Pharis and Jason Romero Bet On Love Lula
Marc Jenkins (producer) lugged his recording equipment to the banjo workshop at the home of Pharis and Jason Romero outside the tiny town of Horsefly, British Columbia, so that they could record their fifth album in relaxed and familiar surroundings.
The result is another gem from the Juno-award winning duo. Instilled with a contentment that is contagious, the self-penned ten songs and one instrumental are imbued with a timeless quality, channeling old time, folk and early country music.
Recorded simply, with Pharis playing her vintage Gibson guitar and Jason playing either guitar or one of their highly sought-after gourd banjos, there is lots of room for their gorgeous voices to shine through. On Pharis’s Hometown Blues she explores that perpetual theme of yearning for home, even while knowing that one had to leave to appreciate it. Her exquisite lead vocal is harmonised to perfection here, and throughout the album, by Jason’s rich tones. Master mandolinist John Reischman and bassist Patrick Metzger join them on this and several other songs, but appropriately there’s nothing showy about their contributions. Jason sings lead on two songs, Roll On My Friend and the downbeat closer, World Stops Turning. On New Day, a song of yearning for love, their twin guitars wrap themselves around each other as beautifully as their voices do. In an album packed with highlights, it’s difficult to chose a favourite but the standout has to be Bet On Love, which Pharis admits is “the most personal and intimate song I’ve ever written’. It comes from a person who is at peace with herself and with her life, demonstrated at the end by a most joyous yodel. ‘If we bet on love babe, we will win.”
Review by Eilís Boland
Lucinda Williams Good Souls Better Angels Highway 20
The late career purple patch in creative form from Ms Williams continues. Both 2014’s DOWN WHERE THE SPIRIT MEETS THE BONE and THE GHOST OF HIGHWAY 20, which followed two years later, signposted an artist with a lot to say and in a hurry to say it. GOOD SOUL BETTER ANGELS continues in an equally energetic manner.
The song writing dynamic this time around takes a slight diversion from her norm. Often scathing of the principle of co-writing (“four people getting credit for song writing on one song. Why does it take so many people to write a bad song?”) she allowed her husband and manager Tom Overby to contribute this time around. It’s also her first career album where the material in the main is drawn from current and political topics. She’s frustrated, she’s angry and has a lot to get off her chest and she achieves this and more across the twelve tracks.
Over 20 years after the release of her breakthrough album CAR WHEELS ON A GRAVEL ROAD, she returned to Ray Kennedy’s Room & Board Studios in Nashville to record the album. The album was pieced together over a number of visits with her touring band Buick 6 (David Sutton on bass, Butch Norton on drums and Stuart Mathis on guitar) whenever they had a break from the road. The production duties were shared between Kennedy and Overby and the result is a sound that resonates very much like a live album.
Williams has seldom done conventional over her career and has always been light years ahead of her peers. Kicking off as a folkie, she diverted to what became known as alternative country and more recently has veered towards country blues. While maintaining that bluesy vibe, this latest offering is the closest to garage punk that she’s recorded, choppy and grinding guitars, thumping bass and drums all behind her familiar husky snarling vocals. The playing is fluid, confident, raw as hell and delivers a mutant musical strain fusing punk, blues and full on rock.
Bad New Blues and Man Without A Soul have their arrows pointed at obvious targets, the former offering disbelief at the uncontrolled racism and bigotry surfacing in her home country. The latter’s target hardly needs to be referenced, the stark rhythm on the track sounds like Williams fronting The Velvet Underground. Wakin’ Up is one track that is retrospective rather than current. Its inclusion may be an exorcism of sorts, dealing with a bad relationship she extracted herself from. It’s brutally honest (‘it shook me up, it was a bad scene’) with graphic lyrics telling of both physical and psychological abuse. Williams spits out the lyrics flanked by screeching guitars. Things calm down somewhat on Shadows and Doubts but the subject matter is every bit as dark and aimed at fallen artist Ryan Adams. ‘Look at the carnage you’ve left behind’ she says in a matter of fact manner. Neither judgemental nor sympathetic, the lyrics unfold like an open letter. Down Past The Bottom is a full-on grungy rocker with her vocal approaching breaking point.
Williams, like her father, is primarily a writer and poet. Her back catalogue reads like a biography and even though she’s coming from a less personal perspective this time around, a couple more chapters feature here. Riveting stuff!
Review by Declan Culliton
Randy Rogers & Wade Bowen Hold My Beer Vol.2 Lil' Buddy Toon
Sometimes you want to carefully decipher every line and phrase in a song to establish the writer’s complex inner thoughts. Other times you simply want a rollicking and less demanding listen to match your mood. HOLD MY BEER VOL.2 certainly ticks the latter box.
Enter Randy Rogers and Wade Bowen. With successful solo careers under their respective belts for two decades, the two Texans joined forces in 2015 to record HOLD MY BEER VOL.1 and followed the success of that venture with a live album titled WATCH THIS the following year. Buoyed by the success of these albums, which were initially considered a somewhat light hearted project, they’ve gathered twelve songs on this album including self writes, collaborations and a few well-chosen cover songs. John Randall and Jim Beavers co-write on a number of inclusions and Lori Mc Kenna comes on board with Ryan Beaver and Ashley Ray to contribute Rhinestoned. The song is an ode to traditional country music, name checks George Jones and like many of the tracks, features shared and harmonies by Rogers and Bowen. Ode To Ben Dorcy, a tribute to the legendary career roadie who passed away in 2017, includes an unreleased demo vocal contribution from Waylon Jennings which opens the song. Waylon’s son Shooter, taking a break from his numerous album production duties, also guests on the album. To complete the high-profile team, Asleep at The Wheel feature on one track and the production duties were handled by Lloyd Maines.
With the extent of personnel involved the end result could have been disjointed. The outcome is quite the reverse in fact, the twelve tracks gel together and offer a perfect mix of spiced up high octane Texan country. The playful title track rocks along with a driving ZZ Top riff and the equally bubbly Let Merle Be Merle is toe tapping heaven. It’s not all beer swilling fun though: Rodeo Clown, Her and Speak To Me Jukebox, in typical country song writing tradition, are all 'tears in your beer' tales of love lost and found.
Rogers and Bowen are old school career musicians and heart on the sleeve Texan country diehards, renowned for their lively live shows.Those attributes ring loud and clear on this album by a group of players who, similar to their distant cousins Western Centuries and Mike & The Moonpies, are leading lights in country dancehall music. Mission accomplished!
Review by Declan Culliton
Hurray For The Riff Raff Hurray For The Riff Raff / Look Out Mama Loose
Though only twelve months separated the release of these two albums, the contrast between them is striking. With moving parts and personnel changes over the years, HFTRR has essentially been a vehicle, both lyrically and musically, for the individualistic Alynda Segarra. Of Puerto Rican heritage, she struggled like a fish out of water in her youth and her life journey, both personally and musically, reads like an attempt to discover her real self. Her mother is former New York Deputy Mayor Ninfa Segarra and her father was a school music teacher, musician and Vietnam veteran. The couple split when Alynda was two years old, resulting in her being raised by her aunt and uncle in the Bronx. Initially drawn to hardcore punk in her teens, she fled New York at the age of seventeen, hopping freight trains, crisscrossing America, existing hobo style, before eventually arriving in New Orleans via San Francisco.
The vibrant musical jumble of jazz, blues, hip hop, and rhythm & blues was a game changer for Segarra in New Orleans. Already engrossed in traditional American music, doo wop and punk, she joined up with likeminded bohemians to create the Dead Man Street Orchestra. Essentially a collection of street buskers, they delivered a concoction of music from Cajun folk to old time mountain music and gypsy music to Balkan melodies. With ambitions beyond surviving as an itinerant street musician, she formed HFTRR in 2007 and recorded two self-produced albums IT DON’T MEAN I DON’T LOVE YOU (2008) and YOUNG BLOOD BLUES (2010) at Living Room Studios in New Orleans. Lyrically and musically, these albums underlined her flair as both a writer and experimentalist.
The self-titled album HURRAY FOR THE RIFF RAFF, released by Loose in 2011, cherry-picks the stronger material from those first two albums. The songs represent an artist dealing with her own emotions and identity, a feature that would continue in Segarra’s subsequent work. Given her nomadic lifestyle as a runaway from the age of seventeen, the material visits a host of emotions, life experiences and choices, many quite uncomfortable. Danielle and Take Me both recall abusive relationships experienced or imagined. Is That You and the instrumental carnival type opener Meet Me In The Morning are gloriously loose and chaotic. Banjo, fiddle, accordion and trumpet all compete wonderfully on these tracks, stimulated by the rhythmic musical fusions they were encountering in New Orleans. Is That You?, Too Much Of A Good Thing and Little Things are beautifully written and constructed songs and a pointer towards things to come from an artist learning her trade on the job. Junebug Waltz also impresses with its honky tonk overtones.
If that album sowed the seeds for what might follow, LOOK OUT MAMA was a giant step forward, finding Segarra in full bloom. With only Yosi Perlstein on drums and fiddle surviving from the previous album's line up, the latest incarnation of the band headed to The Bomb Shelter in Nashville to record. The house studio is the property of Andrija Tokic, an emerging producer at that time who also was at the control board for Alabama Shakes’ BOYS AND GIRLS. Tokic worked alongside Segarra and multi-instrumentalist Sam Doores to produce a slick and polished album, yet maintaining the thrilling musical contamination that defines their core sound. The album reaches the dizzy heights that its predecessor implied, from the belting opener Little Black Star, complete with twirling fiddle and hand claps, to the beautifully constructed closer Something’s Wrong. There’s a swagger and confidence from Segarra this time around - also very evident from the band’s live shows at that time. “Well I used to be a rambling girl, but I got tired and settled down. I’ve been out East and I’ve been out West, but the Southern States are the ones I love best” she confesses on Ramblin’ Gal, before adding that she’s yet to find a home. LOOK OUT MAMA, with its references to her mother and father - he appears as a young man on the cover - was a chapter in Segarra’s life journey both physically and more so emotionally. The pilgrimage would continue with the homage to New Orleans in SMALL TOWN HEROES (2014) and her cinematic jewel THE NAVIGATOR three years later. Whether she has shed all her demons and found peace with herself remains to be seen. Either way we can only hope there are more chapters to be written by an exceptionally creative artist, whose intermixing of the various genres of American music is both intriguing and intoxicating. Both albums are essential purchases for lovers of the Americana genre, as indeed are HFTRR’s entire back catalogue.
Review by Declan Culliton
Ben De La Cour Shadow Land FCSR
It is sometimes not always a good thing to over praise an artist and album but to these ears SHADOW LAND is something quite special. It is an intriguing combination of musical style, vocal prowess aligned with a rare mix of compositional skill that is both poetic and concise storytelling. THE HIGH COST OF LIVING STRANGE, De La Cour’s previous album was one that I returned to often after initially reviewing the album in 2018. Here he has surpassed that release with this set of new songs.
Recorded, this time out, in Winnipeg, Canada, other than in Nashville and De La Cour worked with fellow artist Scott Nolan in the production chair to bring out the best in this new set of material. They utilised the skills of some local players who turned in performances that were a testament to their talent as well as to the core material. Material that had been hewn from the hard rock of a life which had seen spells of addiction and psychosis, things that were an integral part of his existence up to this point. These are not tales of easy living and superficial observations from a privileged vantage point, rather they concern real time observations of the attitudes of those living a life of crime, of lovelorn longings, of substance abuse and mental turmoil. There is though a humanity in the writing that has both sympathy and understanding for these characters that can be rare in contemporary writing.
The range of musical settings go from the full on band energy of songs like Basin Lounge, In God We Trust … All Others Pay Cash, Harmless Indian Medicine Blues that musically refer back to earlier times when De La Cour played in metal and punk bands in CBGBs. These harder songs rock and offer counterpoint to the other more retrained but still often intense cuts like High Heels Down The Holler. The album opens with the spaghetti western screenplay of desperation detailed in God’s Only Son with an appropriate soundtrack which immediately sets the path for something special that follows.
However the songs that make immediate impact are those which are delivered with a sparse accompaniment like The Last Chance Farm about a bleak rehab location which has some revelatory couplets like “I swear to god I’d give my first born for one lousy beer, Jerry said you wouldn’t talk like that it they’d took yours away … how the hell you think I wound up in this place?”
The title song, Shadow Land, which features the lines “God’s hiding in bushes, the bushes are on fire, we’re all waiting for him to show, but it’s coming down to the wire.” Lines that speak of expectation and a sense of how easily that anticipation can be dashed. The final track Valley Of The Moon bears comparison with Leonard Cohen both in its delivery as well as in its erudite composing. To some this may be something that could be seen as being a homage to a master, rather I see it as the apprentice having learned the lessons well. It ends the album, for this writer, on a high point.
However, the subject matter here may be more attuned to the darker, more desperate sides of life, it is an album that by its very nature is positive and purposeful. It marks Ben De La Cour out as a gifted troubadour who is able to impart a downtrodden wisdom that is of these times - songs from deep in the heart of the shadow lands. It is undoubtably going to be among the best albums released this year.
Review by Stephen Rapid
Liv Greene Every Bright Penny Self Release
This is a very engaging debut release from a singer-songwriter who grew up in Washington DC before moving away to Boston in order to begin her musical journey. She won the Kerrville Folk Festival’s New Folk Competition for Emerging Singer-Songwriters in 2019 and chose Dimension Sound Studios in Jamaica Plain, MA as the place to record this album.
It was engineered, mixed and mastered by Daniel Cardinal and produced by Isa Burke of Americana trio, Lula Wiles. Burke also contributes as a musician and plays both electric guitar and fiddle, as well as providing harmony vocals. Other studio musicians include Maddie Witler on mandolin, Grace Ward on upright bass and harmony vocals and Sean Trischka on drums.
There are eleven tracks and on repeated listen there is not a weak song included in the bunch. For a debut release it is very assured and polished in both the song-writing and musical departments. The ensemble does great justice to the songs and play together in a symbiotic fashion that elevates the melodies and arrangements.
On the new single, Wishing Well, a song about unrequited love, Greene sings “like a weight I’ll bear it, terrified to share it, and if my heart is on my sleeve- I didn’t mean to wear it”.
Stand out song, Where You Need Me is full of uncertainty, trying to relate and unsure of what role to take in a fragile relationship; “Honey I see you're thirsty, bereft, and so unwell, And so I offer up my raincloud and my wishing well.” The last track, a simple guitar strum highlighting the pure vocal on The Best Way Out, Greene sings “And I know just what you’re thinking, Swimming seems harder than sinking, When you’re terrified to even start”. Another song about the vagaries of relationships.
New York’s Arms speaks of making your own mistakes, moving on from a toxic relationship, new beginnings - “when I awoke in new york’s arms, I didn’t think of you, I opened up the window wide, I’m falling for a skyline view.” Mature beyond her young profile, her perspective on relationships is considered and clearly rooted in hard won experience. There is a change in style from the confessional singer songwriter on the more up-tempo Independence, with mandolin and violin bringing the melody to soaring heights in the arrangement. Equally, the engaging playing on Wayside, with plucked upright bass grounding everything, is proof of an emerging talent that has a way with words: “So as you turn the knife, as you bring the page to life, remember how you sketched me in the margins.”
Songs such as Gone, Where You Need Me and The Best Way Out are very atmospheric and yet simple in their construction and delivery. Greene has a lovely vocal tone, both wistful and warm, engaging with ease across the songs and showcasing her talents as a guitarist and a talent to be celebrated as she grows towards greater things.
Review by Paul McGee
Eliza Gilkyson 20/20 Red House
This is an album for our times and It could not have been more perfectly delivered. You could say hindsight is 20/20 vision or that here are prurient songs for our sorry state in the year 2020.
The truth is that many of these songs were written with a view to the upcoming presidential election in the USA and the prospect of the anti-christ being returned for a second term of hate-filled messages of intolerance and racial tensions, all fuelled by a righteous sense of self-aggrandization. The fact that Covid-19 virus hit the World in the manner that it did, just a few months ago, gives further weight to the urgent message carried by these ten songs.
Eliza Gilkyson has arrived at the throne of contemporary Folk royalty long before now, revered by both her peers and a plethora of fans and admirers of her keen observational eye and her activism. She walks the walk as well as just being one of the principal artists to sing about our sad and urgent plight. In the last ten years she has released four of the most vital albums that you could have in your collection and each one reflects the brave and beautiful light that she shines on both our humanity and our failings.
The assembled players are a real joy throughout, serving these ten songs with just the right amount of nurture and loving care in understated playing and gentle coaxing of sweet melodies at every turn. This A-team includes Mike Hardwick (electric and acoustic guitars, slide guitar, pedal steel, dobro, 12-String guitar), Chris Maresh (bass), Bukka Allen (wurlitzer, hammond organ, nord, piano), Warren Hood (fiddle), Kym Warner (mandolin), Betty Soo (harmony vocals) and Cisco Ryder Gilliland (drums, percussion, harmony vocals), her talented son and also the producer on this record.
There is a cameo appearance by Jaimee Harris (vocal on “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall”), plus the WEWIM Choir of Austin, a support group co-founded by Eliza and singer Charlie Faye to nurture local female musicians. They are comprised of Noelle Hampton, Bonnie Whitmore, Jana Pochop, Zanna Ouise, Bellarosa Castillo, Christine Albert, Raina Rose.
Eliza contributes on acoustic guitar, national steel guitar, electric guitar and harmonica, if proof were needed of her many gifts as a musician. She also sings with real feeling, nuance and grace. Bookended by messages of hope and community, both Promises to Keep and We Are Not Alone are calls to action and strength in a common goal, “Fill me up with inspiration’s fire, And get me out into the street.”
The cover versions of Bob Dylan’s A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall and Pete Seeger’s Where Have All the Flowers Gone? are both beautifully judged in the overall context. Timely messages of retribution for our self-absorbed destruction, of both ourselves and society in general, fuelled by rampant consumerism and patriarchy.
A key moment is the song, Beach Haven, adapted by Eliza from a Woody Guthrie letter to Fred Trump (father of the current president) in 1952. It calls for a segregated building to be opened up for all and shelter given to the most vulnerable. When money and profit turn into your God, then people are no more than cannon fodder. The exasperation in her message is further captured in Sooner Or Later, a song that urges revolution and a stand against the powerful in society who bend the masses to their whims. The guitar break is filled with pent-up anger and perfectly captures the frustration of the writer.
There is the song, Beautiful World, that celebrates the natural paradise that we should enjoy and never take for granted, captured by a lovely Country melody and violin and mandolin playing off the gentle rhythm, augmented by piano and pedal steel. One More Day equally, could be written with the current virus pandemic in mind. Looking at our race for gratification and pleasure and the price we now have to pay - “Weary world, make us pay, Make us beg for one more day.”
Overall, the abiding message is one of frustration at the lack of real change in our actions with My Heart Aches reflecting on the Mississippi marches for peace in the 1960’s, all the way up to the Michael Brown Jr. killing in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014. As the Pete Seeger song says “When Will We Ever Learn.”
This is an artist at the very top of her game. A compelling and vital album and my favourite release of 2020 by a distance.
Review by Paul McGee
The Lone Bellow Half Moon Light Dualtone
Album number four in their quest for world domination, this vibrant trio are sounding more vital than ever. There are 15 songs over 47 minutes offered up in the name of communion and community in these challenging times and the listening experience is one of joyful rapture
From the opening I Can Feel You Dancing, which conjures up memories of grandparents now passed away but remembered in their love of life, this is a celebration of their influence and a terrific track, “Feet off the ground, two steppin’ on the ceiling, I can feel you dancing.” The subtle use of brass sounds adds extra colour and texture to the song and is something that producer, Aaron Dessner (The National) brings to the party on a regular basis, giving the band a new coat to try on for size and one that suits their celebratory sound so well.
The song arrangements are more expansive and the use of subtle electronic effects augments the natural soul / gospel leaning of this trio. This is perfectly illustrated by the powerful build of dynamics on Good Times and the vocal harmonies are right on point throughout with the passion in the delivery is a powerful as ever. Quite compelling.
Wonder is the stand out track on the project, slow acoustic beginning, building into a powerful statement to hold onto the magic that this crooked world can squeeze out of you. It visits memories of youth and the joy of the newness of things before the inevitable hard lessons learned along the way. Wistful and yearning in its attempt to hold onto that feeling of hope and dreams for the future. “Should I let go of the wonder?”
Count On Me is a song about acceptance and letting go of the baggage of the past. “Let it break you, Let it help you lay down what you held onto.” There is rebirth in the act of being vulnerable, the keyboard sound swelling the chorus of “Count on me and I‘ll count on you.”
Wash It Clean is a song written by Brian Elmquist to his father who recently died and a message of reconciliation for their relationship and time spent in trying to let love in. “Loose the dust from your shoes, The weight of your crown, Whatever road you choose, Just stay above the ground.” Personal and poignant.
Enemies slows the pace and is a gentle song written by Zach Williams for his wife and the joy they have found in having a family and being devoted parents. No need to fight when the bond is strong and rooted in the ground.
Just Enough To Get By has Kanene Donehey Pipkin singing a very personal song about the fate suffered by her mother as a young girl, pregnant and bullied by family. “If silence is golden, I know a lot of wealthy women, Buying what’s been sold them, Buy anything but freedom.” There is a terrific blues coda to the song that lets all the anger and emotion pour out in the vocal.
Martingales is a song that slides easily along. It urges acceptance of who we are and about being kind to yourself: “If yesterday is too heavy, Put it down, Put it down.”
illegal Immigrant was written as a result of a news item about a mother forcibly separated from her child at a border crossing in Trump’s cruel version of America. This is a powerful indictment of a hardened bureaucracy in the callous lack of care or regard for any family as being the fundamental unit in society. Kanene’s vocal really nails this: “Nothing can keep me away, I promised I’d find you wherever you are… Here I am.”
Friends crackles with edgy guitars and urgent vocals, driving the beat along in a strong groove with thoughts of friendship and keeping the channels of communication open. Again, the arrangement is bright and the added brass sounds in the song structure echoes a message of being there for each other through both good and bad times.
Dust Settles is a song that is written by Jason Pipkin, husband to Kanene and a key member of the band when they record and tour. It has warm organ sounds setting the scene for a plea to recognise each other across the chaos and confusion of busy lives.
The final track, August, has a gentle arrangement, building on a message of empathy and understanding. It was written by Brian Elmquist for producer Aaron Dessner who lost a very close friend to suicide (Scott Hutchison of Frightened Rabbit fame).
There is an intro, interlude and finale that are all piano recordings of Zach’s grandmother who played at the funeral of her husband of 64 years. It is a poignant moment that highlights the bond of family and the need that we all have to reach out and communicate a loving message to each other.
Review by Paul McGee
Pokey LaFarge Rock Bottom Rhapsody New West
This is the eight studio release from a musician who was based in St. Louis before he decided to move to Los Angeles back in 2018. He suffered a real crisis of self doubt once the move had happened and his spiral downwards into unhealthy practices is something that fell in the middle of this new release, both in terms of the writing and the eventual recording of the songs.
With titles like Fuck Me Up, Storm A Comin’, Lost in the Crowd, Ain’t Comin’ Home and End of my Rope, you are given some insight into the dark place that produced these ten songs. There is also an intro, an intermission (to cleanse the palate) and an outro that frame the album title with a sense of something from a 1920’s movie soundtrack; strings and a lush instrumental sound, ending with the echo of an audience exiting a late night club to the sound of a lonely piano playing plaintively in the background.
This is indicative of the curve balls that LaFarge throws at the listener as he regularly changes thing up with a nod to different styles and eras. We are treated to the up-tempo rhythm of early swing jazz on tracks like Bluebeard and a smooth light jazz feel on Lucky Sometimes, with strings piano and upright bass setting the mood for a classic crooner vocal delivery.
The blues groove to Storm A Comin’ conjures up an image of Ray Charles and there is the ghost of Elvis and Gene Vincent in the arrangements of Fuck Me Up and Ain’t Comin’ Home. Similarly, the retro feel of Carry On and Just the Same have a light touch with the playing and easy melodies supporting the vocal croon of LaFarge. Lost in the Crowd has a Tejano style with a shuffle beat and warm keys.
The Buddy Holly groove to Fuck Me Up is a rockabilly delight and the lines “a long way from normal, with not much left to go” gives an indication as to the frame of mind LaFarge was in, at the time of writing. Not that you would find any evidence of this dark passenger in the music itself and the very engaging playing and song arrangements.
Recorded at Reliable Recorders in Chicago and produced by Chris Seefried, the musicians are Joel Paterson (guitar), Scott Ligon (keyboards), Jimmy Sutton (upright/electric bass) and Alex Hall (drums). I am not aware of this artist’s back catalogue and this is the first album in over three years, but I am very impressed with the obvious craft and talent on display. One to play on repeat.
Review by Paul McGee