Anna Elizabeth Laube Annamania CRS
What happens when an artist uses the impact of lockdown to revisit her body of work and assess the previous output through a current lens? Well, what you get is a 13-track retrospective from a singer, song-writer who has, for the last fifteen years, been following her muse and creating songs that are a joy to discover.
With four prior releases to draw from, plus some additional work for film, tv and advertising, this compilation includes tracks from each album, with a total of seven taken from her latest two, Anna Laube (2015) and Tree (2016). As compilations go, this one sits very comfortably in terms of consistency, with the easy flow of the selections complimenting each other and finding their own place in the well-chosen running order.
The opening songs, Sweet Boy From Minnesota and Time To Move On (Tom Petty), are concerned with leaving; the first, an optimistic look at departing the Midwest as a youth in search of fresh experiences and wishing her boyfriend all the best – the second, an older and wiser person leaving a more recent relationship. The beautiful arrangement of this Tom Petty cover is so perfectly judged in terms of instrumentation, with John Turman guesting on French horn and Anna on softly delivered vocal and sweetly understated piano. It sets a strong mark for what follows, with songs about new beginnings, meeting future lovers or just being in the moment and enjoying the essence and rapture of it all. There are also darker songs about letting go and having to reflect on lessons learned with the wonderful Please Let It Rain In California Tonight, capturing both prayer and plea for the world to right itself and fulfil all the wishes that are sent out to the universe. Of course, such naiveté could never be and the tag line alludes to the fact that in never really rains in California. Superbly crafted song writing.
Handling all production, song arrangements and a talent on quite an array of instruments, including acoustic and electric guitars, bass, banjo, drums, percussion, organ, Laube presents a relaxed persona with a leaning towards light, bright and breezy compositions. The New Orleans jump blues sound of Oh My! (Oh Me Oh Me Oh My) is quite addictive, as is the light jazzy feel of Sunny Days and the acoustic charm of new song, Jardim da Estrela, a park in Lisbon, Portugal that hints at new romance with the accordion playing of Chris Joyner particularly memorable. There is acoustic blues on Beautiful Boy and the feeling of being in deep with your lover, while Hippie Boyfriend has a hypnotic walking bass line from Ben Ferris and great drumming from Riley Sattler, with terrific electric guitar and harmonica licks included.
The pedal steel on All My Runnin’ by Dan Tyack is very memorable in the overall country-tinged arrangement and the blues vocal on If You Build It is right out of the Bonnie Raitt school of love gone bad. The atmospheric groove to I’m Gone is another gem, with Anna providing all instrumentation to a song that featured on Netflix show, Locke & Key. Closing track, Tree, is an ode to youth and impermanence, both locked in her memory of growing up in Iowa and the sense that everything returns to the beginning somehow.
This is a very rewarding album and one that I highly recommend to those who enjoy quality music. It will appeal to both old fans and new.
Review by Paul McGee
Jaimee Harris The Congress House Sessions Ruby White
This new release has seven tracks taken from the 2018 debut, RED RESCUE, revisited by Jaimee Harris, with a group of musician friends, at the famous Congress House studio in Austin, Texas. The songs stay close to the originals, just pared back a little, with no drums or additional tracking for the most part. Harris has never been afraid to examine personal issues and included are confessional songs that look into her past and merit full praise for her honesty in tackling issues such as depression, substance abuse and issues of the heart, that include betrayal and self-doubt. Far from the songs dragging down the listener, the performance and passion in both the playing and the vocals create an uplifting experience. Jaimee has a great vocal tone and delivery, full of attitude at key points and laced with gentle delicacy at others.
The playing is quietly subtle and the harmony voices dove tail nicely into what is a glimpse at how these songs were originally created. Jaimee stars on acoustic guitar and vocals, while a supporting cast of Kris Nelson and Jane Ellen Bryant (backing vocals), Brian Patterson (electric guitar), Sammy Powell (piano), Ray Bonneville (harmonica) and co-producer Mark Hallman (piano), add warm tones to the melodies and song arrangements.
Catch It Now is a personal manifesto to rise above any anxiety and self-doubt and just go and grab life by the balls, “I’m Gonna Jump Right In / And I May Not Live A Righteous Way / But I’ll Try To Never Hide My Soul Away From Anyone Ever Again.” Spot on in affirmation and attitude.
Red Rescue recounts a story that involved an old friend who took Jaimee home to have dinner with his family and the crazy scene that greeted them. Fake is self-admonishment and a sense of imposter syndrome, ‘I Woulda Loved You Honey, If You Would Have Believed In Me, I Would Change For Something Good, I Think I Could.’
As her career continues to develop, Jaimee Harris has overcome some childhood doubts and fears and Snow White Knuckles recounts a past journey that involved rehab, issues of faith and self-preservation against the odds, “Well, I Never Thought I’d Draw A Sober Breath / I Always Thought I’d Be A Wreck / Always Figured I’d Have Nothin’ Left.”
Depressive State frames her past battles and her wish to break free of the cycle of depression and to continue to step into the light, “Is it forever, in my mind prisoner / Will I be okay, will I ever be okay / And not someone that everyone hates.”
Damn Right is a story song about an ex-lover who quits, leaving his partner with a baby on the way, “And If He Grows Up Just Like You, Honey / I’ll Know Who To Call,” while Creatures looks at the weakness of desire and the consequences of surrender to the forces at play in a relationship.
Again, a strong statement from this very talented artist who impresses throughout and who can look forward to continued success along her chosen path.
Review by Paul McGee
Steve Mayone Mayone Mayone Music
An experienced artist/producer who has taken hold of the lockdown period and written some new music to add to his impressive catalogue of recordings. Living in Brooklyn and using his home studio, Mayone has drawn from the inspiration he originally felt on hearing Paul McCartney’s first solo album in 1970, to deliver a similar lo-fi project. The thirteen-track release mirrors McCartney’s home recording approach, even if it contains a few more instrumentals, with five short inclusions. The entire album clocks in at only twenty-seven minutes which is a welcome relief in these times of overly long recordings. Brevity equals quality in this instance.
Unlike McCartney, Steve Mayone has used a few musician friends to add some layers to his homespun songs and despite his myriad talents on vocals, guitar, piano, mandolin, banjo, ukulele, lap steel, bass, drums and percussion, he has included Billy Beard on big drum, Tauras Biskis, Yuval Lion and Andy Plaisted on drums; Steve Sadler on guitar & synths; James Rohr on piano and organ; Jef Charland on upright bass; Mike Castellana on guitar and Martha Bourne on lap steel.
There are 2 co-writes with Matt Keating and all other songs are written by Steve Mayone, a graduate of Berklee College of Music in the 1980’s. He played in a number of bands in his early career, has always been in demand as a session player or producer and has released eight solo albums since 2004, including his Music For Film and Radio, a twenty-five-track compilation, covering input to independent films, television commercials and syndicated shows, which appeared in 2014.
The five instrumental tracks are all beautifully constructed, each lasting less than two minutes, with the atmospheric Underwater Cave and the gentle Sing Along Stuff, standing out. Airport Goodbyes is the longest track here, at almost four minutes, highlighting Mayone’s arrangement skills with the combination of banjo, piano and lap steel colouring the slow melody and subtle guitar parts.
There is a country feel on tracks, Like You’ve Never Been Away and Stuff, while the folk leanings on Missouri Loves Company and I’ll Take You As You Are, compliment perfectly. The blues tempo of Dragging Me Back is balanced with the rockabilly groove of Sweet Little Anchor in a very enjoyable mix of different styles, all overseen and executed with great aplomb by this talented musician. Worthy of your time.
Review by Paul McGee
Bobby Dove Hopeless Romantic Self-Release
Montreal born artist Bobby Dove has been steadily gaining attention in Americana and country music circles in recent years. Dove’s fine debut album THUNDERCHILD, released in 2016, earmarked the singer songwriter as another name to add to the new generation of torch carriers for traditional honky tonk music. A number of bases were covered on that album which blended some crunching Americana numbers together with classic old school country. The intervening years have found Dove busy on the road playing festivals and showcase gigs alongside a host of household names such as Mary Gauthier, Richard Thompson, The Sadies and J.D. McPherson.
While many promising artists struggle with the ‘difficult second album syndrome’, the reverse is the case with HOPELESS ROMANTIC. The album finds Dove embracing the finest elements of old school traditional country and doing so with some aplomb. The result is a collection of prime songs, confident vocal deliveries and most importantly, a cracking set of players to bring the songs to life. The icing on the cake is the slick production by Dove, with the assistance of Blue Rodeo’s Bazil Donovan, who also plays bass on the album and Tim Vesely of Rheostatics, who contributes tambourine. The other players Dove rounded up are some of Canada’s finest and collectively give the songs the same uplift that The Hot Band gifted Emmylou on her early albums. Those players are David Baxter on electric guitar, Jimmy Bowskill on violin and electric guitar, Burke Carroll on pedal steel, Michelle Joseph on drums and Steve O’Connor on keys. Jenny Whiteley adds backing vocals on a number of the tracks and Blue Rodeo’s Jim Cuddy joins Dove by adding support vocals on the track Chance In Hell.
Tear jerkers, lost love and dubious life choices all get an airing, communicated impressively with vocals drenched in passion and sincerity. While Dove possesses the skills to deliver up-tempo treasures such as Gas Station Blues and the title track, the more laid-back country ballads are every bit as imposing. Sometimes It’s A Lonely Road, Golden Years and Early Morning Funeral are ‘tears in your beer’ excellence. The closer New Endings New Beginnings could have been plucked from the Tammy Wynette songbook and the previously aforementioned mid-tempo ballad duet Chance In Hell is honky tonk nirvana.
All in all, an excellent album and as pure a musical experience as there is. It’s also an album that, no doubt, will encourage newcomers to Bobby Dove’s music to also check out its predecessor.
Review by Declan Culliton
Gillian Welch & David Rawlings All The Good Times Acony
Recorded during lockdown last year, this collection of cover songs was released in July 2020 as a limited-edition handmade CD. Following the album’s 2021 Grammy nomination as Best Folk Album, it now sees the light of day as a full CD release, with revised artwork and packaging.
Covid-19 and the tornado that ripped the roof off their Woodland Studio in East Nashville last March kick - started a flurry of activity from Welch and Rawlings. Fortunately, the couple were able to salvage their equipment and master recordings from the studio. That near disaster and the potential loss of their recordings stimulated them to release some of their vintage archive recordings into the world. The result was the arrival of three albums of archived material titled BOOTS NO2 THE LOST SONGS VOLS.1,2 and 3.
What was somewhat unexpected was a covers album also surfacing. The skeletal recordings on ALL THE GOOD TIMES sounds as if Welch and Rawlings simply turned on the recorder on a typical weeknight, while they jammed some of their favourite songs, which is precisely what they did during lockdown by way of distraction. Interestingly it’s the first album in which Rawlings gets equal billing in the title. He takes the lead vocal on two Dylan covers, Senor and Abandoned Love and also leads out on the traditional song All Gone Times Are Past and Gone. Particularly impressive are the traditional songs which are given a makeover. The dark murder ballad Poor Ellen Smith and the love song Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss standout. Fittingly, John Prine, who passed away in April of last year, is remembered with the sorrowful Hello In There. A strikingly evocative song, documenting the passage of time, the selection is a touching tribute to an artist much admired by the duo.
For those starved of product for quite a while from the king and queen of old timey folk and country, ALL THE GOOD TIMES is a must have and a welcome addition to an absorbing back catalogue of recordings.
Review by Declan Culliton
Mary Stokes Band featuring Sarah Michelle Comin’ Home Self-Release
With eleven of the thirteen tracks recorded live in one session at Displace Studios in Dublin and the remaining two completed at Sonic Studios in Dublin, Mary Stokes and her band fully capture the raw and powerhouse sound so popular with her live audiences for the past twenty-five years. The initial recording acted as a rehearsal for a gig, with the selected material the actual set list for that show. Well-chosen covers, self-written material and remodelled traditional blues numbers all feature, the common denominator being the passion injected into them all. The band members are Mary Stokes on vocals, Brian Palm on harmonica, Chris Byrne on bass, Robbie Barrett on drums and Dermot Stokes on piano. The latest recruit to the band is ace guitar player Sarah Michelle, whose input was her debut with the band. Shobsy O’Brien of local band State Lights also contributes vocals on a number of duets.
The self-written title track opens the album in fine style with Stokes’ rasping vocal and Palm’s piercing harmonica in fine fettle, in front of a driving rhythm section. Classic selections included are the jazz standard Fine and Mellow, penned by Billie Holiday, which gets the full seven and three-quarter minute treatment, and Roll With The Punches, the title track from Van Morrison’s 2017 release. Bessie Smith’s At The Christmas Ball, previously released as a single by the band, gets a rootsy makeover and equally impressive is a storming rendition of the epic Story of Bo Diddley. Mixed by Pete Holidai and mastered by Joe Chester, the recording wholeheartedly captures exactly what Stokes and her band are all about. It seizes the passion, vitality, vigour and talent of a collective of players that seem to be enjoying every moment themselves.
Blues artists can often boast the enviable delight of sounding even better as the years march on. This certainly applies to Mary Stokes and her band and until we put this pandemic behind us and get out to hear smokin’ live music again, we have COMIN’ HOME to remind us of what we’re missing.
Review by Declan Culliton
Sean Burns & Lost Country A Bakersfield Half-Dozen Stringbreakin’
Better late than never - my vinyl copy of this 2020 release from Canadian Sean Burns took all of nine months to reach me, thanks to the you-know-what! So I think we’ll be forgiven for being a little late with this review - indeed Declan reviewed a more recent release (We Gotta Lotta Truckin’ to Do’) from the prolific Burns and his band Lost Country, in October last.
Continuing with his reverence for the Californian Bakersfield arm of country music, Burns and his band recorded this album live over two nights in their local Winnipeg country club, Times Change(d) High & Lonesome. You’d be hard pressed, however, to detect that this was recorded live as there isn’t a hint of audience/ambient noise to interfere with the clarity of the sound. Across seven tracks, Burns and his four piece band give it their all in reproducing six typical songs and one instrumental from musical trailblazers of the sound that became popular with ‘real America’ in the 50s and 60s.
Not being very familiar with this genre, the album sent me scurrying back to check out the originals. Buck Owens is represented, not surprisingly, by three songs:- the straightforward love song Above and Beyond (from the pen of Harlan Howard), the heartbreak of Playboy, and the two minute classic Truck Drivin’ Man. The pedal steel of ‘Skinny’ Dyck is prominent and adds to the melancholy on the sadder songs that highlight the misery of the life of the long-distance drivers, which came as a bit of a shock to this relative newbie to the sound. They don’t get much sadder than the tear jerker She Didn’t Color Daddy (a hit for Wynn Stewart) or the maudlin, though catchy, Merle Haggard classic Too Many Bridges To Cross Over. Burns does a good job of reproducing the vocal styling of his hero Buck Owens, and the playing throughout is stellar.
You can also check out Burns’ weekly radio show on Winnipeg’s CKUW 95.9 for more of the same.
Review by Eilís Boland
Sara Petite Rare Bird JTM
Described as a genre blending Americana artist, the word outlaw is often linked to Sara Petite’s name, but in reality, that is because she has chosen to tread her own path. Even though, as often happens, that comes with comparisons to other strong female artists like Lucinda Williams, as well as to some of her like-minded contemporaries. The truth is that while there are reminders here of classic country, rockabilly and roots-rock, her amalgam of these influences has resulted in her defining her music in her own way. The one artist that came into mind as I listened was that of the similarly approached work of Rosie Flores. Given that she has released five previous albums from her debut, TIGER MOUNTAIN in 2006, LEAD THE PARADE (2008), DOGHOUSE ROSE (2010), CIRCUS COMES TO TOWN (2013) through to ROAD LESS TRAVELED (2016), you can be assured that Petite knows what she wants from her music and has learned how to get it.
Petite produced the album with Ben Moore, who also engineered the album. Initially she worked with David Bianco, a producer with whom she had a track record for past recordings, though they only got to work one song for this album project as Bianco passed away soon after the recording. That song The Misfits was, in many ways a summation of her music and ideals. The spirit of that song’s ethos pervades the rest of the album and the end result is one that all can be proud of. The listener can enjoy the album on a number of levels, from the immediate energy that many of the songs exude, to the title tracks more contemplative considerations of how life can give one strength to survive so much: “I’ve had triumphs / I’ve had tragedies / But I’m still standing through it all.”
The players involved with the recording included Mike Butler on guitars, Steve Peavey on acoustic, electric and steel guitars, fiddler Bobby Furgo, percussionist Michael Kastner and the renowned Harry Stinson on vocal harmonies. All are solidly behind Petite given her the platform to perform and do these songs justice. The scope of the material runs from the harder roadhouse rockin’ of Crash, Band Boom, to the traditional influenced country of Floating With The Angles and to the realisation of how life imprints itself on one’s soul in Scars “I got scars / I wear like tattoos on my heart / Imprinted little lessons / Like a tortured work of art.” It’s just one example of Petite’s thoughtful reflections, turn of phrase and ability to tell a story with honesty. Medicine Man has some B3 organ as a key element which gives it something of a different feel. Keep Moving On adds a trumpet to the B3 to give the song something of a more nocturnal mood that is a statement of intent. In the final track Working On A Soul, Petite recognises that her spiritual development is an ongoing project. Something that this album shows to be a journey that can be beneficial to all and that is often a rare bird indeed.
Review by Stephen Rapid
Lauren Napier Mourning Moon Self Released
This self-released mini-album comes in cassette format as well as a self-decorated CD version. It was recorded by Napier in a pleasantly lo-fi and stripped back process which is often just voice and guitar but on occasion with some added elements. She is a poet, model and artist as well as a songwriter. The seven songs on the album engage with their directness and purity of vision. A blend of melancholy and melody is how she has aptly described these recordings. The songs have specific inspirations as has been noted, with St Charles Romance referring to a favourite location in Prague. Although Napier relates a love of such icons as Patsy Cline and a liking for the space of the soundtracks of spaghetti westerns, the nature of the songs in this format have hints rather than any direct references to either of those influences. She had realised that her music would not necessarily fit some of the accepted frameworks of the current state of country in the mainframe, although it still draws from elements of a more folk noir and traditional country sensibility.
I have listened to this now a number of times and still find there is an element of mystery in the songs intertwining of voice, guitar and melody. It was recorded by Tom Zwanger during a November full moon and he has aptly captured the essence of the songs. All contain interesting lyrical prose and some words that stand out like the intriguing one from Bedfellows “The priest was on time but the devil set his watch twice as fast.” The devil pulls a fast one in an unworldly romance. Then there’s the largely self-explanatory Cigarettes & Carefree Love, while Hiding From The Sound Of Fire was inspired by her time living in Berlin during riotous times. The remaining tracks are Put It On My Tab, Dirty Deeds and Chapters Of Lace. Whilst the process means that there is an overall similarity in the performance, it is the nuances of the songs that give them their individuality.
What I was reminded of from first listen was of an old favourite of mine which was the band Tarnation (once signed to 4AD) and their lead vocalist Paula Frazer. There was something in the quality of both voices that has a distinctive tone that is very effective. Not for everyone perhaps but still worth discovering this set of full moon fever recordings.
Review by Stephen Rapid