Chris Murphy Two Rivers Crossing Friendly Folk
Not many artists would have the ability, experience and confidence to pull this off, but for his nineteenth album, Chris Murphy has pared it right back to the bare bones. It’s just his violin, vocals and looping effects, a marked contrast to his previous recordings, or his work as a band leader and composer. Murphy loves touring constantly, both in his home state of California and occasionally in Europe, so this minimalist approach will naturally lend itself to travelling. Calling to mind the songs and playing of John Hartford, to an extent, Murphy’s influences, however, are very wide. Growing up in upstate New York, and as a student in NYC, he was exposed to a myriad of genres from bluegrass, Turkish, Irish (with a name like Murphy, his Irish roots are evident!) to gospel and jazz. This six track EP features five songs and an instrumental, and demonstrates his versatility and virtuosity on the violin, but also his ability to write a good song.
Early Grave finds him complaining about his woman, inspired in theme and sound by pre-war blues artists like Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee. She’s ‘cuter than a button, smarter than a whip’, ‘but she’s gonna send him to an early grave’ he intones in his warm and mellow voice, accompanied by his violin and a foot stomp. He adds plucked strings to fill out the sound on Into The Past, an intriguing series of vignettes about various characters on a long train journey, all of whom are either running from the past or even running back towards it. Long Ago uses layers of haunting violin and percussive looping to evoke a dream-like sequence, again reminiscing about past events and a certain person who haunts his thoughts, ‘we were friends once, long ago’. The menacing spirit of the border town on the porous Mexico/Texas border inspired The Wolves of Laredo, the stark fiddle accompaniment and soaring solos lending atmosphere and pathos to the story of the damaged characters inhabiting the song. Complete Surprise is an upbeat ditty of positivity, and the closer, Shantallow, is an instrumental in a sombre march, with a Celtic feel.
Review by Eilís Boland
Slaid Cleaves Together Through The Dark Self Release
First and foremost, Slaid Cleaves makes albums that sound good, they entertain and in a meaningful way offer an insight into the human condition that lingers in the mind. These are songs that detail the often overlooked details of the lives of the ordinary (and sometimes not so ordinary) men and women for whom the trials and tribulations of daily life are rarely easy. That he does so in a way that musically resonates too is not always the case, when the lyrical content is often so raw.
The album was recorded in Dripping Springs, Texas by Pat Manske, who also played on the album with the album’s principle players and co-producers, Cleaves and multi-instrumentalist Scrappy Jud Newcomb. This is the third album that the duo have made together and it’s obviously a team that works so well together. There is a depth and texture that never feels sparse or underplayed, but rather they get the balance right again.
The twelve songs have all got individual strengths and nuances that start with Through The Dark, an acclamation of love and togetherness against the gathering dark. It was co-written with Cleaves’ long time friend, and sometime co-writer, Rod Picott. This is one of several songs that talk about relationships from both sides, which is envisioned by the sentiment of Next Heartbreak, and how there is a need to carry on with hope, even when contemplating the next disappointment. Sparrow, also written by Cleaves and Picott, deftly considers the particulars of the isolation of a man who has lost his wife.
More reflective is Puncher’s Chance written by Cleaves and Brian Koppelman. It details a man looking back on some welcome mayhem from the past and admitting “I sometimes think about those wild, wild nights.” More in the nature of story telling, which he does so well, is Arnold Nash - based on an article in the Bangor Daily News, it turns out he was in truth “a good prisoner, a bad citizen / A terrible family man.”
Double Shift Tuesday weighs up the drudgery of work in a situation and life that could and should offer more than a minimum wage. It was written by Cleaves, Terri Hendrix and Lloyd Maines. The lines emphasise the feeling of trying to figure how they did “end up here”, its sadness underlined by the stripped-back arrangement. That theme appears again in the Adam Carroll co-write, Second Hand, that has Robin Ludwick on harmony vocals and the title conveys a life lived in that way. Put The Shovel Down offers an option to take the time out from the seemingly endless work and a likely end that finds a shovel again involved. Getting away, making a new start and moving from the city is the subject of Terlingua Chili Queen.
A wider view is the subject of Nature’s Darker Laws, a song he wrote with Karen Poston, weighing up the current divided landscape of America and beyond, in these troubled times. It is graced by a subtle musical performance that again highlights that aspect of the album, something that, as mentioned, is consistent throughout the album, and perfectly aligns the crafted writing with a context that brings the two together and accentuates the over-riding talent that Cleaves has developed through his albums, travel and personal growth.
Review by Stephen Rapid
Tim GrimmThe Little In-Between Cavalier
I have listened to the music of Tim Grimm over the years and it has always been a rewarding experience. He seems to be always moving forward,or at least consolidating and developing his ability to observe and comment on the people, places and political manifestations he encounters on his path. This new album, I think, does just that. It also brings the talents of the great Sergio Webb back into focus. Formerly Webb was the guitar foil for David Olney and a member of Pinto Bennett’s Famous Motel Cowboys. He, however, is just one of the components in place that lift this album to a new level. Alice Allen plays cello which gives a resonant character to the tracks she plays on. Webb is joined by Mark Clark and Justin Bransford on drums and bass, while Grimm adds his robust vocals and guitar to the forefront of the recordings.
This is his fourteenth release so, by now, he knows his way round the process of delivering his work to his audience. He has worked in the balladeering tradition of folk music that focused on his community, his family and his beliefs - often based around his family farm in Indiana. Here, he has again looked both inward and outward, and does so by placing the lyrics from a first person perspective throughout. The songs were written and recorded (Grimm’s parts anyway) in Oklahoma, with the Allen parts recorded in Scotland and the band tracking in New Mexico. It also marks the first time Grimm’s voice has been heard without harmony or backing vocals. There is a strongly emotional feel to many of the songs that are rooted often in the landscape and love.
The Leaving opens the album with voice, guitar and cello offering the hope of finding a new welcoming shore. By way of contrast, the next song Lonesome All The Time has more that a hint of Hank Williams Senior’s troubled tales and features, very effectively, Webb on guitar and pedal steel. These two directions offer the musical compass points that the album travels between. I Don’t Know The World has a discordant tone that fits and offsets the directness of Grimm’s voice and guitar.
The lyrics of Stirrin’ Up Trouble take a shot at those who like to poke their noses in where they are not wanted, again balancing the acoustic strumming against the electric guitar tone. More gentle and reflecting on the earth and the trees, nature and the loss of such is where The Breath Of Burning takes us. The lyric “the hardest part of losing things/is knowing when they’re gone” offering a truth to be told. New Boots is a gentle but heartfelt remembrance of his father (and mother) delivered in its simplest form, as suits the song.
The list song format sees Grimm detailing again the association between a person and place.Twenty Years Of Shadows effectively uses the band to give it a driving rhythm and a harder edge. The closing song is a straight love song that offers a hope that is available to all and finds the two guitars intertwining to an effective liaison.
Album fourteen proves that Tim Grimm is far from the end of his musical journey and his partnering with Sergio Webb offers the possibility of an alliance that will be fruitful for both parties going forward.
Review by Stephen Rapid
Dave Gonzalez / Susanna Van Tassel Grits’n Gravy Lux
Perhaps best know for his role in The Paladins and The Hacienda Brothers, Dave Gonzalez is the heart of this album, which overall is closer to the soul-country that was part of the latter band’s sound. He is central here, playing guitars, bass and drums on several tracks but also producing and recording the album in Texas with Dillon Fernadez. Susanna Van Tassel adds her versatile vocals on several tracks on both lead and background vocals. They also have a wide cast of additional musicians involved on percussion, brass, keyboards and steel guitar.
Gonzalez is the main writer of the material included, mostly co-writing with a selection of partners. He has also chosen a number of covers which are solid pointers to the overall direction of the project. These include a very soulful take on William Bell favourite Private Number, another fitting choice is the Dan Penn/Spooner Oldham penned Do Something. The final cover is Until You Came Into My Life co-written by Ann Peebles.
The overall feel will not surprise those who have followed Gonzalez’s career, outside of his longtime involvement with the more rockabilly oriented Paladins. The title of the Hacienda Brothers album Western Soul is a summation of this album’s credentials. It is a treat, after the opening, somewhat groovy, instrumental, to hear a pairing like I Could Fall In Love With You, wherein the two voices show how this real life duo have found a musical partnership too. This continues throughout the album, with one or other taking the lead vocal. Let’s Hideaway finds Van Tassel’s countrified vocal becoming sultry, with the conga and saxophone elements. The title track, all funky guitar and organ, hits a very 60s mood again and throws up a lot of memories of comparison. It also highlights Gonzalez multifaceted guitar skills and adaptability.
The pair made a previous country-oriented album and I Still Believe is very much in that vein, vocals in close harmony over piano and weeping steel guitar. Gonzalez wrote this with Chris Gaffney and Jeb Schoonover and it would be good to hear more in this vein in the future. (Though if you want to check out that excellent country duet side of their collaboration then THINK WE’RE GONNA BE ALRIGHT will be something you want to check out. Go to www.luxrecordsusa.com for this and other related releases from the Hacienda Brothers).Those who have a love for the kind of soul music that abounded a few decades ago will equally love this. Fans of The Delines would also be advised to check it out.
Another door of possibility is open on the last track, a spaghetti western-styled instrumental that features the harmonica of Ted Roddy prominently, alongside some lonesome trumpet playing, which only serves to underline that GRITS ‘n GRAVY (Vol 1) was intended to cover some different but largely compatible territory musically and it succeeds in that. It also gives these two artists a platform to display their individual and combined talents, as it also does those some additional performers who contributed to this enjoyable album.
Review by Stephen Rapid
Drayton Farley Twenty On High Hargrove/Thirty Tigers
Produced by Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit guitarist, Sadler Vaden, TWENTY ON HIGH is the third release in three years from Alabama native Drayton Farley. His first full band recording, it follows on from HARGROVE & SWEET SOUTHERN SADNESS (2020) and A HARD LIFE (2021). Those previous and mainly acoustic albums earmarked an artist with obvious songwriting prowess, writing from the heart and with a voice ideally suited to the Americana genre. An overcrowded marketplace can make it virtually impossible for artists such as Farley to achieve the exposure that they deserve, but TWENTY ON HIGH, with its beefed-up and fuller sound, could very well raise Farley’s profile by quite a number of notches.
Recorded at Sound Emporium Studio in Nashville - and with Vaden possibly influencing its musical direction - the album slots into the genre occupied with flying colours by Jason Isbell at present. Whether that pigeonhole is Americana or heartland rock, the ten tracks on the album are a collection of first-person stories that draw the listener in, through both their content and delivery.
The recurring theme across the album is the passage of time and personal goals and aims that may or may not have been fulfilled. The opening track,Stop The Clock, and album closer, All My Yesterdays Have Passed, find the writer mulling over these matters, and the inevitable self-doubt that accompanies them features on Something Wrong (Inside My Head). Above My Head focuses on the sacrifices of leaving home and following your dreams. The draw and security of the homestead also emerge on the title track and Alabama Moon. The latter features backing vocals by Waxahatchee’s Katie Crutchfield.
Farley’s reflective mindset in exploring his mental vulnerabilities and personal journey to date could have resulted in a self-indulgent project. The end result is quite the opposite, with the writer continuing to seek the meaning of life. Those thoughts and reflections are skillfully expressed on this coherent and deeply melodic album.
Review by Declan Culliton
Lauren Morrow People Talk Big Kitty
‘I used to write stories, made-up things about others I’d imagined in my head, but this record is all true to me. There’s not a single lyric that hasn’t happened to me in some shape or form,’ explains Lauren Morrow in the press release for her debut solo long player PEOPLE TALK.
It’s been quite a journey both personally and professionally for the Atlanta-raised artist. Never the conformist, Morrow’s musical journey kicked off writing songs in her bedroom, followed by forming her first band while majoring in English at Georgia State University. She relocated temporarily to Newcastle, England, where she honed her songwriting before fronting the Atlanta-based country rockers, The Whiskey Gentry, for a decade.
The latest - and possibly final leg - of Morrow’s odyssey finds her and her husband settled in Nashville since 2017 and working on her solo material. She released her self-titled debut EP in 2018. A four-track collection, it highlighted both Morrow’s crystalline vocal and her ability to pen and record songs that slotted soundly into the Country/Americana genre. PEOPLE TALK strays somewhat from that template with ten songs that, while not abandoning a roots sound, are often closer in structure to power pop.
The recording of the album commenced in 2019 at Sound Emporium in Nashville under the supervision of producer and multi-instrumentalist, Parker Carson, who also co-wrote a number of the album’s tracks. Like many recordings around that time, it was interrupted during the pandemic. With her income stream at a standstill and time on her hands, Morrow revisited a number of the songs and, as a measure of their commitment to the project, took out a second mortgage on their house to fund the album’s recording and release.
Matters close to home raise their head on the opener, I’m Sorry. Written following a tiff with her husband, it’s one of a number of selections that visit domestic issues. Family Tree finds Morrow tracing her ancestry and the factors, outside our control, that often determine our demeanour. Instantly catchy are Only Nice When I’m High and Looking For Trouble, the latter is a reconstruction of a song previously recorded by The Whiskey Gentry. Hustle, which features Lloyd Green on pedal steel and backing vocals from Joshua Hedley, reveals the real-life endeavours that Morrow carried out - from house painting to selling weed - to survive during the pandemic.
There’s no doubt that Morrow has poured her heart and soul into PEOPLE TALK. Directed towards self-examination, the songs are often infused with a dry sense of humour, but the real winners are Morrow’s standout vocals and songs that dip slightly into pop territory. It’s also an album that’s likely to raise her profile quite a number of notches and hopefully help to pay that second mortgage off sooner rather than later.
Review by Declan Culliton
The Panhandlers Tough Country Deep Roots/Make Wake
The Texan players that make up The Panhandlers formed the band back in 2019, with the intention of recording a covers album to celebrate the artists that represent the classic West Texas sound. Those artists included Buddy Holly, Waylon Jennings and, in particular The Flatlanders. Josh Abbott, John Baumann, William Clark Green and Flatland Cavalry’s Cleto Cordero’s initial intention was shelved when their 2019 Marfa songwriting session yielded enough quality material to record their own self-titled debut. Given the response and industry plaudits that album earned, it is little surprise that the collective soon started working on the follow-up project titled TOUGH COUNTRY.
With shared songwriting credits and shared vocals, the album offers fourteen tracks in total, four of which were included in the band’s four-track EP WEST TEXAS IS THE BEST TEXAS from 2022. The first single from the album is the standout Valentines, For Valentines, featuring Oklahoma country chanteuse Kaitlin Butts as guest vocalist.
Taking the reins as producer was Bruce Robison and with guitars, pedal steel, fiddles, banjos and percussion in all the right places the album captures the landscapes, characters and customs of Texas. Drinking songs (The Chilton Song), troubled love songs (Santa Fe), toe tapping-romps (Lajitas), and odes to their beloved state (Flat Land, West Texas Is The Best Texas), are the order of the day.
In common with another ‘supergroup’ in the roots genre, Western Centuries, and notwithstanding the quantity and stature of the songwriters and players in the band, clashing egos certainly don’t appear to compete in The Panhandlers. TOUGH COUNTRY is not a radical departure from their previous recording and why should it be, if it’s not broken, why fix it? It’s simply uncomplicated and heart-warming Texas country music of the purest kind.
Review by Declan Culliton
Lynn Miles TumbleWeedyWorld True North
This album marks a very welcome return to the media spotlight for one of the first ladies of Canadian Folk Music. Not that Lynn Miles needs any persuasion to take her rightful place, front and centre, with this, her sixteenth official release. Her last album WE’LL LOOK FOR STARS appeared in 2020 and her many admirers have been waiting with bated breath to see what would come next, post Covid and post meltdown across the globe.
Lynn recently said of the new album “These are songs that arrive at a moment when global instability illuminated the fragility of personal relationships.” Lynn reflects on these issues and the impermanence in our fractured attempts to make relationships work in any real sense. The shutting down and the letting go; the hoping for better outcomes and the wish for something that we can’t always see – these are all themes that run through the pen of Lynn Miles. As always there is a knowing forgiveness that runs parallel with all the pain and heartache we cause. Lynn holds out her arms for a comforting hug, her knowing wisdom in all the turmoil is that eventually the hope inside of us will endure.
Using real quality and experience, Lynn invited some stellar players to perform on the album and the level of musicianship is just off the scale. Michael Ball (upright bass), Joey Wright (mandolin/acoustic guitar), Rob McLaren (banjo), Stuart Rutherford (dobro) and James Stephens (violin), all join together in the most exquisite ensemble performance as Lynn takes the central role on rhythm guitar and vocals. Recorded at Little Bullhorn Studios in Ottawa, Canada and produced by Lynn, together with Dave Draves (Giant Sand, Kathleen Edwards), this mirrors her usual high standards and matches her previous releases in terms of excellence.
Night Owl looks at the incompatibility of two lovers ‘You like the flowers, I like the rain, You drive the highway, I take the train, I like the twilight you need the dawn, So by the time you wake up I’ll be gone.’ Memories of the past and old flames left behind are reflected on Hwy 105 in the haunting words ‘Everything’s ok, everything’s alright, It’s just sometimes I start thinking around midnight; I make us perfect and build us a little shrine, I forget that we weren’t pretty and we weren’t kind.’
Such a consummate wordsmith and the ability to capture an emotion in just a few lines is a true gift.
Cold Cold Moon reveals the harsh mistress that dwells inside, no comfort in the moonlight for our doubts and fears ‘I’m a quiet ghost tried and true, I’m a silver pearl in midnight blue, Sometimes I’m sweet but you should know, That I won’t always love you so.’
All the complexities of a woman are captured on Moody, the unpredictable nature to change with the weather, ‘Some days I want nothing, and then I want your soul.’ Another relationship song All Bitter No Sweet is pure bluegrass as it bounces along to a tale of broken love, the musicians coming together for a real hootenanny. Hide Your Heart is in a similar vein, giving advice to a woman to learn from disappointment and move on with no regrets.
Johnny Without June is such a clever song and looks at the essential glue that ties two people together into a seamless whole. Using the analogy of the famous Johnny and June Carter Cash romance as undying love, Lynn reflects that ‘I’d give anything to turn back time, I’d give anything to walk the line, To join you on that funeral pyre, To go down in that ring of fire.’
Calling out bad habits and unacceptable behaviour lies at the centre of Sorry’s Just Not Good Enough, a song that says enabling someone is not the way forward. The song Palomino talks about leaving it all behind and living free on the range with just a loyal steed for company ‘I’m a lonesome drifting girl, In my tumble-weedy-world, You’re a quiet steady soul, Painted coat and eyes of coal.’ The simple life without a care.
There is a lovely sentiment in closing song, Gold In the Middle, visiting the lure of beauty, hope, promise, love and sadness. It is an enduring prayer to the strength within us all to keep the lamp lit bright and we continue to seek our path through the darkness, looking for the eventual light. A superb album.
Review by Paul McGee
I’m Kingfisher Glue Fading Trails
Thomas Jonsson has been recording under the artist name of I'm Kingfisher since 2010 but his pedigree as a talented musician dates back much further. Jonsson released music under his own name for a number of years before taking the decision to adopt a new persona in the image of I’m Kingfisher.
This new project is his eighth solo album – his fifth under the I’m Kingfisher moniker, and once again it proves to be a beguiling experience. Jonsson has always looked for gold in the stream of consciousness writing and the gentle melodies that populate his body of work, and this time he expands his palette to include some subtle jazz leanings into the arrangements. Never one to stand still, he is open to experimentation and a few of the arrangements apply different colours to the overall content. The jazz arrangement on Saved by a Friendly Reminder is a prime example with Jonsson providing a fine vocal performance.
His lyrics remain something of a mystery with obscure imagery and words that conjure up disparate worlds of reflection and thoughts. The songs hint at many things and there appears to be a thread running through them that links the recent Covid lockdown years with a sense of isolation and feeling outside of oneself. They contain elements of regret and self-inflicted doubt, questions concerning the transitory nature of relationships and a lingering sense of not being always comfortable around others. As Jonsson muses on the track Beginning Of A Great Song ‘Why would I love her when everybody is a traitor?’
Elsewhere he speaks of other doubts, as on Second Wave when he observes ‘There’s a dark cloud always hanging over me.’ The title track Glue references a breakdown of sorts with the realisation that ‘Every day is my comeback, I wasn’t proud of myself, Got all the pieces, haven’t got the glue.’
The use of different female vocals on some of the twelve tracks is something that works very well and adds to the gentle vocal tone of Jonsson. The contributions of Anna-Stina Jungerstam, Niamh Regan, Vilma Flood and also Sam Florian, brings much to admire in their performance. In addition, the use of saxophone on Licking My Wounds delivers a lovely resonance to the smooth arrangement. Equally, the violin and piano on Make Up A Good Time brings a sweet joy to the song and the use of pedal steel and cello feature on other songs.
Jonsson calls upon multi-instrumentalist Bebe Risenfors and her contribution is central to the album, providing beautiful playing on any combination of clarinet, bass clarinet, cornet, alto horn, omnichord, lyre, tenor and alto saxophones, accordions, piano, string quartet machine, upright bass, drums, and percussion. Renowned pianist Martin Hederos also makes telling contributions on pianos, pump organ, Moog and other synthesizers. Long time friend and producer on previous albums, Carl Edlom, makes a welcome return and in addition to overseeing everything from Trunk Studios in Karlstad, he plays guitars, synthesizers, piano, electric bass, and percussion across a number of tracks. Jonsson keeps his focus on his vocals and acoustic guitar delivery, writing all the songs and maintaining a weather eye on the big picture at all stages.
This is a folk music for the modern age, a therapeutic return to old themes that offer a healing balm together with a hint of the claustrophobia of self-analysis. Too much reflection can be a bad thing but in the hands of Thomas Jonsson it opens up the pathway to new roads and opportunities to grow from the past. Another fine album that adds to the reputation of this interesting artist.
Review by Paul McGee