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AUSTRALIA’S NATIONAL ROOTS MAGAZINE

ESTABLISHED 1992

DED 19

Taj Mahal Keb’ Mo’ Allison Russell Laura Veirs Crow Dave Warner

$20.00 inc GST SPRING 2026 ISSUE: 336

PLUS: Americana Roundup Melbourne JazzFest Preview

HISTORY

The Sunnyboys Fender Telecaster’s 75th Birthday!

Volume No. 336 l Spring 2026

CONTENTS UPFRONT 06 The Rhythms List. Listen our latest our

38 SOUNDS OF THE CITY:

07 The Word. By Brian Wise. 09 Subscribe to Rhythms and get our fabulous

44 HAPPY ANNIVERSARY: FENDER

Spotify playlist.

new CD Sampler.

Don Walker

10 Music News: Vale Glen Hansard, Glenn A.Baker

14 Melbourne International Jazz Festival Preview

16 THE DON

Don Walker turns his attention to matters of the heart with his new album Love Songs. By Martin Jones.

20 TIME WAITS FOR NO ONE Laura Veirs

Taj Mahal releases a new album with the Phantom Blues Band and covers all his musical bases. By Brian Wise.

24 STILL JUST A SUBURBAN BOY

Dave Warner’s From The Suburbs are about to tour celebrating 50 years. Catch them while you still can. By Bernard Zuel.

26 TEMPLE OF SONG

Laura Veirs celebrates creative freedom and independence with a new home studio and a new record. By Martin Jones.

Taj Mahal

28 BREAKDOWN

Keb’ Mo’ has been through two of the most stressful things you can experience – but they inspired his latest album. By Brian Wise.

30 SOMETHING TO CROW ABOUT

Tragedy struck Sydney band Crow as its first album in 15 years was about to be released. By Jo Roberts.

32 ALLISON’S WONDERLAND Sunnyboys

Allison Russell takes us on a tour of New York as her latest album In The Hour of Chaos is released. By Brett Leigh Dicks.

THE SUNNYBOYS

Ian McFarlane forensically investigates the new Sunnyboys 5-disc box set.

CELEBRATES 75 YEARS OF THE TELECASTER

Barry Divola travelled to Nashville to join the Telecaster’s birthday party. By Brian Wise.

COLUMNS 50 Nashville Skyline: Anne McCue finds diversity in Music City.

52 The Round Up: Nick Corr sums up the latest in Americana.

54 33 1/3: Martin Jones on The Man by Bill Drummond.

56 Lost In The Shuffle: Keith Glass uncovers Judy Henske.

58 Classic Album: Billy Pinnell revisits Dave Mason’s Alone Together.

59 You Won’t Hear This On Radio: By Trevor J. Leeden

REVIEWS 60 FEATURE ALBUM REVIEWS:

Rolling Stones, Perry Keyes, Gina Williams, Aaron Lee Tasjan , Graham Lee, Kilbey Kennedy, Lecia Louise, Ken Pomeroy.

72 Jazz: By Des Cowley. 74 Blues: By Al Hensley 75 Vinyl: By Steve Bell 76 Books: Des Cowley reviews After the Flood: Inside Bob Dylan’s Memory Palace by Robert Polito.

78 Books Too: Stuart Coupe checks out How

To Prepare For The Past: Travels in Music And Time. By Brian Cullman.

81 Festival Guide: Get out your dancing gear. 82 Hello & Goodbye: Arrivals, departures and more news.

THE RHYTHMS

TOP 40 S P R I N G P L A Y L I ST

CREDITS Managing Editor: Brian Wise Senior Contributor: Martin Jones Senior Contributors: Michael Goldberg / Stuart Coupe Design & Layout: Sally Syle - Sally’s Studio Website/Music News: Nick Corr Proofreading: Gerald McNamara / Des Cowley

CONTRIBUTORS Sue Barrett Steve Bell Nick Corr Des Cowley Brett Leigh Dicks Barry Divola Samuel J. Fell Keith Glass Al Hensley

Jeff Jenkins Chris Lambie Trevor J. Leeden Anne McCue (Nashville) Ian McFarlane (Sounds of The City) Billy Pinnell Jo Roberts Bernard Zuel

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

SOCIALS Facebook: facebook.com/rhythms.magazine Twitter: twitter.com/rhythmsmag Instagram: instagram.com/rhythmsmagazine

PUBLISHER RHYTHMS MAGAZINE PTY LTD PO BOX 5060 HUGHESDALE VIC 3166

1. Love Songs – Don Walker 2. Foreign Tongues – The Rolling Stones 3. Take Me To The River – Emma Donovan 4. Hippies, Thugs and Heroes – Richard Thompson 5. They Call Us The Lucky Ones - Ryan Bingham & The Texas Gentlemen 6. Buddy Miller – Buddy Miller 7. Ozonia – The Bures Band 8. Old No1 Revisited – Various Artists 9. The Allison Bend – Perry Keyes 10. Where Do You Come From? – Vika & Linda 11. In The Hour Of Chaos – Allison Russell 12. Sweet Thief – Luluc 13. Days of Unrest – Margo Price 14. Reel 2 Reel 4 Real – Ray Wylie Hubbard 15. Far Out Country I & II – Futurebirds 16. Blues Now – Charlie Musselwhite & GA-20 17. Time – Taj Mahal & The Phantom Blues Band 18. Shake Some Action (50th Anniversary Edition) – Flamin’ Groovies 19. Point Roadknight – Leah Senior 20. I Think I’m Alone Now – Evil Graham Lee 21. Great Television – Elizabeth Cook 22. Blood Sucking Maniacs – Blood Sucking Maniacs 23. Cruel Joke – Ken Pomeroy 24. Then Again – Rodney Crowell 25. The Breakdown – Keb’ Mo’ 26. Junkyard of Lost Hearts – Fountain Lakes 27. Atlantic Rain: The Lost Fisherman’s Blues Recordings – The Waterboys 28. Somebody Tried To Sell Me A Bridge – Van Morrison 29. I Only Wrote This Song For You: A Tribute To Johnny Thunders – Various 30. As Time Explodes (Live) – Neil Young & The Chrome Hearts 31. Future Soul – The Tedeschi Trucks Band 32. Sorrow Hides The Longing To Be Free: The Songs of Bert Jansch – Shane O’Mara & Jac Tonks

33. Souvenir – Ruby Jones 34. Colonial Drift – William Crighton 35. Sad & Beautiful World – Mavis Staples 36. World Gone Wrong – Lucinda Williams 37. The Color Of Rain – Aja Monet 38. Creature of Habit – Courtney Barnett 39. Lovetown (Reissue) – Stephen Cummings 40. The Wild Heart – Dylan Mattingly, Contemporaneous, David Bloom Check out Spotify for the Rhythms Spring Playlist 2026.

Lucinda Williams reminding you to subscribe!

By Brian Wise

SPRING FEVER!

elcome to our first Spring edition of Rhythms. Turns out that going quarterly was a timely move. Usually in September I would be in Nashville for the AmericanaFest (which includes a conference). It is always a chance to make connections, to see some musicians I might otherwise never catch and to promote the magazine and record my radio show there. This year an annoying health consideration prevents me from attending, though I am not complaining. The upside is that I will get to spend more time on the magazine! This issue features the great Don Walker as our cover story written by Martin Jones. Walker, who has the right to be considered a national treasure for his songwriting, has just released his latest solo album, Love Songs, another addition to the legend. Speaking of legends, last year I spoke to Taj Mahal along with Keb’ Mo’ about their second album together Back On The Porch, so it was a delight to talk to both of them again, but this time separately, about their own latest albums. One of the pioneers of what became known as ‘world music’, Taj remains as feisty and interesting as ever at 86 and Keb’ has survived serious surgery as he reaches a mere 75. Martin Jones also spoke to Laura Veirs, one of the most intriguing contemporary songwriters, who has some firm views on various issues and insists that she will be creative for the rest of her life. Ian McFarlane offers his usual forensic exposure of an historic group and this time it is The Sunnyboys and their new box set. Also from Sydney, Crow have released their first new album for 15 years but were struck by tragedy prior to the release. Jo Roberts uncovers the story. Des Cowley previews the Melbourne International Jazz Festival which goes from strength to strength and is now one of this country’s great festivals. There is much to savour in the reviews section, and I share my thoughts on the new Rolling Stones album, Foreign Tongues, which gives them yet another No.1 album after 64 years! Our columnists reveal some fascinating old and new releases while Des

Cowley and Stuart Coupe share their usual perceptive views on new music book releases. I hope you enjoy the reading. We also have a new Rhythms CD Sampler in the works which will be mailed out to every new and renewing subscriber, with some tracks that are only available on the album. So, don’t miss out on that. As we come to the final four months of the year the flood of new releases continues and you might believe, given the sheer number of albums, that the music industry was in a robust position. This is hardly the case. It has been a struggle to keep Rhythms alive in recent years and if you have subscribed for a while you already know about this. But it must be much more difficult being a musician trying to make a living. I was recently talking to someone connected with a well-known Australian act whose latest release made it all the way to No. 2 on the ARIA Top 50 Album chart. I was shocked to discover that the album to date had only sold about 3000 copies. [A gold record is required to sell 35,000 copies, which seems counterintuitive given the decline in album sales]. The act in question was able to go out on a substantial national tour which would have turned out to be much more lucrative than the album release. This is reminiscent of the ‘50s and ‘60s, during which musicians were sent out on the road for months at a time because they barely earned anything from their recordings and touring is what made them money. [Business practices were a lot dodgier then]. It is a little bit more difficult here for musicians than in the USA or Europe, where you probably could play a different town every night of the year. But there are plenty of gigs and residencies to go to and now that the weather is warming up there is no excuse not to get out and support some of your local musicians. I’ll try and do the best that I can in the next few months too.

CHECK OUT THE WEBSITE

HOW CAN YOU HELP

In addition to reading about the music in this issue you can also check out our music news and features online and listen to the regular Rhythms Magazine podcasts including On The Record, in which Michael Mackenzie and I talk about what’s new in music, books, film, TV and whatever else takes our fancy. (Available via Apple, Spotify and Amazon Music).

Rhythms relies on your subscriptions for its continued existence. So, the best thing that you can do is to subscribe or resubscribe. The next best thing is to convince someone else to subscribe or gift them a subscription. Finally, you can make a tax-deductible donation via the Australian Cultural Fund (australianculturalfund.com.au), which has our latest campaign. Your support will help to keep the magazine alive.

Until next issue…Enjoy the music.

Brian Wise

Editor 7

SPRING IS ABSOLUTELY

SPRUNG! THE RHYTHMS JUKEBOX Welcome to the fantastic Rhythms selection of some of the best songs from music featured in our new Spring edition, curated into a handy Spotify list to give you hours of great listening. Simply scan the QR code below to access the playlist on your phone or device of your choice. This year Rhythms is celebrating its 34th anniversary maintaining its reputation as one of the longest running Australian music magazines in history! The lifeblood of the magazine is comprised of loyal subscribers, some of whom have been with it from the beginning. Then there are the loyal advertisers who have helped to keep the magazine going for all these years. So, if you would like to keep the magazine alive then all you do is simply subscribe and become part of the Rhythms family.

Listen to all the artists we write about in Rhythms and many more!

Jukebox at Church Studio, Tulsa, Oklahoma.

MORE THAN 50 OF RHYTHMS’ FAVOURITE SELECTIONS TO PUT A SPRING IN YOUR STEP:

So, do yourself a favour! *(You can simply download the Spotify app to your phone, device or browser) 8

Includes songs from: Don Walker, Neil Young & The Chrome Hearts, Laura Veirs, Allison Russell, Taj Mahal, The Rolling Stones, The Sunnyboys, Glen Hansard, Dave Swarner From The Suburbs, Keb Mo’, Crow, Charlie Musselwhite & GA-20, Buddy Miller, Richard Thompson, Dave Mason, Perry Keyes, Gina Williams, Aaron Lee Tasjan, Evil Graham Lee, Kilbey Kennedy, Lecia Louise, Ken Pomeroy, Ryan Bingham & The Texas Gentlemen, Emma Donovan, Margo Price, The Bures Band, Ray Wylie Hubbard and more. and more.

ESTABLISHED 1992

AUSTRALIA’S NATIONAL ROOTS MAGAZINE

DED 19

Taj Mahal Keb Mo’ Allison Russell Laura Veirs Crow Dave Warner PLUS: Americana Roundup Melbourne JazzFest Preview

$20.00 inc GST SPRING 2026 ISSUE: 336

HISTORY

The Sunnyboys Fender Telecaster’s 75th Birthday!

SPRING 2026 CELEBRATE 34 YEARS OF

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Available at: rhythms.com.au Across the Universe (Lennon/McCartney) Adrian Whitehead Spirit In The Sky (N.Greenbaum) Billy Miller Grandma's Hands (B.Withers) Rebecca Bamard Lovin' Cup (Jagger/Richards) Nick Barker Rose Tattoo (C.Wilson) Liz Stringer Faded Valentine (J.T. Earle) Rebecca Barnard Beware OF Darkness (G.Harrison) Shane O'Mara Isn't It A Pity (G.Harrison) Billy Miller / Ohio (N.Young) Andrew Tanner Coming Down Again (Jagger/Richards) Nick Barker Blood In My Eyes (B.Dylan) Liz Stringer Do Right To Me Baby (Do Unto Others) (B.Dylan) Andrew Tanner That's The Way (R.Plant/J.P.Page) Jaqueline Tonks I'm In The Mood (J.L.Hooker) Rebecca Bamard Who Listens To The Radio (S.Cummings/A.Pendlebury) Rebecca Barnard PRODUCED BY SHANE O'MARA With backing musicians and vocalists including: Shane O'Mara, Billy Miller, Rebecca Barnard, Harry O'Mara, Rick Plant, Howard Cairns, Ash Davies, Adrian Whitehead, Stu Thomas, Leroy Cope and Ben Wiesner.

STON ED Celeb ratin STON g th E e D m - Cele usic of the brati ng th Rollin em g S u to s ic nes of the Rollin g Sto nes

Available now at rhythms.com.au Available now at rhythms.com.au Under My Thumb - Tracy McNeil, Hip Hip Shake - Chris Wilson, HideHide YourYour Love - Under My Thumb - Tracy McNeil, Shake - Chris Wilson, Love Nick Barker, Gimme Shelter - Lisa Miller, You Got The Silver - Raised By Eagles, Nick Barker, Gimme Shelter - Lisa Miller, You Got The Silver - Raised By Eagles, I Got The Blues - Linda Bull, Factory Girl - Sal Kimber, Miss You - Simon Bailey, I Got The Blues - Linda Bull, Factory Girl - Sal Kimber, Miss You - Simon Bailey, Salt Of The Earth - Dan Lethbridge, Silver Train - Nick Barker, Little Red Rooster Salt Of The Earth - Dan Lethbridge, Silver Train - Nick Barker, Little Red Rooster Loretta Miller, Star Star - Justin Garner. Bonus Track: Midnight Rambler by Nick Barker, Loretta Miller, Star Star - Justin Garner. Bonus Track: Midnight Rambler by Nick Barker, recorded live at the Caravan Music Club. recorded live at the Caravan Music Club.

Featuring unique interpretations of of Stones classics by by some Featuring unique interpretations Stones classics some of of Melbourne’s greatest musicians. Melbourne’s greatest musicians. Produced by Shane O’Mara and and recorded at Yikesville. Produced by Shane O’Mara recorded at Yikesville. ey (5.36) - drums, - Simon Bail rs / Sean Albers ne guita 6) 8. MISS YOU - voca ls, (5.3 s, / Sha on - harp - drum Wils isrs ony Bailey Baile ord Albe ls n/Chr Simo-nSim / Sea t Cum ne merf ing rsvoca / Sha / Gran guita 8. MISS YOU voca on, harp ls,back on -on percussi perc y -ussi Wils is box, ford ne O’Mara ls /Chr Simon Baile araing mxr blue Girlst Cummer e by Sha CREDITS O’M back - vocay on Som on e/ Gran wink from on, ussi d at Yikesvill ge (6.07) inall perc a nod ara& a y thankpercussi bassblue brid . 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GLEN HANSARD 1970-2026

By Martin Jones

len Hansard’s latest two-part album is a testament to his presence as a live performer. It made every fan eager to see him perform in person again. Unfortunately, most of us never got that chance. Hansard died in a motorcycle accident in his hometown Dublin on July 29 and left the music world reeling in disbelief. Because Hansard’s life force was so massive, no one imagined it ever dying.

Hansard formed The Frames in 1990 and soon after appeared in the hit movie The Commitments. Though Hansard’s powerful performances in The Frames impressed all who witnessed them, it wasn’t until his appearance in the film Once that his career really took off. The low-budget John Carney musical love story was the talking point of Sundance in 2007 and earned an Oscar for Best Original Song. “It’s been the biggest chapter of my life as a creative being,” Hansard told me at the time. “Has it changed me? Ehhh, good question. I’d say of course. I’d say of course it has. I’m not entirely sure how. I would say if anything, it’s kind of given me some validation. And I think when a person gets some validation in their lives it gives them confidence. And confidence is a very, very, very valuable thing – except when it turns into pig-headed arrogance. Then you’re in trouble. But I would say it was vital because, do you know what, for twenty years prior to this there’s been that constant struggling to get noticed, struggling to get your band a gig… and constant knockback and constant and just sort of becoming okay in the face of defeat. Just sort of going, ‘okay, well fuck it…’ And always picking yourself back up and always trying again. And so, to finally have something that goes, ‘You know what? You’re right. And you know what? The world’s fucking listening. Well done!’ And you find yourself going, ‘Shit man, I was right! I was actually fucken right! I was right to have faith in meself. I was right to have faith in the songs.’” After Once, Hansard formed The Swell Season with his co-star Marketa Irglova, but primarily focused on a solo career. Though his recorded output spans well over twenty albums, it was for his vital live performances that Hansard was renowned. He was playing live music only hours before his death.

lucky, have some blood left in it. But most records don’t. Most records are bloodless.” For his final recording, Hansard found a way around that. Celebrating his 55th birthday, he set up a recording in Funkhaus Berlin playing live in front of an audience over two nights. The results (Don’t Settle – Transmissions East and West) make for a jaw-dropping representation of Hansard’s strength as a live musician. The dynamics and passion are captured, but also, the technical quality of the performance and the recordings are flabbergasting. At times it is difficult to believe this is a live, unedited recording. Hansard was never interested in giving anything less than his all.

“I mean really what is an album?” Hansard said to me. “An album is really like a faded postcard of what a band really is. Like The Dirty Three, you could never put The Dirty Three on record. The Dirty Three is The Dirty Three; it’s just three of them on stage doing what they do. And I suppose we like to think of ourselves as a band who plays music, we play music in front of other people and people are the other ingredient. And the ingredient that’s missing in a studio.

“Sometimes I go and see someone I really love… like when I go see Van [Morrison], he still has it, he still gets there but you just have to fucken sit through so much until he does. And then someone like Dylan who I just adore, it’s like I know that he cares about it somewhere in there but as an audience member I’m kind of having to sit through a lot here. And then you go and see Cohen and he’s just pure beauty. He’s so happy to be there, he’s really enjoying, he’s singing with his full heart and I’m just like, you know what, that’s the full shit. Sign me up for that. And like Springsteen, sign me up for that. Because when Bruce goes on stage, he fucken gives it one hundred and ten percent and they’re the people I’m interested in.”

“On stage it’s theatre,” he added. “You don’t get to redo your lines on stage. And, basically, being in a studio is like making a movie. In a movie you’ve got a clapper board, you’ve got lights, you’ve got cameras and if you fuck up you can go back and do it again. You know there’s something inherently Frankenstein and false about a record. A record, most of the time records are just a lie. They’re constructed; a make-up wearing construction. If you’re lucky, if you’re lucky, you’ll make a record really fast. You’ll knock it out and it might, if you’re

Springsteen is one of many, many artists who have paid their respects to Hansard since his passing, everyone remarking on his generosity and humility. Fans have gathered in the streets in Dublin to busk in tribute to Hansard and his Christmas Eve charity busk which raised money for the Dublin Simon Community providing services for the homeless. Everyone who met him has a story about his genuine humanity, and a photo of Glen flashing a huge grin with his arm around them. Few people embraced the world as wholeheartedly.

VALE GLENN A. BAKER 28 JULY 1952-31 JULY 2026 BY IAN MCFARLANE

Wilbur Wilde and Glenn A. Baker (Photo courtesy of Wilbur Wilde)

n 31 July the music world went into mourning with the death of Glenn A. Baker, much-loved rock music historian, author, broadcaster, travel writer, band manager, quiz master, friend to the stars and all-round champion of Australian music. His family announced his passing on Facebook, stating, “It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Glenn A. Baker AM. Glenn passed away this morning, 31 July 2026, three days after his 74th birthday. Glenn’s contribution to the Australian rock ’n’ roll music landscape was immense, but his family remembers him as a loving father of six and grandfather of thirteen. Glenn’s passion for music, travel, food and his family (still not entirely sure of the order) was, like his personality, larger than life. While the family wishes for privacy, if you do wish to honour Glenn or continue his legacy in some way, have a passionate conversation today with somebody about your favourite Australian muso or band. Rock on Glenn! You will be missed”.

He was indeed a mighty personality. Along with his energetic public persona and infectious enthusiasm, the man in the hat was renowned for his encyclopaedic knowledge of rock and pop music. He had an incredible facility for storing and retrieving numerous facts about any subject in the music domain. He was named the winner of the BBC’s “Rock Brain of the Universe” three times during the mid-1980s. Yet when he was speaking or writing about music, he didn’t just recite the dry facts. As an affable raconteur he imbued his commentary with a vast grasp of the deeper layers of meaning. Furthermore, he was able to engage the reader or listener with thrilling anecdotes. His career highlights are abundant and legendary. Among them he was the Australian editor of Billboard magazine for more than 20 years. In 1975 he helped to formulate and then managed the successful rock’n’roll revival band Ol’ 55. He was one of the people who worked on the research project that resulted in the establishment of 2JJ, later renamed Triple J.

He was co-founder and co-director of the distinguished reissues label Raven Records. Many fellow collectors of Australian records will remember the galvanising effect that the 1980 compilation album Ugly Things had on their grasp and appreciation of our 1960s garage rock legacy via bands such as The Creatures, The Missing Links, The Black Diamonds, The Elois etc. It really was our version of Lenny Kaye’s Nuggets. Other notable collections on Raven included three more volumes of Ugly Things, The Twilights’ The Way They Played, The Master’s Apprentices’ Hands of Time and four volumes of Sixties Downunder. His vast and knowledgeable liner notes drew you in further as you listened to the music. It was also stellar releases for other labels such as The Easybeats’ Absolute Anthology (EMI), two volumes of So You Want to Be a Rock and Roll Star (Festival) and The Monkees’ Monkeemania (Arista) that also held my attention. When you saw the words “Conceived, compiled and annotated by Glenn A. Baker” you were assured of an all-round quality production. They were very inspirational for my approach to music writing. Once I got to know him, Glenn A often encouraged me in my own endeavours. I later had the good fortune of working for him and his co-directors, Kevin Mueller and Peter Shillito, as part of Raven. I was the label’s project manager, licensing co-ordinator, co-compiler and fellow liner notes writer for 15 years. He could be a hard task master at times, but it was his quest for thoroughness and things such as selecting the right tracks for the project at hand that spurred one onwards. Including various Raven releases, he contributed to a staggering tally of over 600 compilation albums. He wrote 17 books, not only music related but also compendiums of his travel writings. To name a few: The New Music (1980) and The New Rock ‘n’ Roll (1983) co-authored with Stuart Coupe; The Beatles Down Under: The 1964 Australia & New Zealand Tour (1983) with Roger Dilernia; Monkeemania: The True Story of The Monkees (1986) with Tom Czarnota and Peter Hogan; Australian Made – Gonna Have a Good Time Tonight with photographs by Bob King; Perpetual Motion: Travels with Glenn A. Baker (1993); Faces, Places and Barely Human Races (1995); and On the Road to Damascus and Other Fabulous Thoroughfares (2001). He never did get around to completing his autobiography. He developed a close association with many of the musicians he wrote about. He’d often regale me with his adventures with Andy Summers from The Police or Bun E. Carlos from Cheap Trick. He was also the first writer/commentator to be allowed into the hallowed halls of Alberts Productions whereby he had a direct link to the masters of production and songwriting craft, Harry Vanda and George Young. He was the man who suggested that INXS and Jimmy Barnes record a version of The Easybeats’ ‘Good Times’ which, when released as a single in the lead-up to the massive, country-wide Australian Made tour, crashed in at #1 first week on the national chart during January 1987. On another occasion, also in 1987, when The Party Boys were struggling for material to record, the band’s bassist Paul Christie asked Glenn A for a suggestion of what to record. The rock brain casually put forward the boot stomping, 1971 John Kongas’ hit ‘He’s Gonna Step on You Again’ as a prime candidate. Duly recorded and released as a single, it too went to #1 on the national chart that June. He was a constant presence on television. He was a regular guest on the SBS TV music show The Noise, presented by Annette Shun Wah (1986-1992). During the 1990s into the early 2000s, he appeared as the music expert and guest commentator on Channel 10’s Good Morning Australia hosted by Bert Newton. He was always effusive and rarely disappointed the listeners who were eager for his words

of wisdom. When local and international music figures sadly died, he was – ironically – the person called upon to present the obituaries. I recall that he’d say the likes of, “People come to hear Glenn A. Baker talk as succour for the loss of their favourite rock star”. In 2010, Nafisa Naomi’s magnificent black and white portrait of the man won the Packing Room prize for the Archibald Prize. He served a long-term role on the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) board’s advisory committee, going on to induct the likes of The Master’s Apprentices, Billy Thorpe and Max Merritt into the ARIA Hall of Fame. In recent years he suffered a heart attack and then a stroke which initially curtailed his activities somewhat but he was not prepared to let such medical episodes slow him down completely. Eventually, in August 2024, he decided to auction off his Glenn A. Baker Archives, an extensive collection of records, CD, books, magazines and rare rock’n’roll memorabilia, numbering more than 80,000 items. He had approximately 20,000 LPs alone in the collection, with the whole Archive housed in a purpose-built barn with industrial strength compactus fitted. When auctioned off through Lloyd’s Auctions it sold for $314,000. The winning bidder, Paul Lambess (of the Winarch Group), was determined to keep the collection intact for eventual public display. Musician Wilbur Wilde posted his heartfelt tribute saying, “I’m heartbroken to hear of the passing of my dear friend Glenn A. Baker. To the world, Glenn was Australia’s greatest rock historian, author, broadcaster and storyteller. He devoted more than 50 years to documenting, preserving and celebrating the music we all love. Whether it was through his books, radio and television appearances, Raven Records, or his work with the ARIA Hall of Fame, Glenn made sure Australian music history would never be forgotten. To me, he was so much more. Glenn had great belief in the Ol’ 55 project. He transformed Fanis into Ol’ 55, became our manager, recruited both Frankie J. Holden and me into the band. He provided the template, and we did the rest. And he even co-wrote songs including the Christmas favourite ‘(I Want A) Rockin’ Christmas’. Without Glenn’s vision, passion and belief, my life could have taken a very different path... I could have joined Little River Band... (that’s a joke between GAB and I).” Glenn A. Baker was a towering presence on the Australian music scene, and we are all the poorer with his passing. Our sincere condolences go out to his family. 13

MUSIC NEWS

Rhythms Magazine previews the Melbourne International Jazz Festival 2026 October 16-25

BY DES COWLEY

By Des Cowley

By the time you read this, the full program for the Melbourne International Jazz Festival (MIJF) will be out and available online. But ahead of that, let’s take a moment to look at the MIJF’s early release announcements. Because already, even at this early stage, there plenty worth getting excited about. Think of this, then, as a preview of the preview.

plain and not-so-simple.” Some might recall Loueke’s scene-stealing performance with Herbie Hancock at MIJF in 2024. It’s a given that Aziza’s concert at Hamer Hall on 25 October will deliver outstanding musicianship and collective, synergetic interplay.

he first MIJF announcement landed on 19 May, listing five big international acts: Tigran Hamasyan, Dee Dee Bridgewater, The Bad Plus, aja monet, and the Kris Davis Trio.

musician of the moment, recent winner of Artist of the Year, Guitarist of the Year, and Group of the Year in Downbeat’s Critic’s Poll. Jazz Times simply used the tag-line “No one is making music like this”. What stands out is her omnivorous appetite, her complete mastery of a dizzying array of styles, whether experimental, flamenco, classical, noise-shredding, or soulfully acoustic. The chance to catch her at her peak is not to be missed.

A couple of weeks later, a second-round release dropped, flaunting some equally big names: Aziza, Tomeka Reid Quartet, Rebirth Brass Band, and The Teskey Brothers.

Tomeka Reid (Photo: Cristina Marx)

Aziza: Dave Holland, Chris Potter, Lionel Loueke, Eric Harland Okay, let’s start with Aziza. Who first coined the term ‘supergroup’? Was it Rolling Stone’s Jann Wenner, talking up Cream? While I’m generally loath to employ it, sometimes the shoe just fits. And one such is Aziza, comprising legendary bassist Dave Holland, saxophonist Chris Potter, guitarist Lionel Loueke, and drummer Eric Harland. All bandleaders in their own right, if we drew up a list of who they’ve played with it would fill pages (Miles Davis, Chick Corea, Sam Rivers, Herbie Hancock, John Scofield, for starters, and that’s just Holland). Aziza’s self-titled album was released in 2016 (it must be a scheduling nightmare corralling these four guys into a studio), prompting All About Jazz to categorize them as “an artistically headstrong and muscular powerhouse,

I was thrilled to see that Tomeka Reid is programmed for this year’s MIJF. Her quartet will be playing four shows across two nights at the JazzLab on 24th and 25th October. The Chicago-based cellist and composer, recipient of a prestigious McArthur Fellowship in 2022, is one of the most exciting names in contemporary jazz. To date, she’s released four records with her quartet, and played on nearly a hundred others, including Anthony Braxton, Roscoe Mitchell, Makaya McCraven, Art Ensemble of Chicago, and Joe McPhee. That’s some pedigree. While the cello is relatively uncommon in jazz, its history dates back to 1917, with WC Handy’s ‘Snakey Blues’. To my mind, its foremost exponent in recent decades was Abdul Wadud, whose contributions to Julius Hemphill’s classic Dogon A.D. (1972) re-wrote the rule-book. Reid both builds on Wadud’s approach, and extends it, managing to come across as sonically adventurous and danceably rhythmic. Wanting evidence? Check out her latest Dance! Skip! Hop! An unexpected bonus is the presence of Mary Halvorson, a current member of Reid’s touring quartet. She is arguably the

Dee Dee Bridgewater Dee Dee Bridgewater – a three-time Grammy Award winner – will be a familiar to many. Her five-decade career has seen her play with legends like Max Roach, Sonny Rollins, and Dexter Gordon, and her run of nineties’ Verve albums have stood the test of time (my pick being her loving, uber-cool tribute to Blue Note pianist Horace Silver Love and Peace). Her 2007 acclaimed album Red Earth (2007) explored her African roots, blending jazz with Malian griot traditions. For her MIJF concert at Hamer Hall on 24 October she’ll be supported by pianist and composer Helen Sung, most likely reprising music from recent album Elemental (recorded with pianist Bill Charlap), which dips into the great American songbook.

with a swag of adventurous improvisors – John Zorn, Mary Halvorson, Ingrid Laubrock – and has some 25 albums under her belt. She’ll be playing with her trio of bassist Robert Hurst and drummer Johnathan Blake, hopefully revisiting tracks off her most recent trio record Run the Gauntlet, an album dedicated to her mentors: Gerri Allen, Carla Bley, Marilyn Crispell, and others. It’s a dense, intricate, wide-ranging album, given a major thumbs up by All About Jazz: “Davis is at her peak here: a mad, Grammy-winning scientist unafraid to break all expectations”. Rebirth Brass Band Anyone who has experienced the Rebirth Brass Band at the Maple Leaf Bar in New Orleans knows the score: a raucous and high-energy workout of second-line, funk, soul, hip hop. I remember first catching them at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival in the nineties: the crowd was roiling, everyone was up, joyously dancing. Formed in the suburb of Tremé in 1983 (and heavily featured on the series of that name), it’s mind-boggling they’re still going strong four-decades on, with last record garnering a Grammy for Best Regional Roots album in 2020. Armed with anthems like ‘Feel Like Funkin’ It Up’ and ‘Move Your Body’, there’s bound to be pumping brass, funky percussive rhythms, call-andresponse horns, wild commotion when they bring their brand of second-line funk to 170 Russell Street on Sunday 18 October. The Bad Plus will be playing at the Recital Centre on 21 October as part of their Farewell Tour. Sad as it is to see them calling it a day after a quarter-century, it presents a final chance to catch this influential band, whose 2003 album These Are the Vistas featured piano trio breakdowns of Blondie’s ‘Heart of Glass’ and Nirvana’s ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ which shook the then jazz world up. Following co-founder Ethan Iverson’s departure in 2017, the band re-invented itself, eventually ditching the piano chair altogether. Current line-up features guitarist Ben Monder and saxophonist Chris Speed, who bring a whole new sensibility to this music – melodically complex, knotty, layered, and textured – that’s no less exhilarating than its predecessors. Armenian pianist Tigran Hamasyan last played in Melbourne 2017, performing solo at JazzLab. This time round, for his Recital Centre concert on 23 October, he’ll be bringing along a second pianist, bassist and drummer. While his 2024 album The Bird of a Thousand Voices confused some pundits – with its overt nod to prog rock

– he’s consolidated those innovations on latest Manifeste (2026), which is flush with shimmering lines, urgent beats, layered synths, meshed with Armenian folk melodies. It’s adventurous, bold music, ecstatic and transcendent, and bound to be reimagined for his MIJF appearance. aja monet is a new name to me. She’s a young, Brooklyn-raised, LA-based poet, writer, activist, whose work extends the tradition of jazz-infused, rap poetry, as featured on her sophomore album the color of rain (2026). Building on the legacy of artists like Gil Scott- Heron, her work is strident, political, crafted from soul, blues, jazz and hip hop, riffing hypnotically over rhythmic beats, funky turns. Already, she’s played sold out shows at Carnegie Hall in New York and the Barbican in London. For her MIJF performance she’ll be fronting a piano trio in the dimly-lit, cavernous Max Watts, opposite Flinders Street station. It’s surely an opportunity to catch an artist on the up and up.

Kris Davis trio, with Robert Hurst and Johnathan Blake MIJF 2026 sees a return performance by Vancouver born, but New York-based pianist Kris Davis, who last played here in 2018. She’s programmed for four shows at JazzLab on 19th and 20th October. In the interim, her star has truly risen, having been voted Pianist of the Year multiple times in Downbeat Critic’s Poll. She’s collaborated

Teskey Brothers (Photo: Ian Laidlaw) Finally, the ever-popular annual Jazz at the Bowl returns, a regular fixture at MIJF since 2022 (previously known as Big Saturday), when Fat Freddy’s Drop unleashed twohours of extended, funk-driven workouts. Does it count as jazz? Not on your life, instead the all-day extravaganza is largely devoted to funk, soul and blues (with a whiff of jazz – after all, Bill Frisell did slip into the bill last year). Previous acts have included Chaka Khan, Nile Rogers, Marcus Miller, Herbie Hancock (in Rockit mode). This year, the Sidney Myer Music Bowl headliners are six-time Aria winners The Teskey Brothers, local boys made good, whose brand of R&B has won them a loyal following both here and overseas. They’ll be marking the tenth anniversary (well, close enough) of debut album Half Mile Harvest, playing it in full at the Bowl on Saturday 17th October, with support slots from the great trombonist Fred Wesley (James Brown, George Clinton, Ray Charles), and 2024 ARIA winner and 2025 NIMA Artist of the Year Emily Wurramara. As a first cut, that’s a pretty solid line-up for the 2026 MIJF. The full program, destined to add a further few hundred musicians to this roster, will land on 20 August. Head to: melbournejazz.com to check out the full program, and look out for Rhythms updates online.

“I feel okay up there now. It’s very enjoyable. It’s mainly because of the people round me up there. I mean this is a band I’d go and see.” – Don Walker

Don Walker. Photo by Sophie Howarth.

Don Walker turns his attention to love. By Martin Jones “Oh good!” Don Walker remarks when I mention my Facebook has been eerily riddled with Don Walker ads this morning. “It also means if you’re on Facebook on a Friday morning, that’s alarm bells!” Admonishment accepted, let’s move on to talking about the new Walker record, Love Songs. Personally, I would have called the album Loved Songs, because all my favourite Don Walker love songs seem to have one thing in common: the absence of the loved one. I think of ‘Sing to Me’ or the immortal line in ‘Flame Trees’; “Just makes it harder to believe she won’t be around.” On this particular album ‘Breakfast in Paris’, “Girl That I Used to Know’, ‘Could You Still Be Here’, ‘Luck’, and ‘Fly Away’ all support that theory. “Oh!” Walker laughs. “Okay! Yeah, somebody else made that point a few years ago. That might be valid. I don’t tend to go back and tote up the score. But you may be right. “Well, I guess, when the loved one is around, ideally, you’re too busy to be writing songs.” Over nine songs, Walker and the current incarnation of the Suave Fucks wend their way through his own take on what a love song is. Which is, unsurprisingly, not conventional. The album opens with a character in trouble, in the doghouse, and penniless. But over a defiant Latin groove, she decides to have a party anyway. The album closes with the fourteenminute epic about the character who has fled to Darwin with a new name and new story. Walker’s writing draws you into the sordid lives of these characters ‘til you can’t look away. I assume once, in Cold Chisel, there must have been people eagerly waiting on Walker’s next batch of compositions. Yet Walker has continued to write under his own steam, Love Songs marking his fifth solo album. “Well, I’ve always just written,” he responds. “No, I think you’ve got a bit of a golden picture of what it’s like. I haven’t had a lot of people standing ‘round saying, ‘Don please write me a song.’ Most people wanna write their own songs. And they

want to sing a song that’s in their voice about their concerns. And I understand that. And I’m just one of them. “With Cold Chisel we were in a band where the idea of writing songs was not immediately obvious. And I wouldn’t say I was the only one interested… I mean very early Cold Chisel the other guys were interested in writing, and Swanee was writing with those guys. So, there were songs there, but it wasn’t the main thing. The main thing was the power, the impact… all that sort of stuff.” Since Walker’s 2023 album, Lightning in a Clear Blue Sky, the band lost their guitarist Roy Payne. Walker was quoted as saying that, after the death of previous guitarist Glen Hannah, the Suave Fucks were rebuilt around Payne’s guitar playing. “Well, the spanner in the works of our little band was the least of it,” Walker responds when I remark that must have made this album difficult to make. “It threw a spanner in the works of his huge life and the effect he had on other people. And the things that would have been ahead of him. He made an incredible record [2019’s 12 Songs] which was engineered by Glen Hannah… that was a great record. There are great songs on it. He wasn’t just a great guitar player he was a great songwriter and singer.” Two of Love Songs’ tracks, ‘Luck’ and ‘Fly Away’, captured Roy’s playing before he passed away in 2022. “Yeah, they were left over from [Lightning in a Clear Blue Sky],” Walker says of those songs. “They didn’t seem to fit with everything else that was on that record. So, they were left over songs and then once we got going again without Roy, with Shannon Bourne recording new songs, I thought, ‘Well I’ve got those songs in the pocket that can go towards this album if they fit.’” The two songs, paired together on the album, represent the album’s more traditionally country cusp. Payne’s Luther Perkins approach stars on ‘Luck’. [Perkins was an original member of Johnny Cash’s Tennessee Two and played on some of Cash’s best known early hits]. “Yes, the Luther Perkins approach did come up when Roy and I were discussing, you know, how can we do this with one guitar? After Glen left. And he suggested, ‘Well I’ve been trying this Luther Perkins thing…’ because the songs are very simple, they’ve got good bones, they work and all we need is that simple thing behind it. The Luther Perkins thing does come out in ‘Luck’.” >>>

>>> Shannon Bourne has since taken the role as guitarist in the Suave Fucks alongside steel player Garrett Costigan who delivers some of his most inspired playing yet on Love Songs. “Yes, well he’s on a level in the stratosphere and always has been since he was young,” Walker says of Costigan. “There’s a couple of songs on this album that give him the space to really show what he has always been, I don’t think for the first time. He’s completely in a category of his own as a musician.” Costigan particularly shines on the sad songs, his notes weeping through ‘Fly Away’ and ‘It Will Always be You’. Alongside Suave Fucks members Hamish Stuart and Michael Vidale, the band is joined by backup singers The Harmonettes - Amanda Roff, Erica Dunn and Brigitte Hart. While this makes for a rich instrumental palette, one of the album’s most disarming moments is ‘Could You Still Be Here’, recorded by Walker alone in his basement straight to DAT. “Well, I think it’s a good version just as it is,” Walker justifies his decision to include the song in its rawest form. “I think if we did it live, I’d probably draw the band into it. But there is this version which, back when I was in this house and I had the setup in the basement, I recorded quite a lot of stuff to DAT. Some of which has come out here and there on albums. And this was just another one of those. I didn’t realise, until the album was all done, all mixed all mastered in America, all ready to go and we were just doing the album artwork… so I 18

go to get the lyrics out of my old files, and the version that I sung I missed out a verse. Which I put into the credits. So, if anybody out there wants to do this song, there’s a full set of lyrics.” Anyone who has enjoyed a Don Walker concert over the last six years will have likely encountered the epic ‘Darwin’… “I’ve got my Darwin story straight.” A live version was released on Live at Camelot Lounge 2018, but this is the first time the song has made it onto a studio album. “We were doing that live when Glen was in the band so there’s a live version of that out,” Walker confirms. “And I did record it with Glen actually. It was Glen I did the demo for which had some amazing guitar on it. But after he went, we couldn’t resurrect those files. So, this is the first time it’s been recorded in the studio. “Back in 2018 we were playing it at festivals live and people were into it. First time we played it was I think at Port Fairy, and I thought, you know, ‘by halfway through this they’re going to be throwing spears at us.’ But they went with it. And every time we’ve played it people went with it.” A bit of research reveals that Walker has been performing outside of Cold Chisel for nearly forty years now, first as Catfish, then Tex, Don and Charlie, and under his own name since 1995’s We’re All Gunna Die.

“Well, I always wanted to do, and I always enjoyed it,” Walker responds when asked how he’s come to terms with being a frontman over the years. “I just didn’t have the confidence to look comfortable up there. But I feel okay up there now. It’s very enjoyable. It’s mainly because of the people round me up there. I mean this is a band I’d go and see.”

DON WALKER SOLO We’re All Gunna Die 1995 Cutting Back 2006

In that time, Walker would have experienced the highest of highs performing with a great band with a crowd that’s behind you all the way.

Hully Gully 2013

“Yes, playing your own music to people who, you know, wanna hear it,” he confirms. “And I have been up there playing music both my own and with various other bands to people who don’t want you to be there! But that can be enjoyable too”

Love Songs 2026

Speaking of which, Walker is now turning his attention to the October album tour.

Lightning In A Clear Blue Sky 2023

LIVE Live in Queenscliff 2011 Live at the Caravan 2013 Songs: Live at Camelot Lounge 2018

“Yeah, in the past couple of weeks I’ve been trying to compile a setlist and there’s a lot of these songs that are suitable for live playing. So, I’ve had to turf some old ones out.”

BOX SET

Walker also reveals that his brother Richard will be joining the Suave Fucks on piano on stage with Jimmy Dowling as support.

OTHER PROJECTS

Love Songs is available through MGM. Don Walker and the Suave Fucks tour nationally through October.

Black Top (6LP) 2018

Catfish Tex, Don & Charlie

TIME WAITS FOR NO ONE Taj Mahal’s latest album with the Phantom Blues Band takes its title from a previously unreleased Bill Withers song. By Brian Wise

aj Mahal turned 84 on May 17 this year but the veteran musician has no plans to retire. Instead, he has just released an album with the Phantom Blues Band and he is doing 18 gigs with Keb’ Mo’ in September and a couple more in October. Last year they released their second album together, Room On The Porch, which is when I spoke to both of them together. Ironically, they have also just released their new solo albums within weeks of each other, and I get to chat to them separately within a few days of each other this time. While much of Taj Mahal’s music over the years has been based in the blues, his career has encompassed so much more and spanned numerous genres from country blues to rhythm & blues, from Caribbean to African, from Hawaiian to Indian, from folk to rock. There have never been any boundaries to his musical vision. I have often thought of him as one of the founders of the ‘world music movement’. If we were brave enough to try and pin down some founders of that genre then Taj and his old friend Ry Cooder, with whom he recorded in the ‘60s with The Rising Sons and reunited with a few years ago, would have to be two names high on the list. Last year Taj received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Grammys, and such is the esteem in which Taj is held that the musicians’ benefit fund Sweet Relief put on a tribute show at The Masonic in San Francisco this past February. The line-up featured Van Morrison, Joan Baez, Steven Van Zandt, Mike Campbell, George Thorogood, Patty Griffin, Jim Lauderdale, Hozier, Ruby Amanfu and Joe Henry (who was also the musical director of a house band that included guitarist Greg Leisz, bassist David Piltch, drummer Jay Bellerose and guitarist Jason Crosby). It’s now 58 years since Taj appeared on the Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus spectacular and both have just released albums! No more credentials for Taj really need to be added, do they?

“I think that it’s unfortunate that Western man thinks that time is linear. It’s not. It’s cyclical.”

When I catch up with Taj Mahal via Zoom he is in Berkeley, California, he is wearing a red T-shirt with the word ‘Africa’ emblazoned on it in large letters, a blue bandana around his neck and a red fez-style cloth cap. I imagine that the look would fit in perfectly in the Berkeley milieu. His beard and hair might be white these days, but he is as feisty and interesting as you might expect him to be. “Oh, well, it was really great,” says Taj when I ask him about the tribute show. “It was an outpouring of really good people who really were inspired by the music that I presented over the years and came there to pay tribute to the music and to me. So, I had a wonderful time, and it was a great array of different players, some of whom I didn’t really know had that much energy about it and it was wonderful.

Taj Mahal and The Phantom Blues Band

“Van and I go way back. I first heard him on the radio and knew that he was somebody I really would want to meet because of his energy, and he was with that group Them. They had that song ‘Gloria’ out. I heard it on the radio. So, whoever these boys are, they know music and they know what they’re doing. I met his music back then when he came out getting toward the end of the ‘60s. I was always amazed that he knew that song ‘TB Sheets’, which was a John Lee Hooker song. But then I got to really understand Northern Soul and the big blues explosion in the UK.”

“One of the people that stuck way out was Ruby Amanfu,” adds Taj about the tribute, “and she picked a couple of really good tunes. She picked ‘Blackjack Davey’ and she picked one other song. I could hear by the way she rendered the song that she had listened to it really clear. She really fastened herself around what the song was. Many other people played, they brought their own versions of the tunes and all of this as well. But it was really nice to hear somebody who took the original tune and put themselves into it and brought something new.” >>>

After congratulating Taj on his recent birthday, I mention that I saw the soon-to-be-85-year-old Bob Dylan in April, which made me think about the impetus for musicians who have nothing left to prove to keep touring. “For me, it’s not what else could I do?” says Taj. “It’s that music is a commercial venture here in the United States. That’s how it’s been presented to people through the lens of how much money you can make on this artist and how many times can you multiply it and sell all these different widgets and whatever. That’s not really what music is to me. Music has not a history but an artistry, which goes way back. “Our genius as Homo sapiens on the planet from the continent of Africa goes back seven million years. In recent times, particularly a lot of the music that has developed in recent times has come from that which came over with Africans who were from the Songhai Empire, from the Congolese drumming, from the Nigerian drumming, from the Yoruba, that signal from your DNA. It’s all a part of it. “When I was in Africa, I’ll never forget I had an exchange with a young man who was friendly and came up and said, ‘Well, what do you do?’ I said, ‘Well, I’m a musician.’ He said, ‘Yes, but what do you do?’ ‘I thought to myself, ‘What is he actually asking me?’ After about the third time when he said that, I said, ‘Well, I’m a farmer.’ ‘Oh, okay.’ He was fine with that, but his quip was that everybody played music.

“I knew that there was something that was in the music that was there that was still connected to the music that comes through in Elizabeth Cotton, Reverend Gary Davis, Blind Blake, Blind Boy Fuller, John Jackson, Reverend Robert Wilkins and really also very differently, but also fingerpicker Mississippi John Hurt. I can play almost any Mississippi John Hurt song next to a kora player. He hears the melody you play one time and the next time he’s improvising over what it is that we do.” Taj explored the direct connection between African music and Delta Blues on Kulanjan, the soon-to-be re-released album that he recorded in 1999 with Malian musician Toumani Diabate. “Yes, it is fantastic,” explains Taj. “For me, I jumped over 500 years and was able to connect with the unbroken tradition of the Mali griots.” Where did that interest in his African heritage first come from? What was he listening to when he was young? Was it the influence of his parents? “The influence of my parents really was about us as Africans in the diaspora,” he replies. “I’m saying that it all goes back to the movement of Africans off the continent into the so-called New World in South America, Central America, the Caribbean, and the southern

part of the United States. So, to me, it’s like these are relatives. As a young child, listening to music that came from other parts of the world, I could always tell when it led back to Africa because there was a certain feel, a certain tone. It hit me in a certain part of my spirit, my soul, my musical inclination and that’s all I’m doing.

piano for the Afro-Cuban ‘You Put The Whammy On Me’) and keyboard player Mick Weaver. There’s also a small horn section with saxophonist Joe Sublett and Les Lovitt on trumpet. The album is a superlative summary of the many musical detours that Taj has taken over his career.

“I mean, Salsa, Son, Candombe, Bomba, Plena, Samba, Cumbia, Bachata, Calypso, Reggae -- all of them are fully based in African sensibility and music, really. So, I was taught that this was great stuff. It wasn’t something that you heard every day. The contemporary people didn’t talk that way, but eventually people finally relaxed their walls and realised that with the African contribution we created something different.”

Apart from the beautiful rendition of Withers’ ballad ‘Time’ there are plenty of highlights delivered by a crack band and guests. There’s a fantastic version of Bob Marley’s ‘Talking Blues’ with Ziggy Marley as guest.

Taj’s ‘new’ album with the Phantom Blues Band is titled Time, which is probably an appropriate title given the veteran musician’s storied career. The title song was a demo that Bill Withers had recorded, and Taj was able to get permission from Withers’ family not only to record it but to add to it. “It’s about how to deal with it,” responds Taj when I ask him if he is even more aware of the passage of time nowadays. “I think that it’s unfortunate that Western man thinks that time is linear. It’s not. It’s cyclical. Women always know that. Talk to them. They’ll tell you something different and then give you a different perspective on it. “We got the nod from Bill Withers himself and then after it was recorded and it was presented to his wife, she gave the nod saying, ‘That’s wonderful. Sounds great.’ She loved what she was hearing, and we were excited by that. But what I felt was really incredible was that Bill had a tremendous amount of songs that were unreleased and every one of them was different.” “He always said that when he first came to California and he was listening around, he ran into what I was doing and he thought I was somebody he really liked to get to know,” recalls Taj, who became friends with Withers, “because I had my own ideas about what I was doing with music and wasn’t afraid to put them out there. I wasn’t copying everybody else.” Of course, Bill Withers retired from the music industry in 1985 at the age of 47, disillusioned by the fact that his record company was trying to interfere with his music to make it more commercial. “They were trying to tell him what to do,” explains Taj. “I mean, here the man is successful on his own and you got people telling him, ‘You need to add some background singers. You need an outstanding rock guitarist to be playing with you. You need some synthesizers and some horns and for God’s sakes, speed up your tempos.’ I mean, the music comes to the man, he puts it out there as it comes to him and somebody’s going to tell you to change it up. No!” “They’ve been successful at controlling what the music is for generations,” he adds. “I was not to be controlled by that bunch of people and if it meant that people would know me or not know me, I was still going to do what I’m doing.” You can’t imagine anyone trying to tell Taj Mahal what to do but the ‘new’ album has been a long time coming due to factors beyond Taj’s control. Begun back in 2012, it has been through a long gestation beset by a few problems: the search for a distribution deal, the COVID pandemic, trying to get permission for some projected songs and trying to cut the track listing down. The line-up of the Phantom Blues Band on Time includes guitarist Johnny Lee Schell, drummer Tony Braunagel, bassist Larry Fulcher, pianist Jon Cleary (also a long-time member and outstanding on

“He certainly influenced me,” admits Taj of Bob Marley, “because I championed him with his ability. He was somebody I was looking for. I just knew there had to be some young man down there in the Caribbean who was listening with some big ears and had ideas that have a global reach and here he came. On my 1975 album, Mo’ Roots, I included one of his tunes, which was ‘Slave Driver’, but I wasn’t the first black man in the US that got involved with him. Johnny Nash did quite a bit and helped him out. I think Johnny Nash also was the first person that published his songs. So, it was real good.” On the rollicking version of the Charles Sheffield song, ‘It’s Your Voodoo Working’, originally released on the Excello label in 1961, Taj drifts into a growl that reminds me of Captain Beefheart. But the inspiration is entirely different. “Well, that sound is really deep within the Delta,” explains Taj. “It goes back to Charlie Patton and then the Howlin’ Wolf. Also, if you go to the townships in South Africa, there’s a guy named Mahlathini, of Mahlathini and the Mahotella Queens. That’s the raw end of it. It’s a masking voice. Often times there’s a person in the village who, when they have a ceremony, has a ceremonial call that he puts on. You can’t see him, but he uses that voice. It’s been around a long time. You know Captain Beefheart. I know Charlie Patton and Howlin’ Wolf. That’s where that voice comes from.” “I knew Beefheart quite well,” he continues. “He was a good friend of Ry Cooder’s and was around during those days when we were in The Rising Sons. He used to always ask people, ‘How does Taj get that sound in his voice?’” Taj then launches into the line ‘I’m a little pimp with my hair gassed back’ from ‘Willie The Pimp’, a song that Beefheart sang on Frank Zappa’s 1969 album Hot Rats. Apart from the Otis Redding/Isaac Hayes composition ‘Sweet Lorene’, which Otis recorded back in 1966, ‘Rowdy Blues’ by Kid Bailey and ‘Wild About My Lovin’’ go back even further to 1929 and 1926 respectively. How much digging did Taj do to select the songs? “I love Rowdy Blues. Kid Bailey and Willie Brown, that bunch right around in there had some just great ways of playing. All that, that style of blues is just phenomenal for me.” Taj says that the first time he heard ‘Wild About My Lovin’ was back in the ‘60s at Club 47 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, when the Jim Kweskin Band was playing and Jeff Muldaur sang it. “Immediately, I just liked the way it swung, the lyrics, the story, the swing, the tone. Then the next time, and I had never heard that version of it, was with The Lovin’ Spoonful with John Sebastian. They kind of did a rollicking jug band version of it. Then when I got a hold to it, finally. It marinated with me. I thought it was just such a great tune. Then, rather than to copy what’s there, I created another vehicle musically to place those lyrics in. I went toward the Caribbean and gave it that kind of Caribbean touch to it.” Time is out now and distributed through Thirty Tigers.

>>> 23

, NAGS

S G A D N A B

D N A S BAG

R U B SU

Dave Warner’s From The Suburbs is touring to celebrate their 50th anniversary and, according to the man himself, “these gigs ‘may be your last ever chance to sample the most original Australian band you will ever see.” By Bernard Zuel

he man who has both an honours degree majoring in psychology and a proto-punk band in Perth called Pus on his resume, one David Robert – but we shall call him Dave – Warner, has behind him a large French poster for one of the Indiana Jones movies, alongside some books, records and other paraphernalia of your artsy type who has written a score of books and some films alongside quite a few albums.

emails from people which were either ‘oh good on ya Davey, shove up those ..’ or ‘you’re a complete arsehole’, total trolls,” Warner recalls. “One of the guys who did the worst things, had his name there and he was something like a security adviser, completely blowing his whole career.”

On the Zoom link he looks like the even cheerier alternate of HG Nelson and like your sporty type can probably talk football – of your AFL type, thank you, not so much the rugger buggers, given he’s a sandgroper with connections to the Sydney Swans – and other sports with some of the vividness and perspicacity of Nelson.

“It’s one of those things where I did realise, whether you liked hm or not, the pressure those people are under and the stuff they must get from people.”

And he is in rude health it appears. “Well looks can be deceiving as I’ve been quite crook the last couple of days, with some shocking gastro,” says Warner, who adds “Let’s not record that” with sweet naivety given he also calls me Bernie, which is fighting words around here. But then names can be problematic, and not just because it becomes clear that when he talks about his best-known music project – which will, with a tour in October mark 50 years since the single, Suburban Boy, left WA for national chart and Countdown domination – it is not merely with his name with attachment but must be said as one uninterrupted roll … Dave-Warner’s-From-The-Suburbs. The other tricky nomenclature bit is he does share a name with a sportsman who for our purposes today we can refer to as The Lesser Dave Warner, for whom a drink-driving charge recently has been added to the list of Test centuries, ODI records and certain impositions on a cricket ball by rough paper. Does our man still get mistaken for the LDW? “Funnily enough, I have had a few times – not so much now that he’s stoppedEdwards. playing – Photo but at by theSusan time ofCarmody the ball tampering scandal I got Kutcha

Names, eh? Problematic.

Luckily, for the star of today’s conversation, unlike the troll with poor internet security, a good portion of his first and second waves of a career preceded social media. But did it ever get that bad for DaveWarner’s-From-The-Suburbs, or Dave Warner crime fiction and nonfiction writer, or Dave Warner scriptwriter? Maybe from people who didn’t appreciate how he captured the suburbs and those of us who lived in them? “I remember getting really early on in the band’s days a letter saying that my music was like the third gear of a truck that was stuck and couldn’t get out of gear,” he laughs. Better yet, it was signed by the president of the WA Musicians Union. Truly. Though said president denied sending it when politely asked by the young Dave-Warner’s-From-The-Suburbs. But then he would say that, wouldn’t he? Back to the multifaceted Warner, who has been a novelist for 25 years, beginning with crime but moving into some surprising areas (quite surprising, as we’ll see soon) and has a non-band album brewing as we speak. As a man of words, in song, in print and on celluloid, where character veracity is all and language its definer, what has he noticed about the way we talk now compared with his early years spinning around the sun in Australia?

“Certain words – and you don’t tend to notice them until you go, oh

gee, I haven’t heard that word forever – have gone completely out of our lexicon. Cobber, those kinds of words that came back from the second world war, bonza, you don’t hear them. It’s not like in the ‘70s everyone was using them, but you were familiar with them,” says Warner. “I’m 72 now and I’m not across youth other than my own kids [who range from 19 to 30] and what they do, but one of the huge things that happen now is people talk in acronyms, and I have to think about it.” If technology has changed the way everybody in the world talks, there’s another element locally that keeps changing not only how we speak and think, but how he writes.

Well, except when it comes to a series he wrote earlier this century, when his daughters were young, for a tween audience. Not crime but “pony novels”, the Charlotte And The Starlet series Oh yes lovers of the likes of Saddle Club books, Dave-Warner’s-From-TheStable. It does suggest a possible way to divide some of his writing output, at least the tween ones and the crime ones, into the pony books and the nags books. He doesn’t laugh this away. In fact, a recent novel he published, Double Exxxpresso, was about a horse racing scam, and in between planning the reunion/anniversary shows he has been working on an idea bringing back the Charlotte/Starlet books, now for a late teen audience, as a murder-mystery. All worlds collide!

“The other thing that has happened in Australia is we’ve seen a huge rise in immigration particularly in [originally] non-English speaking people and the stuff that I write, the clever plays on words, might be completely lost on a huge proportion of the Australian population. Not because they’re dumb or illiterate but because it hasn’t been their world,” he says.

“In the ‘70s I would play in the band and then I would go down to the racetrack of a weekend and have a look at the horses,” says Warner, comfortable with the “look at the horses” euphemism for a punt or four. “Rock was one subculture and horse racing was another subculture and there were a lot of desert boots and white belts in the horseracing subculture, and probably even more shifty people than there are in rock’n’roll.”

“The result of that is the lyric component of music in Australia gets less and less because people are producing music that wants to be known world-wide. As a result, you’re going to get things that conform more and more to the central and the standard.”

More? Hmm, not so sure about that, especially if you’re aware of a certain Melbourne music and sport figure who has recently been found guilty of a heinous crime yet somehow still kept his name out of the media. How very un-rock’n’roll.

Warner is a little sad about this, though he loves the way local rap has “filled the void” for language and local colour. Nonetheless, thanks to the fact “my ear still is pretty strong” for cadence and natural talk, his novels have less of a problem he reckons, helped by the genre and generally older characters.

Dave Warner’s From The Suburbs will be touring in October. For details check out: davewarner.com.au

But maybe that could be the subject of a future crime novel, or even a song from Dave-Warner’s-From-The-Suburbs. You wouldn’t put it past Dave Warner: the man’s got form after all.

PERENNIAL

Laura Veirs celebrates creative freedom with a new home studio and a new record. By Martin Jone

to talk and we do need to get up and we do need to act and we can’t remain silent and we can’t remain scared and it is hard and it is frustrating that your daughter still has to face these same challenges. However, I would like to say that I don’t believe that feminism is dead and everything is lost. I feel like women’s rights have made changes around the world like look at all the European countries that have prime ministers who are women. We don’t have that in the US yet, but it does happen. It can’t all be lost.” I point out that there’s one particular female that I most definitely do not want as Prime Minister in Australia right now. But let’s remain positive. In college, Veirs wrote a letter to Bikini Kill. Tobi Vail wrote back and inspired her to get out there and start a band. Veirs must look back on that girl who wrote that letter and marvel at all she’s done. Even beyond her vast musical career, Veirs has established herself as a successful artist, published author and professional mentor.

“It is a tough industry but it’s always been a tough industry.” Laura Viers.

aura Veirs’ new album, her 14 by my estimation, is rich with themes of progression and affirmation. With one glaring exception. The opening song, ‘Arc Still Bends’, has her lying awake questioning the arc of justice, wondering ‘Why am I still holding this fucking sign?’ th

Originally inspired by musicians like Bikini

Kill, Veirs has spent over twenty-five years as a musician, artist, writer and mentor. She’s clearly frustrated that young female artists are still fighting many of the same roadblocks she did when starting out. “Why am I still holding this sign?” Veirs responds from her newly completed home studio in Portland. “Yes, we do need

“No but I think it would be good for me to do that sometimes,” Veirs laughs. “I tend to be head down and keep going like a little turtle… but it’s nice to be reminded that. I have stayed so steady with my output and my creative sun keeps shining and new rays come off of it. And now with this one it’s the recording ray. And what’s the next ray? …. you have this creativity that comes from somewhere, I don’t know where, and it’s just always flowing and I love that I have it. And I keep using it and it’s like a self-regenerating source of energy that I feel grateful for and it keeps me powered through every day with new ideas and new projects. It gives a lot of meaning and structure to my life. And a lot of curiosity and a lot of mystery. So, I’m grateful for that.” Personal upheavals in recent years have both threatened and fuelled that creativity. Veirs has talked openly about her divorce from her husband and producer of twenty years, Tucker Martine. In the past five years, Veirs has remarried, formed a new “bonded family” of teenagers, moved into a new house and built her own studio where she has had to learn how to make her own

recordings. At one point, Veirs wasn’t even sure whether she would be able to make another album. “I didn’t feel inspired to write music for four years and I thought, ‘Well maybe I’m just done with that’. And I wasn’t going to force myself to write ‘cause I had done that in the past. So, it was like, ‘No forcing. Just let things unfold.’ Even though it’s uncomfortable to not know if you’re going to write more songs or not, I’m not going to push it. And I was working on visual art; painting, calligraphy, collage, teaching. I was writing a book on my creativity because I’m curious about creativity and how to help other people be creative. And how to add to that literature because already so many books have been written about creativity. I don’t know how to find my way into that one yet. “But I was working on it and then when I was working on this studio that I’m now, this Temple of Bloom, I started getting some songs again. And I was very surprised because I didn’t think they were going to come to me. But they did start coming. So, I was like, ‘Well you better capture these. Why don’t you record yourself?’ And I had to set up the framework for that and I felt I didn’t really have the confidence. And then I remembered, ‘Well you do know how to record on Logic, you’ve done it before.’ And then, ‘You do have one good mic you should probably get another one.’ And then it kind of just went on from there and I made the new album in this space. “I’m glad that I persevered past this doubt because I didn’t think I knew how to do this. I don’t know how to do this. But I was like, ‘Well this is the time to figure it out.’ Because I worked in collaboration with other producers, my ex, for twenty years. So, I was like, ‘You obviously can collaborate, the problem is you give so much away you don’t trust yourself anymore. So, if you record yourself you’re going to learn to trust yourself and your instincts and your taste again after a long period of losing that.’ The results are a celebration of Veirs’ independence. Temple Songs was written, arranged, performed and recorded by Veirs at home using

whatever instruments were at hand. Besides a welcome cameo from her husband Morgan on saxophone, it’s all Laura Veirs. The honesty in the music has not been diluted by over-production; Veirs determined that the takes used would be “unedited and raw.” The approach is celebrated in the lyrics of the album song ‘No Masters’: No more masters I can decide What is best for Everything in my life “Well there’s a quote on my wall,” says Veirs of the inspiration for the song. “There’s this artist Mac DeMarco made his new album, and I think he’s recorded all his own albums, but this was written in the New Yorker and I cut it out so I’m going to read what it says: ‘DeMarco often uses the phrase No Masters to describe a particular sort of self-sufficiency in which he is not beholden to anything but his own taste and instinct. “I tried to have somebody else mix it” he said of his album Guitar. It sounded great but, in the end, he didn’t use the mix. “It’s not about something better or worse, it’s just about it being me.” And I was like, ‘Yeah that’s what I need as my guiding light for this.’ It’s so tempting to offload these decisions to others, but I want to try a version of an album where it’s really me making the decisions and that No Masters idea was the beacon of light in recording this album.” Though the album is sparse, it is not bare; Veirs enjoyed layering instruments over and around the songs’ structures and melodies. ‘No Masters’ explores some of the African rhythms that have influenced Veirs deeply over the years. Another song, ‘Sunlight and Doom’ seems to hark back to Veirs’ experiences with China. “My mom said that too! And I can hear that,” Veirs responds. “That one was inspired by this book, which my new husband Morgan gave me. It’s called, If Not Winter Fragments of Sappho by Anne Carson. It’s these fragments of poetry Anne Carson went through and the Greek is on one side and then the English is on the other. I think it was on parchment

paper or some old kind of paper that was mostly destroyed, because Sappho was an ancient Greek poet. And the scrolls there were almost no words visible.” Veirs shows me the poetic fragments that inspired the song; they conclude with the word “doom”. “So, I was like, ‘Oh, doom, I wanna put that in a song. I wonder what Sappho’s song would have been like if we replaced all these blanks. How would she have filled out the lyrics and the melody?’ And then I made a song from that imagining myself as an ancient Greek poet on the seashore in Greece singing the song!” Temple Songs will be released through Veirs’ own label Raven Marching Band Records, Veirs adding label-owner to her growing list of credits. Which gets us discussing the difficulties of promoting music in this rapidly changing world. Touring, which Veirs will be doing throughout September and October, hopefully making her way to Australia next year, is necessary to make a living. “And then also it’s hard to tour because gas prices, hotels and everything is expensive,” says Veirs. “But people find their way and I’m finding my way. It is a tough industry but it’s always been a tough industry. For me I just try to take the long view; get ownership of my rights, keep ownership, and just keep things moving forward in a way I like and hopefully other people will be compelled to like. And then keep trying new things and finding joy and, you know, keep making a go of it.” Veirs plans to remain creative for the rest of her life. “There’s another person I have on my wall that’s a painter. I don’t know her first name but her last name is [Isabella] Ducrot and she’s in Italy, she’s ninetysomething and having this major renaissance with her paintings. Her paintings are huge; they’re like the size of this wall behind me. And she’s having this renaissance in her nineties. I wanna be like that. I wanna be the crazy old lady with the most insane bright rainbow outfit walking down the street with cool sunglasses!” Temple Songs is available on Raven Marching Band Records. 27

Keb’ Mo’ remains remarkably positive after a period of personal upheaval and physical trauma. By Brian Wise “I think I like to live in a world that says, but it can always be better, and it can always be worse,” says Keb’ Mo’ when we meet over Zoom to talk about his new album The Breakdown. The album title is basically self-explanatory because it refers to the upheaval – both mental and physical – in his life over the past few years. “I guess I can’t hide, and people know what’s going on with me a little bit,” he admits. “But The Breakdown, it’s a positive breakdown. It’s not necessarily a negative. It describes a lot of things. It describes the tone of the record being just primarily vocal and guitar – breaking it down to two instruments. The breakdown of things in life and ill health and building back up.” Despite a marriage breakdown after 20 years and open-heart surgery - two of the three most stressful things that anyone can endure - Mo’ (born Kevin Moore) remains remarkably positive. “I never took life for granted,” he says when asked about what he has been through. “I never felt like I was sitting on top of the world, or I got it all together. I was always amazed every day at how great things were going. Even when I went to the hospital, I was amazed that I had a hospital to go to and some people that could take care of me and do the surgery and fix me up and put me back and let me get back out there one more time. It’s all a huge pile of gratitude, always.” Mo’ (born Kevin Moore) is now more than 50 years into a career marked by five GRAMMY wins, an Americana Music Association Lifetime Achievement Award and performances everywhere from Carnegie Hall to The White House, with songs recorded by everyone from B.B. King and Buddy Guy to Joe Cocker and Tom Jones. Because of what he has been through, The Breakdown is obviously his most personal album to date. That is evident in many of the song titles: ‘More Yesterdays’, ‘Living in The Moment’, ‘Stitched Up Heart’ and ‘Fussing and Fighting’, for a start. Mo’ has likened his experience to feeling as if death was tapping him on the shoulder. Did that change his life immediately?

“My heart was a hereditary condition,” he explains. “I had, since I was born, some kind of heart murmur which caused the aneurysm of my aorta and a leaky valve. So, it wasn’t a result of any kind of abuse or drinking or overeating or anything like that. It was just made like that. So, when death is tapping me on the shoulder, it’s more like my immortality. Death doesn’t scare me but it’s just that you know it’s coming. Your whole life you know it’s coming. So, I don’t like to act surprised like, ‘Oh my God, I might die someday’. No, nobody gets out of here alive. “Just my ability to cope with life became more important and my health itself became more important because without my health, I can’t enjoy my life like I’d like to.” How hard is it to write about those personal experiences? The album opens with ‘Fussing and Fighting’, which has a wider implication in the lyrics. “Well, writing them is very easy, but put them out to the public, that’s the scary part,” admits Mo’. “‘Fussing and Fighting’ is not really about any marriage or anything. It’s about more something I’ve seen in other people. I’m not much of a fusser and fighter. I live in a strange world of just always seeing everyone’s side of things and not taking sides and not being judgmental. So, I hear a lot of people’s opinions and most people’s opinions I hear I disagree with because if they’re taking sides or trying to describe themselves as being correct or trying to put someone down. I want to lift people up. I want to think of them in their best light, especially if they’re having a hard time right now.” I suggest that a lot of people are having a hard time right now, just about everywhere. “Yes,” he agrees, “but people are having good times too. Sometimes, I guess it just depends on what you compare it to as to what a hard time is. Hard times, there’s even harder times. I got no shoes, but it’s hard if you got no feet. It’s kind of like that. So, one’s harder than the other. I think I like to live in a world that says but it can always be better, and it can always be worse.”

“I never took life for granted. I never felt like I was sitting on top of the world, or I got it all together. I always amazed every day at how great things were going.” – Keb’ Mo’

The Breakdown was recorded at Mo’s home studio outside Nashville as he recovered from surgery. It’s a stripped-down recording featuring just his voice, guitar, and vocal contributions from the Soweto Gospel Choir and the gospel sextet Take 6. “It’s pretty elaborate. It’s not basic,” says Mo’, describing his studio. “It’s a proper home studio. It’s got all the things in there. I have piano, organ, all kind of keyboards, lots of guitars, two basses and banjos and steel drum in there, lots of amplifiers and two percussion instruments. Anything that

I think it gets a little more interesting. The truth gets a little more robust, so to speak.” Turning 75 this year, Mo’s latest album talks a lot about getting older. What is his perspective now as opposed to previously in his younger days? “It doesn’t change that much,” he laughs. “Yes, my lifestyle’s going to be changed. I’ll probably move, relocate. It’s changed a lot. But I think I maintained a good sense of myself. I’ve worked hard all the time too. It’s not like a dramatic thing where all of a sudden now I’m like, ‘Oh my God, I’m this old age now. I’m about to turn 75!’ No, it’s just I knew this was coming. Just didn’t know how or when. So, it seems kind of dramatic. It’s very truthful but it’s not as quite as dramatic as it sounds because every day for as long as I can remember, even as being a little child, I always felt like me. I always felt the presence of my soul and that I was who I was.” “I think generally overall in my whole career, that’s what I aim to do, to put hope first and optimism” replies Mo’ when I mention his constant air of positivity. “Even in the face of things that might be difficult to talk about there’s always optimism.” As a contrast, the song ‘Don’t Make Them Like They Used To’, recorded with Take 6, addresses the changing attitudes towards women over the past few decades while ‘Hand It Over’, recorded with the Soweto Gospel Choir explores a religious theme, (“Get on your knees and pray”) “That was on my second album, Just Like You,” says Mo’. “I recorded four years ago in South Africa. I hadn’t put my guitar on my vocal on it. I just had the parts, the choir parts. I sat and wrestled with that thing forever because it had to have some kind of a South African flair to it. I don’t think my South African guitar playing is all that great. So, I had to sit down and wrestle that thing until I found something that had the right space and the right feel to it that made it sound right. So, it was fun doing it though, because first I was strumming it. No, that doesn’t work. Then I tried another picking pattern that didn’t work. But I eventually found it. I need to make a sound with is in there just about.” “The solo acoustic album was something I had been chasing after for a long time but never really did it,” he adds. “So, this time I committed, and I knew I could do it. So, I did it and it was really hard because there’s so many different ways to accompany any kind of song. To get the one that is probably the one that I’m looking for that’s going to really push the song forward and give me what I needed was always a big job. It took at least as long as a record with a band took.

“The surgery was two years ago and some of the songs started coming during the recovery. They started coming right away. Also, I reached back and got some songs from way back in the days of yore. For instance, like ‘Living in the Moment’ and ‘More Yesterdays’ - very old songs. I even did a redo of ‘Hand It Over’ with the Soweto Gospel Choir, which had been done, recorded in the same period I was having my heart stuff. So, all these songs were like all my records, they’re all a reflection of the period, whatever period of life I’m in and they always do that. This one, as I get older,

“It comes from the place of, if you don’t know what to do, don’t do anything. That’s how I like to think of it as when you’re stuck and you got a problem, and you don’t know how to get out of it. It’s like you got to ask for help. Asking for help from the universe, help from the divine. I find that for me, if I ask for help, if I just be still and wait, that something comes to me, either a revelation or some kind of an answer comes or some kind of solution always shows up. So, it’s okay to not know and it’s okay to have problems because there’s always a solution.” Keb’ Mo’ - The Breakdown is out via Concord Records. 29

SOMETHING TO

CROW ABOUT

Following the passing of founding member, Peter Archer, acclaimed Sydney band Crow released their first album in over 15 years. By Jo Roberts

he Workers Club in inner-Melbourne suburb Fitzroy was abuzz. It was 2 April, Good Friday eve, and gig goers had just kicked off the long weekend with a stellar night of music in the band

room.

Headlining the show was Sydney band Crow. The four-piece – guitarists and singer-songwriters Peter Archer and Peter Fenton, bassist Jim Woff and drummer Andy Marks – were back on the road ahead of releasing their first album in 16 years, Hold Sway. The album’s first single, ‘You Can’t Turn Away’, was out, and already whetting appetites of longtime fans excited by the band’s return from its most recent hiatus. The gig was, in a word, triumphant. The band that first thrilled fans in the early 1990s with their brooding, at times menacing guitar rock and incendiary live shows was on this night an absolute joy. A highlight was when Archer’s adult son and daughter, Robin and Astrid, joined Crow onstage to sing with their dad on one of his new album tracks, ‘Run For Cover’. For a band that had forged a reputation in the 1990s for live shows that could be intense to the point of intimidating, there was a ridiculous amount of love in the room. Post-show, band members were on a high, drinking and chatting with friends, fans and family in the front bar. Two more Victorian shows were to follow, then they would head home to New South Wales. Peter Fenton remembers the night both fondly, and with painful hindsight. Before the show, Peter Archer said he had a sore back. He asked Fenton to rub some anti-inflammatory cream into it, between his shoulder blades.

Shortly after returning to NSW, Archer’s health deteriorated rapidly and he was hospitalised. He spent five weeks in intensive care, where he was diagnosed with stage four cancer. He passed away on 14 May. The death of the much-loved Archer - widely known for being as sweet as he was talented - shocked the Australian music community. TV show Rage paid tribute to him in an episode shortly after. APRA AMCOS Issued a statement praising him as “a truly distinctive creative voice in Australian music” for his work in Crow and his own project Odette, which he began after leaving Crow in 1996 and moving to Melbourne for several years. Two months since Archer’s passing, Fenton is still processing not just the loss of ‘Archie’ - the man he played music with since the late 1980s after meeting as teenage service station workers - but the cruel speed of his decline and untimely death. “We were under the impression that it was going to be a long, slow recovery,” he says. “There’s a photo of us after that show in the front bar of the Workers’ Club. Try looking at that photo and telling me ‘that guy’s dead in five weeks’. It’s just an impossibility.

“I said ‘sure, no problem’. Then I just kind of put my hands on his shoulders and he felt really taut, really contracted,” recalls Fenton.

“That’s the thing that stings – we were so happy. I realise that might shock a lot of people who still characterise us as some demented gothic band, but we were really happy, and everyone was playing really well.”

‘“So, I said to him ‘hey, are you alright? What’s going on?’ and he says ‘no, I’m OK, just got a bit of a sore back’.

Adding to the sting is that Archer’s passing came less than two years after the death - also from cancer - of former Crow drummer Richard

Most of Hold Sway was recorded over a week in 2024. Archer did most of his vocals during that session due to living a five-hour drive from Sydney. Over the following year, more parts were added, including trumpet, violin, Fenton’s vocals, keyboards from Chris Abrahams, and additional vocals recorded by Archer at his home. Since Archer’s passing, Fenton has been listening to his work on the album with a heightened focus. “I’ve spent some time now listening to and focusing on obviously not only his songs, but what he brings to my songs as well, like his guitar playing,” he says. “With the song Time, what he’s playing is extraordinary; like, I would never come up with ideas like that. His guitar contributions to those songs are outrageously great. “All of his guitar playing on my songs is so perfect, because it lacks any skerrick of cliche or something that could easily be signalled by the context of the song. This guy was working at some other level.” The release of the album has sparked fond memories for Fenton of when Archer was leaving the Sydney recording session to return home. “It just takes me back to this one little moment that I shared with Peter, just when we finished the main block of recording,” says Fenton. “He was packing things up and putting things back into his car … and I can’t recollect a time where he’d expressed such intense emotional satisfaction and happiness with what we’d been able to do.” Crow. By Billy J.Burke.

After learning that Archer’s cancer was stage four, the band tried to speed up production of the album’s artwork in an attempt to get a copy of Hold Sway to him. But he “slipped away too fast”, says Fenton.

Andrew, who also played with Underground Lovers and in Odette with Archer (Andrew also produced Odette’s album). “I had a great musical collaboration and partnership with Richard, but also a profound personal friendship,” says Fenton. In the 1990s, Crow were titans of Australian independent music, sharing stages with the likes of Nirvana, Nick Cave, the Breeders and Jeff Buckley. Juice magazine called them “the best band in Australia since the Birthday Party”, simultaneously elevating them and aligning them with the same dark palette. Their 1993 ARIA-nominated debut album My Kind of Pain was certainly an album of brooding, bristling splendour, but also featured the beautiful and lush Peter Archer song ‘Railhead’, which became one of the band’s most enduring hits. Over the decades, Crow’s timeline was punctuated by a couple of lengthy hiatuses. They released their second album, Li-Lo-ing, in 1995, and followed up with a third, Play With Love, in 1998, but disbanded the year after.

“When you ask me how am I, it sort of blooms into this sort of grotesque fashion inside me, that it’s really amazing to have the record out, but I’m sort of psychically scarred by the fact we couldn’t get the physical copy to him before he died,” he says. A second single from the album, ‘Skyline’ - written and sung by Archer - had already been scheduled to be released on 21 May. With his blessing, it was released as planned, a week after his passing. A video for ‘Skyline’ has also been released, which includes footage taken by Archer’s wife Jill of him singing the song against a rural backdrop (he lived on the far south coast of NSW), his soulful voice in full flight. The album’s release scheduled for 10 July also proceeded according to Archer’s wishes. Plans to launch the album, however, are unknown. The day after we speak, Fenton will be talking about it with Woff and Marks.

By 2007 they had begun playing occasional shows with original drummer John Fenton (Peter’s brother) and then recorded a fourth album, Arcane, which was released in 2010.

“There’s a feeling that we should honour his songs in some form,” he says. “We’ll definitely play at some point; we’re just meeting tomorrow for the first time to get a handle on what people are thinking.

For the next few years, Crow gigs again became rare occurrences, until another former drummer, Andy Marks - he had joined after John Fenton left - rejoined. It sparked a “rebirth”, says Fenton.

“We’re at the point at which we have to start picking up the pieces; I think we’ll play the songs. What happens after that is what they used to call the $64 million question.”

“The consequence of the fact that Andy rejoined the group, almost as an unsaid signal to us, the intention immediately was to start recording, and so that all came about really quickly,” he said.

Hold Sway is out now on Cheersquad Records & Tapes.

Allison Russell’s Natural Affinity for

New York City

Ryan Bingham teams up with The Texas Gentlemen for his first full-length album in 7 years, They Call Us The Lucky Ones. BY BRIAN WISE

Prior to the release of her new album, Allison Russell returned to New York for another season playing Persephone in Hadestown. By Brett Leigh Dicks. (All photos by Brett Leigh Dicks).

ot even the bitter chill of a New York City winter night could cool the enthusiasm of fans gathered at the stage door of the Walter Kerr Theater. The Saturday night performance of Anaïs Mitchell’s Grammy and Tony award-winning production, Hadestown, had just concluded with Allison Russell back on stage playing Persephone. The cast members slowly made their way out onto the blustery sidewalk where they were met with a rapturous reception. First to brave the cold was Jack Wolfe, who played the lovestruck Orpheus. Wolfe was followed by Morgan Dudley, who portrayed Eurydice. Then emerged Allison Russell.

I love this city so much,” Russell enthused. “There’s so much here to experience, especially everyday places like the New York Public Library.”

continued over page

in town and when not on stage has been completing the first draft of a memoir while recording a new album, In the Hour of Chaos. She has come to know the city intimately, and in New York City there’s certainly a lot to get to know. From iconic sites like the Statue of Liberty, Times Square, Central Park, Brooklyn Bridge, and Empire State Building to everyday pleasures like the Chelsea Market, Hudson River Greenway, and New York Public Library, there’s no denying the city’s diverse grandeur. “I love this city so much,” Russell enthused. “There’s so much here to experience, especially everyday places like the New York Public Library. They’re celebrating one hundred years of the Schomburg Center. Arturo Schomburg was famous for archiving the contributions of the black diaspora. There are all kinds of other incredible things in the archives too. Like the handwritten journals of James Baldwin, the famous writer and civil rights activist. The library is free to the public and it’s like a beautiful museum with incredible artwork. The Rose Room is a space for quiet study and I’ve been going there to work on my memoir. It’s an inspiring place to write.”

This is the Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter’s second stint playing Persephone in Hadestown. Returning to the production on Broadway is something she is relishing. “Coming back to Hadestown has been such good medicine,” Russell told Rhythms Magazine after the performance. “The community that has grown around the musical and the ways they have made it their own is so wonderful to see. I feel so lucky that I have been able to come back. This is the production’s seventh year on Broadway and that’s just unheard of these days. When I see the way Hadestown has resonated with people and how tender and kind and inclusive they are with each other, that gives me hope. At the stage door our audiences are so diverse and everybody feels welcomed. That’s the model for the world I dream of.” Given the time Russell has spent performing in Hadestown, New York City has become her second home. She keeps an apartment

Despite the sub-zero temperatures and falling snow, as the theaters let out, Times Square once again became packed. Its myriad of neon signs lit up the night sky, crowds gathered around the various street performers, while post-show patrons filled the surrounding restaurants and bars. Not far from the Walter Kerr Theater on 48th Street is the Rosevale Cocktail Room. With its deep red brick walls, dark wood highlights, and high ceilings, the stylish venue provides a cozy retreat along with a variety of signature cocktails accompanied by a side of sultry jazz. For something a little more down to earth, Jimmy’s Corner offers the ultimate New York dive bar experience. Located on West 44th Street, the tiny bar is known for its cheap drinks and boxing-themed memorabilia. After a night on the town, there is no shortage of places to kick start the next day. The Bread Factory Café serves up every variety of bagel imaginable. Then there’s Johny’s Luncheonette on West 25th Street, a tiny old-school diner serving up an array of lunch counter classics, and the Chelsea Square Diner on West 23rd Street, which offers a menu as big as its portions. The Brooklyn Bridge.

The High Line. The Chelsea Square Diner is a convenient jumping off point for The High Line. An urban greenspace built on the abandoned southern viaduct section of the New York Central Railroad’s West Side Freight Line, the elevated park starts at Gansevoort Street, sits about 30 feet above the ground, and runs one and a half miles through Manhattan’s West Side.

Very Fresh Noodles restaurant, Chelsea Market. Not far from the Chelsea Market sits the Whitney Museum of American Art. The museum boasts a collection of over 3500 works by 20thcentury and contemporary American artists, including the world’s largest Edward Hopper collection and numerous masterpieces by Georgia O’Keeffe. Continuing deeper into Lower Manhattan will take you to the Banksy Museum New York and the National September 11 Memorial & Museum. >>> 9/11 Museum.

The Chelsea Hotel The southern end of the High Line conveniently delivers you into the Chelsea Market where there is no shortage of exceptional lunch options including Very Fresh Noodles, Buddakan, Miznon, and the Doughnuttery.

911 Memorial >>> Located in the footprints of the Twin Towers, the complex features an outdoor memorial and reflecting pools along with a museum showcasing artifacts, personal stories, and the ongoing impact of the 2001 and 1993 World Trade Center attacks. On the edge of the theater district in Manhattan sits the Museum of Modern Art. One of Russell’s favorite artistic haunts, MOMA houses iconic works of art like Van Gogh’s “The Starry Night,” Picasso’s “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon,” and Warhol’s “Campbell’s Soup Cans.”

Along with Russell’s sublime performance and Anaïs Mitchell’s impeccably crafted songs in Hadestown, the other standout feature of the production is how the live band is integrated within the story. Along with Russell singing up a storm in Hadestown, there were plenty of other musical events taking place. After launching her new album, World’s Gone Wrong, with a captivating Friday night performance at Rough Trade Below, Lucinda Williams and her band followed that up a couple of nights later by taking to the stage of Lucinda’s, her East Village country-themed bar on Avenue A.

“I just love MOMA,” Russell said excitedly. “I love it so much we became members. It is so reasonable to join, but they also have free days for students. The cost of living is high in New York, but even with that, there is so much free and publicly accessible art and culture around the city. I think that is so important, especially for kids so they can grow and be inspired – it builds empathy, and it builds good humans.”

Lucinda Williams at Lucinda’s.

At the Museum of Modern Art.

Patti Smith was also out and about town, stopping by the Peter Jay Sharp Theatre on Broadway for a performance and conversation about her new memoir, Bread of Angels. There is no shortage of venues to experience live music. Along with famous locales like Madison Square Garden, Radio City Music Hall, and Carnegie Hall, there’s also the Beacon Theater, Bowery Ballroom, Blue Note, Joe’s Pub, and Mercury Room.

Then there are the New York City must-dos. The view from The Empire State Building is nothing short of breathtaking while SUMMIT One Vanderbilt with its mirrored walls and floors, offers a dizzying, kaleidoscope-style view of Midtown. Another treasured vista of New York City is from the Staten Island Ferry. The fare-free passenger ferry runs 5.2 miles through New York Harbor between Manhattan and Staten Island. Central Park is another must-see. Nestled between Upper Manhattan’s east and west sides, the urban parkland attracts over 40 million visitors annually. More green space can be found along the Hudson River Greenway. Running from Lower Manhattan to Inwood, it’s the longest green space in the city.

“I live close to the theater, and the Greenway is just a few blocks away,” Russell said. “There are miles of walking paths and parks filled with reclaimed native species along the Hudson River. The river was abused and became very polluted during the industrial revolution, and this is part of a reclamation that was spearheaded by folks like Pete Seger way back in the 60s and 70s. There has been an incredible effort to bring the river back to life and support its ecology. There is an incredible network of paths that are so beautiful to walk. Even now in the winter when its frozen over, it’s just so gorgeous.” New York City is built for walking. Along with the green spaces and their associated trails, the city neighborhoods change block by block and navigating the streetscapes provides an insight into the city’s diverse communities. You can move from the glass towers of Midtown Manhattan to the brownstones of Greenwich Village and the murals and cafés of SoHo in a relatively short walk. Walking the city also provides no end of spontaneous discoveries. “That’s what I love about the city,” Russell said. “I’m always walking around and discovering new places. I also love walking around the city and just meeting and talking with people. I love how diverse it is. Central Park is only about eight blocks from the theater, and I love walking around there and seeing people riding the carriages and skating in the park. And to be here when Mayor Zohran Mamdani was elected and feel all the hope and joy in the community was so wonderful. I also love the way New Yorkers take care of one another in a crisis. It’s an incredible place.”

SUMMIT One Vanderbilt.

Allison Russell’s third album, In the Hour of Chaos, is available now on Fantasy Records.

SOUNDS OF THE CITY

SUNNY DAZE

AGAIN! BY IAN MCFARLANE

SUNNYBOYS 2026

SOUNDS OF THE CITY

The Sunnyboys are releasing a 4-LP deluxe reissue of their sensational 1981 eponymous debut album, to be followed by a one-off reformation.

ne of Australia’s most beloved bands of the post-punk era, Sydney quartet Sunnyboys, have announced a 4-LP deluxe reissue of their sensational 1981 eponymous debut album, to be followed by a one-off reformation appearance, in October, at Roma Street Parklands, Brisbane, supported by The Clouds, v. Spy v. Spy and Mick Medew & Ursula 4. As the promotional material declares, “To be released via Warner Music Australia, the 4LP box set brings together the original Sunnyboys album together with the band’s iconic 1980 Phantom Records debut EP and, for the first time ever on vinyl, the 17-track pre-album demo session and a live performance recorded at Sydney venue the Governors Pleasure in February 1981. With added snippets of a band interview undertaken by Triple J’s Stuart Matchett around the album’s release, plus the contents of a scrapbook kept by the mother of drummer Bil Bilson and more, the collection provides the complete picture of the band’s astonishing first twelve months.” Given that the band formed in July 1980 and their debut album came out in September 1981, I thought it was the perfect opportunity to examine their first 18 months together. Having not seen the actual 4-LP package with the scrapbook at the time of writing this, I’ve taken the opportunity to delve into my own magazine archive to come up with a variety of articles and adverts to kick along this deep-dive.

Kingscliff, where they had formed garage band Wooden Horse. They also had a band called Foreplay going in 1979, doing covers of Elvis Costello, Tom Petty and Chris Spedding songs. In their brief existence they managed to play a residency at the Byron Bay Hotel. Guitarist Richard Burgman came from Wagga Wagga. Peter, Bil and Richard met in Sydney during late 1979. Bilson joined The Playboy Lords while Oxley and Burgman joined Shy Impostors with Penny Ward (vocals) and Michael Charles (drums). Shy Impostors recorded one excellent single, ‘At the Barrier’ – issued posthumously on the Phantom label – before breaking up in early 1980. Jeremy had also moved to Sydney by that stage, playing with The Strand before joining the others in their new band in July 1980. They famously named themselves after the popular Aussie brand of ice block (originally trademarked as Sunnyboy), best remembered for its orange flavour and distinctive tetra-pak wrapping. Every kid who grew up in the 1970s loved their Sunny-boy ice block, and not forgetting the other flavours Razz (raspberry) and Glug (cola). To stamp their own identity the band utilised a Sunnyboys octagram sun symbol, in the same manner as forebears such as Radio Birdman and Hitmen used symbols. Legendary Birdman singer Rob Younger rehearsed with the fledgling crew for a few weeks before suggesting he should leave the singing to Jeremy. (Besides, Younger was also in the process of getting the first line-up of his own band, The New Christs, underway at the time.) The new aggregation played its first gig on 15 August at Chequers, as one of the support bands (the others being Trans Love Energies and ME262) to a one-off reunion gig by inner-city heroes The Lipstick Killers.

Fronted by the enigmatic, expressive 18-year-old singersongwriter-guitarist Jeremy Oxley, Sunnyboys breathed freshness and vitality into the divergent Sydney scene. They were essentially a garage rock’n’roll band with influences rooted in 1960s guitar pop and R&B (The Kinks, The Yardbirds, The Remains, Flamin’ Groovies) with a dash of Detroit muscle added. They were young and energetic, and their brand of high spirited, melodic power pop packed a hell of a hip-shaking dance beat. Things happened very quickly for Sunnyboys, from playing inner-city Sydney venues supporting the likes of The Lipstick Killers to being snapped up by, and scoring hit singles for, the prestigious Mushroom label all within a year of formation. What set the band apart was Oxley’s intrinsic songwriting abilities and the internal chemistry between the four players. The singer’s lyrics were based around his own experiences, typically adolescent yet honest observations of first love, lost love and emotional frustration, and often with a dark twist. And on stage he was able to deliver them with a great deal of feeling and passion, all of which helped to enhance the connection between band and audience, the dance beat and the arousing attraction. Besides, they just looked good! The Oxley brothers, Jeremy and Peter (bass) and Bil Bilson (drums) hailed from the New South Wales north coast town of

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SCAMs and Sunnyboys and Sardines Soon after formation they came to the attention of veteran guitar maestro Lobby Loyde (Purple Hearts, Wild Cherries, Aztecs, Coloured Balls, Southern Electric). He’d just left Rose Tattoo and was heading up the SCAM (Suss City Artist Management) agency with Sally Collins, Bob Nimmo and Clive Townsend. Lobby worked with several other Sydney bands, including Sardine v, Tablewaiters, The Traitors and Machinations. >>> 39

SOUNDS OF THE CITY

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When I first heard the Sunnyboys I thought they were fresh and so exuberant. – Lobby Loyde >>> Interviewing Lobby Loyde in 1986, he told me, “When I first heard the Sunnyboys I thought they were fresh and so exuberant. Jeremy wrote some classic pop songs. They were just a great little band playing R&B and rock’n’roll with a tight, zingy vibe.” Having become their musical advisor, he was instrumental in encouraging them to home in on what made their music so accessible and inspirational. Jeremy later told VOX Muzpaper, “Lobby doesn’t try to steer us at all, we have total freedom. He is more or less the interpreter between the band and the engineer, as well as telling us if we are out of tune or not.” That October Lobby took them into Trafalgar studios to record four of Jeremy’s songs – ‘Love to Rule’, ‘Alone with You’, ‘What You Need’ and ‘The Seeker’ – which came out in December as their four-track debut EP, Sunnyboys, on Phantom Records. The EP was an immediate success, selling out its pressing of 1000 copies in two weeks. The back cover declared “Mastered at less than normal volume to retain maximum quality”, so ideally it didn’t have the audio clout required to reflect the potency of their live shows. In July 1981, Phantom reissued the EP as a Special Limited Edition Remixed 12-inch record which boasted a much louder cut. I spoke to Sally Collins recently and she recalled her time working with the Sunnyboys. “The SCAM office was on Day Street, Ultimo, where Bob had Day Street Studios, and there was a screen-printing business. My role was booking and promoting gigs and personal management. One day Lob brought these four huge guys into the office. I was seated at my desk, gazing up at these smiling giants. Lob said that we were going to look after them. He’d been working with them on their EP. “If Lob asked anything of me, I would do it. He was my mentor and inspiration. He was an amazingly creative thinker and had all the industry experience and connections needed to approach the industry with a cynical eye open. The number one rule was to listen to and protect the artist. The next day or so they headed off to Adelaide, and I travelled with them as tour manager. I’d never been on tour before. My focus had been entirely on Sardine v, whom I adored. “Their first gig lit a fire in me. They were amazing, their songs were incredible, and they were just great to be with. They gave everything on stage and had fun doing it. They were generous performers. I’d never seen a guitarist as intuitive as Jeremy. They were as solid as a rock. Bil and Peter never let them down, and Richard held the melody while Jeremy played guitar like Ella Fitzgerald scatting, but in a ‘Rock’ way. “From then on, I was at every gig for the next two years. I saw how they lit up a crowd. Their audiences always left high and

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happy and loyally returned. They were the perfect crossover band, loved in the inner city as much as the suburbs, and as much in the country. The press loved them, promoters and agents made money, and everyone was happy. It wasn’t just the performance, it was the care they took with lighting, sound, and promotional material. They were the complete package. “Lobby loved the band. He, more than anybody, understood Jeremy and Pete too. He saw what they needed, and who they were – particularly Jeremy – sensitive, creative, talented and fragile. Lobby also loved Pete’s vision and ambition for the band. Pete is a talented artist and marketer. He had visions for the logo, posters, badges, album art, t-shirts, cassingle, special birthday presents for fans - the Birthday Party EP. Lob would wink and say, ‘that’s the one’. We realised all the band’s vision, in that regard, and those items are now iconic and collectable. “Lobby successfully captured the band’s sound on their EP and first album. I would describe him as a ‘dream scape’ producer. Much of his ideas, he didn’t have the words to share but he could express it with sound. So many things were just in his head. The relationship went a bit ‘skew-whiff’ on the second album Individuals because they didn’t like the production and that hurt Lobby, who was equally sensitive, creative and passionate about music and sound.”

New Kicks Demos In January 1981, Loyde recorded 17 tracks (drawn from their repertoire of 23 original songs) for a pre-album demo session at Studio 301. Known as the New Kicks sessions, tracks such as ‘Happy Man’, ‘I’m Shakin’’, ‘My Only Friend’, ‘Tunnel of Love’, ‘Let You Go’ (a Jeremy and Peter co-write), ‘Gone’ (written by Peter) and ‘I Can’t Talk to You’ were re-recorded for the debut album, ‘Individuals’ became the title track of their second album, while ‘New Kicks’, ‘Catch My Heart’, ‘Strategy Idol’ and ‘Don’t Want You’ went by the wayside. The New Kicks sessions comprise LP 2 and Side 1 of LP 3 in the new box set, appearing for the first time on a record. They did, however, get their first airing on Disc 2 of the 2014 2-CD Expanded Edition reissue of Sunnyboys. Loyde passed the demos on to Mushroom head honcho Michael Gudinski, who promptly snapped up the band as the label’s first Sydney signing. In between solid touring during May, June and July 1981, the band and Loyde were ensconced in Albert studios, laying down a total of 17 tracks for their new album. By June they’d cracked the mainstream charts with the high-spirited debut single ‘Happy Man’ (national #26, Sydney #18). As well as being a stellar blast of kinetic power pop energy, one of the

SOUNDS OF THE CITY

song’s key features was Bilson’s series of tight, snappy drum fills in the staccato intro, middle eight and outro. Mushroom also issued ‘Happy Man’ as Australia’s first cassette single which contained two bonus live tracks, ‘Thrill’ (Governors Pleasure, the Rocks, Sydney, February 1981) and a cover of The Remains’ ‘Why Do I Cry’ (Bombay Rock, Melbourne, February 1981).

of good reasons for making that album the ‘Sunnyboys’.” (Sun Herald). “More punchy pop from Australia’s leaders in youth and vigour.” (VOX). “The album is 12 tracks of sustained, clever pop music. A bevy of songs to practise all those wonderful sixties dance steps.” (The Age Green Guide).

On 4 July 1981, for their 1st birthday show, at the Trade Union Club supported by Sardine v and Magnetics, patrons received the rare, gig giveaway, red vinyl EP, Happy Birthday, featuring four live tracks – ‘What You Need’, ‘I Want to be Alone’, ‘Let You Go’ and ‘Why Do I Cry’ – which had been recorded as part of Double J Live at the Rocks.

SUNNYBOYS LP

SUNNYBOYS ALBUM ADVERT

Issued in September, Sunnyboys reached #13 on the national album chart, eventually selling over 50 000 copies. It remains an Australian rock classic, an album brimming with infectious, danceable R&B-spiced rock’n’roll and impassioned, dynamic songs, with lashings of youthful exuberance to boot.

The 12-track album (if you count the 18-second reprise of opening track ‘I Can’t Talk ToYou’) produced a second hit single, ‘Alone with You’ (national #26, Sydney #15 in November). The album came in two versions. The standard issue (blue cover) featured ‘Happy Man’, while a Limited-Edition release (2000 copies in yellow cover and pressed on sunshine yellow vinyl) replaced that song with the otherwise unavailable track ‘Tell Me What You Say’. The limited-edition album was aimed at fans who already had the ‘Happy Man’ single.

Writer Stuart Coupe was at the forefront in his praise for the joys of the album. Reviewing the album in RAM (Rock Australia Magazine) (13 November) he said, “I had my doubts. The live shows were usually great. The Phantom EP was rough but exciting. ‘Happy Man’ was fine. But could they make an album that really captured Sunnyboys’ stage excitement? I thought not, expecting a flawed debut. The album arrived and I couldn’t find the flaws. Sunnyboys’ album is one of the best damn rock’n’roll records this country has produced in recent years… I’m confident Sunnyboys have a lot more where this came from.” Other reviews were just as ebullient. “I have no hesitation in saying that this is the most complete debut album by an Australian band since The Sports’ ‘Reckless’. This album manages to capture all the spark, feeling and enthusiasm that Sunnyboys exhibit on stage.” (Roadrunner). “Sunnyboys selftitled debut album displays a maturity and depth of talent that belies the youth of the band.” (Melbourne Sun). “If you’re going to buy one Australian rock’n’roll album this year, there’s a lot

So, what of the remaining five tracks from the album session? They were issued as B-sides across four singles: ‘Tomorrow Will Be Fine’ (B-side ‘Happy Man’); ‘Stop & Think’ (B-side 1 ‘Alone with You’); ‘To the Bone’ (B-side 2 ‘Alone with You’); ‘Guts of Iron’ (B-side ‘Show Me Some Discipline’ [1983]); and ‘Physical Jerk’ (B-side ‘Love in a Box’ [1984]). These B-sides were first compiled as part of Disc 1 (Complete Albert Session) of the 2014 2-CD Sunnyboys Expanded Edition reissue. Curiously, they don’t get another airing in the new 4-LP box. The album established Sunnyboys as a bona fide headlining attraction and they spent the next few years touring constantly. Of course, prior to that they’d racked up hundreds of gigs across the land. They’d shared pub and club stages with everyone from Rose Tattoo and Flaming Hands to New Race and Mental as Anything. >>>

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>>> I first saw them early in 1981 in Melbourne, putting in an exuberant lunchtime performance in front of about 200 appreciative students at Swinburne college.

man’ and the confusion is all packaged in a great garage stomp performance. These are four strong players who knew how to bring drama to a simple pop song.”

They even played under 18s concerts at the 1981 Royal Melbourne Show during September. Richard Burgman told VOX, “Playing to young kids is fantastic. They’re able to let loose and enjoy themselves, like really go mad. Adult audiences can become too serious and stand there judging you, or they’re too cool to relax and let down their image.”

They concluded that “… the non-stop touring, combined with the demons he was struggling with, took its toll on Jeremy. Only two years after the release of Sunnyboys, he was exhibiting signs of the schizophrenia that would ultimately engulf him. But that should only inform our understanding of this great band and great album, not define it.”

Their highest profile appearance came in October at the Tanelorn Festival of Transition (held near Stroud, NSW). 28,000 fans were there for the three-day event, and as well as getting Sunnyboys, No Fixed Address, Redgum, The Church, Moving Pictures, Kevin Borich Express, Men at Work, Broderick Smith’s Big Combo, Midnight Oil and Split Enz, festival goers saw the return of Billy Thorpe, then based in the USA.

Sally Collins summed things up thus, “Jeremy was a superb lyricist for such a young guy. I think he might have been 19 when I started working with them. We were all so young then. Audiences related hugely to songs like ‘Happy Man’, ‘Alone with You’, ‘The Seeker’ etc. Great pop rock songs with hooks and energy. The energy, the surf, the homage to Jeremy’s heroes, were all so relatable. Everyone was dancing, hot, sweaty and having fun.

Lyrical Fragility In the book The 100 Best Australian Albums, which places Sunnyboys at #37, the authors focused on the fragility of Jeremy’s lyrics. “The band’s signature song ‘Alone with You’ captures the excitement and trepidation of a first date, but the naïve charm of this moment is undercut by the darkness of lyrics like ‘We can lock away the bad memories forever / Close the doors to the past, forever’ and later ‘All I have is alcohol to let me go’. The result is a great pop song that is equal parts tension (in the verse lyrics) and release (the catchy chorus, the great harmony vocals and blistering outro guitar solo). “The first single ‘Happy Man’ has a similar duality, lyrics like ‘I think I’m swimming is a sea of doubt’ and ‘Sitting here in my room the whole damn thing is coming down on me’ colour the verses while Oxley insists on the chorus, ‘But I’m a happy 42

“We didn’t look too closely at the signs in the lyrics of his songs, all obvious now, in retrospect. For the most part I found them romantic. Jeremy was a hopeless romantic. I knew nothing about ‘Mental Health’. Lob did, he saw it all. Jeremy’s songs were full of love, loss, despair and, the noise in his head. I didn’t see the fragility, until it slapped me in the face. Jeremy was having his best life in the early ‘80s, until the dam broke. “It was such a creative and busy time, we never stopped to think about what we were doing, we were just on a roll. Those first two albums, when I worked with Sunnyboys were among the best in my life, an education, which I put to good use in later years as manager of The Triffids. We worked very, very hard, and they played very, very hard. There were a lot of problems with SCAM and Lobby, after a while, but I felt part of the Sunnyboys family. It was a privilege to travel and look after them, until it wasn’t.”

Fender Tele Town Concert at The Ryman, Nashville.

THE

GUITAR THAT CHANGED THE WORLD

This year Fender is celebrating the 75th anniversary of the Telecaster, and they chose Nashville to have the party. By Barry Divola

arrived in Nashville from Perth after three flights and around 35 hours, which involved the guy in the row in front of me on the Perth-to-Sydney leg vomiting uncontrollably for half the flight, then an unscheduled and unwanted seven-hour layover in LAX, all accompanied by very little sleep. After a much-needed shower and dinner, I’m nursing a beer in Robert’s Western World, one of the last remaining genuine honky tonks on Broadway. The trio ripping it up onstage is Kelley’s Heroes, and they’re something of an institution, playing here four nights a week, and evolving from the decades-long mentorship of Broadway icon Don Kelley, who has now retired. On lead guitar is Luke McQueary, a smiley guy in his mid-twenties who can cluck like Buck Owens, wail like James Burton, jab like Steve Cropper, and sound like a train whistle, a siren, a dive-bomber, and just about anything else he desires. Robert’s is not a big place, but it’s packed to the gills and rowdy. The following night I see McQueary play again in very different circumstances, this time in front of over 2000 people on the most sacred stage in Nashville, the Ryman Auditorium, the so-called Mother Church of Country Music. >>>

These players have one thing in common. They all play Fender Telecasters, the guitar that is having its 75th anniversary this year. That’s the reason I’m here. Nashville has transformed itself into Tele Town, and there’s a celebration of the beloved and enduring instrument Leo Fender dreamed up in 1951. Turns out that Edward “Bud” Cole, the newly installed Fender CEO, after previously serving for over a decade as Fender President of Asia Pacific, has a long association with the Telecaster that predates his time with the company. His very first electric guitar was a 1969 Fender Thinline Telecaster he bought at a Guitar Center in 1988. He still owns it, still loves it, and still plays it onstage with a band. And he’s still amazed that Leo Fender, an engineer who didn’t play guitar himself, created the Telecaster in 1951 and pretty much hit it out of the park.

Jack White >>> He’s there for a night called Tele Town, alongside legends including Jack White, Brad Paisley, Billy Gibbons, Ricky Skaggs, Brent Mason and Tommy Emmanuel, and younger axe-slingers such as Larkin Poe, Brothers Osborne and Christone “Kingfish” Ingram.

Leo Fender. Photo by Bob Perrine. “You think about that time, in the early 1950s, and electric guitars were big hollow-bodied instruments, and anything new was just an evolution from that,” says Cole, sitting in a conference room at Fender’s offices in East Nashville. “Whereas Leo thought, ‘I’m going to take a quantum leap here and I’m going to create a totally new electric guitar.’ It wasn’t an evolution, it was starting from a blank space, and he threw away the playbook.

Larkin Poe

“He created something that was simple, that he could mass produce, that didn’t have feedback problems. The Telecaster was an instrument where you could change the pickups, you could take off the neck, and most importantly you could bring your own playing style to it. He created something that is timeless.” Because it was so different to what everyone thought of as an electric guitar, in the beginning it received its fair share of criticism, and even ridicule. “They called it things like The Plank and The Boat Paddle and The Snow Shovel,” says Cole. “But real working musicians took it out on the road and realised it could survive the long drives and the drops and playing it night after night. It met the reality of life on the road. “And the reason we’re sitting here in Nashville right now is because it’s a city that embraced and defined the Telecaster. We owe a debt to them because they showed all these other genres what the guitar could do, and that’s why we’re celebrating the Telecaster here.”

Kingfish

Also in this building is the research and development floor and an artists’ showroom, where well-known musicians can come in to discuss signature models, try out new innovations and even jam together.

I sit down in one of the offices with Justin Norvell, Fender Chief Product Officer, and ask him about why he thinks the Telecaster is an instrument that has translated so well to so many different genres of music. You couldn’t get guitarists as different to each other as Albert Collins, Keith Richards, Joe Strummer, Bruce Springsteen, Prince and Jonny Greenwood, yet they all famously use Telecasters.

Despite the upgrades, there’s also a strong sense that this year Fender is honouring the original guitars and the old guard who pioneered them. At the Tele Town concert, James Burton, whose distinctive playing on his signature paisley Telecaster has fuelled the music of everyone from Elvis Presley to Elvis Costello, was brought onto the stage and received rapturous applause.

“I think it’s because the Telecaster is so simple,” says Norvell. “So, 50 percent is the sound of the guitar and 50 percent is the sound of the player. It’s this solid body with two pickups, which leaves it a lot of headroom to shapeshift as music changes.”

James Burton at Tele Town

Telecaster at The Ryman.

The evening’s host, Zack Childs, described him as a man who “has played the Telecaster for at least 74 of the 75 years it’s been around.”

But if Leo Fender got it so right in 1951, doesn’t that present a problem for Fender? How do they come up with new twists on the same guitar?

The 86-year-old was obviously in frail health, and he sat there Sphinxlike in baseball cap and sunglasses, soaking it in, while the performers from the night paid homage and lined up for an all-star jam finale, every one of them playing a Telecaster.

“It’s evolution, not revolution,” says Norvell. “We’re definitely not changing the shape or reinventing the guitar. We like to say that we’re colouring between the lines. But there’s always room to innovate and to add refinements, whether that’s advanced pickup design, trying new materials, experimenting with colours and finishes, or making a better playing instrument.”

Earlier, when John Oates walked onstage to duet with Guthrie Trapp, he greeted the crowd with the words, “Did you get enough Telecaster yet?” The response was a loud and resounding “No!” The Tele lives on. >>>

Case in point is the latest range of 75 anniversary models. There are five of them, all riffing on the classic ’50s Tele, and, as Norvell would say, “colouring between the lines” – the Vintera Road Worn 1951 model with authentic vintage specs; the American Professional Custom with two-tone sunburst finish and V-Mod pickups; the American Ultra II with Liquid Gold finish and a combination of a Noiseless Single Coil and a Fastlane humbucker; the American Professional Classic Cabronita with TV Jones pickups; and the Player II with Diamond Dust Sparkle finish and Thunderbolt pickups. th

75th Anniversary Vintera II Road Worn

Susan Tedeschi.

12 MUSICIANS WHO DEFINED THE TELECASTER

ALBERT COLLINS

JOE STRUMMER

Known as The Master of The Telecaster, Albert Collins was both blues legend and wild-eyed showman, picking out licks on his 1966 Custom Tele, usually in an open tuning, with a capo on the neck.

There may be cooler images from the ’70s than Joe Strummer in the video for London Calling, slashing at his 1966 Telecaster like it has just insulted his mother, on a cold night along the banks of the Thames while steam issues from his mouth and he snarls about a post-apocalyptic London – but none immediately come to mind.

MUDDY WATERS They call him the father of modern Chicago blues, a guitarist who travelled north from his home in the south, bringing his electrified version of the Delta blues with him and creating a whole new genre in the process. And Muddy Waters did it all on his distinctive red 1957 Telecaster that he nicknamed The Hoss.

JAMES BURTON He’s a guitarist who has played a big part in the music careers of not one, but two guys named Elvis – Presley and Costello. James Burton also played on what is often regarded as the first Telecaster-fuelled Top 40 hit, Suzie Q by Dale Hawkins. The guitar that is most associated with him is his paisley-patterned Telecaster.

STEVE CROPPER Sittin’ On The Dock Of The Bay by Otis Redding; In The Midnight Hour by Wilson Pickett; Soul Man by Sam And Dave; Green Onions by Booker T. & The M.G.s. The list of ’60s soul hits fuelled by guitarist Steve Cropper goes on and on. And after being immortalised as part of the band in The Blues Brothers movie in 1980, his star kept shining for decades, his trusty Tele as constant companion.

KEITH RICHARDS Some reports estimate that Keith Richards owns around 3000 guitars. He once quipped, “Give me five minutes and I can make them all sound the same.” One of his most prized is the butterscotch Telecaster Eric Clapton gave him on his 27th birthday, that he named Micawber, after a Charles Dickens character in David Copperfield.

WILKO JOHNSON Jimmy Page at the Fender Factory. Photo by Mark Keraly.

JIMMY PAGE Led Zeppelin’s legendary guitarist may be strongly associated with the Les Paul, but on the band’s debut album, and later on one of the most famous guitar solos of all time – in Stairway To Heaven – Jimmy Page used his beloved 1958 Telecaster. The guitar was gifted to him by Jeff Beck, his former bandmate in The Yardbirds, and he famously painted a dragon on the body.

He had one of the most unorthodox playing styles, first with Dr. Feelgood and later as a member of Ian Dury’s band The Blockheads, using the back of his fingernails to scrape the strings of his battered black Tele in a frantic blur.

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN Has any other guitar absorbed as much sweat as Bruce Springsteen’s Telecaster? Well, let’s backpedal a little. This guitar is called The Mutt for good reason. It has a Telecaster body and the neck of an Esquire, the precursor to the Tele. When he appeared on the cover of Born To Run, leaning on Clarence Clemons with that guitar prominently displayed, Fender couldn’t have got better advertising if they paid for it.

PRINCE We all know Prince was a genius. If anyone ever doubts his guitar playing skills, just direct them to the solo he plays on his Tele on While My Guitar Gently Weeps for George Harrison’s posthumous induction into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 2004. You can see the looks of disbelief on the faces of Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne and George’s son Dhani. At the end he simply throws the guitar in the air and nonchalantly walks off stage like it was no sweat.

Chrissie Hynde (The Pretenders). Photo by Christie Goodwin.

CHRISSIE HYNDE Whether she was making it jangle on Brass In Pocket or letting it roar on Precious, Chrissie Hynde did it all on her blue 1965 Telecaster. She bought the guitar in New York and has said the paint job reminded her of a Corvette.

JONNY GREENWOOD Never underestimate what a Telecaster can do in the right hands. Especially when those hands are attached to Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead. Unorthodox does not even come close to describing the startling squeals he can get out his Tele, as he performs insane bends and attacks the strings like a madman.

By Anne McCue

Photo by Abby Whisenant

DIVERSITY FOR ALL Renowned for its country music Nashville is so much more diverse than you might expect.

id you know that Nashville has the highest Kurdish population of any city in all the Americas? The pilgrimage to Nashville has been taking place since the early ‘70s. There are approximately 15,000 - 20,000 Kurdish folks here and their culture is most pervasive in the restaurants, bakeries and markets in an area of South Nashville often referred to as ‘Little Kurdistan.’ According to Asiye Taskin, president and co-founder of the Kurdish Culture and Music Association, ‘Most of Nashville’s Kurdish population traces its roots to Southern Kurdistan (now largely within the borders of northern Iraq) and Northern Kurdistan (currently within the

borders of Turkey). The community also includes Kurds whose roots are in Eastern Kurdistan (Iran) and Western Kurdistan (Syria.)’ In June, the KCMA celebrated its 3rd year anniversary with a gathering at Mariachi Plaza and everyone was invited. “Whether you are Kurdish or not, this invitation is to learn, connect and celebrate the diversity that’s making this nation special,” said Taskin. (Nashville Scene) The big news was that they were collaborating with the Nashville Symphony for the first time. The piece they performed was called Fantasy on Kurdish Themes by composer Kevin Bishop. If you read this column regularly, you will know how much I love the Nashville Symphony. As the event progressed it became more rowdy and fun - much like a wedding reception with kids running, sliding and dancing about the space. At one point about half of the audience took part in a traditional Kurdish line dance which creates a huge and celebratory, ever growing spiral - a metaphor for the sense of welcoming community that was at the heart of the event.

which presented a fusion of traditional folk and contemporary rock, Kurdish singer Yakup Çınar, and the KCMA Rhythm Group featuring instruments such as the daf (drum) and the tembûr (similar to bazouki or balalaika.)

All of the musical performances were impressive, notably by Armenian American cellist Hannah Koshgarian, a band called Vaveyla

It was the most public of public events the KCMA has held so far and it was a great success.

THE BLUEBIRD Having heard of it for many years, I had never actually been to The Bluebird Open Mic, held every Monday at the iconic venue. I have played in songwriters’ circles many times at the Bluebird but not in recent years, so the first thing that happened was that I drove right past it. Gone is that broken down, non-descript mall with the weeds poking through the concrete of yesteryear. Instead, on either side of the Bluebird there are two brand new and very large buildings so that the venue is tucked in there like a secret (known only to several million people.) The reason for my adventure out that way? I was asked by a young up-and-coming pop artiste to accompany her on guitar. I must admit I was expecting a night of clichéd country songs. But of the 20 songs I heard, only two were country at all and I was surprised at the quirky array of songs and performers. People in this town really are quite strange and wonderful and contrary to the Tennessee mainstream PR pitch of homogeneity, Nashville contains multitudes of variations when it comes to the human songwriter species. The evening was really entertaining and at times reminded me a bit of the Gong Show based on the (possibly unintended)

hilarity of some of the artistes. It brought a really good smile to our hearts and hopefully opened some minds - you know those ones that only want to hear bro country? I left with a feeling that humans really can be delightful if they follow their own eccentric arcs and stop trying to fit in. How brave of these people to get up - at the Bluebird, no less! - and play their true songs, true to themselves. It’s been so long since I’ve done such a thing that I wondered, how do they have the courage? When I was in L.A. in the late 1990s waiting for an album to be released (for 2 years) I started going by myself to the open mics there and met a bunch of fellow songwriters - everyone different but all supportive of one another. It was a fantastic community and the best thing I could have done, as our band hung in limbo waiting on Columbia Records to release the album. They never did. So, if you are in Nashville on a Monday night looking for something to do, I recommend attending the Bluebird Open Mic. And if you are a writer, they have a guitar for you. Why not sign up?

AMERICANA ROUNDUP

By Nick Corr

obert Plant will receive the Americana Music Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award at the 25th annual Americana Honors & Awards, set for September 16 at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium. The former Led Zeppelin frontman is being recognized for his longstanding engagement with blues, folk, country and gospel traditions, both through his solo work and collaborations. Americana Music Association executive director Jed Hilly said Plant’s “passion, stewardship and artistic curiosity” have helped expand the music’s audience worldwide.

Buddy Miller will release his self-titled album September 11 via New West Records, marking his first solo album in 15 years. The 12-track collection was self-produced and features a range of collaborators, including Emmylou Harris, The War & Treaty, Lee Ann Womack, Shawn Colvin, Ashley Monroe, Elizabeth Cook, Jim Lauderdale, Dan Penn and Larry Campbell and Teresa Williams. The album follows Miller’s 2011 Written in Chalk, his last solo studio release. The album includes some

Robert Plant. Photo courtesy of the Americana Music Association.

notable covers: The Temptations’ “Stop Me” and Jesse Winchester’s “Strange Desire”, together with “Till the Wheels Come Off,” written by Ashley Monroe, Elizabeth Cook, Angaleena Presley and Meg McRee about Miller and his wife Julie. “The intention was to make a country soul record but then I kept running into songs Julie had written that I wanted to put in” Miller says. John Prine’s Found Dogs will receive a wider release on October 9 via Oh Boy Records. The archival collection, assembled from sessions and demos for 1995’s Lost Dogs & Mixed Blessings, features alternate takes, acoustic performances and five previously unreleased Prine originals. Initially issued in a limited run of 2,000 LPs for Record Store Day in April, it will now be available on vinyl, CD and digitally. The release includes “World Without Love”, a previously unheard song from the Lost Dogs & Mixed Blessings sessions. The wider release arrives one day before what would have been Prine’s 80th birthday, on October 10.

The Felice Brothers will be celebrated on Felice County Fair: A Celebration of The Felice Brothers, a tribute album featuring more than two dozen interpretations of songs from the Catskills band’s catalogue. Due October 16, the album is being released by Sun Mountain Records, a new imprint of Sony Music Nashville. Contributors include The Lumineers, Bright Eyes, Nathaniel Rateliff, Dawes, Old Crow Medicine Show, Brandon Flowers, Deer Tick and Bebe Stockwell. The project was initiated by Brandy Schultz, wife of Lumineers frontman Wesley Schultz, who approached the band about creating a tribute. Ian Felice said, “the fact that so many artists have contributed to this project simply out of a love for our music fills us with both bewilderment and gratitude.” The first releases from the record are Bright Eyes’ take on “Wonderful Life” and The Lumineers’ take on “The Kid”. Shooter Jennings continues his exploration of his father Waylon Jennings’ previously unheard recordings with Diamonds, the second album drawn from the country singer’s personal archives. The followup to 2025’s Songbird, the collection is built around recordings made during the 1970s and features an appearance by Glen Campbell on the title track, recorded in December 1978. Shooter says the album is “a higher energy album, a younger man’s album, if you will” with songs centred on turbulent relationships and unrequited love. Diamonds will be released on LP, CD, cassette and download November 13 via Son of Jessi/Thirty Tigers.

Marking the 25th anniversary of her seminal album Time (The Revelator) Gillian Welch has announced the album is being issued on vinyl for the first time. Originally released in 2001, the album was the first new release on Acony Records, the label Welch and David Rawlings established alongside the record’s arrival. Marking the anniversary, Welch announced that Time (The Revelator) will finally receive an LP pressing and the vinyl mastering/cutting process is underway – indicating a late 2026 release. The vinyl release has been a long time coming, with David Rawlings previously explaining the project had been delayed because the album is nearly 60 minutes long, making it difficult to cut satisfactorily onto vinyl. Welch thanked listeners for their patience and promised that the wait would be worthwhile. A new country music festival, LongHaul, will make its Australian debut in January 2027, with Nashville stars Kane Brown and Kacey Musgraves headlining their only Australian shows. Presented by TEG Live and its new country touring division, LongHaul Touring, the festival will visit Melbourne Showgrounds on January 22, Sydney Showground on January 23 and Brisbane RNA Showgrounds on January 24. The international lineup also includes Margo Price, Charles Wesley Godwin, James Barker Band and Maddox Batson, alongside Australian performers including Ava Hall, Beau Shearer, Denvah, Nathan Lamont, Taylor Moss and Tyla Rodrigues. Organisers have stressed that there will be no additional sideshows making the festival the only opportunity to see the international artists on this Australian run.

Buddy Miller. Photo by Michael Wilson. 53

By Martin Jones

BILL DRUMMOND

THE MAN Creation

mong his many titles, Bill Drummond should be patron saint of 33 1/3 Revelations: he quit his job at WEA when he was 33 1/3 years old to make this self-titled debut to put his preaching into practice. As he told NME at the time, “I wanted to make the album because I realised that I’ve spent a lot of time persuading other people to do what I thought they ought to be doing and now I want to persuade myself to do what I ought to be doing.” To those ends, he gathered members of Voice of the Beehive and Australia’s own The Triffids, spent, according to him, five days writing the songs and another five days recording them. The resulting country/folk ramblings were unexpected. Creation’s Alan McGee said he nearly drowned in the bath laughing when he heard it. To put it in context, Drummond up to this point was well into a career leading the avant-garde as a member of Big in Japan and producer and manager of Echo & The Bunnymen and The Teardrop Explodes. He would, of course, go on to earn further notoriety with The KLF and The Timelords (!), making The Man a unique chapter in his canon. What brought this album to this column’s attention was Evil Graham Lee’s new solo pedal steel album, for which Drummond contributes liner notes. As steel guitarist for The Triffids, Lee is all over The Man; allowed to play a more traditional “lead guitarist” role than he was in The Triffids. Lee recalls that publicist Nick Houghton gave Drummond a Triffids tape and suggested them as a backing band. “He really loved my playing for some reason, and he wanted to have as much pedal steel on there as possible. And I just wish… if I could go back and relive my life, I might have just been a tiny bit more experienced when I played on Bill’s album. But, like The Triffids’ David McComb, Drummond didn’t want a ‘conventional’ steel guitarist. “No that’s true,” Lee confirms. “He did tell me a story where when they went to Nashville to record with Tammy Wynette, ‘Justified and Ancient’, it was all of a sudden they had an opportunity to do it and they didn’t contact me to go over there – and I would have been thrilled to be able to do it, but went to Nashville and I think they got a steel player who was in George Jones’s backing band, and he starts playing his stuff and Bill bursts into the studio saying, ‘no no no no’ and waving a cassette of me playing. And this shit hot Nashville player has to go home and learn how to play like me! And I listen to the record and think, ‘wow, he did a good job!’ Album opener ‘True to the Trail’ sees Lee playing the lead melody on a cantering country instrumental somewhat reminiscent of the Allman

Brothers’ ‘Jessica’. To close out the first side, Lee plays a prominent role in the Dusty Springfield classic ‘Going Back’, penned by the great Goffin/King partnership. Though Drummond’s thick Scottish accent brings a new tone to lines like “now there are no games to only pass the time no more electric trains no more trees to climb”, his affection for the song and its sentiment seems genuine. Let’s be clear; Drummond’s voice is an acquired taste; a less tuneful mix of Shane MacGowan and Jonathan Richman? Side 2 opens with another melodious pedal steel led instrumental, ‘Queen of the South’, ode to the Dumfries football club of the same name. Lee’s steel guitar features in the following song ‘I Believe in Rock ‘n’ Roll’ from which the album gets its title. In spoken word, Drummond reminisces about his youth, Elvis singing ‘His Latest Flame’, and “dirty girls”, proclaiming his belief in rock ‘n’ roll. It’s part devotional, part ridicule, like something Jarvis Cocker might have conjured. Instrumentally it’s delightful, the sonic signature of The Triffids emerging unmistakably. ‘Married Man’ is another country song featuring Graham Lee. The remaining album tracks are less country/folk, ranging from the piano-based loping blues of ‘Ballad For a Sex God’, to the almost gospel tones of ‘King of Joy’ to more contemporary ‘Son of a Preacher Man’ (both featuring Voice of the Beehive vocalists) and the closing reading of Robert Burns’ ‘Such a Parcel of Rogues in a Nation’. But the most infamous inclusion on the album is Drummond’s reply to Julian Cope’s song ‘Bill Drummond Said’. Presented in medieval folk minstrel style, ‘Julian Cope is Dead’ explores Drummond’s fantasy of killing Julian Cope so that Drummond is more successful in death than in life. But, with same initials as Jesus Christ, Cope comes back to life and foils his plans. Despite describing the album as “the work of a complete nutter,” McGee released The Man on his highly respected Creation label which says something for its artistic merit. Though somewhat of anomaly in his career, he used it as a launching point for an incredible period of musical output, teaming up with Jimmy Cauty to form The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, The Timelords (‘Doctorin’ the Tardis’) and The KLF, pioneering house music and gaining massive chart success. They also released one of the great ambient chill records in Chill Out, again featuring Lee’s pedal steel. (“I didn’t know anything about it until I heard it at 3am in Fitzroy on Triple R,” Lee recalls. “And I heard it, and went, hang on a minute! That’s me!” Original pressings of The Man are thin on the ground, but the success of The KLF prompted a CD and vinyl rerelease in 1990.

By Keith Glass

LOST IN THE SHUFFLE 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.

ROSEBUD Jerry Yester/Judy Henske/ Craig Doerge/John Seiter REPRISE RECORDS RS 6426 (Released 1971) PS Judy Henske Big Judy How Far This Music Goes 1962-2004 RHINO7726 CD (Released 2007)

n 1969 Frank Zappa, although hardly a commercially viable artist himself, had convinced Warner Bros to fund a subsidiary label called ‘Straight’ with a bunch of less than mainstream artists which included an album by an earlier version of the later to be extended line-up of Rosebud, (namely then married couple Judy Henske & Jerry Yester) which sunk like a stone but over the years has become a ‘cult’ item largely because it was a full blown ‘Straight’ label issue (distributed by Warner) and carried the Zappa iconic blaringly noncommercial mantle. Titled Farewell Aldebaran it sank like a stone and now, of course, original copies are highly sought after. It has been bootlegged and later partly reissued (various key tracks) by Rhino on a limited issue 2 CD box set titled JUDY HENSKE Big Judy How Far This Music Goes 1962-2004.

That great CD issue covers Henske’s career from almost the getgo to the end. This piece of writing really settles on her and what a knockout she was to a 16-year-old lad in Melbourne, Australia when she appeared on multiple episodes of Dave Guard’s (of Kingston Trio fame) Australian (ABC) TV show “Dave’s Place” in 1964/5. Guard had moved to Sydney and built a beach-side house…his last hurrah in the USA had been a group called The Whiskeyhill Singers with – you guessed it – Henske! Ostensibly, as far as Guard could go to get away from the (by that time) tame folk the Trio had constructed over many years (worth noting John Stewart took over from Dave in the latter KT days). The WHS made little traction (despite fashioning a killer version of the folk blues ‘Nobody Knows You When You’re Down And Out’) with their one and only Capitol label album release (I believe it was not even issued in Australia). At least Dave on returning to the US late sixties, never re-joined the Kingston Trio; their days were done and today most may not remember just how big they were late 50’s/ early 60’s, and the staggering amount of albums they put out. Henske on the other hand hadn’t even started…managed by the infamous Herb Cohen (that might partly explain the later Zappa connection) she put out a number of fine folkie albums for the then indie label Elektra. The canny label owner/founder Jac Holzman saw her on stage and wanted the first album done live and a rollicking performance ensured such standards as Hooka Tooka and Wade In The Water found Henske most at home on stage, her larger-than-life personality not to be contained. However, her second album High Flying Bird was not only her best seller but generally thought of as the best of her folk-based releases. She was featured at the legendary Greenwich Jazz/folk club The Village Gate a lot and it has been mentioned that the movie character Annie Hall was largely based on her by her then friend (who’s name we will not mention here.) Along the way, Shel Silverstein became a big buddy, Anita Loos wrote a musical Gogo Loves You which featured her – not anywhere near as successful as Gentlemen Prefer Blondes it remained ‘off Broadway’.

Judy Henske on the album cover of She Sang California, 2007 Henske found herself on the Reprise label, produced by Jack Nitzsche and by this time married to musician Jerry Yester. There was more to come but the initial album Farewell Aldebaren has become as already noted a cult classic item. Equally deserving their 1970 release titled just Rosebud is perhaps still a sub cult classic (and just as hard to find as Aldebaren). The group had expanded to a 5-piece (one David Vaught not even making the cover) Jerry and Judy were no longer a couple, Judy and Craig Doerge were the new twosome…alas their genre expanding music still only reaching a cult audience. A mix of Yester/Doerge and Henske wrote all of the material, the songs are unusual (as may be expected) but sort of poppy, timeless and most

importantly good, the playing magnificent….the commercial appeal however apparently almost zero. From the opening song Panama to the last note on side two of Flying To Morning the mixing of Henske / Yester and Doerge as writers and performers changes (just like real life) but the songs remain heavy hitters for the initiated or those interested. If you can find a copy of this elusive album grab it.

[Keith Glass: Thanks to Margret RoadKnight]

CLASSIC ALBUM

By Billy Pinnell

Now it was time for Mason to strike out on his own signing a deal with the fledgling Blue Thumb label. For his first album he was teamed with engineer/producer Bruce Botnick, who had worked with Love and The Doors, and rookie producer Tommy LiPuma whose CV would later include Frank Sinatra, Miles Davis, George Benson, Barbra Streisand and Nat King Cole. Mason’s friendship with the Bramletts led to offers from likeminded musicians eager to offer their services. They included Delaney (guitars, vocals) and Bonnie (vocals) their former rhythm section, Radle and Gordon now in Derek and The Dominos, ex-Traffic bandmate Jim Capaldi (drums), Leon Russell (keyboards), Clapton(guitar)and singers Rita Coolidge and Claudia Lennear. Mason wrote all eight songs, provided lead vocals, electric and acoustic guitars cleverly integrated throughout in addition to co-producing with LiPuma.

DAVE MASON

ALONE TOGETHER ‎ Interscope/Geffen/A&M

hile Steve Winwood has remained the most identifiable member of Traffic it was singer, songwriter, guitarist Dave Mason who gave the band its entry into the charts in 1967 with his songs ‘Paper Sun’ and ‘Hole In My Shoe’ on which he provided the lead vocal. He was also involved in the soundtrack to the movie Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush whose title song gave the band their third UK Top 10 single in 1967. However, Mason’s tenure with Traffic was somewhat disjointed, probably caused by his head butting with Winwood over the band’s musical direction. More than once he was fired only to be promptly rehired. He first quit after the release of the band’s debut album Mr. Fantasy (1967) rejoining for the follow up Traffic (1968) which included the original version of ‘Feelin’ Alright’, written and sung by Mason and later successfully covered by Joe Cocker. Traffic toured the US late in 1968 which led to the following year’s release of their next album Last Exit (1969) a dog’s breakfast of live and studio tracks. Winwood then broke up the band to join short lived supergroups Blind Faith (1969) and Ginger Baker’s Airforce (1970) before putting Traffic back together the following year sans Mason. Having guested (uncredited) on The Rolling Stones 1968 album Beggars’ Banquet, Mason forged a friendship with producer Jimmy Miller who’d also worked with Traffic. Together they produced Music In A Doll’s House (1968) the debut album for British band Family. That same year he played acoustic guitar on Jimi Hendrix’s recording of ‘All Along The Watchtower’ after introducing the guitarist to Bob Dylan’s original version. In 1969 Mason went to Los Angeles to hook up with Gram Parsons who introduced him to Delaney and Bonnie Bramlett. He joined their Friends Tour of 1969 playing alongside Eric Clapton, bass guitarist Carl Radle and drummer Jim Gordon soon to become Clapton’s rhythm section in Derek and The Dominos. After guesting with Clapton’s new band at their London debut, he declined an invitation to join, deciding instead to return once again to the reformed Traffic one last time for a tour that resulted in the live album Welcome To The Canteen.

“Alone Together” released in 1970 kicked off with the Delaney-esque “Only You Know And I Know” which would become a top thirty hit for Mason while Delaney & Bonnie’s cover made it to the top twenty. ‘World In Changes’ (Russell on Hammond organ) and ‘Can’t Stop Worrying Can’t Stop Loving’ are vehicles for Mason’s effective acoustic guitar work. The rocking ‘Waitin’ On You’ with electric piano(Russell again) and gospel inspired vocals is in sharp contrast to the acoustic based ‘Just a Song’. Another folk-rocker ‘Look At You, Look At Me’, a co-write with Capaldi and the album’s longest track at seven and a half minutes, would have been a comfortable fit on the first two Traffic albums. Mason’s melodic, fluid well placed lead guitar breaks are exceptional. The two most memorable songs on ‘Alone Together’ are the romantically reflective ‘Sad And Deep As You’ and the moody ‘Shouldn’t Have Took More Than You Gave’ on which Clapton, heavily influenced by Jimi Hendrix at the time, contributes a sustained Cream-like wah-wah solo. Alone Together stayed on the album chart for more than six months eventually going gold the US charts. Now considered a bona fide classic it preceded another twelve albums. In 2005 it was re-released as a twofer with its 1972 followup Headkeeper, a collection of live recordings and unfinished studio takes. While later releases weren’t as musically adventurous as Alone Together, Dave Mason (1974), Split Coconut (1975) and Let It Flow (1977), that included Mason’s biggest hit ‘We Just Disagree’, were all big sellers. A 1980 single ‘Save Me’ was notable for featuring a duet with Michael Jackson. Between 1993 and 1995 Mason was a member of Fleetwood Mac alongside singer Bekka Bramlett a daughter of Delaney and Bonnie. Both contributed to the album Time (1995). In 2002 he released the DVD Dave Mason Live At Sunrise recorded at The Sunrise Theatre in Florida. When asked in a post-performance interview why he was not part of various Traffic reformations he replied that he would love to have been involved but Steve Winwood hadn’t invited him. Mason was an active supporter of music education for children. In 2005 he became an official advocate of Little Kids Rock a non-profit organization that provides free musical instruments and lessons to children in public schools throughout the U.S. On April 19, 2026, Mason died at the age of 79.

YOU WON’T HEAR THIS ON THE RADIO

By Trevor J.Leeden

JESPER LINDELL

THE DEL McCOURY BAND

ORQUESTA AKOKÁN

Yep Roc/Redeye/Planet

MCM/Redeye/Planet

Daptone/Redeye/Planet

The Swedish soul man and his band of travelling troubadours are back with the sister album to his Muscle Shoals recordings. Two days were spent inside the walls of Willie Mitchell’s fabled studio laying down an homage to the artists who forged that distinctive Memphis soul sound. Once again, the original templates primarily remain unchanged; why tamper with perfection. Lindell puts a suitably greasy Memphis soul stamp on the nine songs, and it’s hats off for digging deeply into the archives to find choice cuts like Margie Joseph’s swampy stomper ‘Sweeter Tomorrow’, the Amazing Rhythm Aces’ ‘King Of The Cowboys’, and the Staples’ funky ‘Whicha Way Did It Go’.

Twenty-five years after its original release, the McCoury’s still sound as vibrant and groundbreaking today as they did then. Bolstered by three previously unreleased tracks (all top shelf performances) from the original sessions, Del and his boys remain true to their traditional bluegrass roots, yet the introduction of nontraditional material took the music down a wildly progressive path. Fuelled by sons Robbie (banjo) and Ron (mandolin), Del’s high and lonesome vocals soar on songs that challenged the bluegrass tradition, not least a rollicking version of Richard Thompson’s ‘1952 Vincent Black Lightning’; an acoustic masterpiece that franked the band’s reputation as the pre-eminent force in bluegrass.

Akokán is a Nigerian Yobura language word that means “from the heart”, and the Orquesta’s fourth album is an Exocet that scores a direct hit. The Cuban/New York big band collective continue to transform the golden age of Cuban mambo into a hipshaking, soul stirring, foot stomping dance party for the 21st century. The front-line vocals have been expanded with the addition of songbirds Carolina Oliveros and Mariam Elhajli, providing a sultry foil to the band’s mainstay vocalist Kiko Ruiz. Pulsating horns, infectious reeds, and dazzling percussion underpin a syncopated rhythmic extravaganza that climaxes with a stunning Cuban cha-cha chá – “Cha cha cha Ooh la la”; an AOTY contender.

VARIOUS ARTISTS

BILL WITHERS

CINDY BLACKMAN SANTANA

STEEP CANYON RANGERS

Mack Avenue/Redeye/Planet

Yep Roc/Redeye/Planet

The feted drummer doesn’t pull any punches; 17 tracks of front-andcentre drumming is a lot to ponder but for the most part she pulls it off with aplomb. With her crack core band in tow, there are distinct similarities to the 1970’s heights of jazz-rock fusion; co-incidentally, husband Carlos and his erstwhile collaborator John McLaughlin trade wah-wah soaked licks on the self-explanatory titled ‘Guitar Love’. Carlos’ fiery guitar features prominently; however the most inspired moments occur when Blackman Santana and bassist Felix Pastorius anchor the band down the spiritual jazz path. This isn’t Love, Devotion, Surrender, but the ferocity of Blackman Santana’s drumming makes for an exhilarating listen.

It’s back to the future for North Carolina’s, arguably America’s, finest contemporary bluegrass combo. The string band’s 15th album is a wonderful return to their Appalachian roots. The sextet doesn’t need any help, but there’s a choice duelling banjos moment with Steve Martin on the steamrolling ‘Heart’s The Only Compass’, Edie Brickell contributes empathetic background harmony on ‘Halfway To Reno’, and Della Mae vocalist Celia Woodsmith lights up the standout ‘Hard Times’, an old-timey Appalachian back porch knees-up. The title track lays out the Rangers’ stall, a breakup song with delicate guitar, banjo and fiddle runs, including a clear statement of intent: “for my next act I’m going to have me a little fun”. They sure are.

ROYAL

A STRANGE LIGHT FROM THE EAST Cherry Red/Planet Between 1965 and 1972 the mystic philosophies of Eastern music permeated through folk, jazz, indeed all genres, plotting a pathway towards ‘world” music’; this superb 3-disc anthology traces these origins. From the dexterity of Bert Jansch’s acoustic masterpiece “Anji”, the journey goes via the Yardbirds, The Beatles, The Byrds, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band’s seminal “East West” that merged modal jazz and Indian classical music, even making a stop at the progressive rock excesses of Yes and their raga-inspired ‘Siberian Khatru’. The rarities are illuminating, not least the New Zealand Afro-Indo duo The 40 Watt Banana’s ‘Nirvana’, a psychedelic sitar and tabla tour-de-force.

DEL & THE BOYS AMERICA!

BILL WITHERS Robinsongs/Cherry Red//Planet Withers may have been 33 years of age when he released his debut album Just As I Am, but it was the calling card of a fully matured artist. Blessed with a glorious rich baritone voice, he set the tone for a run of albums that showcased his erudite songwriting skills, effortlessly moving from R&B to soul and gospel. Withers’ first five albums are included in this compendium, including 1973’s superb live outing Live At Carnegie Hall. If his debut was a masterpiece (produced by Booker T and featuring Al Jackson Jr., Stephen Stills, and Jim Keltner) then its follow-up Still Bill took 70’s late-night soul-funk to a completely higher plane.

COHERENCE

VARIOUS ARTISTS

BEFORE THE GOLD RUSH Cherry Red/Planet The definitive origins of country rock are tenuous at best; nonetheless, this 3-disc anthology chronicles the embryonic years in America from 1966 to 1973 when rock music wed itself to the sounds of Nashville and the Grand Ole Opry. Featuring 76 different artists, the journey goes from the pioneering efforts of Jerry Lee Lewis and Rick Nelson through to those who would define the genre – The Flying Burrito Brothers, The Byrds, Michael Nesmith, and Poco to name a few. Artists on the periphery such as Little Feat and The Band sit beside obscurities like Swampwater and Shiva’s Headband. Each song is meticulously annotated, providing a thought-provoking insight into where it all began.

NEXT ACT

ALBUM FEATURE

By Brian Wise

Rolling Stones. Photo by Kevin Mazur.

ROLLING STONES

FOREIGN TONGUES Universal Music Group

he Rolling Stones were the first band I ever saw live. It was sheer luck that not long into my teens I was able to see the band whose photos adorned the first few pages of my 1966 journal. It’s an experience that still resonates. I have seen them numerous times since and bought every record they have ever released so, while it’s hard to claim total objectivity, I haven’t always been totally uncritical. I certainly could never have imagined that I would be writing about a new album from them 60 years later or hoping that they might tour again. But here we are. In the ‘60s you could be a Beatles fan and get the approval of your parents, or you could be a Stones fan and get the approval of your friends who were hipper or more rebellious. The Beatles would lead you into Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Arthur Alexander, Larry Williams and Buddy Holly but the Stones would be the gateway to all of those plus Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Slim Harpo and Allen Toussaint. As singles made way for albums you would spend countless hours with the latest purchase with your precious pocket money so that even in the most critically maligned album such as 1967’s Their Satanic Majesties Request you would find some gems to justify the expenditure. Nowadays we are faced with such a flood of new releases that, unless you are careful, it is sometimes difficult to spend much time with any album. So, it is pleasing to report that I have willingly listened to Foreign Tongues constantly since its release because it’s probably doubtful that we’ll get to hear a new studio album from them again - unless it comprises outtakes – and I have not had to search too hard to find the gems on the new album. Just over a decade after I first saw them, the Stones were being written off as rock dinosaurs by the emergent punk movement. Who’s laughing now? More than 60 years since the band’s

first recordings and more than 50 years since Mick Jagger declared, “I’d rather be dead than sing ‘Satisfaction’ when I’m 45,” the Rolling Stones have released their 25th album. And? It’s really good! Obviously, it doesn’t reach the heights of the group’s greatest work but that was done more than five decades ago and is ancient history to a new generation. While Foreign Tongues is better than its 2023 predecessor Hackney Diamonds, which was the group’s first studio album of new material for 18 years, it is perhaps not as appealing to long-term fans as the now decadeold and excellent Blue & Lonesome album of covers. It is certainly much more listenable than most of the albums released after Tattoo You back in 1981. It might be difficult to recall any of the songs from the group’s post-’80s studio albums, apart from the blues covers, but the new album is going to provide at least a few that we’ll remember and will fit nicely into a live set. In recent interviews, Keith Richards has credited Mick Jagger with being the driving force behind this album. That makes sense. In all the press interviews Jagger has spoken eloquently about the impetus for the album and the process of recording. While Keith and Ronnie remain the soul of the group’s sound, you can hear Jagger’s influence in the production, which is slick and modern. In 35-year-old producer (and sometime musician and songwriter) Andrew Watt they have found someone who is sympathetic to the sound of the band while updating it for a contemporary audience. It worked on Hackney Diamonds, but it is even better on the new album. It sounds like Watt has immersed himself in earlier albums, especially Exile On Main Street, and used that as his North Star. Jagger sounds as energetic as ever and Richards’ distinctive riffs remain predominant. Lyrically, Foreign Tongues also marks a huge advance over some previous efforts, with several of the songs dipping into social commentary and relationships dealt with in a more thoughtful way (to put it diplomatically). ‘Rough and Twisted’ starts proceedings and begins with a John Lee Hooker-style riff, a wailing harmonica and a pounding piano that creates a raucous blues stomp. ‘All I drank was Muddy Waters,’ sings Jagger. The famous Richards guitar riff is also evident immediately on the following song, ‘In The Stars,’ which effectively follows a well-trodden musical path. The soul ballad ‘Jealous Lover’ is my favourite song on the album and, with Jagger singing in falsetto, it recalls the sounds of ‘Miss You’ or ‘Emotional Rescue’ but is far better than either of those songs. It might have come straight off a compilation of ‘60s or ‘70s soul classics. To me, this is the best production that Andrew Watt has done with the band so far. There is a fabulous warmth to the sound created by the fact that it is not as instrumentally crowded as other tracks. ‘Mr. Charm’ begins with a riff that seems to reference ‘Can’t You Hear Me Knocking’ until it turns immediately into something way more frenetic before ending once again with the repetitive guitar riff. The lyrics of ‘Divine Intervention’ reference Elon Musk, making it one of several political songs on the album, as the song maintains the up-tempo pace. Jagger sings about a dystopian world which has ‘billionaires all scuttling/scrambling to their bolt holes in the sky.’ Guesting on guitar is Robert Smith of The Cure (who also features later singing on the catchy rocker ‘Never Wanna Lose You’, which could be a candidate as a single). Punctuating the volume of ‘Divine Intervention’ and ‘Never Wanna Lose You’ is ‘Ringing Hollow’, which reprises the country style of ‘Sweet Virginia’, ‘Memory Motel’ or ‘Faraway Eyes’, with Steve Winwood on organ and piano. “Lady Liberty don’t look so good when there’s a tear in her gown,” sings Jagger and later adds, “When voices are stifled/I want to scream out loud.” This should ensure the band qualifies for an Americana award! It is an obvious standout where, once again, the production is sympathetic to the song. It might be a surprise that Jagger has chosen to cover Amy Winehouse’s ‘You Know I’m No Good’, but in their early days the band recorded

numerous classic R&B and soul songs not long after the originals were released. In this case, the song lopes along driven partly by Jagger’s harmonica and a vocal that captures the defiant spirit of the original. ‘Hit Me in the Head’ is one of the last tracks to feature the late, great Charlie Watts. It was recorded in Los Angeles and Jagger has said that it is ‘real fast, like a punk rocker’ which doesn’t make it any less formulaic and forced. I am a big fan of Keith Richards’ ballads that have adorned Stones albums over the years. They have not only added to the band’s musical spectrum but also counterbalanced some of the more obviously banal lyrics. On Hackney Diamonds it was ‘Tell Me Straight’, clocking in under 3 minutes. This time Keith gets a little extra time for ‘Some Of Us’. “All we need’s a little loving/just a hug or just a squeeze,” sings Keith in his distinctively world-weary voice. “You know that we can’t get еverything / But some of us are on our knees.” You can also hear Keith sharing the lead vocals on the excellent bonus track ‘Bad Luck Hideaway’, also featuring Charlie Watts, which is unfortunately only available in certain formats. This song actually eclipses some of the other tracks on the official release, but I suppose it was felt that three ballads on a Stones album is one ballad too many. (It is a real pity that Keith never toured more widely with the X-pensive Winos, a fantastic band that included current Stones drummer Steve Jordan). ‘Some of Us’ is followed by the rockers ‘Covered In You’, featuring Paul McCartney on bass, and ‘Side Effects’, the latter of which is co-written by Andrew Watt and is annoyingly repetitive but strangely appealing with a great Richards guitar solo mid-song. Then we have Jagger’s ballad ‘Back In Your Life’, which is nicely placed, like the other slower songs, to balance the overall mood. Jagger calls on Ronnie Wood for a tasty solo in what is yet another album highlight. Another great production job by Watt. As with the other songs on the album, Mick sounds fabulous. Foreign Tongues closes with a raw acoustic version of Chuck Berry’s ‘Beautiful Delilah’ which they recorded for the BBC’s Saturday Club, broadcast in April 1964 just days after the release of their debut album. Is there some significance in the fact that Chuck Berry’s ‘Come On’ was the group’s first single? For the first time in a long time, some commercial radio stations here have been playing songs from a new Stones album rather than relying on the hit-laden back catalogue. Foreign Tongues was No.1 in the UK and reached No.2 here and remained on the chart for more than a month, which is an achievement in an age of incredibly short attention spans and rapid news cycles. The amount of publicity that Jagger and Ronnie Wood put into the release was remarkable. Mick Jagger is now 83 and Keith Richards is a year younger, while Ronnie Wood is the youngster at 79. The fact is that we are in uncharted territory here. There is a rumour that the Stones will either go out on tour next year or do some residencies. Paul McCartney, 84, and Ringo Starr, 86, are both still recording and touring along with 81-year-old Van Morrison, who has not only released an excellent album this year but is also performing numerous shows in the UK prior to the end of the year. Patti Smith is 80 this year, still touring and writing a lot. The miraculous Bob Dylan is still out there at 85 years of age doing more than 90 shows this year, swapping guitarists like topsy and sounding amazing. (I know because I saw him in April). The list goes on. Almost no one ever goes away. Rock ‘n’ roll has got really old! But surely it is life-affirming that a band that next year will celebrate the 65th anniversary of its formation can not only still release a terrific album but also maybe the best rock album of the year. 61

ALBUM FEATURE

By Martin Jones

ALONE AT LAST Renowned pedal steel guitarist ‘Evil’ Graham Lee releases his first solo album.

“There are drawbacks to waiting so long to have your first solo album,” Evil Graham Lee replies when asked what it’s like to have his own name on a record cover after some forty years playing pedal steel. “Such as celebrating too much and falling over and breaking your thumb.” Lee has had to reschedule our interview due to the fall, which he admits now was self-inflicted. “I’m afraid I have to admit it was my own stupid fault. I’ll be truthful about that. I didn’t get in a fight. And I didn’t get hit by an electric scooter. But I was actually carrying one of the copies that Kevin had sent me at the time, and I didn’t damage it. I just damaged myself.” Lee had just received a pressing of his debut instrumental album, I Think I’m Alone Now, released on Kevin Griffiths’ Isle of Juro label. Known best as steel guitarist in The Triffids (I shudder when I realise it was twenty years ago that Rhythms covered the Lee-driven Born Sandy Devotional reissue), Lee has remained industrious, performing with Bill Drummond and The KLF (Drummond writes the liner notes for I Think I’m Alone Now), Essendon Airport, Blackeyed Susans, and most recently as part of Stephen Cummings’ band. He was also Label Manager at W.Minc records. “I’ve been putting stuff up on Bandcamp for years and years and years, just purely for my own benefit,” Lee explains how his own solo recordings have evolved. “Not even thinking about who might listen to it, who might like it… whatever. And I wait until I’m fairly convinced that something I’m going to do is worth pursuing. Sometimes it might take a long time but sometimes it might be quite quick. And then I’ll put it up on Bandcamp and then I’ll give myself ten minutes to think of a name for it and to find or make some artwork for it. And if I can’t do that, then I’ll just put it aside for a while.” The results are treated, looped ambient solo recordings, sometimes with background sounds a little like the KLF Chill 62

Out record on which Lee’s steel guitar featured, sometimes more straightforward pedal steel melodies like I Think I’m Alone Now’s opening track, ‘Serein’. “People have said to me sometimes, why don’t you put some tracks on vinyl and sell them on Bandcamp?” says Lee. “And I always thought, ‘Really? Do you think anybody would be interested in that?’ And lo and behold I get an email from Kevin Griffiths saying, ‘I really love your Bandcamp stuff and I have a label. I’d like to put some tracks on vinyl’. And I just read it and thought, ‘Oh yeah sure mate’. And Kevin persisted and eventually he came over to Melbourne and we sat down and had a coffee at Mario’s and I realised, ‘Oh, this guy’s serious!’ And then I did what I should have done in the first place and checked out his label and went, ‘Oh, he is serious!’ “So, he sent me his suggested track listing which is what appears on the album, and I listened to his track listing and thought, ‘Oh that actually sounds really good!’” The six recordings chosen for I Think I’m Alone Now were recorded individually over the past five years and were never intended to be collated as an album. But they make great roommates and a showcase for Lee’s steel playing, which has never been conventional. “I learned to play pedal steel in a different way to the way most people would. I just had to learn a different kind of style because Dave McComb didn’t want any kind of country stylings in The Triffids’ music, you know, for good reason. He was avoiding any kind of genre. We weren’t allowed to throw in blues licks either.” Which is what first attracted Scottish legend Bill Drummond to Lee’s playing. Lee ended up featuring prominently on Drummond’s long-lost solo album The Man (which you can read about elsewhere in this issue) and then on The KLF’s ambient masterpiece Chill Out. Lee knew nothing about his

“You have to develop your own style. You have to sound like yourself. And even early on I sounded like myself.” – Graham Lee

inclusion on Chill Out until he heard it on the radio at 3am and recognised his own playing! “I’ve played a lot of pedal steel at home and I’m a much better player than I was,” Lee considers how his approach to instrument has evolved. “And it’s just been good for me to hear lots of pedal steel players. And there are a couple of players who I subscribe to online who teach things and my attitude to that kind of stuff is that I don’t ever learn anything exactly. Partly because I’m lazy and partly because I just don’t see the point. I don’t want to play... if I was attempting to play a Buddy Emmons thing, I wouldn’t to begin with, but if I was, I wouldn’t

be trying to learn to play it like Buddy Emmons because what’s the point? Lots of people do that. Lots of people think learning to play guitar or learning to play pedal steel or learning to play piano is learning to play exactly like the guy on YouTube says. And I just don’t see the point in that. “You have to develop your own style. You have to sound like yourself. And even early on I sounded like myself. I was able to recognise myself at 3am on the radio!” I Think I’m Alone Now is available through Isle of Juro and on Bandcamp. 63

ALBUM FEATURE By Ian McFarlane

LECIA LOUISE

STRIKE TO IGNITE Foghorn Records

or the independent artist on the contemporary Australian music scene – in this case singer-guitarist-songwriter Lecia (say LEE-SEA-AH) Louise – the way to creating their art can often be a cracked and crooked path. For her second album, Strike to Ignite, is it any wonder that she even made it to the end. It has taken the Perth-born/Brisbane-raised musician through eight years of stop-start recording, in and out of several studios – including in Nashville, TN – with mixing duties shared between five different guys – Steve James, Jeff Lang, Jeff Lovejoy, Rick Hollis and Jason Millhouse – and with production and songwriting assistance from the likes of 8Ball Aitken, James Black and Ross ‘The Boss’ Wilson. Then you have to consider that she inadvertently deleted an entire track from both her computer and backup drive in one fell swoop. There was COVID, and what of the 15 house moves, with last minute bouts of homelessness, that she endured as well. And of course, having to fund it herself via constant touring, which can bring its own costs and pitfalls. She’s hardy and resilient to a fault. When I connect with the guitarist over the phone, she reveals with understated aplomb, “There were so many dead ends that I had to get past. My main goal was just to finish it really”. She can be justifiably proud of her achievements. It’s a consistently enjoyable recording, with a commercial aesthetic, spacious audio quality, ripping guitar work and songs with catchy hooks aplenty. I’ve listened straight through to the 11 tracks on numerous occasions, without skipping any along

the way. The songs are heartfelt with lyrics based on personal experiences. Musically she traverses everything from hard rock and country blues on to a folksy shuffle without missing a beat. Opening track, ‘Love’s Fool’, finds her cooking up a funky blues rock gumbo, with a fine seasoning of Bonnie Raitt for good measure. ‘Woodstock’ (the deleted track she had to re-record from scratch) rocks tight but loose, featuring nostalgic lyrics that reprise the legendary American rock festival: “If I had one wish it would be turning back the clock to the summer of ‘69”. Incidentally, the opening riff is reminiscent of Deep Purple’s 1974 track ‘Gypsy’. ‘One Man’ is a country blues with a neat lyrical twist. “James Black finished producing ‘One Man’ with me,” she explains. “It was half finished, and I didn’t really know where to take it, but he could see the potential. We shortened the structure. That was a really nice interaction too, because I’d done some supports for The Black Sorrows. Then Ross Wilson had great production advice as well, and he even added a tiny lyric twist at the end. Just to get bits of experience from those guys was wonderful.” ‘Take It’ is contemporary rock with good lead guitar but is the most generic sounding, thus least essential, track here. ‘Just Passing Through’ is a delightful slow blues with sweet slide guitar and a lyric that tells of a yearning for a lover to stay. ‘Hot Blooded Woman’ is a defiant, sexy, straight ahead hard rocker featuring howling lead guitar. ‘Reeperbahn Blues’ is blues rock, a cautionary tale about getting robbed while on tour in Germany. “Oh yeah, that is definitely a close one to me. I was playing bass in a band called Train Wreck, from Melbourne. We’d been driving for hours on end, not sleeping very much. Of course, you don’t make great decisions when you’re that tired. We got to this gig on the Reeperbahn in Hamburg. I forgot that I had

left all my tour cash, in my suitcase, in the camper van. And I had been warned, ‘be careful in this town because people will steal your stuff’. We’re about to go on stage and the singer comes up to me and says, ‘oh, Lecia, the van’s just been broken into’. That’s when my heart sunk and I went, ‘oh no, they’ve found my bag’. “We did the gig, I run out to the van and by golly, my suitcase is sprawled everywhere. They’ve taken all my money, my phone, my camera. And no one else’s stuff was touched, which is good for them. I was so disappointed. It’s like, ‘oh, you idiot’. And there’s nothing you can do. Next morning I’m eating a one Euro cheeseburger with the change in my pocket and just thinking, ‘what the heck am I going to do?’. Fortunately, I had people helping from back in Australia and I could continue touring because of that.” ‘Saturday Night’ is a bluesy shuffle with somewhat cliched lyrics about breaking out and “making some noise” after the dreary working week, but it’s got a hell of a swampy tang of which Tony Joe White would have approved. ‘Riding Through the Night’ has emerged as my favourite track, a roller-coaster rocker with catchy riffs, a memorable chorus, another burning solo and a rip-roaring coda. It’s the kind of song that would take a live gig out on a splendid high. ‘Doesn’t Bring You’ is a soulful ballad with her most emotionally attuned guitar solo. Lastly, ‘My Everything’ displays that genuine folksy shuffle with rippling piano chords and a nod to Sheryl Crow. Irrespective of any other artists mentioned above, it all only comes out sounding like Leica Louise. With so many musical styles on offer, however – and to dig deeper into her modus operandi – I asked her, have you ever thought you might be spreading yourself too far and wide, and have you tried to home in on who your target audience might be?

confirms. “It’s a good question and a good topic. If I listen to an album where each song sounds the same, I personally get bored. You do know what you’re getting when you buy an AC/ DC album, for example. I guess that’s where it helps for me to have discussions with other people, to try and narrow down what I should do. Yeah, I don’t know. What do you think? Do you think I should make an album that’s a bit more consistent?” I respond that I guess the question comes down to: do you think there’s authenticity in what you do across a range of styles? “I certainly hope so. It comes from an authentic place. There’s nothing fake or fabricated. There were some collaborations where it’s got flavours of others, which I don’t mind because I like to expand beyond myself. So yes, I see it as being real and authentic and each song has a calling card to sound a certain way. That’s a really good topic you’ve raised. I’ll probably be thinking about that all afternoon when I go on a walk. Some listeners who are true blues lovers might skip tracks, but then others who follow my music will like the variety.” Whatever the case, I certainly admire Leica Louise’s honesty, integrity and her ability to craft a striking song. And not forgetting that she’s got an expressive voice and is a genuinely talented guitar player to boot.

“Oh, that’s been the ongoing challenge in my life,” she 65

ALBUM FEATURE

By Ian McFarlane

KILBEY KENNEDY

THINGS WE DID ON EARTH Foghorn Records

s the duo of (Steve) Kilbey and (Martin) Kennedy the most prolific recording entity in Australia? Kilbey and Kennedy have been making music together since 2009, now deep into the release of their ninth collaborative album, Things We Did on Earth, plus there are various compilations and a series of commissioned songs. But let’s consider the rest of the story. Kilbey’s catalogue includes multiple albums with The Church, as a solo artist plus a bewildering array of other collaborations. Kennedy’s other bands include Pray TV and All India Radio. He tells me that AIR have something like 100 releases, covering original albums, remixes, compilations and assorted other configurations. I only mention this because it’s indicative of how to approach this album, in as much as that Kilbey Kennedy’s music sounds like their other releases but at the same time doesn’t. Kennedy has been a fan of The Church since he was a teenager, captivated by their performance at the Tanelorn festival in 1981. Since that 2009 start, these veterans’ working process has remained straightforward. Kilbey will contact Kennedy to say he’ll be in his locale in a couple of months’ time, “will you be ready to record?”. Kennedy says “yes” then writes the music, records it (he plays guitar and keyboards) bringing in session players as needed. Kilbey arrives, and over the course of a couple of days listens to the music, writes the lyrics and records his vocals and goes on his way. It’s as simple as that. Musically, the album displays elements of art pop, psych rock, ambient, some dream pop. Kennedy himself doesn’t know how to describe the music, but says, “We started off weird electronic, then downtempo electronic and then we went post rock, but I’d say now

it’s singer-songwriter ambient rock”. The songs here are all within the three-to-five-minute range. The last time they did a full-on space rock epic was the magnificent 16-minute ‘The Game Never Changes’ on the 2017 album Glow and Fade. Kennedy has often cited Pink Floyd as another of his primary inspirations. Songs such as ‘Reverie’, ‘Dysphoria’, ‘Serafina’ and ‘Things We Did’ display a majestic scope and presence that never loses sight of their intentions. That’s the great skill of any musician worth his/or/her salt: to be able to hold the listener as they guide you through their world view. ‘Disobey’ features a children’s choir and is about as close as they come to a mix of The Church and Pink Floyd, but once again without falling into slavish copying. There are clusters of arpeggiated guitars backed by washes of lush keyboards and the rhythm section is tight and never overbearing. Verses invite, choruses swell and fade, the overall glow remains emphatic and vital. If there’s anything which might detract it’s that the songs are similarly mid-tempo throughout, yet that comes with the territory, right? Kilbey’s lyrics are impressionistic and his sense of word play never disappoints. “I spent a bit of time in the formless realm / So sweet and heavy, so warm and quick / My mind emanated for thousands of miles / Patterns below me, what can you show me? / Trickle world proceeded before my eyes / Future, present and past” (‘The Formless Realms’). “They say there’s no death and there’s no birth / You should remember the things we did on earth” (‘Things We Did’). “You’ve got dysphoria / No one is sorrier than me / We walk around on this hallowed ground / We should throw ourselves into the sea / You’ve got deliria / No one is wearier than me / We walk along and we sing our song / Oh baby what a pity” (‘Dysphoria’). There is much to like about this record, and I look forward to their next venture.

ALBUM FEATURE

By Chris Lambie

RORY ELLIS & CHRISTIAN MARSH

WE CAN’T DANCE Sly Dog

ike musicians everywhere, singer-songwriter Rory Ellis saw his career stymied by pandemic lockdowns. So many activities vetoed with closed borders and social distancing. No gigs meant empty dancefloors. The title track of this album, Ellis’ eleventh, laments the chance to dance our socks off together. He confesses, “I have two left feet”. Yet his family background is filled with mavens of rhythm. “Mum used to teach ballroom dancing at Leggett’s in Prahran. Uncle Reg was a famous dancer at The Tivoli and such. His son Garth was a drummer in The Strangers whose wife worked with the Tony Bartuccio dancers.” ‘One Little Shot’ refers to vax-dependent freedom.

Ellis’ last album Inner Outlaw was released in 2019. With touring suddenly off the agenda, Ellis set himself to writing about the strange time of ‘iso’ and personal reflections. Having gigged and toured for many years with harmonica virtuoso Christian Marsh, he decided to record what they do best. In Ellis’ home studio, the pair worked on the new songs in stripped-back fashion. A duo with a small selection of instruments and one mic. Raw, rich, blues-infused Americana / alt Country, with lyrics of contemplation and celebration. Ellis also mixed and mastered the collection. “Using what I’ve learnt from some good people over the years,” he says. “I was inspired by the Johnny Cash American Recordings. (Produced by Rick Rubin.) And producer / engineer John Cuniberti did a series on his long-standing relationship with Joe Satriani. He breaks down the analogue recording and production processes. So, Christian and I would just sit around one ribbon mic and do what we do. I found a little old 1929 Stella wood body guitar that I play on the album. It’s a clunky old thing, but jeez it sounds good.” Like the Man in Black, Ellis has been around the block somewhat. Down dark alleys, lost highways, crossroads and unexpected

detours. Tracks that explore life’s underbelly include ‘My Demons and Me’ (“They’re mine/ We’ve all got ‘em”), ‘Strawman’ (Bemoaning miscreant industry players) and ‘All The Dirt’ (“Crappy people you meet along the way.”) He sings of his partner on ‘Truck Driver’s Daughter’. Also, in ‘Words Remain Forever’ on the way harsh words can stick harder than fonder memories. In the here and now, Ellis celebrates his deep love for the one he calls “my girl” on peppy toetapper ‘Ponytail’. He laughs, “That’s a rude one.” ‘Too Thick to Drink, Too Thin to Plough’ is Ellis’ take on an old folkloric tale about the Yarra River. Drought, water rights, the Murray-Darling. Farmers who’d welcome a drop of that maligned muddy water. ‘Hangman’s Tree’ sprung from the image of an old dead tree Ellis would drive past on the way to Maitland. “It has one branch that sticks out. It’s near an old post and wire fence. The song is dedicated to the musos who didn’t quite make it, signified by the posts. They had to get ‘real jobs’ but are all still connected by the wire, the music.” Ellis’ previous sidemen include Dave Steel, Chris Haigh and Stu Speed. We Can’t Dance showcases his own instrumental chops on acoustic and National steel guitars and octave mandolin. He’s joined by Marsh this time (also on 2017’s One Skin) on chromatic and bass harmonicas. “He’s one of the foremost harmonica players in the country. He’s done symphonies and musicals. He’s performed with Larry Adler, Toots Thielemans and Howard Levy and many years with Glenn Cardier. “[His playing here] isn’t trad blues. It’s Adler-esque, with harmonica in parts where Dobro or fiddle or accordion might play. He has that way of finding a melody to suit the song. It brings out a lot of fire and can create a quite haunting feel.” Listen to the album and you’ll know what to expect at live shows. Ellis and Marsh have captured the rare sound and beautifully honed feel that epitomises what they do best.

ALBUM FEATURE

By Brett Leigh Dicks

GINA WILLIAMS & GUY GHOUSE

LIVE AT THE ELLINGTON Aural Set Sounds

ew artists have encapsulated the essence of place as empathetically and wholeheartedly as Gina Williams and Guy Ghouse. Across a genre and culture spanning oeuvre, the duo crafted songs that not only captured the spirit of the west but seamlessly melded its complexities into a unified celebration of spirit and place. Partners on and off stage, Ghouse passed away in November last year after a courageous two year battled with cancer. As part of Williams’ ongoing commitment to the legacy she and Ghouse created over the years, Aural Set Sounds recently release Gina Williams & Guy Ghouse - Live At The Ellington, a live double vinyl album recorded at Perth’s Ellington Jazz Club as part of 2024’s NAIDOC Week celebrations. Having released four albums and composed two operas - which were commissioned by the West Australian Opera - Williams and Ghouse have crafted a legacy performing in settings ranging from schools to festivals, mostly as a duo. With a view of broadening their performance, the pair sought to expand their song presentation into a full-band setting and recruited Russell Holmes (piano/keyboard), Dr Nick Abbey (bass), Dr Daniel Susnjar (drums) and Rupert John (harmonica) for a showcase performance at the Ellington Jazz Club. While the performance was originally recorded as a calling card for the ensemble, it has since become a stirring tribute to both the unique musical sympatico and dexterity of one of the most instinctive musical partnerships in Australian music. For testament of that you need look no further than the album’s opening track, ‘Ngalang Moort Kalyakoorl (Our People Forever)’. A funk-drenched hybrid English/Noongar celebration of affirmation of community, the song immediately draws in the audience and has them singing along in language. Side One of the album features a selection of the duo’s co-writes. ‘Ngalak Yoowart Waahliny’ is a song

of resilience drawn from the opera, Wundig wer Wilura, while ‘Bindi Bindi’ is a celebration of awakening delivered through eyes of a butterfly and Koorlangka is a celebration of legacy. Side Two delivers the first of the evening’s covers – ‘Koorndarm, Nyit Ngany Koorndarm’ - a gorgeous piano-driven version of the jazz standard, ‘Dream A Little Dream Of Me’. In maintaining the dreaming, the ensemble delves back into original material with the beautiful acoustic ballad, ‘Koorndarm’. ‘Song For Uncle Tom’, a rollicking celebration of Ballardong Elder Uncle Tom Hayden. It was Hayden who first offered Williams guidance about writing music in the traditional Noongar language. The collective rounds out the first album with ‘Keyen, Koodjal, Daambart’, a joyous song about keeping family close. The ensemble returns from its interlude and opens Side Three of the album with the smokey jazz infusion of ‘Nyittiny Boodja’ before delivering two sublime cover versions. ‘Djinda Djinda’ is a beautiful piano-backed Noongar language version of ‘Twinkle Twinkle’ while ‘Ngarda Djinda Kedalak’ is a stunning reworking of The Church’s ‘Under The Milky Way’. While there is no shortage of interpretations of the Steve Kilbey and Karin Jansson penned contemporary classic, what elevates this version is not just its exquisite Noongar translation, but the ensemble’s sublimely sultry arrangement. The problem with elevating the musical bar to the heights it did with ‘Ngarda Djinda Kedalak’, is what to do next. The ensemble closes Side Three with two spritely jazz-drenched gems, ‘Bilya-k’ and ‘Benang’. Side Four of the release opens with blasts of harmonica as the ensemble charges through the vivacious, ‘Koolbardi Wer Wardong’ before launching into the pensive Noonang Koort Warra. The song hails from Williams and Ghouse’s youth opera – ‘Koolbardi wer Wardong’ – which tells the story of two brothers, a magpie with the swagger of Frank Sinatra and a crow with the sway of Bon Scott. ‘Noonang Koort Warra’ gave way to another interpretation, ‘Meenak Bilya’. While this time it is Henry Mancini’s iconic ‘Moon River’ that is given a deft interpretation into Noongar, Williams returns to English in the chorus to present the audience with the opportunity to join the vocal fold. The ensemble then fittingly closes out the evening and recording with the live favourite, ‘Djidi Djidi’, A suitably energetic song about a Willy Wagtail, its Noongar title reflects the sound the bird makes. For Williams, the album is no doubt an emotionally complex mix of both grief and gratitude. For the rest of us it is a testament to a cross-cultural musical crusade that forges language revitalisation, cultural continuity, and reconciliation. Williams and Ghouse have elevated Noongar language from its absence in mainstream culture into a living, contemporary, culturally spanning artistic practice while crafting a selection of sublime stories and songs and a heck of a legacy in the process.

ALBUM FEATURE

By Jeff Jenkins

CHASING AMI

The daughter of an Aussie icon blazes her own trail.

AMI WILLIAMSON

SING YOU OUT OF ME Independent

ohn Williamson tells a revealing story about rocking up to the Johnny Young Talent School to pick up his daughters Ami and Georgie. When he walked in, he was aghast to hear them singing “something like ‘we are American kids’”. The Aussie legend angrily told the teachers he would be removing his children if the school didn’t change the word to “Australian”. Ami laughs when she’s reminded of that childhood memory singing Kim Wilde’s ‘Kids In America’. “Yes, Dad was horrified, and we did end up changing it to ‘Kids In Australia’.” That defiant Australianness has inevitably seeped into Ami Williamson’s solo work. “I guess it was never really an option,” she smiles. “But I’m not sure why you’d want to sing in another accent other than your own.” Though she has worked with her famous father – his recent album, How Many Songs, featured the daddy/daughter duet ‘Waiting For The Sun’ – Ami has proudly followed her own path. “I’ve always been there for advice,” her dad points out, “but she has needed to stand on her own two feet and not be recognised as ‘John Williamson’s daughter’.” In a wildly diverse career, Ami studied classical singing and piano at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and won a scholarship to further her studies in Germany, before landing a gig with Opera Australia. She was then drawn to delivering her own brand of folk music, influenced by comedy as well as her classical training. Sing You Out Of Me – Ami’s fourth studio album – is also a celebration of strong women. The album opens with a song called ‘Joy McKean’, which pays tribute to Slim Dusty’s wife, who died in 2023, aged 93. Ami calls Joy “the brains behind the man”. “I don’t think Slim would have had a quarter of a career without Joy. She was the power behind all of it, if you ask me. “I kind of got to know Joy a bit because she was good friends with my mum [Mary Kay]. Joy was really savvy and smart and forwardthinking and creative … talk about a power couple!” The album also features a call for sexual equality in the bedroom – ‘Go South’; the tale of the English suffragette Emily Davison; and a song called ‘Al Pacino’. As well as highlighting the movie legend’s acting abilities – “I could watch you watch a wall” – the song takes a swipe at his predilection

for dating young women. “Does your daughter babysit your wife?” Ami asks. “If you lie too still in bed, does your wife think you’re dead?” Ami says the song is a “call to cougars to even out the ledger – to get some younger pleasure”. “That goes really well live,” she explains. “I always play up to the ‘cougars’ in the crowd. I should have included a live version on the album; people always think it’s hilarious.” American folk legend Judy Collins became a fan when she saw Ami perform at the Port Fairy Folk Festival, calling her “an incredible, oneof-a-kind artist”, while another American legend, Joan Baez, praised Ami’s live show, declaring: “Nothing scares her, she’s fearless on stage.” Sing You Out Of Me also includes a song for Ami’s partner, ‘These Things Make You My Man’; a poignant piece for “separated parents, single parents and stepparents” called ‘Stand On A Mountain’; and a touching track for Ami’s son, ‘Darling Boy’. The result is a range of emotions. “The thing about funny songs is they get an instant reaction – you know if they’re going well,” Ami notes. “Sometimes after a really sad song, people don’t want to even clap. You think it’s a flop, but not all songs are received in the same way.” The album concludes with a cover, Ami’s reinvention of The Angels classic ‘Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again’, augmented by piano and strings. “I think the string arrangement brings out the meaning of the story [the tragic passing of a girlfriend of the band’s original manager]. But quite the reverse has happened over the years – it’s become an up-yours song.” Ami befriended Doc Neeson when they performed for the Aussie troops in Afghanistan. “He was not at all like his stage persona. He was very well-read and certainly a charmer. And I loved his lyric writing. “He was a really interesting artist.” As is Ami Williamson. Showgirl. Comedienne. Classical artist. Folk

artist. Feminist. Impossible to pigeonhole. Just sit back and enjoy the ride. Sing You Out Of Me is out now.

ALBUM FEATURE

By Brett Leigh Dicks that also empowers an impeccable performance of Woody Guthrie’s ‘Deportee’. In delving into her fellow Oklahoman’s catalogue, the choice of song is as poignant in its current socio-political relevance as it is in its exquisite execution. Pomeroy has previously cited how an early encounter with John Denver’s music, specifically his iconic song ‘Leaving on a Jet Plane’, was one of the reasons she became a musician. Here however, she delivers an impassioned version of Denver’s cascading ‘This Old Guitar’. While Denver wrote the song after being reacquainted with a 1910 Gibson his grandmother gifted him and subsequently lost, the song is as equally at home and compelling in Pomeroy’s hands as it was in Denver’s.

KEN POMEROY

TONIGHT’S NEWS Rounder Records

ood music seems to seek you out no matter what. After hearing the sublime ‘Flannel Cowboy’ on local radio while passing through Oklahoma a few years back, I subsequently found Ken Pomeroy’s gorgeous debut album - Christmas Lights in April - through the Tulsa-based champions of Oklahoma music, Horton Records. It was while immersing myself in the neo noir Sterlin Harjo’s Oklahoma-based television series The Lowdown, that I was subsequently reacquainted with Pomeroy and her music.

In the series, Pomeroy plays Pearl Washberg and performs a song in one of the episodes. Prior to the launch of The Lowdown, Pomeroy had just released her sophomore album through Rounder Records, Cruel Joke. An exquisitely tempered and heartbreakingly beautiful album, the record was a highlight of 2025. While the song Pomeroy performed in The Lowdown, ‘Bound to Rain,’ was released independently to the album, it has since found its way onto her latest recording, Tonight’s News. And in keeping with previous releases, the song finds itself in some impeccable company. Tonight’s News was recorded in a single day with producer Tom Schick at Chicago’s Wilco Loft. In addition to ‘Bound to Rain,’ the six-track recording sees Ken Pomeroy reimagining an eclectic selection of songs that were instrumental to shaping her own artistry. With the band gathered in a circle, the songs were performed live and recorded without overdubs to not only capture the spontaneity, warmth, and intimacy at the heart of the performances, but the raw and authentic qualities that have come to define Pomeroy’s music. With Pomeroy’s haunting vocals wafting over a mesh of strummed and picked acoustic guitars, the recording opens with a striking rendition of Gillian Welch’s ‘Look At Miss Ohio’. The live nature of the recording not only imparts a gorgeous live-in-the-room feel to the song, but serves her emotive vocal delivery beautifully, something

A reworked version of ‘Bound to Rain’ is followed by a stripped back rendition of Jackson Browne’s ‘Late for the Sky’. By negating the song’s lavish 1970s gloss in favor of an acoustic guitar, Pomeroy’s sparse and raw interpretation brings her vocal prowess to the fore and beautifully injects a sense of longing into the song about a relationship doomed to fail. Also displaying her talent for distilling the heart of a song, Pomeroy closes out the recording with a beautifully rustic reimagining of Fleetwood Mac’s soft rock through a rendition of the Bob Welch-penned “Sentimental Lady.” Coming on the back of the personal hurt and hope that exemplified Cruel Joke, Tonight’s News offers an enticing alternate and equally enthralling insight into Pomeroy’s musical motivation. And, in so doing, the recording affirms her status as one of the most compelling artists flirting with neo noir of the musical kind.

ALBUM FEATURE

By Bernard Zuel

Perry Keyes songs are about people whose moments are like days, whose choices last long past any statute of responsibilities.

PERRY KEYES

THE ALISON BEND EH Records

oments don’t tell you everything; too many things happen, have happened, can still happen to be definitive. We know this, right? See someone at their worst and that’s not them; catch a slice of bad luck and that can’t be the only luck you’ll get; a word hurled mid-fight isn’t the way you really feel, or not all the time, or not the only thing you’re feeling anyway; mistakes you’ve made are not impossible to recover from, won’t be held against you forever. We understand this, right?

up against the back tyre of a Mitsubishi Charade”, but it’s always cleareyed. Like the knowledge that “Easter felt like some kinda beginning” but really “It’s always been about the end”. And on this record – not Keyes’ first or fourth or fifth rodeo – his voice often sounding deeper and more intense, but not gravelly; hurt more than damaged. Switching between a kind of boisterous, front room of the Hopetoun rock’n’roll clatter and a slower, backstage at the church hall natter, Keyes and his one-man-band of multi-instrumentalist/vocalist/ producer, Michael Carpenter, fill the sound without seeming to load up. There’s scope for subtleties, like upright bass, as well as the kind of obliqueness-with-clarity captured in Johnny Barker’s front and back images, so that it feels very urban and yet open to space.

Perry Keyes songs are about people whose moments are like days, whose choices last long past any statute of responsibilities. Judgements come and stay, usually self-imposed – the hardest verdict to shake off – rippling out effects for years. They’re not special people but they’re not amorphous forget-me-nows, detailed better than any of the Toranas that cruise by in a dirty engine coughing haze on the streets of Randwick and Chippendale, Woy Woy or the industrial parts of town that sit between worlds and between names.

And within that space you can indulge in seeing the curlicues of language and references that push the songs beyond your regular “street” storyteller, with a flash of humour or a smack of reality. Like adding a smile-inducing reference to Teenage Fanclub’s (still brilliant) use of verisimilitude or The Go-Betweens desiring Lee Remick, catching someone fielding the call between Machine Head or Diamond Dogs and another realising this moment of possibility “was more Up The Junction than Valentine’s Day. Elsewhere there’s the ultimate literary football declension of Henry Miller FC, dropping in the old man’s advice about “the internets” or a living of “Carpal Tunnel and a slow-moving heart attack” and a specific “A rundown Chinese take-away/Tucked inside the Eastlakes shops”.

Sometimes the perspective is from the front seat of a cab, watching a young bloke passed out on the back seat, sometimes it is from the window looking down on Lenton Parade where a body sits, “his head

It’s minutiae, mere moments maybe, but then moments add up even when you’re not looking. As Keyes says, “Who could remember?/Who could ever forget?”

Hmm. Yeah, maybe. Probably. Honestly … I wouldn’t bet on it.

JAZZ

By Des Cowley

LAURENCE PIKE

POSSIBLE UTOPIAS FOR JAZZ QUINTET Balmat, CD, vinyl & digital release After a run of solo albums on the UK’s Leaf label, Laurence Pike’s latest comes to us via Spain’s Blamat label. Such internationalism points to the growing stature of the Sydney-based drummer, whose career has embraced jazz, electronica, ambient, post rock, and experimental music. Like The Necks, Pike – via bands like Triosk, Szun Waves, PVT – has amassed a loyal following, both here and overseas. But first up: Possible Utopias for Jazz Quintet conceals a hidden jape, because it is, to all intents and purposes, a solo album, excepting a few cameos by pianist Novak Manojlovic, saxophonist Ben Lerner, and sound artist Nico Callahan. Otherwise, it’s exclusively Pike, who furnishes drums, percussion, synths, piano, organ, electronics, and field recordings. If that sounds like a heady mix, you guessed right. From its opening metallic scrapes and dreamy piano, Pike’s visionary soundscapes unfold like foliage in bloom, incrementally swelling to form intricate webs crafted from loops and layers, dense overlays, ambient textures. Incorporating a surface sheen of electronics and synths, Pike’s gentle percussion, habitually played with mallets and toms, engineers a steady pulse, like a subliminal heartbeat. Grafted to this, Lerner’s sax, sparingly employed, generates a mystical coating, billowing across Pike’s musical patchwork. Despite being divided into seven tracks, there’s a suite-like feel to this album, woven as it is from granular sounds, rhythmic pulses, reverbs, subliminal echoes. Pike’s phrase Possible Utopias hints at trumpeter Jon Hassell’s possible musics. Like Hassell, Pike adopts the role of sonic trailblazer, divulging an adventurous spirit in search of new musical terrain.

ALISTER SPENCE

ALWAYS EVER Alister Spence Music, ASM018, CD & digital release For the past quarter-century, coinciding with the new millennium, Sydney-based pianist Alister Spence has been forging an unassailable body of work across 24 albums to date. Think about it, that equates to nearly one per year. The breadth of this work is mind-boggling: there’s the Alister Spence Trio’s free-form grooves (with The Necks’ bassist Lloyd Swanton); visceral outings with incendiary Japanese quartet Kira Kira; collaborative partnerships with virtuosic pianists Satoko Fujii and Myra Melford; and duo albums with The Necks’ drummer Tony Buck, and Scottish saxophonist Raymond MacDonald. More recently, there’s Asteroid Ekosystem, Spence’s sonically rich dalliance with Ed Keupper. Yet despite this broad sweep, Always Ever is just Spence’s second solo piano album to date. Stylistically, these 16 tracks form a retrospective of sorts, delving into improvisatory approaches that hark back to Spence’s earliest recordings with Clarion Fracture Zone, right through to his recent no-holdsbarred experimentalism. While others mellow with age, Spence is unwavering in his pursuit of new fields, fresh sounds. He’s resolute in adapting the history of experimental piano for his purposes, notably twin lodestars John Cage and Cecil Taylor, customising the former’s prepared piano innovations (including silence), and the latter’s densely driven tone clusters (described by Val Wilmer as ‘eighty-eight tuned drums’). Throughout, Spence sprinkles in little percussive effects, enriching his gentle minimalist meditations, his resounding attacks. Above all else, there’s an overwhelming freedom at the heart of this wholly improvised music. No tricks, no overdubs, just a lifetime’s mastery and reflection given over to the limitless possibilities of his instrument.

MEATSHELL

VISIONS OF NAR

THE ELEVATOR AWAKENING Earshift Music, CD & digital CHILD release Earshift Music, CD & digital release

Meatshell – double bassist/vocalist Helen Svoboda and saxophonist Andrew Saragossi – define themselves as an experimental folk duo. Hailing initially from Brisbane, they relocated – via a stint in the Netherlands – to Melbourne a few years back; and since then, have made a real impact on the local scene, playing in scores of ensembles and projects, displaying an unstinting approach to creative music-making. Listening to Meatshell’s third album, it’s clear it’s a project dear to their hearts. The Elevator Child clocks in at just 22-minutes, but don’t be misled. Across its eight tracks, it packs a punch, right from the get-go, with Saragossi’s saxophone tonguing ushering in opening track ‘The Elevator’. From then on, it’s an ethereal and captivating journey, packed with genuine whimsy and weirdness, highlighted by Svoboda’s Dada-esque lyrics, fused with a minimalist palette stitched from electronic overlays, bass, voice, and sax. Rather than orthodox soloing, Saragossi routinely employs his sax to create short, rhythmic bursts, or pulses, a jumping off point for Svoboda’s crystalline voice, which runs the gamut from operatic screeches, celestial choirs, to offbeat song. It’s possible to discern echoes of Laurie Anderson’s avant-pop, Björk’s electro-excursions, or Meredith Monk’s abstract vocalising, but there’s something genuinely fresh about Meatshell’s conceptual stance, a surefire testament to Svoboda’s and Saragossi’s eccentric and kooky vision. There was a time we might have labelled this ‘art music’, but that outmoded term doesn’t do justice. Meatshell’s brand is very much here and now, futuristic and screwball, reflecting the duo’s dedication to making bold and expressive music.

Awakening builds on Visions of Nar’s debut album Daughter of the Seas (2023), further exploring the Sydney-based band’s unique blend of Armenian folk music and contemporary jazz, a synthesis reflecting co-leaders Zela Margossian’s and Jeremy Rose’s cultural and musical roots. Central to this project is tabla player Bobby Singh, whose metronomic pulse lies at the heart of this music, meshing seamlessly with Margossian’s lush and delicate piano. Together, their synergetic interplay functions as an unwavering backdrop, meditative and hypnotic, onto which Rose grafts his soprano and tenor saxes, relentlessly weaving and dancing. These elements are to the fore throughout, evidenced on opener ‘Cri de Coeur’, a spellbinding journey driven by Rose’s probing tenor – gossamer-thin – that drifts and spirals on a stream of eddying beats, radiating a haunting and ghostly property. ‘The Little Things’, by contrast, hinges on a jaunty and folk-tinged piano motif, prompting Rose to adopt a relaxed and breathy posture, underwritten by Hilary Geddes’ bare-bones guitar effects. ‘Sweet Sorrow’ pierces the heart; while ‘Eat Chaos’ is propelled by Rose’s bass clarinet, its dark and woody tone buoyed by Margossian’s fluid lines and Singh’s urgent beats. The title track, rounding out the album, is endowed with an elegiac air, barely rising above a murmur. Overall, there’s a timelessness to this music; it subsists as a warm and gentle flow. Nothing is hurried or rushed. Instead, these leisurely tempos are serenely and lovingly cultivated by Margossian’s exquisite touch, and Rose’s keening sax. The upshot is an album of rare beauty, transcendent and spiritual.

THE VAMPIRES

SKYDANCER Earshift Music, CD, vinyl & digital release In a world where jazz ensembles come and go, The Vampires remain a constant, having chalked up twenty-plus years. In that time, the Sydney-based quartet hasn’t overly meddled with their trademark sound, dispensing their brand of groove-based music across seven albums to date. Following a couple of collaborative outings with Beninborn guitarist Lionel Loueke, and The Necks’ pianist Chris Abrahams (the exceptional Aria-awardwinning Nightjar), Skydancer sees The Vampires revert to their customary line-up: saxophonist Jeremy Rose, trumpeter Nick Garbett, bassist Noel Mason, and drummer Alex Masso. From the opening seconds of ‘Asiago’, you can sense what makes The Vampires special: a synergetic interplay, solid basslines, metronomic beats, incessant grooves. While their music is in no way indebted to Ornette Coleman’s famous quartet, there’s something about the way that Rose and Garbett twin their instruments that conjures the spirit of Coleman and Don Cherry. At times, trumpet and sax appear to hover, float, dance and cavort, advancing via incremental little surges, as if untethered from Masso’s unremitting drumbeats. But then comes the payoff, as the quartet’s sound merges, digs deep into the groove, exuding an uber-cool veneer. The Vampires fusion of dub and reggae, Afobeat, jazz, drum n’ bass makes for a heady brew, yet the upshot is an uninterrupted, seamless flow of unfussy rhythmic pulse. These eleven brief tracks never outstay their welcome, they are jammed with tight-knit, upbeat and spirited themes. Most of all, they make the body yearn to move, to dance, to bob, weave, something all-too rare in jazz today.

ADRIAN LIM-KLUMPES

3 PIANOS

Independent, digital release 3 Pianos brings together three of Australia’s most progressive pianists – representing three generations of improvisors – who here, together and separately, fabricate some hundred-minutes of music, in turn exploratory, extravagant, resplendent, and mysterious. Chris Abrahams, best-known for his work with The Necks, is the elder statesman of the trio, a figure whose matchless style has re-defined the role of the piano in jazz, just as figures like Bill Evans or Cecil Taylor did before him. Adrian Lim-Klumpes – who was commissioned to create this music for Sydney’s Phoenix Central Park – is a veteran of bands like Triosk and Tangents. Lastly, Novak Manojlovic, representing a new wave of pianists, whose work in bands like HEKKA and Microfiche embraces both acoustic and electronic music. That’s a lot of talent sharing one stage, and the music – played without a net – manifests a shared ethos grounded in elements of jazz, minimalism, classical, and experimental. But fear not, the results are nothing short of sublime, weaving the same magic we associate with Keith Jarrett’s epic improvisations. The album opens with brief solo improvisations by each pianist, before they merge, shaping their collective sound into extended pieces – premised upon a semiimprovised score by Lim-Klumpes – that ripple, stream, cascade and flow. Together they fashion an odyssey wherein whispers of melodies arise, glimmer and flicker. This is music of the spheres, a lyrical, hypnotic, ambient tour de force, testifying to the combined trajectory of these musicians, who seemingly operate with one mind. The aftermath, when it comes, is steeped in tranquillity and light.

JESS GREEN, SANDY EVANS, DYLAN VAN DER SCHYFF

EVEN QUIET EMBERS CARRY FIRE Earshift Music, CD & digital This project – something of an experimental supergroup summit – was initiated by Canberra-based guitarist Jess Green. The fact that Green’s twenty-plus year career has straddled improvisation, experimental pop, theatre, dance, and visual art, has meant she’s largely operated off-grid But with the evocatively titled Even Quiet Embers Carry Fire, her new collaborative album with Sydney sax legend Sandy Evans, and Canadian – but Melbournebased – drummer Dylan van der Schyff, she’s staked her claim, embracing a lineage spawned by free improv mavericks like Derek Bailey and Keith Rowe. First up: this is a complex and challenging album, evidenced by opener ‘Jabal (Mountain)/Nahasdząąm (Mother Earth)’, an eleven-minute journey of fragmented sound – electronic feed, textured resonances, choppy guitar, scraping cymbals – that swells in intensity, like an almighty storm brewing. ‘Thalassa (sea)/Ring the Bells and Dance’ further extends the conceptual thread, but adds Evans’s tenor, firstly as sustained breath, then as furious torrent, echoing Evan Parker’s multilayered and multiphonic delivery. Evans is a marvel throughout – check out her incendiary playing on ‘Koondarnangor (Thunder)/Star Blasting’ – that drives home once more why she is so revered. Final track, the eleven-minute ‘Altitude/ Bird’s Eye’ unfolds like a dream, crafted from tiny pinpricks of guitar that underpin Evans’s whispery sax, expansive as the firmaments. This raw, instinctual music is spiritually charged, sprung from telepathic rapport, allied to a fearless approach to free improvisation.

MICROFICHE

WITH TIME Earshift Music, CD & digital release Just to be clear, long-running Sydney band Microfiche is awash with talent. The band’s debut Micro Micro was released in 2016, and, while there’s been the odd shuffle in that time, they by and large settled into their current configuration early on: bassist Max Alduca, trumpeter Nick Calligeros, drummer Holly Connor, saxophonist Sam Gill, pianist Novak Manojlovic, clarinettist Phillipa Murphy-Haste. These musicians collectively bring a rich colour palette to the project, heightened on this occasion by a determined emphasis on electronics, keyboard samples, postproduction. In this, they’ve shifted toward – if not quite ambient – then at least toward textural soundscapes, characterised by a slow accretion of micro detail. Conventional solos are mostly shunned; instead, there’s a focus on microtonal undertows, dark clusters of sound that are routinely rearranged and modified. Opener ‘Number 7’ hinges on Manojlovic’s delicate, minimalist piano, a foil for Calligeros’s slow-burn, eerie trumpet that manifests a ghostly presence. ‘Throw Embers’ incorporates sudden bursts of animated free jazz, with Gill’s alto meting out angular, atonal shapes across throbbing bass. A deep-rooted, repetitive pulse – Steve Reich-like – materialises on ‘Everything is Everything VIII’, its effect akin to a slow, hypnotic release. A band like Microfiche highlights the sheer originality of much Australian jazz, signalling the radical means by which local musicians have severed themselves from earlier paradigms. They form part of a generation who’ve absorbed the lessons of forerunners like Simon Barker, Phil Slater, Andrea Keller, Peter Knight, cherry-picking from jazz, classical, minimalist, ambient, post-rock models to envision new possibilities and approaches to improvised music.

BLUES

BOB CORRITORE & FRIENDS

EARLY BLUES SESSIONS

By Al Hensley

LIL’ ED & THE BLUES IMPERIALS

SLIDEWAYS

Alligator/Red Eye Distribution

VizzTone/Red Eye Distribution It’s not often you get a chance to hear rare previously unreleased material by long departed legendary blues artists such as Little Milton, Robert Jr. Lockwood, Henry Gray, Clarence Edwards, Jimmy Rogers, Pinetop Perkins and Lowell Fulson. That’s the interesting thing about this new album in Phoenix, Arizonabased harmonica player/ producer Bob Corritore’s From The Vaults series. Recorded between 1984 and 2007 these remixed titles showcase a pipeline of big league blues acts Corritore booked to appear at his hometown club the Rhythm Room. A deft sideman, Corritore’s versatile full toned reed work is the common thread that links the 16 sessions together. Also appearing on vocals are Chicago heavyweights guitarist Lil’ Ed Williams and drummers Sam Lay and Chico Chism. Louisiana swamp pop singer King Karl and swamp blues stalwart Jimmy Dotson are in the frame too, alongside Mississippi artist Dave Riley and Texas born bluesman Tomcat Courtney. The impressive roster of backing musicians well versed in traditional blues includes guitarists Bob Margolin and Rusty Zinn and west coast drummer Richard Innes. While many of these performers are no longer alive, thanks go to Corritore for helping to preserve their blues legacy.

Chicago blues band Lil’ Ed & The Blues Imperials have been slogging it out with the same line-up for nearly four decades. Carrying on the slide guitar tradition of Elmore James, Hound Dog Taylor and his uncle and mentor J.B. Hutto, singer/ songwriter Lil’ Ed Williams makes a welcome return to the studio with Slideways after a 10-year hiatus. Backed by his half-brother James “Pookie” Young on bass, Michael Garrett on second guitar and Kelly Littlejohn on drums, the now 71-year-old bottleneck master still manages to deliver a set of bone-crunching boogies, souldeep slow burners and sizzling shuffles. That said, the untamed exuberance of Williams’ earthy vocals has mellowed slightly and fans will discern an emphasis on more single note fretwork. This title is the band’s 10th Alligator release, showcasing a dozen new house-rocking originals including the funk-fuelled opener ‘Bad All By Myself’, the stomping ‘Make A Pocket For Your Grief’ and an emotive reading of Willie “Long Time” Smith’s minor key ‘Homeless Blues’. Blues-hardened young Cincinnati pianist/organist Ben Levin appears on the jazz-soaked ‘More Time’, the swinging ‘Crazy Love Affair’ and six other in-thepocket sides.

MIKE BOURNE BAND

TINSLEY ELLIS

Overton Music

Alligator/Red Eye Distribution

Since the early 20th century Kansas City, Missouri has been a breeding ground for a style of spirited blues music that shaped big band jazz, jump blues, rhythm& blues and in the 1950s straight-ahead rock’n’roll. Where Chicago gave birth to the gritty amplified Delta blues of artists like Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf, Kansas City musicians adopted the swinging urban sound akin to Louis Jordan & His Tympany Five. In the ‘30s and ‘40s a myriad of nightclubs offering musical entertainment in the city’s African American quarter around 18th and Vine streets gave rise to such legendary performers as Count Basie, Jimmy Rushing, Big Joe Turner, Jay McShann and others. This is the storied musical ancestry that nourishes the strongly accented rhythms of hometown singer/songwriterguitarist Mike Bourne’s blues band. On this follow-up to 2023’s Cruisin’ Kansas City former Windy City guitar virtuoso Johnny Burgin is again among the band’s revolving door of topnotch players on piano, organ, honking horns, double bass and drums. A reverential reading of McShann’s ‘Fore Day Rider’ that keeps faith with the original is one of only three covers on this 14-song collection offering wallto-wall jump tunes, shuffles and Latin grooves.

This intimate self-produced album of 13 heartfelt original songs is Tinsley Ellis’ follow up to Naked Truth, a 2024 release marking his first solo all-acoustic title in a career spanning over four decades. While it offers the same edgy, stripped-down country blues of its predecessor, this album has a gentler, downhome melancholy vibe. The Atlanta, Georgia-based veteran blues artist proves he doesn’t need amped up ensemble backing to reveal the extent of his guitar playing wizardry. Ellis’ mastery of six and twelvestring Martin acoustics, a 1937 National Steel guitar and mandolin is prominent here, his vocals occasionally bearing an air of plaintive beauty. The one-chord ‘Hoodoo Woman’ and ‘Sweet Ice Tea’ summon Mississippi hill country riffs, the lively ‘Sunnyland’ channels Son House, and the spirit of Skip James inhabits ‘To A Hammer’ and ‘Fountain Of Love’. Ellis draws inspiration from Robert Wilkins on ‘Sad Sad Song’ and frames “Long Time’ in a John Lee Hooker style boogie. But the gospel influences of Blind Willie Johnson, so discernible on ‘I’d Rather Be Saved’, and Mississippi John Hurt’s folk blues leanings invoked on ‘Lay My Burden Down’ go to the very heart of the blues.

KANSAS CITY O’CLOCK

LABOR OF LOVE

VINYL

By Steve Bell

AMERICAN AQUARIUM

HURRAY FOR THE RIFF RAFF

JACK WHITE

LOSING SIDE RECORDS

NONESUCH RECORDS

THIRD MAN RECORDS

It’s now more than 20 years since Southern rockers American Aquarium began their trek in Raleigh, Carolina - firmly planting their flag in Americana territory by taking their name from a Wilco lyric - with the amorphous six-piece led by founding frontman BJ Barham recently proving their prolific nature by releasing their 12th studio album of originals New Ways To Lose. Produced by the great Shooter Jennings - who also oversaw Lamentations (2020) and The Fear Of Standing Still (2024) and has clearly built a strong rapport with the band - it was recorded over a 10-day session in LA and largely tracked live, favouring immediacy and character over aural perfection. Sonically the collection keeps them in the same territory as hardrocking outfits like Lucero or Slobberbone, though the clean arrangements and production at times finds them encroaching on the heartland populism of Springsteen or Mellencamp, without threatening to ape their commercial success due to the specificity of Barham’s small-town vision. Tracks like Dollar General and History Repeats Itself shine a light on a rural enclave hit by hard economic times and threatened by urban sprawl, while elsewhere Barham delves into the power and importance of family ties in a country setting (Just Like You, Twin Flames, Can’t Into Could), posts an ode to resilience and perseverance with Out There In The Dark, gets reflective on the past without miring in nostalgia on 4x60 and - in perhaps the album’s most moving moment - dissects the traumatic loss of a beloved family dog on Favorite Hello. Closing track Bad Habits ends on the perfect note, boiling down everything that precedes it into a treatise on the enduring power of family and community, which you sense means everything to Barham and his crew.

When singer-songwriter Alynda Segarra first appeared on our radar 15-odd years ago touting the Hurray For The Riff Raff moniker, she landed replete with an amazing mythology involving an exotic Puerto Rican upbringing in The Bronx, Kerouac-ian exploits criss-crossing the country jumping freight trains and ultimately ending up busking in a lauded New Orleans hobo band. In fact, New Orleans remained an important part of the HFTRR narrative until 2024 when Segarra moved to Chicago having been inspired by two musicians in her touring band, Nnamdi Ogbannaya and Sen Morimoto. New 2-LP live recording Live Forever was recorded over two mid2025 performances at Chicago’s Old Town School Of Folk Music, favouring selections from the band’s most recent studio album The Past Is Still Alive (2024). The current fivepiece incarnation of the band collectively deliver a suite of beautiful, sparse folkAmericana and sit behind Segarra perfectly, letting their expressive, welcoming voice swell between the intimate and anthemic. Perhaps due to that unconventional backstory there’s an authenticity to the singer which makes everything they deliver seem so trustworthy, whether singing about survival and resilience (the incredible Buffalo, Snake Plant, The World Is Dangerous, Ogallala), grief and addiction (Alibi, Kiko Forever), outsider communities (Colossus Of Roads, Hourglass) and friends met (and lost) along the way (Hawkmoon, Dynamo). Older track Precious Cargo rails at oppressive US immigration policies, new number Pyramid Scheme focusses on the dark side of the interwebs and old faithful Pa’lante ends with a rousing ode to ancestral roots, showcasing their incredible ability to use their unique life experience to paint a tactile picture of modern day America, never expressed better than in person channeling outrage and empathy directly to their people.

In 2024 the great Jack White - in the past shackled to bands The White Stripes, The Saboteurs and The Dead Weather continued on his merry way under his own sail with his Grammy-nominated sixth solo album No Name, defined jointly by a surprise release strategy and its unabashed return to the garage, blues and punk realms where White first cut his teeth. Now he continues down that same rocky road with Frozen Charlotte, keeping the same backing band - Dominic Davis (bass) and Patrick Keeler (drums) - over two consecutive solo records for the first time, albeit with the addition this time around of organist Bobby Emmett to continue on the retro-mining quest. This sonic expansion subtly shifts the collective aesthetic into a darker, dirtier vista more akin to the classic vibe of Deep Purple, Cream or Hendrix, yet somehow nimbler and catchier than those old-world pioneers and with an undeniable modern sheen which places it firmly in the now. Self-produced in White’s own Third Man Studio in Nashville, the riff-tastic collection sounds pristine, whether wailing about relationships gone awry (You’ll Never Fix Me, Dollar Bill, All Alone Again, She’s In A Frenzy), existential questions about existence (G.O.D. And The Broken Ribs), delivering bluesy manifestos (Deredo Demonico) or even a treatise on making content in the information age (Making Contact). Elsewhere Thick As Thieves is an up-temp romp, Nobody Knows is a light-hearted look at being agnostic and garage-blues banger I Can’t Believe What I’m Hearing proves the most radio-friendly moment, before simmering closer Neighbors Blues bursts into one final frenetic guitar barrage to bring things home. Ultimately, it’s all about the riffs and White delivers in spades, still leading the way over a quarter of a century into his intrepid musical voyage.

NEW WAYS TO LOSE

LIVE FOREVER

FROZEN CHARLOTTE

BOOKS

By Des Cowley

After the Flood: Inside Bob Dylan’s Memory Palace By Robert Polito (Liverwright, h/b) here to speak of. If that’s what you are chasing, then chase down the second volume of Clinton Heylin’s recent The Double Life of Bob Dylan. Instead, Polito divides his book into 26 chapters labelled A-Z – an abecedarium – with each chapter exploring a theme of his own devising. It’s a random construct that allows him to radically jump from idea to idea, even as he obsessively circles back on himself. In the event, Polito is roaming across memory, connecting the dots, teasing out meaning, tugging strings to see where they might lead. He’s going through the mirror, hoping to decipher “secrets, signs, tokens, clues, omens, marks, tools – a ghost language.”

hat is a memory palace? Wiki tells us it’s a mnemonic technique that uses visual imagination and spatial memory to organize and recall information. “It involves mentally associating pieces of information with specific locations in a familiar environment, such as rooms in a house or landmarks along a wellknown route.” The fact that Robert Polito’s new book consists of a deep dive inside Bob Dylan’s memory palace should be enough to warn us that this is going to be no run-of-the-mill book on the Nobel-prize-winning bard. For starters, Polito is here to champion the mercurial artist who reinvented himself in 1997 with Grammy Award winning album Time Out of Mind. For the most part, critics continue to set their sights firmly on the heyday of the early sixties (has there ever been a finer run of albums than the half-dozen Dylan released between 19631966?) or alternatively rummage in The Basement Tapes, or mull over the shambolic Rolling Thunder review. But Polito is here to champion that overlooked foundling, late Dylan, a phase largely given short shrift by Dylan-watchers. Okay, so the album run rate might have slowed, but just think about it. The period of Polito’s book, 1991 to 2024 – what he calls Dylan’s ‘second thirty years’, roughly from the traditional covers of Good As I Been to You and World Gone Wrong, through to late-twilight masterpiece Rough and Rowdy Ways (or perhaps Shadow Kingdom) – has given us 13 albums, two books, the movie Masked and Anonymous, the radio program Theme Time Radio Hour (2004-2006), soundtracks, painting exhibitions, and – wait for it – more than 3,000 shows, part of his Never Ending Tour that sees no signs of slowing down. Then there’s what Polito calls his “parallel musical biography”, the Bootleg Series (18 vols and counting). Such accomplishments would count as a grand slam for most artists in their prime, let alone in their dotage. First up, a word of caution. Polito is not interested in telling the story of Dylan’s later years. There’s no chronology, no direct narrative

A few examples will suffice. F is for “False impressions. Figments, Fragments, Phantasms”, in which Polito probes Dylan’s bootlegs, official and unofficial, starting with The Bootleg Series 1-3 (Rare and Unreleased) 1961-1991 which gave us a first glimpse into an alternative universe, a triple-decker that Polito defines as Dylan’s “genuine shadow kingdom.” While Dylan may have recorded only six albums of original material in the period Polito is scrutinizing, at the same time there’s been upwards of 150 official CDs comprising “excavations of his musical past.” Whole eras have been recalibrated, and even Greil Marcus fell on his sword, expressing remorse for his infamous “What is this shit?” review. How do you even broach this scale, this mountain, these “myriad ghosts of dead sins and delights”? K is for “Kiss you, or kill you…”, which finds Polito digging into Dylan’s love of film, in particular noir. Dylan’s paintings routinely reference movie stills, but the connection can be traced back to the early sixties, to the “murder ballads and death-centric tunes Dylan first covered; along with his own songs rooted in them.” It’s there in spades in Dylan’s lockdown project, Shadow Kingdom, the “black-and-white noir-tinged concert film of him covering himself”, set in the fictional locale of the Bon Bon Club in Marseille, the singer surrounded by masked musicians, and “pervasive smoke”, with the clock forever stopped at 10.12. L is for Latin, providing a jumping off point for Polito to interrogate the ways in which Dylan plunders classical sources: Homer, Virgil, Ovid, Shakespeare, Milton. N is for Night, inspiring Polito’s meditation on the three-season Theme Time Radio Hour, which he dubs a late-night “reverie deep inside Dylan’s head”, a secret door into “the vastness of the loci of Dylan’s memory palace.” S is for Sinatra, all five albums worth – tallying fifty-two songs (I leave it to you to determine whether that’s too much or too little). You get the drift. Polito was one of the earliest to delve into the Tulsa archives – the big bang of Dylan studies – having been involved early on with the Centre’s formation. His trawl through Dylan’s drafts and papers offers up real nuggets, especially when it comes to Dylan’s lyrics. But even then, there are no easy solutions: “The rough drafts and alternative-take Dylan of his sublime archive is at least as slippery, resistant, and mysterious as any other Dylan.” It’s Polito’s belief that Dylan, in the period covered by his book, “escalated folk process to

encompass poems, novels, films, memoirs, and those American and classical histories written in blood.” In other words, “it’s as if Dylan memorized everything, and it’s all there in the songs he sings.” Like literary critic and Dylan-devotee, Christopher Ricks, Polito champions Dylan as poet. He homes in on Dylan’s tendency toward revisionism, lifting lines from poets – Henry Timrod, Ovid, Robert Burns, along with the Bible, Shakespeare – and repurposing them for his own ends. Of course, it’s led to accusations of plagiarism (the internet-hunters have been having a field day matching his lines to obscure sources), but Dylan’s having none of it. He sees borrowing as a valid practice, drawn from age-old folk customs, a practice that enriches the tradition. Polito shows, anyway, it’s far from a clear-cut affair when he examines and excavates Dylan’s use of Ovid – whose poetry “furnishes essential architectural scaffolding” – for the songs on Modern Times. Polito does confess his disappointment upon first hearing Dylan’s Nobel Prize speech, arguing instead that Rough and Rowdy Ways is his true Nobel lecture. Of course, the jury’s been out ever-since Dylan got the gong in 2016 – was he more deserving than Can Xue, Don Delillo, Margaret Atwood, Anne Carson, Gerald Murnane? Nevertheless, Polito makes a strong case. After the Flood contains a staggering array of references, a consequence no doubt of Polito’s conviction that Dylan has indeed “memorized everything.” His job is to go in search of sources, uncover the derivations. Like I said, he’s making connections, joining the dots. But at times, it can feel overwhelming. His book manages to be dizzying, revelatory, and confounding – sometimes all on the same page. Polito is himself a poet, among other things, and he unhesitatingly frames his book as “reconnaissance mission”, a poetic reverie. While it’s not the place to start (or indeed to end), it’s full of resonances that shed genuine light. Again and again, I found myself pulled up short, having flash-bulb moments. In the overpopulous and crowded market of Dylan studies, that’s no small thing. Polito never dumbs down his topic. His prose is dense and rapid-fire, at times analogous to a Beat novelist, wired and running on Benzedrine; at other times he’s employing poetic devices, making metaphorical leaps. Some critics have taken issue with the fact that he occasionally inserts himself into the book. But having been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer during COVID lockdowns, it’s as if his senses have been sharpened. Like his subject, he’s stared down death. Polito’s chapter M for Memento Mori (Remember death), which tackles one of Dylan’s late obsessions, is elevated by his own experience. He sees Dylan’s numerous tributes to dead friends, dead musicians, historical figures – whether performed live or on record – as “vast spectral networks of musical, literary and historical allusions”, portraying these as shadow hauntings, “implicit memorials of the great dead.” F. Scott Fitzgerald famously said, “there are no second acts in American lives.” Perhaps Dylan is the exception that proves the rule. The span of years covered by Polito’s book is arguably what? His second or third life? Maybe more. Dylan’s riffs on Walt Whitman, featured on Rough and Rowdy Ways, eagerly proclaim that he “contains multitudes” (never a truer word). He peppers his song with numerous antecedents: Edgar Allan Poe, David Bowie, William Blake, Anne Frank. Such revivifying of the past is at the heart of Polito’s book. Dylan is no longer writing about himself or his times, he’s channelling entire histories, whether recent or long buried, creating vast songcollages – “shrouded titles and misty, half-remembered phrases from a broken world” – that have no beginning or end. As Polito says: “In his art after 1992 Dylan is teaching himself – and us - how to build a memory palace – mental structures, particularly songs, that will house past and present, the living and the dead.”

Bob Dylan Center, Tulsa, OK.

BOOKS TOO

By Stuart Coupe

HOW TO PREPARE FOR THE PAST: TRAVELS IN MUSIC & TIME By Brian Cullman (Ze Books, PB)

obert Christgau was – from memory – the first of the great American music writers I read. His Any Old Way You Choose It: Rock and Other Pop Music, 1967–1973 came into my life as a small paperback the year it was published. Yes, it made it to Launceston. After that it was Greil Marcus, Paul Nelson, Ralph J Gleason, Dave Marsh, Richard Goldstein, Nick Tosches and, of course, Lester Bangs. But in between there were all the larger-than-life English writers who I read chiefly because the New Musical Express and Melody Maker were available in all newsagents – so I was very familiar with Nick Kent, Tony Parsons, Julie Burchill, Charles Shaar Murray and many others who loomed almost as large in my life as the majority of artists that they wrote about. Why am I telling you this? Well, simply to remind you that I have a fairly obsessive interest in writing about music and read its best practitioners constantly, frequently still in awe of their abilities as they once again turn me on to some artist or record I’ve never heard before – or make me listen again with fresh ears to things I know very, very well. So, after more than five decades of reading great writing about music why did it take till 2026 to discover Brian Cullman who has just published his first collection of journalism – a mixture of music and travel commentary – entitled How To Prepare For The Past: Travels In Music & Time.

It’s a simply incredible collection of vignettes (37 in total) about all manner of subjects, some little more than a page, others long feature length pieces. To give you an idea of his standing and contacts the book comes with endorsements from Youssou N’Dour, Lenny Kaye, Will Hermes, Vernon Reid, Linda Thompson and others. Yeah – Cullman’s connected. Very early in there’s an astonishing piece called At Danny’s House where we find the young Cullman (who’s also a musician) hanging out at Danny Fields apartment. Dig the scene. Edie Sedgwick is sitting on the floor cutting photos out of Vogue magazine, Leonard Cohen’s calling on the phone trying to find out if Fields knows where Nico is, and Jim Morrison is passed out on the floor. How did Cullman find himself in this place at this time? Because he’d been hanging out with his friend Lillian Roxon (whose roommate at the time was Germain Greer) who suggested one day they wander over to Danny’s place so Cullman can play him some songs. Incredible, right. And in that short piece I also gained more of an insight into and sense of who Lillian Roxon was than I have from much longer pieces of writing about her. Elsewhere there’s memorable and beautifully expressed encounters with Sandy Denny, Big Joe Turner, Nick Drake and many others.

Cullman has a great way with words. He describes Tim Hardin as “a beautiful thug” and begins his piece on Lester Bangs with the lines, “The first call was letting me know he was dead. The second was asking if I could come over and help clean up his apartment.” The longest piece in the book is a travel/music one entitled Jajouka: Burning A Hole In The Night and it’s a simply incredible observation on the music and musicians of Morrocco. And then there’s the observations on Mac Rebennack: “He put on the mantle of Dr. John, the gris-gris man, the night tripper, high priest of voodoo and soul; he put on the clothes of Dr. John thinking he could take them off at any time, but he never could. They fit too well, they fit too tight, and besides, they paid his bills too well to ever well and truly put them away.” Yes, Cullman can write magnificently. Why he’s not better known astonishes me. Like all good writing about music this book sends you back to the tunes. Whilst reading this book I listened to a lot more Big Joe Turner than I ever have, bought a copy of The Psychedelic Saxophone Of Charlie Nothing as it was amongst the albums Cullman describes finding in Lester Bangs apartment after he died, revisited the work of Tim Hardin, discovered Cheb Khaled, and regretted once again not buying the box set of Moroccan music that Paul Bowles recorded in 1959 when I’d seen it years ago in the window of Greville Records for much less than what it sells for today. Since I read the book Cullman and I have exchanged a few emails. In one he told me that his wife was Australian. A few days later a message from Jimmy McDonough (author of the great new book on Gary Stewart plus tomes on Neil Young, Al Green, Tammy Wynette etc) sent me a note saying he was going to be in Melbourne in December as that’s where his wife comes from. It’s a small but intricate and complex world that’s constantly full of surprises. Ain’t that great.

FILM

By Brian Wise.

Even a partial list of albums and songs on which Hopkins played is an ample display of his genius: ‘Sympathy for the Devil’, ‘Street Fighting Man’ and ‘Gimme Shelter’ from Beggars Banquet; ‘Gimme Shelter’ from Let It Bleed; Who’s Next; John Lennon’s Imagine; George Harrison’s Living in the Material World; The Kinks’ The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society; and Joe Cocker’s huge hit single ‘You Are So Beautiful’. That is a tiny sample of the more than 250 albums on which Hopkins appeared.

THE SESSION MAN: NICKY HOPKINS Reel2Reel Films/Prime Video

ou might not know the name Nicky Hopkins, though I suspect most Rhythms readers will, but if you check your album collection, you will find his credit on a surprising number of releases. Born Nicholas Christian Hopkins in February 1944 in Middlesex, he won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music, but his classical training was interrupted in 1966 when he left to become a member of the eccentric Screaming Lord Sutch’s band. Two years later, he was recruited by harmonica player Cyril Davies, one of the founding figures of the British blues boom of the early ’60s, for Blues Incorporated, which morphed into the Cyril Davies All-Stars. Hopkins’ life was again interrupted by operations caused by Crohn’s disease, an ailment that he suffered from all his life. After more than 18 months’ recovery, he decided to avoid the rigours of life on the road and concentrated on becoming a session musician. Hopkins’ talents were quickly recognised and he became one of the most indemand session players in London. Hopkins’ credits in the ’60s alone are mind-boggling: The Rolling Stones, The Who, The Kinks, Dusty Springfield, Family, Roy Harper, The Jeff Beck Group, The Steve Miller Group, Ella Fitzgerald and Jefferson Airplane. In fact, having recorded with the Airplane, he found himself playing with them at Woodstock when the Jeff Beck Group cancelled. (Eventually, Hopkins spent several years in San Francisco, also working with Jerry Garcia and Quicksilver Messenger Service.) His credits in the ’70s and ’80s are just as impressive, including sessions with all four Beatles on their solo albums. Add to that his three solo albums and the 1969 project Jamming with Edward! — a jam session with Ry Cooder, Mick Jagger, Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts. It seems there was nothing that Hopkins could not play.

If you listen to the start of the Stones’ song ‘Monkey Man’ from Let It Bleed (1969), or ‘She’s a Rainbow’ and ‘We Love You’ from Their Satanic Majesties Request (1967), you’ll hear how beautifully Hopkins could contribute something vital to a song without overpowering it. This is just one example of hundreds I could choose, but it perhaps exemplifies why Hopkins never became a star in his own right. While he jokingly referred to himself as the reincarnation of Chopin, he was actually extremely humble and didn’t overtly seek the limelight. Like the singers shown years ago in the documentary Twenty Feet from Stardom, Hopkins remained on the side, but in his case it was largely through choice. This film chronicles Hopkins’ career across the decades, and the directors have assembled an impressive cast of interviewees who have either recorded and toured with, or admired, Hopkins, including Mick Jagger (‘He could play very melodic semi-classical parts, but he could also play very beautiful gospel parts and very good blues playing’), Keith Richards (‘I don’t think Nicky knew how good he was’), Bill Wyman, P.P. Arnold, Nils Lofgren, and noted keyboard players Chuck Leavell of The Stones’ band and Benmont Tench of The Heartbreakers. Hopkins will probably not be remembered for his contribution to Spinal Tap’s song ‘Rainy Day Sun’ on Break Like the Wind, although Harry Shearer reveals that he would have liked Hopkins to join the band. The Session Man is directed by Mike Treen and narrated by British radio and television icon Bob Harris. While it is fairly conventional in its approach to telling Hopkins’ story, its most notable aspect is the collection of high-profile interviewees who are included. This in itself is evidence of Hopkins’ formidable reputation. There is also some great footage of him being interviewed and playing with various bands. While the film is largely a tribute to Hopkins, it doesn’t avoid the fact that, like many of his peers, Hopkins became a victim of the excesses of the lifestyle. But it was complications from intestinal surgery related to his Crohn’s disease that caused his death in Nashville in 1994, at the much-too-young age of 50. For those not familiar with Hopkins’ work, this should be encouragement enough to get acquainted with his amazing array of sessions. For those who do know him, it will be a prompt to reacquaint themselves with one of the great contributors to so many classic albums.

FILM

By Brian Wise.

ach year our various state film festivals screen music documentaries and related films. This year the Melbourne International Film Festival offered its usual varied Music On Film component with some films worth catching outside of the festival time when they arrive in cinemas, television or streaming services. Most notable of the films that I saw was Broken English, a film about the life of Marianne Faithfull, directed by Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard, whose previous subjects have included Nick Cave, Emiliana Torrini. Inspired by Samuel Beckett’s play Krapp’s Last Tape, this film is entirely unlike conventional narrative and linear documentaries in that it takes a creative approach to the form. This makes it not only compelling viewing but also seriously outlines the importance of its subject and discredits many of the inaccuracies about her life.

Faithfull is interviewed at the fictional Ministry of Not Forgetting – with a research team overseen by Tilda Swinton that has chronicled Faithfull’s entire career. It is immediately redolent of Orwell’s 1984, and it might have also been titled the Ministry of Correcting Myths because Faithfull’s career was subject to so much inaccurate and misogynistic reportage by the British press. She was treated with such disrespect that it is a wonder that she didn’t walk away from music completely. As it was Faithfull, who died in January 2025 at the age of 78, and therefore didn’t see the final production, overcame the machinations of the industry, terrible addiction, overdoses, cancer and near ruin to make the latter part of her life a creative triumph, with one final music performance recorded here with two of her most devoted fans, Nick Cave and Warren Ellis. Broken English is aptly titled after her monumental Grammy Awardwinning album of 1979 which introduced her to a new audience and established her as a major force and powerful voice for women. The filmmakers had three days in 2024 with Faithfull at the Elstree Studios. At the time she was in a care home and needed oxygen to complete her interviews. Despite her grave illness, she comes across as perceptive and vibrant as she is shown a series of artifacts from her life: photos, videos, press clippings and more. Each item prompts an observation from Faithfull who manages to puncture some wildly inaccurate myths and reflects on a stunningly creative career. Faithfull had four U.K. Top 10 as well as U.S. Top 40 hits between November 1964 and the summer of 1965, recorded 21 studio albums, appeared in feature films and stage plays but to much of the mainstream press she was always Mick Jagger’s exgirlfriend. When Andrew Loog Oldham, the Stones’ manager in the early 60s, asserts his Svengali-like manipulation of Faithfull she strongly disagrees. Allegedly plucked from obscurity at the age of 17 with a hit version of the Jagger-Richards song ‘As Tears Go By’ and later becoming Mick Jagger’s girlfriend, she was always more than a mere appendage to any male rock star. Shown a clip of Bob Dylan from the film Don’t Look Back, in which she appeared, she recalls how she rejected his advances. The myths about the drug raid in 1967 at Redlands, Keith Richards’ house, are exploded. Later, she suffered the same fate as our own Renee Geyer whose song ‘Difficult Woman’, written for her by Paul Kelly, explores the idea that a woman who insists on creative control is being ‘difficult’. There are musical contributions from Beth Orton (‘As Tears Go By’) and Courtney Love (‘Times Square’) but the most emotive musical moments are at the end of the film when Faithfull sings 80

Marianne Faithfull

‘Misunderstanding’ from her 2018 album Negative Capability, accompanied by an awestruck Nick Cave and Warren Ellis. It is Faithfull’s final recorded performance. (Faithfull’s appearance at Melbourne’s Athenaeum Theatre in 1990 was one of the most powerful shows that I have ever seen). After being shown a clip of herself at 60 looking happy and healthy, Faithfull declares, “Now I’m less philosophical. I hate what’s happened to me. Covid did this.” Hopefully, she was able to realise that this film will illuminate her talents for decades to come. While Broken English is a creative approach to documentary making, Everybody Digs Bill Evans is a biopic about the tortured American jazz legend that is harder viewing. The film is adapted from Welsh author Owen Martell’s short 2013 novel Intermission. Evans was known for his pioneering influence which stills ripples down today. In 1958 Evans joined the Miles Davis Sextet and was essential to the recording of Kind of Blue, the best-selling jazz album of all time. But Evans left Davis after a couple of years to pursue his own ambitions and is claimed to have revolutionised the jazz trio alongside bassist Scott LaFaro and drummer Paul Motian. The film opens in a New York club in June 1961 and the recording of the classic performance Sunday At The Village Vanguard. [Like most of the film this is shot in monochrome while the scenes showing Evans’ later life are in colour]. Soon after this performance, LaFaro died in a car accident, and the film basically revolves around Evans’ difficulty in dealing with this event both personally and from a professional point of view. He retreats to his brother’s house where he becomes addicted to heroin and cancels gigs convinced that his career is over. Later, he moves to Florida to be with his parents played by Laurie Metcalf and Bill Pullman whose performance is terrific. While much of the film is bleak it certainly captures a mood and there is a brighter aspect at the end as we see Evans emerge once more and receive acclaim for his considerable talents.

Everybody Digs Bill Evans

PRESENTS OCTOBER 2-3

UTE MUSTER

DENILIQUIN, NSW OCTOBER 6-11

SAVANNAH IN THE ROUND MAREEBA, QLD

OCTOBER 10 (VIC) OCTOBER 18 (QLD)

STRUMMINGBIRD

NEWINGTON, VIC/SUNSHINE COAST, QLD OCTOBER 16-25

MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL JAZZ FESTIVAL OCTOBER 30 – NOVEMBER 02

MALDON FOLK FESTIVAL, VIC NOVEMBER 6-8

AIRLIE BEACH MUSIC FESTIVAL, QLD NOVEMBER 13-15

MOUNTAINGRASS FESTIVAL BRIGHT, VIC

NOVEMBER 13-15

BLUES AT BRIDGETOWN, WA BRIDGETOWN, WA

NOVEMBER 14

HANDPICKED FESTIVAL LANGHORNE CREEK, SA

NOVEMBER 21-29

QUEENSCLIFF MUSIC FESTIVAL QUEENSCLIFF, VIC

NOVEMBER 29

THIRROUL MUSIC FESTIVAL THIRROUL, NSW

DECEMBER 11-13

MEREDITH MUSIC FESTIVAL MEREDITH, VIC

DECEMBER 27-JANUARY 1, 2027

WOODFORD FOLK FESTIVAL WOODFORD, QLD JANUARY 2027

LONGHAUL FESTIVAL

JANUARY 22 MELBOURNE SHOWGROUNDS JANUARY 23 SYDNEY SHOWGROUND JANUARY 24 – BRISBANE RNA SHOWGROUNDS MARCH 5-8

PORT FAIRY FOLK FESTIVAL, VIC MARCH 5-8

WOMADELAIDE MARCH 19-21

CMC ROCKS QLD IPSWICH, QLD

Sweet Talk

Richard Thompson

Blaze Foley

Bill Armstrong

Glen Hansard

<< HELLO >> Australian country/blues/soul band Sweet Talk debuted their new single ‘No Vacancy’ in August ahead of their first-ever US tour supporting The Red Clay Strays through August and September. This follows Sweet Talk’s support of The Red Clay Strays on their sold-out tour of Australia in 2025. ‘No Vacancy’ is the first new music since Sweet Talk’s groundbreaking debut record Switch On released last May. Produced and engineered by Americana-royalty Robert Ellis and Trina Shoemaker (Brandi Carlile, Emmylou Harris) it saw the band invited to play at numerous festivals and supporting the likes of Charley Crockett and The Red Clay Strays on their respective Australian tours. The band said of the forthcoming US tour, “It’s one of those moments you grow up dreaming about without ever knowing if it’ll actually happen and to be doing it with that crew means the world to us. USA here we come…” Richard Thompson will release his 20th Studio Album, Hippies, Thugs and Heroes on October 16, 2026, via New West Records. The 12-track set was produced by Thompson and James Frazee and recorded in Weehawken, New Jersey. The album showcases a motley cast of characters. Thompson said, “You look over the body of songs you’ve written and ask yourself, which ones are kindred spirits? You look for commonality among the songs, and it’s also a joy when you realize that certain songs seem to be brothers and sisters.” Thompson has shared the first single, “Cocaine Walking, Booze Talking,” a tale of folks hustling in London—a “carousel queen” overwhelmed by the big city, a soldier quoting Shakespeare, “a Kings Road Hippie,” and a “Sauchiehill thug”. Thompson wrote and demo’ed songs at his home studio for his backing band, which includes Taras Prodaniuk on bass, Michael Jerome on drums, David Mansfield on guitar and fiddle, and his wife Zara Phillips on backing vocals. “It’s so much fun to mess around at home and disappear down in the basement for hours at a time. I even bought myself

a drumkit. So, I was able to present more complete demos to the band. You could say there’s much more of my identity being transferred to the final product.” Blaze Foley’s songs are revisited by a new generation of roots and Americana artists on Sittin’ With Blaze: A Tribute To Blaze Foley, released via Lost Art Records. The 13-track collection focuses on songs from Foley’s early “tree house” period in Georgia, drawing from recordings later issued by Lost Art Records on the 2010 collection Sittin’ By The Road. Foley’s songs have continued to find an audience since his death in 1989, and this collection brings together artists with markedly different approaches to his often spare, direct songwriting. Among the contributors are Lucy Dacus, Lucinda Williams, Phosphorescent, Willie Watson, Joshua Ray Walker, John Moreland, John R. Miller, Dylan Earl, Twain and Uncle Lucius. The Hardly Strictly Bluegrass (HSB) has announced the initial lineup for its 2026 edition in San Francisco’s iconic Golden Gate Park from Friday, October 2, to Sunday, October 4. Now in its 26th year, the FREE music festival will once again present a truly eclectic bill of top performers spanning an array of genres, including new additions Aaron Lee Tasjan, Darrell Scott String Band w/ Rob Ickes, Dug, Mama’s Broke, A Tribute To Joe Ely with The Flatlanders and Friends, Alison Krauss & Union Station F: Jerry Douglas, Kam Franklin, Ismay, Jesse Welles, Sierra Hull, AJ Lee & Blue Summit, Gillian Welch & David Rawlings, Hiss Golden Messenger, Kathleen Edwards, My Morning Jacket, Old Crow Medicine Show, El Khat, Tyler Ballgame, William Tyler & Yasmin Williams, and John Craigie w/ The Coffis Brothers. Additional performers will be announced soon. If you can’t make it over there you can stream the event at hardlystrictlybluegrass.com

<< AND GOODBYE >> May 11 - Jack Douglas (80) - American record producer May 13 - Clarence Carter (90)- American soul singer-songwriter and musician90 May 14 - Claudine Longet (84)- French singer and actress May 16 - Dennis Locorriere (76)- Dr. Hook May 16 - Ike Willis (70) - Guitarist for Frank Zappa May 22 - Dick Parry (83) - English saxophonist (Solos on Pink Floyd tracks like ‘Money,’ ‘Us and Them,’ and ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond’) May 25 - Sonny Rollins (95) - American jazz saxophonist May 27 - Steve Barrow (80) - British reggae producer; co-founder of Blood and Fire June 2 - Peabo Bryson (75) - American R&B singer and songwriter June 3 - James Blood Ulmer (86)- American guitarist and singer

June 11 - Stranger Cole (83) - Jamaican reggae singer June 15 - Abdullah Ibrahim (91) - South African jazz pianist June 17 - Walter Parazaider (81) - Chicago June 22 - Clive Davis (94) - American record executive and producer June 24 - David Clayton-Thomas (84) - Blood, Sweat & Tears July 8 - Bonnie Tyler Welsh (75) singer-songwriter July 15 - Plas Johnson (94) - American jazz saxophonist July 17 - Freddy Cannon (89) American rock and roll singer July 23 - William Orbit (69) - Producer July 29 - Glen Hansard (56) - The Frames, The Swell Season July 31 - Glenn A. Baker (74) - Australian rock music journalist August 8 – Bill Armstrong, Australian producer