Diane Hubka & The Sun Canyon Band You Never Can Tell Self Release
A noted and respected jazz singer and performer, Hubka has released several albums in that genre but here has taken a somewhat different path towards roots/country/folk elements. She was raised in Maryland before moving to Washington DC, then New York, and on to LA. But the direction that politics were taking meant that in 2017 she decided to look at singing protest and songs relating to union activity and began to perform these songs acoustically in a local coffee shop. Later with Joe Caccavo and Rick Mayock she formed the Sun Canyon Band and recorded this mix of covers and originals, which is their debut album. What attracted me to give it a close listen was the name of the special guest listed on the cover; one Albert Lee. The guitarist associated with Emmylou Harris and the Hot Band as well as the Everly Brothers, Lee also plays mandolin on the album and is joined by the aforementioned players as well as producer/multi-instrumentalist Chad Watson and Lynn Coulter on percussion.
Not being aware of Hubka’s previous releases it is nonetheless clear that she is comfortable in this format. Comfortable is the operative word here as nothing disturbs the good time feeling of such experienced musicians playing together in a street free environment. The opening two tracks will be familiar to many (as will some of the other choices) in that both Bob Dylan and Guy Clark are renowned writers as Baton Rouge and You Ain’t Going Nowhere respectively show. These covers then set the pace and the general direction the album will take.
Of the other choices, Randy Newman’s Louisiana 1927 takes that historic flood to emphasise how such catastrophic events have a way of repeating themselves if lessons are not learned. It is given a further location emphasis with the use of Watson’s trombone. You Never Can Tell, written by Chuck Berry, which closes out the album is another nod to their primary influences with some musical touches that make it enjoyable and not just a run through. Albuquerque nods to the player’s previous jazz roots. The Blues Is My Business has a feel for that particular format but again hints at a broader palate with brass and some whistling to add additional textures. To The Light has an acoustic feel and a nuanced vocal that suits the song and Hubka’s voice.
The are some original songs included with Hubka’s Home and Maycock’s Dancing With My Shadow and Belly Of The Whale both offering an opportunity to look beyond the cover choices. The former is in a folk-styled setting with shared vocals, while the other again has Mayock taking the lead with Hubka adding harmony. It has some sweetened guitar to help it flow on its somewhat downbeat but positive lyrical message. Hubka’s song is about the need to get back to a place that one call home and all which that means. Again, it has a folk-affiliated manner that fits with the context.
Without a doubt the standout track here, for me, is the traditional Shady Grove (a love song that has a closer relationship with the English version of the ballad Matty Grove - as recorded by Fairport Convention) The band give it a lively outing with Lee’s mandolin taking a lead alongside Mayock’s baritone guitar (though as several of the players cross-over in terms instruments that’s an assumption).
An ‘easy to listen to’ album that had me drawn in by Albert Lee’s name on the cover - as it may for many - but the interaction between all is not forced and offers you an album that you can tell that all involved were happy to be recording.
Review by Stephen Rapid
Jill Rogers & Crying Time Many Worlds Theory Self Release
Described as a straight-up country/honky-tonk band, a definition that suits them and Rogers’ original songs, but one that might seem at times a little less hardcore than some recent acts trading under that banner. In reality, they are related more to a time when real country was acceptable in the mainstream. The band which features some veteran players from the Oakland area are versatile and variable. Myles Boisen is the guitarist with Tony Marcus on fiddle and a rhythm section of Russel Kiel and Tim Rowe. They are joined by pedal steel, percussion and brass on some tracks.
Other members add to the overall textures with Tony Marcus delivering a jazz influenced swing number Devil In The Details that show the collective skills of the band. Boisen penned an album standout track with the border brass of I Only Cry When I’m Drinkin’ - a sound that nearly always hits the spot for these ears. Rogers’ lively vocal is well suited to the upbeat but down-sided message of the lyrics.
There are also a couple of covers such as Del McCoury’s More Often Than Once In Awhile and Willie Nelson’s You Left Me A Long Time Ago. Both underscore that Rogers has a voice that is capable of taking on the different aspects of all the material that they have recorded. The latter closes out the album with a fine reading of a less known Nelson song, but one that sits beside her own take on country music, both classic and contemporary.
Of the songs written by Rogers, particularly strong are Evangeline, the up-tempo River Songs with fiddle to the fore, as it is with the guitar on the sad and slow Tears, Time And Ink. The Mess (That Used To Be Me) is a pretty self-descriptive but ultimately redeeming song about getting one’s self together to face the future. It is done to a beat that belies that thought process.
Their previous releases offer a view of what they have been doing for some time now. A set of covers of George Jones songs with a number of guests (KING GEORGE), a live album that mixed covers and self-penned songs as well as a studio recorded record (LAST SATURDAY NIGHT/TEN GOLDEN HITS). They also recorded an album of some 70s country (LINDA). These, though unheard by this writer, would indicate a band in it for the long haul. They wear their cowboy hats and shirts as a visual indication of that.
MANY WORLDS THEORY continues in that vein with as much care put into the covers songs as with the original songs. It is an album that grew on me the more I listened and it is, in its own way, something that will enhance their local reputation and could, just as easily, be appreciated on a wider scale.
Review by Stephen Rapid
Alex Mabey The Waiting Room Self Release
A powerful fifteen-track album from an artist that writes freely and honestly about personal trauma, mental illness and addiction, Alex Mabey has been recording music for nearly a decade. Currently residing in Nashville, where she previously studied as a teenager at Belmont University, Mabey has successfully confronted and overcome a number of painful issues since those early career days. Ill health and a broken marriage led to prolonged physical and mental pain and if Mabey’s 2017 EP ENOUGH was a statement of an individual determined to conquer her demons, THE WAITING ROOM plays out as a further pointer to Mabey’s rehabilitation and recovery.
Contributors on THE WAITING ROOM include Grammy-winning producer Casey Wasner (Taj Mahal, Keb’Mo, Amanda Shires, Walter Trout), pianist Peter Wasner (Vince Gill, Amy Grant), bassist Brian Allen (Jason Isbell, The Secret Sisters) and Nate Dugger (Drew Holcomb) on guitar.
These Wings, the first single from the album, is powerful both lyrically and musically and a statement of liberty and letting go. The mid-tempo ballad The Well, also released as a single, broods over the painful yet finally rewarding decision to move ahead and distance oneself from a destructive manner of life. Fittingly, and in keeping with the album’s subject matter of resurrection, a cover of Patty Griffin’s Up To The Mountain is included. Entrapment and fragility emerge on Canary and Wait, the final track and statement on the album, which advises patience and resoluteness in adversity, acts as a reminder that fortune often favours the brave.
Written with candour, THE WAITING ROOM gives the listener a tour from where Mabey was at her lowest point towards her present state of body and mind. No doubt written by way of putting a closer to harrowing and distressing times, it’s not only a rewarding listen but also well-worth investigating for others going through similar dilemmas of the mind or body. Fans of the aforementioned Patty Griffin and Eliza Gilkyson will most definitely warm to this record.
Review by Declan Culliton
Pony Bradshaw North Georgia Rounder Soundly
Very much a writer of stories brought to music, Pony Bradshaw follows on from his 2021 album CALICO JIM, with another ten impressive songs drawn from his love of North Georgia, his home for the past decade and a half. If anything, this collection of songs, though somewhat matching in lyrical content, is musically more up-tempo, with particularly gorgeous splashes of pedal steel and slick guitar breaks, all complementing Bradshaw’s well-defined vocal deliveries.
An album that draws your attention to the lyrical content, it plays out like a short story movie, introducing the listener to the writer’s keen observations and also real-life characters leading ordinary existences. Recorded in only five days at Fellowship Hall Sound in Little Rock, the material explores a variety of Appalachian locations and scenarios. Bradshaw also speaks of other places encountered during his relentless touring lifestyle. A point in case is the melancholy A Free Roving Mind where the writer confesses ‘And I ain't got no kinda home…. And I don't need no reason to pen a sad and lonesome tune.’ A sense of barely surviving and yearning for simple home comforts emerges on the title track and that sentiment also surfaces on Kindly Turn The Bed Down, Drusilla, where the weary road traveller looks forward to a return to domesticity (‘I make my wage on the road, good lord, 42 and living out of my van.’) Safe In The Arms Of Vernacular opens with a memory of the writer’s father returning from Desert Storm before moving to the present and to a small-town local diner where he observes a waitress’ mundane way of life. The gothic and shadier side of Appalachia emerge on Notes On A River Town, it bookends the album in fine style with a sound that is both hauntingly lonesome and as dark as coal.
A self-confessed aficionado of fiction and poetry, Pony Bradshaw confesses that his writing is more inspired by his bookworm mentality than his admiration of the classic singer songwriters. A dynamic storyteller in his own right, Bradshaw’s latest offering is both lyrically arresting and quite spectacular in places. You’re left wondering if he’s likely to pen a novel of short stories at some point in the future.
Review by Declan Culliton
Angela Perley Turn Me Loose Self Release
A free spirit with one leg in the late 60s and the other in the modern world, the debut solo album from the Columbus, Ohio artist Angela Perley was one of our favourites of 2019 at Lonesome Highway. Titled 4.30, it was a tour de force of psychedelic-infused rock and alt-country.
The former band leader of Angela Perley and the Howlin’ Moons follows a similar musical template with TURN ME LOOSE, delivering an equally impressive ten-track record. If anything, Perley has increased the alt-country content this time around, inspired by listening to a lot of Gram Parsons during lockdown. A point in case is the hook-filled and pedal steel drenched Star Dreamer, which features well placed vocal ‘sha-la-las’ and synchronised hand claps. Equally splendid is the country-esque and slower paced Holding On and she goes full-on country with the two-stepper, Praying for Delight. Here For You, the first single from the album, was written following the loss of a number of family members. With a catchy backbeat and slick slide guitar, it finds the writer in a reflective mood, reminding herself of the importance of enjoying the moment while also being mindful of the struggles that those close to her may be enduring. Opener Plug Me In and Ripple are playful high-octane rockers, yet behind all these upbeat moments you get a sense of sorrowfulness and loss on tracks like Holding On and the closing track Wreck Me. The latter is a semi-spoken and skeletal offering of anguish and longing for forbidden fruit.
Recorded at Earthwork Recording Studio in Newark, Ohio and Studio 4:30 in Columbus, Ohio, the album was produced by Brandon Bankes, who also contributed pedal steel. Perley and her long-time bandmate and guitarist Chris Connor are credited as co-producers.
An album that traverses from mellow to frenetic, TURN ME LOOSE defines Perley’s signature sound. A combination of honeyed vocals, clever lyrics and a group of players that ebb and flow around her, resulting in a suite of songs that offer a memorable listening experience.
Review by Declan Culliton
Juni Habel Carvings Basin Rock
This is a really beautiful record. Created from a deep place, at once both fragile and strong; vulnerable, yet powerful in the quiet delivery. The music is both arresting and haunting; it is bare bones with nothing spared in the honesty and beauty of both the melodies and the words. Defined as ‘pastoral folk’ in certain media, this is a timeless slice of intimate and whispered emotion.
There is loss here, and there is both beauty and a sadness borne of experience. Habel lost her sister in a car accident and a number of the songs make reference to the grief and the sense of intimacy in the memory of loss. This is clearly a work of great release for the artist and the sense of balancing the past against the emotions of the present are never far from the surface. The playing is sublime and the inclusion of family members heightens the sense of a prayer sent out to the universe in terms of healing and starting anew.
The sense of being part of the listening experience is akin to holding your breath while somebody close to you opens up about their inner doubts and dreams. Opening song Rhythm Of the Tides looks at the pull of nature and the depths contained in our own fears and hopes; water being used as a metaphor for the mind. Valiant is a song that brings the memory of her deceased sister to mind for Habel, as she captures the essence of the unbreakable sibling bond; ‘When we leaned into each other.’
Again, on the final song, I Carry You, My Love we find Habel framing the moment in beautiful imagery, ‘I wait by your door, for a sign to find me.’ The presence of someone no longer there in physical form so eloquently described. The music throughout has a dreamlike quality and the use of subtle percussion, twinkling piano, haunting violin and abstract sounds is enthralling. On the song Chicory I am sure that I hear a cuckoo sound and the closing of a door as percussive elements.
This is meditative music. Never rushed, and played with a gentle touch that hints at layered vocals, minimal keyboard and superb fingerstyle acoustic guitar atmospherics. Drifting Pounds Of the Train has violin sounds to accompany the love song as it builds in emotion and swells. Habel lives outside Oslo in Norway and this is her second album release. It is a very special album and one that will bring rich reward to all who immerse themselves in this sublime music.
Review by Paul McGee
Trevor Beales Fireside Stories Basin Rock
There is a deep poignancy that surrounds this posthumous release which highlights the expressive guitar playing of Trevor Beales. He grew up in Hebden Bridge, in Calder Valley, West Yorkshire. Learning guitar in the 1960s, Beales was clearly influenced by the Folk troubadours of the time and his playing evokes the developing genre and stirs memories of Bert Jansch, Davey Graham and John Renbourn. His fingerstyle playing was very fluid and free, with a lovely tone and expression.
The songs included here were recovered from his bedroom and retrieved from old cassettes recorded circa 1971 to 1974. The quality of the playing is quite superb and there are moments where it sounds like there is more than one guitar in the mix, so fulsome is his technique with the rhythm and solo runs merging into such a comprehensive and satisfactory whole. The twelve songs include instrumentals Braziliana and the wonderful Dance Of the Mermaids. Other songs that stand out are Marion Belle, a tale that relays a sailors story and a ship that sailed the waves with a sickly crew looking for refuge in any port; Metropolis tells of life as a busker in the city anonymity of London, ‘Wearing dirty jeans and jacket, I play tunes on my guitar, Though no one has time to listen as they dodge the passing cars.’
Another song, Sunlight On the Table tells of capturing a moment and the distant glow of memory and choices made. Then I’ll Take You Home looks at the movement around guru enlightenment that was a craze back in the 60s. Righteous preaching leaves him cold and his response is to play his music, drink some beers and then head for home. The title track conjures a young John Martyn in the effortless playing style and confirms the talent that was evident to all who heard him develop his craft.
Beales died suddenly in 1984, leaving behind a young widow and a daughter, and we can only surmise on the career that awaited him and the heights that he would have achieved. We come and we go, the whys and wherefores lost in the mist of time. The one lasting influence that music brings is the legacy that endures over time, and the realisation that what was created back then, continues to stand as testament to the artist that created it.
Review by Paul McGee
Anna Mieke Theatre Nettwerk
This artist is a true world traveller, having experienced life in her travels across different continents. All the time absorbing the native sounds and the music of the indigenous people, from Maori songs in New Zealand, to the traditional airs of Bulgaria, working in India and aligned to the musical wealth of Granada in Spain. Mieke plays an array on instruments, including cello and guitar, bouzoki and piano.
The music is very much in the space of what is termed, Alt-Folk. There are nine tracks that span almost fifty minutes of listening and much of the playing draws from improvisational interplay between the musicians. Mieke is joined on the project by the talents of Matthew Jacobson (percussion),Ryan Hargadon (tenor saxophone, synthesizers, clarinet, piano), Brían Mac Gloinn (guitar, fiddle), Rozi Leyden (bass), Lina Andonovska (flutes), Cora Venus Lunny (viola, violin), Alannah Thornburgh (harp) and Nick Rayner (bass and synths).
It is an impressive ensemble and the ebb and flow of the songs contain a trance-like quality, especially when listened to on headphones. The lyrics are quite cryptic and somewhat impenetrable, with brief glimpses into the inner world of Mieke and her delivery conjures memories of a lost lyric in the back of your mind that you can never quite recall. For A Time revisits days of her youth spent in London and the imagery that remains in reconstructing those memories. Coralline seems to channel an old relationship and the accumulation of reflective musings built from the past. Seraphim asks of another ‘Take me far away from the crowds, oh the maddening crowds.’ Go Away From My Window is a traditional song that pleads ‘Go ‘way from my window, Go ‘way from my door, Go ‘way way way from my bedside, And bother me no more.’ Perhaps the urge to escape into a more solitary state is what both binds and fuels these songs?
The beautiful harp intro to Red Sun is replaced by gentle acoustic guitar and has Mieke musing ‘Distance is a sound I know, Momentary ground.’ There is a free-form, jazz-like quality to some of the arrangements and the improvisation allows the mind to wander off to distant places and allow reflective thoughts of fragmented hindsight to arise.
The track Twin has memories of a time spent in Lausanne, Switzerland and the lines ‘ Sometimes things are better left unsaid instead, Linger if you will we are strangers still.’ This sense of being solitary and apart from the observations being made is what weaves through these songs. I am left thinking of a collaboration between Joni Mitchell and Jane Siberry, where the creative muse visits shaded corners of the mind in search of some solace. An interesting album where the challenges reap great reward.
Review by Paul McGee
Michael Veitch Wachtraum Self Release
The album title translates as “Wake Dream,” and the twelve songs included are all from the creative muse of Michael Veitch, an experienced artist from Vermont. He has released many albums and here we see his talents blossom on songs that visit personal and political issues.
There are four co-writes and two were written with engineer Julie Last. Veitch self-produced the album and invited quite a list of musicians to join him in the process. There is a credits list that runs to some fifteen contributors and with Veitch leading proceedings on guitars, piano and lead vocals. He sings with an easy, sweet tone and the song melodies are very engaging. This is finely delivered americana with emphasis on the craft of the singer-songwriter.
Love songs such as August Nights, Last Days of Summer and Always Vermont celebrate that special feeling with a loved one. Memory is something that holds nostalgia, whether real or imagined, and Veitch visits the past in the songs, Sunday Afternoon and Birthday Oh Birthday.
Happy Fourth Of July questions the type of country that has created so much hatred and murder within the American dream and the aspiration of equality for all. April Fools hits out at politicians who have nobody’s interests at heart, except their own; the hypocrisy clearly evident to all.
Mother nature is celebrated in First Snow Of the Year, and First Day is a celebration of the New Year and the opportunity to begin again with a fresh page. Final song One Wish is a plea for peace and harmony on Christmas Day and throughout the year, the song featuring a duet with Kirsti Gholson, and a fitting way to end a very enjoyable album.
Review by Paul McGee