effects, the group trots out its customary blues mastery with a hard-swinging reading of Bobo Jenkins’ ‘Nothing But Love’ and eight incendiary new originals. While there’s no denying the virtuosity and artistic know-how that created the blues-noir opener ‘I’m Running’, the Zappa-esque ‘Resentment File’ and hip-hopinfused title song, their value in this context will depend on the listener’s inclination.

CD: JAZZ

BY T O N Y H I L L I E R

HAROLD LÓPEZNUSSA TE LO DIJE Mack Avenue

The international reputation of Cuban pianist and composer Harold López-Nussa has increased exponentially with each of his albums. If confirmation were needed, the ultra vibrant Te Lo Dije (I Told You) re-affirms that he’s up there with ivory-tickling compatriots Chucho Valdés and Roberto Fonseca in terms of both keyboard virtuosity and his re-invention of Cuba’s vibrant afro-jazz heritage. Showing individual identity and innate sense of rhythm, Señor López-Nussa, who divides his time between Havana and Paris, captures the soul of modern Cuba by colouring his canvas with shades of songo, reggaeton and the Mozambique-styled percussion of Pello el Afrokan. A coterie of special guests, including Afro-Cuban funk superstar Cimafunk, Randy Malcom of the popular band Gente de Zona and singer Kelvis Ochoa augments his core quartet. The pianist also acknowledges part-French inheritance with a tastefully Latinised rendition of the late Michel Legrand’s movie theme ‘The Windmills of Your Mind’, to which accordionist Vincent Peirani adds Gallic flavouring.

Elsewhere, López-Nussa tips his fedora to Cuba’s legendary Los Van Van band and to the king of Latin keyboard Chick Corea.

CHICK COREA PLAYS Concord/Planet

With this double-album collation of live recordings, the prodigiously productive Grammy-garlanded Chick Corea acknowledges some of his favourite composers while simultaneously stretching the parameters of solo piano playing with superlative artistry, invention and improvisation.

Among some unlikely mash-ups, CC mixes a Mozart sonata with a classic Gershwin show tune and a Bill Evans waltz with an Antonio Carlos Jobim bossa nova standard. Corea includes a triple tribute to Thelonious Monk, homages to soul-meister Stevie Wonder and flamenco maestro Paco de Lucia and eight mostly short revised pieces from his 1984 ‘Children’s Song’ series.

The artist’s warm banter and rapport with audiences, which includes active participation, ensures that Plays is elevated above a mere academic exercise.

With his latest waxing, John Scofield returns to trio format while renewing an association with bassist Steve Swallow and drummer Bill Stewart that, in the former’s case, stretches back five decades to Sco’s formative days. The compositions, as the title hints, represent a crosssection of Swallow’s rich back catalogue. As befits one of the most stylish and innovative American jazz guitarists of the post bebop era, Scofield eschews pyrotechnics in favour of a softer consummately tasteful approach — not that there’s any shortage of adventure in his lead work during the nigh 10 minutes of the set’s longest cut ‘She Was Young’ or indeed in the shortest track, ‘Portsmouth Figurations’.

The rapport between the three players and the sense of trust and freedom radiates from every track in this palpably classy release.

PANORAMA BRASIL CHANT/CALL: STORIES OF THE GODS Panorama Brazil

MULATU ASTATKE & BLACK JESUS EXPERIENCE TO KNOW WITHOUT KNOWING Agogo Records

JOHN SCOFIELD SWALLOW TALES ECM

Experience has created a colourful transcontinental hybrid. Recorded in Melbourne and Addis Ababa, the album brings together pulsating original pieces and refreshing new arrangements of Ethiojazz classics, set in mesmerising pentatonic kignit modes.

The ensuing brilliance is in the blending, the marrying of minimalist scales and richly chromatic harmony and contemporary rapping of Zimbabwean/Australian MC, Mr Monk, and singing of BJX vocalist Enushu Taye with timeless spirituality.

The sophomore recording from Ethiojazz’s founding father and the youthful cosmopolitan Victorian collective that takes inspiration from his music is a ripper. Melding jazz, funk and hip-hop, the combination of the East African master musician, composer, arranger and vibraphonist/percussionist Mulatu Astatke and the horns and vocalists of Black Jesus

Panorama Brasil’s follow-up to 2016’s excellent Flor de Pedra doesn’t have the expertise of Doug de Vries’s 7-string acoustic guitar, the sweet singing of Diana Clark and Jacqueline Gawler or A.C Jobim’s bossa nova standards. As the title indicates, Chant/Call is more esoteric: a suite of Afro-Brazilian inspired jazz from the Melbourne ensemble’s composer and drummer Alastair Kerr that draws on the traditional rhythms of Candomblé, an offshoot of the black religious cult known as macumba. Derived from West African Yoruban tribal music and Roman Catholic ritual, like Haitian voodoo it is highly percussive, spiritual and hypnotic.

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CD: JAZZ 2

BY D E S C O W L E Y

ANDREA KELLER / FIVE BELOW LIFE IS BRUT[IF]AL AK007

Melbourne pianist Andrea Keller has been in the throes of a recording frenzy of late, releasing five albums since 2017, with a promise of more to come before the year is out. Life is Brut[if]al is her second release with Five Below, following a self-titled live album in 2018. While the band’s debut highlighted its rhythmic pliancy – comprising two basses, guitar, drums and piano – this new recording expands the musical palette by incorporating saxophonists Scott McConnachie and Julien Wilson.

The album is bookended by two extended pieces, both around the twenty-minute mark. The opener ‘Meditations on Light’ marks the first complete recording of this seven-part suite, sections of which appeared on Keller’s 2013 album Wave Rider. It is a long, reflective work, wide-ranging in mood, that variably highlights guitarist Steve Magnusson’s sonic explorations, James McLean’s rhythmic percussion, Keller’s repetitive and minimalist piano, and McConnachie’s scorching soprano saxophone. ‘Love in Solitude (Disassembled)’, which closes the album, comprises a series of tender meditations on the words of poet Rainer Maria Rilke, narrated by Jim Keller, and featuring an impassioned solo by Julien Wilson. A genuine standout is the album’s title track, turbo-charged by Mick Meagher’s rumbling basslines that act as anchor and springboard for McConnachie’s free-floating saxophone, intense and abstract. Life is Brut[if]al is a generous and elaborate album, delicate and nuanced, further cementing Keller’s stature as one of our finest composers and bandleaders.

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FLORA CARBO

MARK HELIAS

PAUL WILLIAMSON

VOICE Independent

ROOF RIGHTS Independent digital release

DARK ENERGY FMR Records

Saxophonist Flora Carbo delivered a stunning performance recently as part of Melbourne International Jazz Festival’s These Digital Times, a welcome set of streamed performances that stood in for the COVID-cancelled 2020 Festival. If nothing else, her performance showed how far she’s come in a short space of time. Voice is her second release, after 2018’s Erica, and it’s a big step forward. Whereas her debut demonstrated a debt to alto sax players like Lee Konitz, her new album finds her digging deeper into the timbral possibilities of her instrument. As such, it’s a far more experimental album, likely to alienate some listeners, but a sure sign that Carbo is interested in pushing herself into new territory. The title track is a case in point, a three-and-a-halfminute sound poem which sees Carbo gently delving into the upper register of her instrument.

‘This is a Dream of Ours’ is introduced with a metronomelike click-track, over which Carbo ever-so-lightly wails, twisting and bending her notes. ‘Song’ is one of two tracks on which Carbo is joined by experimental vocalist Jenny Barnes, whose linguistic utterances form a backdrop for Carbo’s simpatico meanderings.

‘Yayoye’, a composition by African singer Mariam Bagayogo, employs a West African groove, infectiously repetitive, over which Carbo applies her own rhythmic patterns. The album’s longest track, the ten-minute ‘Sing Something’, is gentle and exploratory, highlighting Carbo’s gorgeous tone, played over a minimal beat. With its emphasis on tonal texture and space, Voice inhabits a sound world not dissimilar to the early saxophone explorations by Roscoe Mitchell, Anthony Braxton and others.

Has it really been twenty years?

This recording represents the first-ever release of a performance given at the Wangaratta Town Hall in November 2000. I had the good fortune to be present, and the memory remains crystalclear. Prominent US bassist Mark Helias brought his Open Loose trio, featuring saxophonist Tony Malaby and drummer Gerald Cleaver, to the Festival that year. Over the course of the weekend, he delivered several powerhouse performances, including a virtuosic display of solo bass beneath the vaulted roof of the Holy Trinity Cathedral.

The performance captured on Roof Rights represents a one-off collaboration, with Helias’s trio augmented by three local musicians: trumpeter Scott Tinkler, trombonist James Greening, and the late saxophonist David Ades.

Given this was a first meeting, the results are nothing short of remarkable. The opening piece ‘Roger’ sees the sextet slip-sliding its way through the intricate patterns of Helias’s charts, brimming with a complex layering of brass and wind. The composition’s loose and wide-open structure, a predominant feature of Helias’s music, leaves ample room for extended solos, with Tinkler beautifully improvising over the leader’s sinewy bass lines.

Helias demonstrates a driving muscular tone throughout, as he weaves a thorny path behind the music, steering it with urgent and unpredictable rhythms.

‘Gentle Ben’, with its mournful and plaintive theme, is a standout piece, highlighting Malaby’s brawny tenor saxophone. While it meanders occasionally, Roof Rights represents a genuine slice of Australian jazz history, well worth the twenty-year wait.

Trumpeter Paul Williamson has been a regular fixture on the Melbourne jazz scene for many years, and this new album represents his twelfth release since debut Non-Consensual Head Compression back in 2001. While his early work highlighted original compositions, he took a U-turn a couple of years back, releasing several live albums of standards, decked out with extended workouts on tunes made famous

by Miles and Monk. Dark Energy sees a return to all-original music, played by a new quartet featuring guitar wunderkind Theo Carbo.

The album kicks off with the title track, an eleven-minute surge of dark matter that shows off the elasticity of the band, the music twisting and turning, tracing a serpentine path. Williamson throughout marries a lyrical tone with Miles-like licks, building solos to furious peaks, while Carbo lays down electronic soundscapes, accentuating mood and ambient textures.

Drummer Miles Henry meanwhile demonstrates a wonderfully light and flexible touch, never settling on a conventional beat.

On ‘Frangipani’, Carbo’s exquisite tone is to the fore, full of clarity and a restrained intelligence. Is it any wonder, at age twentyone, he’s become in-demand guitarist for the likes of Barney McAll, Andrea Keller and sister Flora? While the album features ten tracks, it has the feel of a single-piece flow, with all the momentum of a coursing river. Williamson’s time in the woodshed playing standards appears to have re-invigorated him. Dark Energy has a lean and hungry feel about it, bearing all the hallmarks of a fresh and audacious new beginning.

VINYL:

BY S T E V E B E L L

SUICIDE COUNTRY HOUR DARK TOWN Swashbuckling Hobo Records

Brisbane alt-country outfit Suicide Country Hour have followed 2017’s wonderfully bleak self-titled debut with Dark Town, another collection of mordant narratives which mine beauty from sadness and despair in that finest country music tradition. Opener ‘Kitty’s Song’ sets the tone musically with banjo and fiddle prominent amongst the acoustic beauty (guitars, bass, piano, accordion and notably no drums) and featuring downcast lyrics (“my life’s a fucking joke”) about seeking a new start amongst the trials and tribulations of modern life.

‘Bottles’ and ‘Fly’ are more archetypal country tales of heartbreak, the different vocalists complementing each other both tonally and in worldview. They self-describe their sound as “hangover music” and there is that sluggish ‘morning after’ feel to everything - albeit rendered perfectly with strong musicianship and songwriting - and ‘Burn Churches’ slows things down even more, taking plaintive to a gorgeous new level. As its name suggests ‘Flood’ takes us through the aftermath of a natural disaster (“we’ve rebuilt our lives but the scars are still there”), while ‘Tinder’ drags us defiantly into the present, more upbeat musically with lyrics about embracing the downward spiral.

‘Opie’s Song’ is a heartfelt death lament but closer ‘Arrivals/Departures’ brings things home with a more positive spin, a lovely lilting finale to a collection of songs worth tying one on for.

PAUL KELLY & PAUL GRABOWSKY PLEASE LEAVE YOUR LIGHT ON Gawd Aggie/EMI Over the last few years the entire discography of the great Paul Kelly has been lovingly reissued on vinyl (bar his first two early-‘80s forays with The Dots) - all the while still pumping out new music at a rapid rate of knots - and now we’re being treated again to a reimagining of sections of his amazing catalogue with assistance from venerated Australian pianist Paul Grabowsky. The pair claim to have been channeling Frank Sinatra’s mid-1950s ‘heartbreak period’, when he became synonymous with crooning tales of loss and regret, and fortunately Kelly has plenty of such songs in his armoury including well-known tunes like ‘You Can Put Your Shoes Under My Bed’, ‘Winter Coat’ and ‘If I Could Start Today Again’ as well as lesser-known (but no less outstanding) lights such as ‘Petrichor’, ’Young Lovers’ and Shakespeare foray ‘Sonnet 138’. There’s also a strong new original in ‘True To You’ and a cover of Cole Porter’s beautiful ‘Every Time We Say Goodbye’, but the collection’s strength is the easy simpatico between the two Pauls and the way that Grabowsky’s perfectly soft piano arrangements allow focus to shine on Kelly’s wonderful lyrics and gently impassioned delivery.

ROBERT FORSTER CALLING FROM A COUNTRY PHONE Needle Mythology

When Iconic Australian outfit The GoBetweens finished their acclaimed first incarnation back in 1989 after a dozen years and six classic albums, the band’s two founding singer-songwriters - Robert Forster and Grant McLennan - embarked on solo careers which would each produce four albums before they reunited and resurrected their old band (with a new line-up) in 2000.

Forster recorded his 1990 solo debut Danger In The Past in Berlin with some members of the Bad Seeds, but for the follow-up - always a man of contradictions - he returned to his native Brisbane and put together a band comprising young upstart members of the then-blossoming inner-city scene (Custard, C.O.W. and so forth). New group in tow he returned to Sunshine Studios - where The GoBetweens had recorded their first two singles - and emerged with Calling From A Country Phone (1993), a collection of beautifully laidback songs conceived in Europe but possessing a distinctly sun-dappled, Australian disposition, including some of his most timeless solo fare such as ‘Beyond Their Law’, ‘121’, ‘Falling Star’ and ‘The Circle’. Now reissued on vinyl for the first time, it’s been lovingly remastered and pressed on heavyweight vinyl and housed in a gatefold sleeve featuring new cover art, liner notes from Forster himself and a bonus 7” single (‘Lonely Boy’/‘Brookfield 1975’), the perfect way to re-evaluate this underrated record.

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Greenwich Entertainment

Laurel Canyon

Homage to Laurel Canyon with Jakob Dylan and friends, directed by Andrew Slater.

L

aurel Canyon was not only responsible for some of the greatest pop and rock music to come out of America in the ‘60s and ‘70s but also some of its most successful and enduring names: Joni Mitchell, Brian Wilson, Jackson Browne, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Carole King, John Mayall, Eagles, James Taylor, The Mamas & Papas, Love, Frank Zappa, Jim Morrison, Harry Nilsson.

You only have to listen to gold radio to hear many of the songs from that era still resonating.

In fact, Laurel Canyon was the first place I went to in Los Angeles when I got a motorbike for a West Coast trip. The thing that amazed me was that this almost rural setting was just a couple of miles from Sunset Strip, West Hollywood, and the centre of the recording industry. It is easy to understand the attraction that lives on. When I recently interviewed Rufus Wainwright he was at home in the Canyon looking across at a house once owned by silent screen star Louise Brooks. “Historically, it’s an amazing part of the world, musically,” he said. “ Whether it’s the music or the Hollywood history, in terms of showbiz, it’s one of the chakras of showbiz, for sure.”

If you want to learn something of the history of Laurel Canyon then you should perhaps check out Alison Ellwood’s new two-part documentary which premiered in the USA in June and is now available on DocPlay here.

It is a fairly comprehensive history of the golden age of the Canyon’s music with many of the key players. That is not what Echo in The Canyon is about and it would be wrong to judge it as an historical documentary of the era.

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“You need to actually, I think, have some understanding of it or appreciation of it before you go into the film, because the film’s not really an educational overview of that place,” explains Andrew Slater – producer, director and writer. His starting point is around mid-‘65 and the first Byrds album while the endpoint is Neil Young’s song ‘Expecting to Fly’ off Buffalo Springfield Again in 1967 (selected because it portended a change in the music that was being made).

Even that brief timeframe had an incredible amount of great music.

Echo In The Canyon, is an homage that revolves around a concert of some iconic songs performed by Jakob Dylan and friends (Beck, Fiona Apple, Cat Power, Regina Spektor, Jade etc) and illuminated by interviews by Dylan with musicians who either lived there or had a connection, as well as producer Lou Adler (who deserves a documentary on his own).

The film opens with Tom Petty playing a Rickenbacker 12-string electric while talking to Jakob Dylan and the connection is immediately made between him and The Byrds. Roger McGuinn later explains how he saw John Lennon playing a Rickenbacker and moved to Los Angeles and how George Harrison, who also played one, then based ‘If I Needed Someone’ on The Byrds’ ‘The Bells of Rhymney.’

Ringo Starr completes the story of the connection between the Beatles and The Byrds and we hear how Brian Wilson (who appears) heard Rubber Soul and wrote Pet Sounds. It’s like a never-ending loop. Dylan’s appearance in the interviews mostly amounts to listening and nodding and is almost superfluous but it is in the studio and concert that his talents shine. (I have long thought that his band, The Wallflowers, and his solo recordings have been highly under-rated and that is enforced here).

The ever-garrulous David Crosby chimes in about life in the canyon and within the

Byrds (it is easy to see why the recent doco about him is so revealing). Graham Nash is as utopian as ever. Michelle Phillips reveals all about relationships in the Mamas & Papas. Jackson Browne tells how when he first saw the Beach Boys he thought their image was ‘lame’. Eric Clapton weighs in on the influence of the music while Stephen Stills attributes a warning to ‘Expecting to Fly’ which assumes an importance that had probably not been evident before. It would have been nice to include Joni Mitchell but her recording career started a little later.

Slater was head of Capitol Records and his experience is evident on the soundtrack because the concert and studio audio is nothing less than superb on faithful renditions of the songs that also include a great reading of ‘Goin’ Back’ by Dylan and Beck that proves that the other main star of the show, apart from Laurel Canyon and Jakob Dylan, is the Rickenbacker guitar.

When I caught up with Andrew Slater to talk about his film he was in Santa Barbara – about 90 minutes up the Pacific Coast Highway from Laurel Canyon – looking out over the Pacific Ocean on a bright, sunny Californian day.

Laurel Canyon is a unique location isn’t it?

Can you tell us about it?

Laurel Canyon is a place that I think we all traverse to try to get around Los Angeles. It’s got its dividing line of Mulholland Drive – one side’s Hollywood and the other side is the San Fernando Valley – and there were people when I came to California – musicians, actors – that lived up there but it really represents something greater than just the topography of canyon life.

Well, it’s an amazing location because it’s close to the centre of Los Angeles.

So, you’re up in the hills, you’re in a rural setting, but you’re close to all these incredibly good studios.

Well, they were. And the thing about Los Angeles that’s always so interesting is that you’re always confronted by the edge of nature while you’re in this metropolis.

There’s a coyote in your backyard, there’s a racoon crawling across your front door and yeah, Laurel Canyon was situated above the concentrated area where all the studios were that these records were made. Sunset Sounds, Capital, Western United which are still there today. Some of them are single story buildings, which may not be there in 10 years. And so, one of the things about the film was that it’s, in one sense it’s about the echo of people’s ideas, but it’s also about the echo itself. And the echo itself was really, the echo chambers of those rooms that create that depth around the human voice when you use it the right way. So those rooms all have character and hopefully they will be there in 60 years.

In your film, you mentioned the film, The Model Shop, which came out in, I think, it was in 1968. Can you tell us what the inspiration from that film was and why that had an effect on you?

I think sometimes in life to go forward, you have to look at where you’ve come from and that moment happened for me when I had just left working at Capitol Records and I had seen that film on the Turner Classic Movie Station and the film in a sense – one of the main characters of the film – is the streets of LA and Jacques Demy’s cinematography captured the streets in such a beautiful and idyllic way that it inspired Jakob and I go back and look at the music of that period and what brought us – or what brought me – to California were those records. So, sometimes you never know what’s going to inspire you to do something. And seeing that film made me look at the music again, and then I tried to figure out a way to reimagine some of that music and keep the echo of those ideas alive today in a different way.

So, did the concert come first or was the film started before the concert, because the film pivots around the concert with Jakob and all these special guests. Then you see him in the recording studio.

Well, I’m a record maker by my trade, not a filmmaker. So, for me, it was really looking at songs that told this particular story about the beginnings of the Southern California music

scene. About the electrification of folk music and then emulating the Beatles, and then obviously the exchange of those ideas. So, at first it was a collection of songs and I said to Jakob, “Hey, what about this song? What about that?” This influence and that.

‘The Bells of Rhymney’ really illustrates Roger McGuinn’s talent in taking one song, a song from one medium and transforming it into another medium. That of course inspires George Harrison to write ‘If I Needed Someone’ which winds up on Rubber Soul.

And Brian Wilson hears Rubber Soul and he makes that sound and then the Beatles hear that sound and they record Sergeant Pepper.

So, all of that was the genesis of the project.

Then I said, “Well, we should record these and we should film some of the recordings and then let’s do a show and we can sell that.”

Well, Jakob Dylan takes us through the music and does some terrific interpretations with those special guests and, of course, the Canyon is one of the stars of the show as is Jacob, but the music was incredible. So, the film reminds you of just how great those songs are. The

other star of the film, I’d suggest, is the Rickenbacker guitar.

Yes, it is, in fact. Really when you think about it, Roger McGuinn playing an electric 12-string on that first record and influencing the Beatles and them, the Beatles influencing the Beach Boys and back and forth is really the engine for all of it. John Sebastian tells you that McGuinn had a 12-string guitar and he was trying to play Beatles’ songs in folk clubs in New York and they weren’t having it. Probably in New York, maybe none of this would’ve happened because of the rigidity of the folk scene and what those audiences were willing to embrace. California represents this kind of sense of freedom, that maybe anything is possible. So, when McGuinn comes to California and he sees that George is playing a Rickenbacker guitar on ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ and he gets one, it’s where the magic begins to happen. The electric orchestral sound of that instrument opens up the possibilities for people to create and expand beyond the limitations of what came before.

Echo In The Canyon is available on: Amazon Prime/ Apple, PSN, Microsoft, Google and Fetch. Also available on DVD.

Tom Petty and Jakob Dylan ECHO IN THE CANYON - Courtesy of Echo In The Canyon LLC

Ringo Starr and Jakob Dylan ECHO IN THE CANYON - Courtesy of Echo In The Canyon LLC 79

PAUL KELLY

By Stuart Coupe (Hachette Australia, p/b)

A decade ago, Paul Kelly gave us his big, baggy, mongrel memoir How to Make Gravy, all six-hundred pages of it. It was a stunning achievement, earning a place on the shelf alongside Dylan’s masterful Chronicles and Don Walker’s brief, adrenalin-fuelled Shots.

But while these books delivered something of their subject’s DNA, it was never their intention to tell a life. As authors, these songwriters reserved the freedom to focus upon the stories of their choosing. No such luxury is afforded the biographer, whose mission it is to trace the arc of a life, providing a perspective often inaccessible to the one busy living it.

Stuart Coupe is in an enviable position when it comes to tackling Paul Kelly (and the sporting analogy is not without grounds). Given his years as a music journalist, it seems propitious that his first ever interview was with a young Kelly in 1976, when Paul was part of the High Rise Bombers. In 1984, Coupe took over managing Kelly, holding down the chair for the remainder of a decade that saw the release of Post, Gossip, and Under the Sun, albums that catapulted Kelly into the national consciousness. Coupe, then, finds himself in the anomalous situation – for a biographer at least – of being both inside and outside his subject’s world. To this we can add his fortyfive years of hard-boiled music journalism, which has equipped him with an ‘access all areas’ pass when it comes to musicians who have played with Kelly. Nearly all, it seems, were eager to tell their story.

Paul Kelly stories begin (though rarely end) in Adelaide, the city he grew up in, part of a large Irish Catholic family, and which he later eulogized in song. It was there he discovered writers like Baudelaire and Rimbaud, and the music of Gram Parsons and Neil Young. It was there, in Buxton Street, he wrote his first songs, and it was there he formed his first band, The Debutantes. It was there also he began dabbling with his drug of choice, heroin. By 1977, however, in his early twenties, he’d washed up in Melbourne, sharing a house in Hoddle Street with members of ex-Adelaide band Spare Change.

Stuart Coupe’s book pieces together an assortment of recollections by members of the High Rise Bombers, Kelly’s short-lived band who played around the Carlton scene in 1977-78. It was a free-floating assemblage, one that has attained, in the years since, a nearmythological status, having left no recorded legacy. The manner of the band’s demise sheds genuine light on Kelly, the relentlessness of his drive and ambition, there from the start. Despite the band boasting several songwriters, Kelly announced he’d only sing his own songs. As bassist Lee Cass says: “Paul Kelly wanted a band, but he wanted it to be Paul Kelly supported by a band.” Henceforth, there’d be no confusion on that front.

It is a strength of Coupe’s book that he pays such attention to Kelly’s salad days as an evolving musician, before he assumed the public face we know today. He allots roughly half his book to raking over Kelly’s career pre-Post, the earliest album Kelly today lays claim to.

Coupe’s account of Kelly’s foundational band, the Dots, in particular, is an eye-opener. Despite recording two critically admired albums, Mushroom Records founder Michael Gudinski harboured lingering doubts about Kelly’s future as a performer, failing to hear any hits.

Coupe’s account of the recording of the Manila album reads like the folly it was. The lingering scars are corroborated by Kelly’s ongoing refusal to re-release the Dots albums.

Gudinski’s primary interest lay in owning the publishing rights to Kelly’s songs. When Kelly suggested his next project would be a

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double-album, Gudinksi was ready to cut him loose, only agreeing to release Gossip after assistant Michelle Higgins spat the dummy.

It turned out to be a monster, propelling Kelly to the national stage.

Today, it is rightly considered a masterpiece, even by Gudinski.

Hindsight is everything.

One of the threads running through Coupe’s book is the knack Kelly has for surrounding himself with talented musicians, able to furnish the sound he needs, when he needs it. The Steve Connelly-era Messengers were a cracking band, but when the time came to move on, Kelly had no hesitation. The passing parade of artistry found in the pages of Coupe’s book makes the case: Shane O’Mara, Chris Langman, Maurice Frawley, Spencer P Jones, Steve Hadley, Peter Luscombe, Vika and Linda Bull, Dan Kelly etc. It’s an enviable roster.

It is understandable that Coupe’s book falls away in its final sections.

Faced with the onslaught of Kelly’s projects, tours, recordings and collaborations over the past few decades, he can do little more than throw his hands up and endeavour to corral what he can. By the time you read this, there will be a new album, recorded with Paul Grabowsky, in the shops, as well as a cycle of quarantine songs and covers. Now in his sixties, Kelly shows no signs of slowing.

Coupe’s is not an officially sanctioned biography. But Kelly, to his credit, granted his approval, which in turn green-lighted his many collaborators to speak openly about him, without fear or favour.

And speak they do. Coupe’s book can be likened to a collage of voices, offering up a multi-dimensional perspective on Australia’s greatest song writer. Despite emerging out of post-punk and the pub rock scene, there is a timelessness to Kelly’s greatest recordings, his songs are for the ages. If Dylan, paraphrasing Walt Whitman, can claim to contain multitudes, then assuredly we can ascribe the same claim to the kaleidoscopic career of Paul Kelly.

Friday On My Mind: The Life of George Young

By Jeff Apter (Allen & Unwin, p/b) Author Jeff Apter has been working his way through the Young family at a furious pace. Having despatched Angus (High Voltage, 2017) and Malcolm (The Man Who Made AC/DC, 2018), he’s now turned his attention to older brother George. It can’t have been an easy transition. Unlike Angus and Malcolm, who managed to steer a near-constant course, knocking out AC/DC riffs from go to whoa, George’s career rarely stayed fixed in one place for long. As older brother, he cut his musical teeth in very different times to his siblings, at the mercy of an industry that rode rough-shod over its artists. Survival required talent, hard work, and a high-degree of adaptability, thankfully skills George possessed in abundance.

Having been knocked down by the industry early on, George’s solution was simple – take over the reins himself, and never let go.

The story of the Young family’s migration to Australia in 1963 as ‘Ten Pound Poms’, and their time at the Villawood Migrant Hostel, is an oft-told tale, and Apter wisely dispenses with it in a few brief pages. But it stands as a reminder of the significant cultural changes wrought in this country by a post-war influx of diverse newcomers.

Out of this multi-cultural melting pot emerged Australia’s first truly great rock band, made up of two Brits, two Dutchman, and a Scot.

When the Easybeats formed in 1964, it was as if the stars had aligned. The Beatles had just toured Australia, changing the musical landscape forever. The Albert family, under Ted’s behest, set up a new production company intent on recording original music by local bands. New venues for this nascent music were springing

up all around the place – Surf City, Chequers nightclub, the Whiskey a Go Go. Almost overnight, the Easybeats were wowing punters, fending off hysterical girls, and recording demos for Ted Albert. While their earliest singles failed to take-off, the George Young/ Stevie Wright penned track ‘She’s So Fine’, released in 1965, was another matter. What became dubbed as ‘Easyfever’, a local brand of Beatlemania, was unleashed.

At a time when most Australian artists were busy re-recording overseas hits, the Easybeats’ debut album was an all-original affair, almost unprecedented for an Australian rock band.

Modelling themselves on the Beatles, Stones and the Kinks, rather than the local scene, it was inevitable they would set their sights on international stardom. Apter’s book tracks the band’s ups and downs in London: the growth of the Vanda/Young songwriting partnership, the explosive single ‘Friday On My Mind’, the struggles to record a successful follow-up, the brief European and US tours, and the so-called ‘lost album’.

Despite successes, the band eventually ran out of puff, calling it quits in 1969 following a brief Australian tour. For all their hard work, they were still living on handouts, in debt to the Alberts to the tune of $85,000. When George Young next came up for air, the musical landscape had changed once more, it was time to try something new.

Apter uses George’s phrase – ‘four-year binge’ – to describe George Young and Harry Vanda’s post-Easybeats stint in London. The two had forged a close friendship and alliance that melded song writing craft with studio production know-how. Working in overdrive, they cranked out a vast number of songs for made-up acts like Paintbox, Moondance, Eddie Avana and Tramp. It was as if they were throwing everything at the wall to see what stuck. If nothing else – and the truth is very little stuck – it honed their skills in readiness for their return to Australia in 1973. Back in Sydney, ensconced in the production seat at Albert Music, they would almost singlehandedly earn for the firm its legendary plaudit: ‘House of Hits’.

The run of achievements we can lay at George Young’s door is nothing short of astounding. There was Stevie Wright’s megasingle ‘Evie’, an eleven-minute extravaganza that remains a highpoint of Australian music. There was the sublime pop of John Paul Young’s ‘Love is in the Air’, later immortalised in the film Strictly Ballroom. There was the studio work with Rose Tattoo, Doc Neeson and The Angels. If George had done nothing more than oversee recordings of AC/DC classics like High Voltage, T.N.T., and Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap, we’d remember him. In between all that, he found time to create, with Vanda, the piss-take project Flash in the Pan, even then delivering a run of international hits with songs like ‘Down Among the Dead Men’.

George Young can’t have been an easy subject for author Jeff Apter.

A notoriously private individual, he left few personal traces other than a handful of interviews. His final years, prior to his death in 2017, were spent in living Portugal and Singapore, away from the limelight. While Apter had the benefit of insights from friends and musical colleagues, crucial players like Harry Vanda and the Young family are noticeable absences in the acknowledgements, while others like Ted Albert are long gone. As such, we get the solid arc of Young’s life and achievements, but rarely glimpse the man behind the mask. He remains a beloved, if enigmatic, figure.

Over the past decade, Jeff Apter has proved himself a prolific and tireless writer on Australian music. With a predilection for the ripping yarn, it’s fair to say his modus operandi is more that of journalist than historian. His biography of George Young completes what he calls his ‘accidental trilogy’ on the Young brothers. While these books won’t be the last word on the subject, when taken together, they constitute a heartfelt tribute to one of Australia’s great musical families.

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What’s your COVID-19 soundtrack been?

Have you been seeking solace in a lot of music listening – or simply using the time at home to catch up on a lot of music that you haven’t played for awhile? One thing most of my comrades agree on is that we’ve all been listening to a LOT of music over the past six months.

In my world I’ve spent much, much more time than usual listening to jazz. And I always listen to a lot of jazz anyway - and have done since the mid-1970s. But during the recent period jazz has been much more of a constant and I know from talking to friends that I’m not alone there either.

By Stuart Coupe I’ve immersed myself in a whole heap of 1950s and 1960s jazz – much of music that I know very well and a whole lot that is new or comparatively so to me. My jazz preference of choice has always been music where the saxophone has been at the forefront. And during the COVID-19 period I’ve listened to more Albert Ayler than ever before (maybe that ferociousness just speaks to something in the world this year) and going back to the more familiar world of John Coltrane.

The Coltrane listening has been aided by a very wonderful book - Coltrane: The Story Of A Sound by Ben Ratliff. There have of course been many books written about Coltrane – my copy of Chasin’ The Train: The Music And Mystique Of John Coltrane has a note inside saying I bought it in 1976. It’s the first JC biography I read, followed later by Bill Cole’s John Coltrane, and somewhere in between Coltrane: A Biography by C.O. Simpkins, which Ratliff posits as being the best of the biographies.

Ratliff’s book is divided into two sections. The first follows a biographical and chronological narrative but focuses on the development of Coltrane’s sound – how his sound evolved throughout all periods of his career. Much of this is heavy on musicology and theory which – at least to me – is fairly

82

impenetrable and so I skipped fairly quickly through those sections – but there was enough there that drew me to recordings where I could start to hear what Ratliff was on about without exactly following what he was saying.

The author is opinionated and knows his Coltrane. One minute I’m re-listening to some of his work with Mile Davis, then going back to early recordings to hear the emergent Coltrane, then diving into the box set of recordings from the Village Vanguard in 1961 to find one of the versions of ‘Chasin’ The Train’ that Ratliff singles out. It’s a version without Eric Dolphy on it that goes for almost 16 minutes, the author commenting that it, “is remarkable for the way it starts at absolute full intensity and retains that level without peaking or deflating.”

Of particular interest also was Ratliff’s exploration of the relationship between Ayler and Coltrane and how he believes that friendship shaped the latter’s sound.

The second half of the book looks with great insight and some wonderfully tangential side-tracks at the world of jazz post Coltrane. He concludes that: “It is an art that thrives on what it can do, not so much on what it does. It is a possibility, only as good as what it is now, and then a minute from now, and then an hour from now. Great records can be made from it. But nearly every great record in jazz is only a particular picture of an ongoing process, on a good day at a certain time in a certain place, and it will take the creation of many more clubs and spaces to hire musicians and let them play, and play, and play some more – not the creation of many re record companies to document them – to conjure the next Coltrane.

“The truth of jazz is in its bands.”

Ratliff’s book was first published in 2007 and the edition I read came out earlier this year as part of a series that publisher Faber cleverly marketed as their Greatest Hits of music books which also included a new edition of Rob Young’s remarkable Electric Eden book originally published in 2011.

One can only wonder about the future of jazz, a musical form that so relies on performance and improvisation, players working closely together in a confined physical space to work out ideas, tangents and wildly unpredictable musical discourses. How will this generation of jazz musicians emerge from COVID-19? Only time will tell.

Bonnie Pointer

Charlie Daniels

Impermanence

Kym Gouchie

Little Wise

Rupert Hine

COMPILED BY SUE BARRETT

HELLO

More virtual hugs, including for fathers and those of you in Victoria…

Australian music charity Support Act (www.supportact.org.au) continues to deliver crisis relief to people in the music industry. If you have some spare money, you can donate online or contribute to some current fundraisers.

Australian trio Impermanence recently launched its double album, with // without. The group consists of Josh Holt, Elliott Hughes and Bianca Gannon. Bianca told Rhythms, “Impermanence, perhaps like Australia, draws upon many cultural influences – our longform improvisations are always evolving into something new but referencing wisdom that has come before. There is often a sense of expansiveness in our music … [Our recent] Listening Parties were so much fun! … No two Impermanence gigs are the same. And as our music is completely improvised, the music on the album won’t be recreated in a live gig … Josh performs double bass. I play simultaneous piano and Balinese gamelan (often left hand on piano with right hand on two ‘gangsa’ aka metallophones and my feet playing small gongs with kick drum pedals). Elliott plays trumpet and his invention the Augmented Trumpet, which incorporates a 3D-printed motion sensor that uses the normal movement of the trumpet’s valves to control and synchronise electronics with the acoustic sound.” More about Impermanence at: www.impermanencemusic.com The Australian Songwriters Association (ASA) says it’s had lots of entries for the National Songwriting Competition and excitement is building in anticipation of announcement of the finalists.

Canadian musician Kym Gouchie has released For the People: Kym Gouchie & Northern Sky: www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDz5Wyp6Jyc In these locked down days, buying and sending gifts is difficult. Rhythms magazine is available as a digital subscription. Some musicians are delivering music lessons online. Bandcamp (https://bandcamp.com) is a good source of digital music downloads. Other musicians are selling digital downloads from their own website. There are venues with online performances. And the National Folk Festival (www.folkfestival.org.au) has just released some festival merchandise.

While locked down in Melbourne, Australian singer/songwriter Little Wise (aka Sophie Klein) has released the live EP, I Want to Really See You, And You See Me. The EP has five of her own songs, plus Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Dancing in the Dark’.

There are lots of new recordings, including: Noah Reid (Gemini); Gillian Welch & David Rawlings (All the Good Times – covers and traditional songs); Cory Marks (Who I Am); Ellis Delaney (Ordinary Love); Brant Miller (Roots, Rhymes & Branches); Ronny Cox (Live at the Kitchen Sink); Byrd and Street (Love Circles ‘Round); Éilís Kennedy (So Ends This Day); Joachim Cooder (Over That Road I’m Bound); Paul Kelly & Paul Grabowsky (Please Leave Your Light On); Lara Herscovitch (Highway Philosophers); Michael Veitch (Best of Many Days); John McCutcheon (Cabin Fever, including ‘The Night that John Prine Died’); Scott Cook (Tangle of Souls); Finbar Furey (Blue Jewel in the Sky); Mick Flannery (Alive – Cork Opera House 2019).

Justin Rudge has been appointed as Program Director for the Port Fairy Folk Festival.

Irish singer/songwriter Wallis Bird (www.wallisbird.com) is part of the way through a series of monthly online Retrospective Sessions.

…AND GOODBYE

British music magazine Q (owned by Bauer Media) has suspended publication, with its likely final issue released on 28 July 2020 Harold Reid (80), of The Statler Brothers, died Virginia, USA (April) English saxophonist Don Weller (79), died England (May) David ‘Bucky’ Buckmaster (59), bassist and music promoter, died Canberra, Australia (June) New Zealand musician Aaron Tokona (45), died New Zealand (June) Steve Priest (72), bassist with The Sweet, died California, USA (June) English singer Vera Lynn (103), died England (June) David Woodward (40), Australian music manager, died Australia (June) Musician and activist Hachalu Hundessa (34), died Ethiopia (June) Rupert Hine (72), English musician and producer, died England (June) American composer Johnny Mandel (94), died California, USA (June) Bonnie Pointer (69), of The Pointer Sisters, died California, USA (June) Guitarist Pete Carr (70), who worked with Paul Simon, Kim Carnes, Levon Helm, Joan Baez, Willie Nelson, Wendy Waldman, Bob Seger, Barbra Streisand, Donnie Fritts, Maggie and Terre Roche, died Alabama, USA (June) Tom Finn (71), bassist with The Left Banke, died in June American songwriter Charles Lawton Jiles (90), whose co-wrote ‘Let the Tear Drops Fall’ and ‘How Can I Face Tomorrow’, died California, USA (June) Charlie Daniels (83), Grammy winning American musician, died Tennessee, USA (July) Italian composer Ennio Morricone (91), who won many awards for his film scores, died Italy (July) Peter Green (73), songwriter and co-founder of Fleetwood Mac, died England (July) English singer Judy Dyble (71), of Fairport Convention, died in July Eric Sweeney (72), Irish composer, died Ireland (July) Jamaican musician Dobby Dobson (78), died Florida, USA (July) Tim Smith (59), lead singer with The Cardiacs, died in July English-born jazz singer Annie Ross (89), of Lambert, Hendricks & Ross, died New York, USA (July) Balla Sidibé, of Orchestra Baobab, died Senegal (July) American drummer Jamie Oldaker (68), died Oklahoma, USA (July) Ken Chinn (57), vocalist with Canadian punk band SNFU, died in July American singer/songwriter Emitt Rhodes, died in July Cleveland Eaton (80), American jazz musician, died Alabama, USA (July) 83

The Last Word SLIDING SIDEWAYS While no one will be able to hear Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever’s new record in the live setting for a while, hearing it in your kitchen is the next best thing, writes Samuel J. Fell.

Melbourne-based quintet Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever are, like every other band on the planet, feeling the pinch. And why wouldn’t they be? Their livelihood was stripped from them almost overnight as the current global pandemic wiped out the live scene – for bands like RBCF, this couldn’t possibly have happened at a worse time.

“I miss it greatly,” says guitarist and vocalist Joe White on the now dearth of live shows, that intimacy, that bond, that naturally occurs when artist and audience share both music and energy. “We were just about to start preparing a new show, a whole new set list, and I guess we were thinking about it as a real step up for us, to becoming a really notable live band. And that was gutted.”

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By Samuel J. Fell

White is sanguine about it, he knows everyone is in the same boat, and as he goes on to say, “We’ll still do that, when we can get back to it.” The reason it couldn’t have come at a worse time, is the band would right now be on the road with this new live set, pushing their new record, their second, Sideways To New Italy.

And live is where RBCF excel, despite White saying they were looking to become a live band of note – their complex three-guitar interplay was already a drawcard, the new record taking that to new heights; indeed, to see them play tracks off Sideways To New Italy in the live setting, would have been incendiary.

However, one cannot dwell on things one has no control over. The record, though, is a different kettle of fish – this project, they had total control over, and the results are strong. The album comes about after an extended stretch of touring over the past couple of years, and was born of a feeling of disconnection, of being far from home and not feeling like the band members ‘belonged’ anywhere.

“I guess it wasn’t so much that we didn’t belong anywhere, it was that we were separated from where we thought we belonged,” White muses. “And then you start to question what that is, and why that is, which led to a realisation of a love for our home and family and friends.

“So it was not so much about being cut off or anything, it was just a way of going out into the world and coming home with a new appreciation of what we hold dear.”

Disconnection is a strong feeling – not having a connection to anywhere, or anything, hints at someone or something that’s untethered, a not altogether positive situation. I wonder then, how the band were able to channel these feelings into a record, without the pervading feeling being one of gloom – for

the album isn’t gloomy, far from it, at least not sonically.

“Well, we’re not afraid of the gloom, lyrically,” White smiles. “I think the music offsets the gloom, the lyrical gloom. We just like to play with that kind of concept… essentially, a lot of these songs are love songs, some are break up songs, some are traveling songs – the love songs are rooted in a sense of darkness, otherwise it’s too sweet.

So we tried to inject a bit of darkness into the lyrics, like, there needs to be a reason to find love, in a song, you know?

“And that comes from personal histories, various people. Some of it is purely fictional as well, like ‘Not Tonight’, that was Fran (Keaney) and Tom (Russo) entering into kind of a cinematic world and making a song out of it; and a song like ‘’The Only One’ is rooted in the past, and the present, and the future.”

Underscoring these lyrical themes is the band’s trademark layering of sound – three guitars playing off one another, rhythm section locking in behind, metronomic and stoic in its unrelenting support. The record jangles and hums, and marks Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever as a group of consummate professionals, constantly looking to expand and explore their music.

It is, to be sure, unfortunate that we’ll not be seeing the quintet in the flesh at any point soon, building these songs into almost physical beings before our eyes. But the music exists, and in times like these, perhaps that’s never been more important. “Yeah,” White smiles.

“People say they like to listen to our records when they’re partying with people, or on the beach with people, but I don’t know if that’s going to happen too much [now]… it’ll be in people’s lounge rooms and kitchens this time. Which is interesting, like, maybe it’s a good kitchen!”

Sideways To New Italy is available now via Ivy League Records.

Released Oct

20th ANNIVERSARY EDITION

Ronnie Earl Rise Up

Lachy Doley Double Figures

Fiona Boyes Blues In My Heart

Elvin Bishop + Charlie Musselwhite 100 Years Of Blues ALCD 5004

Kim Wilson Take Me Back

Ezra Lee Cryin’ At The Wheel

The Mason Rack Band Best Of So Far

Ronnie Earl & The Broadcasters Rise Up SPCD 1418

New Moon Jelly Roll Freedom Rockers Vol 1 SPCD 1416

Joel Sutton Rhythm & Blues Revue Vol 1 LBM1CD

The Sleep Eazys - Joe Bonamassa Easy To Buy - Hard To Sell JRA 61076

Roomful Of Blues In A Roomful Of Blues ALCD 4998

Mike Elrington Aftershock

Released Oct 9th

CD + VINYL

CD + VINYL

Joe Bonamassa Live At The Sydney Opera House CD - JRA61071 LP - JRA61075

Mike Zito And Friends A Tribute To Chuck Berry RUF1269

Stars One More Circle Round The Sun

Christone ‘Kingfish’ Ingram Kingfish ALCD 4990

Lloyd Spiegel Cut And Run LS0891

The BB King Blues Band The Soul Of The King RUF 1268

Joe Bonamassa Redemption CD-JRA61069 LP-JRA61070

CD + VINYL

Ronnie Earl And The Broadcasters Beyond The Blue Door CD - SPCD1407 LP - SPLP1407

www.onlybluesmusic.com

BASEMENTDISCS[ Still here!

NEW IN SEPTEMBER

NOTE: DUE TO CORONAVIRUS, MANY TITLES DUE EARLIER, DELAYED OR RESCHEDULED. KEEP CHECKING WEBSITE FOR UPDATES & NEW LANDINGS. • CHICK COREA 'Plays' • FLEETWOOD MAC '1969-74' (8CD's) • KING CRIMSON 'The Elements: 2020 Tour Box 4CD' • THE PINEAPPLE THIEF 'Versions of the Truth' • ROLLING STONES 'Goats Head Soup' (Super Dlx w.3CD,BR 120 page book, prints etc 2CD Dlxe Edition also) • TRICKY 'Fall to Pieces' • MARTIN BARRE 'A Summer Band' • MARY CUGHLAN 'Life Stories' • RONNIE EARL & BROADCASTERS 'Rise Up' • SUZANNE VEGA 'An Evening of New York Songs & Stories' • YUSUF/CAT STEVENS 'Tea For Tillerman 2' (re-recorded) • FRED EAGLESMITH 'Alive' • IMELDA MAY 'Slip of The Tongue' • JIM CAMPILONGO & LUCA BENEDETTI 'Two Guitars' • JOAN OSBORNE 'Trouble and Strife' • RICHARD & LINDA THOMPSON 'Hard Luck Stories: 1972-82' (8CDs feat all 6 studio albums remast from orig. tapes w. demos outtakes & rarities along w. Live concerts from 75 & 77) • NICK MASON's SAUCERFUL OF SECRETS 'Live at the Roundhouse’ (2CD/Br) • PRINCE 'Sign O' The Times' (Super Dlx 8 discs including DVD) • ROGER & BRIAN ENO 'Luminous' • SUFJAN STEVENS 'The Ascension' • ROLLING STONES 'Steel Wheels LIVE from Atlantic City’ (CD,BR etc) • THE WAR & TREATY 'Hearts Town'

only thanks to you guys! Not sure YES, we ARE STILL HERE! But that ispers onal shopping by the time you're whether we'll actually be open for to sup port us & your favourite artists by reading this....but PLEASE continue phone or email - to ensure we are still placing online orders with us, or viamal'. We pack & post DAILY with new here when the world returns to 'nor . We miss you all & just hope you are stock arriving pretty much every day you are being comforted, inspired & staying safe, well, sane & making sure of artists create & that makes all kindsau uplifted by the incredible music thatrabl om. cs.c tdis men ase w.b ww challenges just that much more bea e!

BASEMENT DISCS HIGHLY RECOMMEND RONNIE EARL & THE BROADCASTERS ‘Rise Up’

For his 40-year career as a blues musician, RONNIE EARL has transfixed audiences with his distinct brand of emotion-laden blues. The majority of the album, recorded in The Living Room Sessions in Ronnie’s home, are filled with songs that remind us of the comfort brought by family and community. Ronnie has always believed in the power of music to heal the mind and spirit, and the 15 tracks on this new disc demonstrate that implicitly. ‘Rise Up’ confirms Earl’s status as one of the most soulful blues/soul/jazz guitarists working today.

JOAN OSBORNE ‘Trouble and Strife’

JOAN OSBORNE will release her first album of all-new material in six years this September. ‘Trouble and Strife’ is the incredible soul singer’s 10th studio LP and comments on various social issues of life in 2020. In a statement, Osborne says the album is “a recognition of the important role music has to play in this moment. Music has a unique ability to re-energize people and allow us to continue to hang on to that sense of joy of being alive.”

THE WAR & TREATY ‘Heart’s Town’

Husband-and-wife duo the WAR AND TREATY (Michael Trotter Jr. and Tanya Blount-Trotter) release their sophomore album a 12-track project featuring special guests JASON ISBELL, JERRY DOUGLAS and CHRIS ELDRIDGE. The album, per a press release, features a “narrative of loving without limit,” and includes songs such as Beautiful – which recalls the last days of Blount –Trotter's mother and is described as “darkly charged but undeniably hopeful” – and Take Me In which is “an impassioned plea for unity in times of division." Incredibly honest and uplifting music for these strange times & well beyond.

RICHARD & LINDA THOMPSON ‘'Hard Luck Stories: 1972-1982'

Expansive 8CD Set featuring all 6 studio albums remastered from original tapes, with 30 previously unreleased recordings including demos, outtakes & rarities along with Live concerts from 1975 & 1977. This first ever comprehensive career retrospective was personally curated by Richard and Linda and compiled and mastered by ANDREW BATT.

NEW RELEASES OCTOBER

• ALOE BLACC 'All Love Everything' • JOACHIM COODER 'Over That Road I'm Bound: The Songs of Uncle Dave Macon' (Ry guests) • RODRIGO Y GABRIEL 'Mettavolution Live' • ROGER WATERS 'Us + Them' (CD,DVD,BR, LP) • EAGLES 'Live From the Forum MMXVIII’ (2CD, BR,LP) • KATIE MELUA 'Album No. 8' • STEEP CANYON RANGERS 'Arm In Arm' • JOE BONAMASSA 'Royal Tea' (Made in England) • LAURA VEIRS 'My Echo'

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STILL OPEN

ALOE BLACC 'All Love Everything'

CHECK OUR WEBSITE FOR EXPANDED NEW RELEASES LISTS!

His first album since the fabulous 2013 release 'Lift Your Spirit' this highly anticipated follow up exhibits the radical empathy and emotional directness of his songwriting which remains as affecting as ever. Drawing on an eclectic mix of soul, folk, and contemporary pop, ‘All Love Everything’ proves that there’s no pigeonholing the human experience.

OPEN 7 DAYS

24 Block Place Melbourne 3000 MAIL ORDER WELCOME PHONE 9654 1110 EMAIL info@basementdiscs.com.au WEB www.basementdiscs.com.au

a new day now A NEW TAKE ON AN OLD RECORD

NEW GUITAR SOLOS • NEW VOCALS • NEW DISCOVERIES REMASTERED • REMIXED • RE-RECORDED

REMIXED & PR ODUCED BY: KE VIN SHIRLE Y

Twenty years ago, Joe Bonamassa took the music world by storm when he released the debut solo album A New Day Yesterday. A New Day Now is a chance for the icon to revisit his past and revitalize the indelible anthology with his years of experience and artistry.

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NOW!

AVAILABLE ON CD & DOUBLE LP - 24 PAGE COLLECTIBLE BOOKLET

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(07) 55 450 857

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