Spencer Cullum’s Coin Collection 2 Full Time Hobby
Playing pedal steel in Caitlin Rose’s band when she toured Europe, Spencer Cullum was encouraged by Rose and her guitarist, Jeremy Fetzer, to relocate to Nashville where the burgeoning Americana scene had the potential of offering the young East Londoner considerably more work opportunities than in his hometown. Cullum soon found himself very much part of the bohemian musical community in East Nashville and his avant-garde style of playing led to the formation, with Fetzer, of the instrumental band Steelism. Twelve years later, while Steelism still exists, Cullum’s impressive workload includes playing three-week residencies in Las Vegas as Miranda Lambert’s pedal steel player and numerous calls to the studio to work with a variety of artists and bands including Lambchop, Angel Olsen and Deertick.
A lover of various genres but with a particular fondness for the UK Canterbury sound and the classic British folk music of the late 60s and early 70s, Cullum discovered that his close friends and peers in Nashville- Erin Rae, Caitlin Rose, Sean Thomson and Andrew Combs - were also fans. (Cullum told us in a recent interview that when he first heard Erin Rae sing at The Fond Object, he was instantly reminded of Sandy Denny). What initially kicked off as loose evening jam sessions with friends eventually morphed into the recording of Cullum’s debut solo album COIN COLLECTION in 2021.
That album’s successor loosely treads a similar musical path with smatterings of krautrock and jazz alongside some classic Brit-folk. The track Betwixt and Between is a case in point and one that had me hitting the repeat button a number of times. Its origins stemmed from a fun Halloween night where Cullum and his associates covered the soundtrack of the 1973 British horror film The Wicker Man, which encouraged him to write and record a traditional folk song along similar lines. It’s a thing of beauty, with Cullum and Erin Rae’s vocals married to perfection. Cold Damp Valley, a co-write with Sean Thompson, affectionately recalls a few damp days the pair spent in a little village in West Yorkshire. More experimental are the tracks Kingdom Weather and the opener What a Waste Of an Echo. The former includes chorus vocals, recorded remotely, by Japanese singer songwriter Yuma Abe, the latter features harmony vocals by Dana Gavanski alongside Cullum’s spoken delivery. The Three Magnets, running over the six-minute mark, is a racy krautrock instrumental featuring guitar and synths by ambient and spiritual jazz experimentalist, Rich Ruth. Also included are the gentle folk ballad Green Trees and the dreamily psychedelic Out Of Focus.
While the album seldom strays too far from the genre-hopping delights of its predecessor, it does suggest an artist with multiple tricks up his sleeve and one growing in confidence both as a songwriter and a collaborator. If, like this writer, you’re a fan of the work of the delightfully eccentric Robert Wyatt, this record will be right up your street.
Review by Declan Culliton
Carter Sampson Gold Horton
The latest album from Carter Sampson, the artist affectionately known as The Queen of Oklahoma, finds her sharing the production duties with multi-instrumentalist Kyle Reid, who played pedal steel on Sampson’s 2018 album LUCKY. That collaboration led to Reid touring with Sampson and Jason Scott as a three-piece in support of her last studio album, TRIO, from 2019.
Given that association, it’s little surprise that Sampson’s latest recording GOLD, from the intro on the opener and title track, is pedal steel - laden, and all the better for that. A writer who gives the impression of one who has lived through every lyric she writes; Sampson is particularly contemplative and plain-spoken on this ten-track collection.
Unlike her previous full-length albums, where she invited guest musicians and friends to contribute, the only players to feature on this occasion, other than Reid and herself, are Johnny Carlton, who plays upright bass on a couple of tracks, and Lane Hawkins, whose fiddle playing features on one track. This scenario was forced rather than intended, due to the majority of the tracks being recorded during lockdown. To observe social distancing, Reid ran cables from his house to a makeshift backyard studio where Sampson was set up, a somewhat unorthodox manner of recording. The process was completed by the addition of some innovative overdubs by Reid. Given the improvisation, the end product works remarkably well and gives the sense of a live recording with Sampson’s vocals particularly in fine fettle.
That previously noted opening track is a defiant thumbs up in the direction of her mom (‘Momma don’t you worry about me, I’ll be fine..cause you made me out of gold’). Exploring a wide range of issues alongside her personal plights, she digs deep into her western vibe on the swinging Yippy Yi Yo (‘it’s hard being a woman today’). She recalls the drought-stricken terror of the 1930s Dust Bowl in Oklahoma on Black Blizzard and brazenly declares the acceptance of her career vocation on Can’t Stop Me Now. The album closes on a hopeful and reassuring note with the acoustic There’s Always Next Year.
For sheer charm and listening pleasure, look no further than GOLD. Beauty is often born out of chaos and tribulation; this collection of tales is a case in point. A dynamic storyteller, by recognising past challenges, exorcising them, and moving on, Sampson has struck gold and created another superlative album equal to anything in her impressive back catalogue.
Review by Declan Culliton
Robbie Fulks Bluegrass Vacation Compass
Over a three-decade career, fifteen solo albums and two Grammy nominations, Robbie Fulks has crisscrossed seamlessly between traditional country, alt-country, folk and singer songwriter genres. The common denominator in all his musical excursions has been the quality of the end product. Raised in North Carolina and surrounded by a musical family - Fulks’ mother played autoharp, his father was a proficient guitarist and two of his aunts played banjo and violin respectively - Fulks owned his first banjo aged six and was also an accomplished guitar player by the age of ten. Prior to launching his solo career, he was also a player in Greg Cahill’s bluegrass band, Special Consensus. Given that history, it’s hardly a surprise that Fulks has finally recorded a full-blown bluegrass album, BLUEGRASS VACATION.
A regular collaborator himself, it’s fitting that Fulks was joined in the studio by bluegrass royalty in Sam Bush, Sierra Hull, Ronnie McCoury, Tim O’Brien, Alison Brown, John Cowan, Brennen Leigh and Jerry Douglas.
Fulks previously wrote satirically and with ‘flowery’ language about his less than favourable association with Music City with Fuck This Town on his 1997 album SOUTH MOUTH. I had the pleasure of witnessing him performing that song at American Legion Post 82 in Nashville a few years back. The reaction was divided between abject disgust amongst the more mature regulars at the venue and hilarity from the younger and hipper attendees. Like a sore not yet fully healed, Fulks revisits that jarred relationship with Nashville Blues (‘I’ve got the blues, those Nashville blues, ain’t got no hair, ain’t got no shoes’). The equally impressive Molly and The Old Man is an endorsement of the potency and restorative qualities of old-time music as it passes through the generations. It features a gorgeous vocal contribution from Brennen Leigh and fine banjo playing from Alison Brown. The album is not strictly bluegrass throughout, Fulks strays into country folk with memories of parent-directed rebellion while moving through adolescence into manhood on Angels Carry Me, and the gentle ballad Mommas Eyes visits the hurt and grief of losing a loved one. He hasn’t abandoned his sardonic writing style either - no surprise there - and he kicks off the album with a tongue-in-cheek rouser, One Glass of Whiskey (‘one glass of whiskey to ease my mind and another to take it too far away to find’).
‘Electric guitars might give way to computers, as seems to be happening now, but the mountains will still be right there’ reflects Fulks. It’s a fitting contemplation and a reminder of the significance of honouring and sustaining the excellence of music from the past. Fulks has more than played his part in that regard and continues to do so with flying colours with BLUEGRASS VACATION, which should appeal to both bluegrass lovers and devotees from the roots and Americana world.
Review by Declan Culliton
Ben De La Cour Sweet Anhedonia Jullian
A new album to savour the delights in the exploration of the many characters created by Ben De La Cour, taken from many walks of life, though most are traveling on those uneven paths you end up tripping up on. This time out De La Cour turned to a producer he felt would be sympathetic to his overall vision. That was fellow singer/songwriter and life-experienced troubadour Jim White. White has not drastically changed the overall musical direction but brings a subtle hand to the desk, one that highlights the details and mood of these new songs.
Again we are guided through dark backroads, dark thoughts and the darker landscape that permeates the polarised viewpoints that are more than apparent in America (and elsewhere) these days. However the idiosyncratic apprehensions of many of his subjects would suggest that they have more immediate concerns than worrying about any such weighty ideals - no matter how much that may come to have relevance in the long term.
There is a core empathy in De La Cour’s writing that suggests he has an understanding of what forces bring them to that place in their lives. Like many writers of this quality, he inhabits these persona and lays out a place and time without making a judgement on the nature of that person.
Appalachian Book Of The Dead opens the album and from its conspicuous title augurs the tales to come. It reads like a screenplay synopsis for an American noir which reveals itself in small non-linear scenes an enticing introduction to the material that follows. The element of chance and luck is the premise of Number’s Game, a song written with Lynne Hanson and featuring Becky Warren on vocals. Why this the song was released as the first single is apparent from its immediate sense of melody, even if lyrically its sense of realism would mean it’s unlikely get played on mainstream radio.
From there on we take a journey down a particularly heartworn highway that passes through Maricopa County, wherein the solo trumpet adds to the sense of foreboding on the track. Shine On The Highway travels that road with an endless vista of a forgotten small town America. It again highlights De La Cour and White’s marriage of interesting sounds and sugary writing. The title track is a somewhat softer take on the lives of those whose faces don’t entirely rhyme, who tend to be in a place where they can feel nothing at all. Elizabeth Cook joins in on the kind of gritty savageness that is well expressed by the title Suicide Of Town. Next we’re heading into Palookavile with mining camps, memories of Buddy Holly and unsuitable venues along the way to that final destination. Trumpet and piano are again central to the pervasive mood and noirish frame of mind.
Taking a more personal insight is Brother, which looks deep into another life who may or may not be a sibling, but offers the credo to “keep your head up high and keep your profile low” on the off chance you might avoid the devil’s glance. More discordant, with a distinct Tom Waits disposition in the first part, is the penultimate American Mind - as fragmented as you might expect in current (and past) times. It has an arrangement that seems to divide the song into two distinct sections that work in tandem, noting that “the road to heaven is paved with sorrow.” The album ends with a sense of hopeful ambiguity, over an acoustic guitar and fiddle treatise on what thinking I’ve Got Everything I Ever Wanted and what that might be.The child’s voice in its coda points to a hope for a better future for the next generation.
Of course, these are my interpretations of these intriguing songs, and may not entirely be what was intended by their author. Nevertheless, this is an album I have been listening to for some time and it is a career best for De La Cour and one that singles him out as being among the very best singer/songwriters working today (or at any time).
Review by Stephen Rapid
Discovering new music is not always the easiest thing, you rely on reviews from certain magazines where you know the writer’s own preferences are close to your own. Or there are a number of websites you trust to give you the heads up. Apart from that you need to sort through submissions, many of which are totally unsuitable for Lonesome Highway. You can, though, discover some real gems that way too. The following album was one highlighted by the Saving Country Music website - a site well worth investigating.
Sam Munsick Johnny Faraway Self Release
The Munsick family are a well regarded family of musicians, whose father Dave was a champion fiddle player who taught his three sons to play - all have a love of country music (especially with the added defining suffix of Western) which they play together as The Munsick Boys. Tris released his debut solo album NEXT TO NOWHERE in 2010. Ian is the youngest but has signed a deal with Warner Music Nashville and may have the biggest profile.
However the family member we are most concerned with here is Sam. He has released this second album, JOHNNY FARAWAY, recently as a follow up to his debut RODEO ROAD. The album is honest and true to a tradition which has seen a major resurgence in recent times, led by artists like Colter Wall, Corb Lund, Riddy Armen, Andy Hedges and Wylie Gustafson. The loss of icons of the genre like Ian Tyson, Don Edwards and Chris Ledoux means there is a need for new artists to fill that saddle.
Sam Munsick is a definite candidate with his tales of cowboys, rodeos, ranches and the characters who inhabit them and the bars that service them. He does so here with nine self-penned songs that are as full of life as the people who are the subjects of the material. The album features some top notch playing from co-producer and multi-instrumentalist Cody Angel, alongside the other producer and rhythm guitarist Tyler McCollum. The rhythm section is Glenn Fukunaga on bass and drummer Pat Manske. Ron Huckabee plays piano and brothers Dave and Ian are involved too. All in all, a set of players well able to do justice to these likeable songs.
Sam adds his prominent, personable voice and guitar which serve as the core of the performances. While some artists have favoured a more stripped down approach (campfire like) of voice and guitar with some subtle additional instruments touches, this album seems more like a Friday/Saturday night out. There is the opportunity to sing along, to dance and to be drawn into the obvious joy that ensues. 1-80 Lady and Marana Marie are taken up with the subject of the ladies who are very much a part of the lives of these folks. There is a country rock edge to Old Montana that feels right for the song and for the album’s overriding balance of work and play. 1922 is about the comparison between thinking of departed love and a painting by the renowned western artist Charles M Russell. It compares the fact that his paintings are still around, unlike the person he wishes still was. Cayuse Twister is the tale of an old timer whose saddle was his home. It has a Western Swing flavour that is pretty tasty. There are similar approaches to songs such as Smokey’s Bones, though here it is the horse not the man who is lauded. The attraction (or addiction) of the rodeo life is the theme of In Trouble On The Bubble.
The ballad setting of the title track feels like it could have been based on an old Irish traditional song from sometime in the last century, as many of the songs of the genre did. It again highlights the warmth of Sam Munsick’s voice and how easy it is to enjoy the whole dang thing. The final track Smokin’ Joe ends with a spoken outro, like a stage announcer thanking us for joining Sam in this particular performance.
Well I for one sure did and I think you might too if you have a liking for country and western music this well put together and played. This is music from the heart, coming from an authentic place that is never faraway.
Review by Stephen Rapid
Jake Ybarra Something In The Water The Orchard
A new name to me and to many others I would imagine but if he continues to develop the potential that he shows on this his debut album, he will be a name to watch out for in the future. Ybarra (the Y should be pronounced as an E) has written all ten songs, which show a writing style that manages to consider some of the less obvious but revealing details, alongside those bigger issues that are part of the day to day existence that so many face and can therefore relate to. He has an unmistakeable understanding of those he writes about. That may be from personal experience or from close observation of these he has, thus far, encountered, often influenced by several authors rather than just singer/songwriters.
He is a Texan but grew up in South Carolina and there was a member of a choir, which was where he began to explore what a voice, and specifically his voice, can do. That was in the Southern Baptist community, and his next interest was on the sports field, before he immersed himself in the blues guitar styles that were much in favour. The next revelation was when he began to consider the lyrical content of the material he was listening to at the time, noting the sadness and beauty those songs and writers revealed.
He released an EP locally before that led to the opportunity of recording this album. He worked with William Gawley as producer and a team that included Billy Thomas on drums, bassist Dow Tomlin, David Flint on guitar and keyboardist Dane Bryant rounding out the band. They all serve Yberra well and bring something extra to the songs, something that is pretty crucial on a debut release.
There is a variety in the delivery in terms of tempo and mood and one is immediately taken with songs like the title song both with the arrangement and with the story line unfolding. Equally, Savannah’s Song is a similarly paced acoustically rooted song with subtle instrumental support. The contemplative Long Winter is a descriptive tale of remembrances of that season’s time and endeavours. Call Me By My Name has a sense of longing and a wish for company that is perhaps both hopeful as well as having a degree of dejectedness that fits the musical setting. We are again in similar territory with Disappear.
Other songs such as Bloodfire or the riff-woven A Whole Lot To Remember and the lead track (and one of the album highlights) Late November kick it up a notch and drive the album along in a way that sees the running order working as a balance that gives the whole album its overall identity.
Throughout Ybarra’s voice and songwriting impress, with his ability to mix the plaintive and plain-spoken with the perceptive. All in all, a thumbs up for a new name that is likely to have a a shot for a place alongside the greats of the Texas troubadour tradition. It must be something in the water.
Review by Stephen Rapid
Maggie Fraser The Way That I Wish It Was Self Release
This is a debut release from Toronto based Maggie Fraser, a songwriter with many years of experience writing for other artists. In 2008, local Ontario singer and multi-instrumentalist Colleen Hodgson paid tribute to Fraser on her release, Songs of Maggie. All these years later, Fraser steps up to the microphone and takes her place in the spotlight. There is a sense of symmetry in the fact that Hodgson appears as a support and background vocalist on two of the ten songs featured here.
Fraser handles all of the song-writing duties and plays acoustic guitar on six tracks. She also takes all lead vocals and her delivery could be something of an acquired taste to new listeners. It is a cross between Marianne Faithful and Lucinda Wiliams in cadence and timbre. Production duties are handled by husband Alec Fraser, who also contributes on bass and guitars, banjo, keyboards, drums and percussion.
Other musicians on the project are Denis Keldie (electric piano, organ, accordion), Chris Bartos (violins, moog bass, fiddle, pedal steel), Rich Roxborough (keyboards, piano), James McKie (mandolin, bodhrán), Chris Staig (guitar), and Ed White (drums). Together, the band recorded at Liquid studio in Toronto and the results are captured in this engaging album of songs that cover a whole range of emotions, from self-reflection to fear of the future, analysing grief and trying to get beyond feelings of depression, to embracing hope for the future.
Outside of her interest in music, Fraser is a qualified Psychotherapist who runs her own practice and who navigates life changes for her clients as much as she tries to express her own journey in song. Her husband, Alec Fraser, as well as taking on production duties is also a respected blues musician who developed the Circus Bass, an upright bass with seven drum sounds attached, played with his hands and a brush. He plays this instrument on three of the songs featured here.
Your Ghost is an interesting take on the grief of losing a loved one and the lyrics ‘Tomorrow is a betraying word, Don’t believe all the lines you’ve heard, Just when you need her most, she doesn’t come through,’ give a sense of loneliness and a sense of fear in the future. The Cornfield is a song that laments the way that the earth has been abused and the image of its essence as a young girl that has been ignored is wrapped in a country tinged arrangement with pedal steel and fiddle featured.
After the Loving is a song about lost love and Our Little Canoe looks at the ability to carry on regardless, no matter what life puts in our way ‘Our little canoe, onward we travel, Though kingdoms unravel and time falls away.’ With the song, The Way That I Wish It Was, Fraser looks at a life lived by an immigrant who was married at sixteen as part of a pre-arranged union. The difference in the lives that we are given, and forced to live against the freedom to choose. It takes strength to endure.
Going to Hell is about domestic abuse and the regrets born of the price paid for dark deeds. The title track tells of unrequited love and has an easy country influenced arrangement with some fine piano and guitar lines, courtesy of Denis Keldie and Alec Fraser. Wild Black Dogs looks at our fears and our hopes, keeping down the feelings of being out of control. The final track Song For Susan is a tribute to a friend who has passed on.
As a debut album, this contains plenty to entertain and is an interesting look into the creative muse of a talented artist.
Review by Paul McGee
Dougie Poole The Rainbow Wheel Of Death Wharf Cat
This New York singer-songwriter has been releasing music since his debut EP first appeared in 2016. He released a full album Wideass Highway in 2017, and followed this up with a second release in 2020 and the arrival of The Freelancer's Blues. The lockdown years proved a time of both challenge and reward for Poole as he negotiated his feelings and emotions across the isolation of having to stop playing and touring for a living.
In 2021 he released a 13-track Live Bootlegs album that covered recordings between 2018 and 2020. All the songs were performed at Pete's Candy Store in Brooklyn, New York and originally released on the podcast, Dougie Poole's Special Delivery. He is a very interesting artist who has taken his early influences from indie-based music and punk to approach a new take on country music as a genre that can fuse genuine songcraft with synth based sounds, Wurlitzer and traditional pedal steel. The results are very impressive and engaging across nine tracks that run just short of thirty-four minutes and leave a lasting impression.
The title track refers to that icon that greets us on our computer screens every time our machine buffers and the waiting can be related to feelings of being stuck, something that we all experienced during the pandemic lockdowns. Poole sings ‘Been waiting here so long, For something good to load.’ In the very poignant High School Gym Poole reflects upon those who have died and now form part of his dreams where they populate the benches in his old school gym. ‘There’s just one question that’s on everybody’s mind, Hell, they ask me every time that I stop in, Can’t you turn back time? Can’t you curve that line? So we can roll the old dice again, Oh, but the house, it always wins.’ Superb song-writing and such bittersweet reflection on the wheel of life.
Poole delivers a soft vocal that blends in easily with the understated playing. It’s very much a case of less is more in the gentle melodies and song arrangements. Worried Man Blues 2 and Nickles and Dimes are two songs about relationship woes and the ever-present push and pull of conflicting emotions mixed with poor communication channels. Beth David Cemetery is located in New York and the song talks of regular undertaker visits to deliver another corpse; ‘I’m headed home to give you back another one.’
Must Be In Here Somewhere is a search on a computer hard drive for an old message that has gotten lost and the memory of an old lover that lingers and haunts. I Lived My Whole Life Last Night has a similar sense of something lost and speaks of regret ‘I ate the whole apple in just one bite, I ate the core, the seeds, the stem, just like I said I might.’ The final song is one of guarded hope and the overriding emotion of I Hope My Baby Comes Home Soon is one of wanting to be held and comforted.
Poole wrote all the songs during 2021 in his apartment before bringing them to co-producers Nate Mendelsohn and Katie Von Schleicher. Over a period of five days they worked in the intimate space of a suburban home, temporarily turned into a small studio and invited a group of players to join in the live, off the floor experience. Sean Mullins (drums, organ, wurlitzer), Brian Betancourt (bass), Mike Etten (guitars), Jack McLoughlin (pedal steel, resonator guitar) were joined by producer Katie Von Schleicher (Wurlitzer, synths, vocals), and Nate Mendelsohn (vocals, horns), Dan iead (pedal steel) and Zhanah Wyche (vocals) appear on different tracks. Dougie Poole leads the ensemble on main vocal duties together with guitar, synth and harmonica contributions. This is a very restrained album that is full of sweetly observed moments and it is certainly worthy of your investment.
Review by Paul McGee
Roxy Gordon Crazy Horse Never Died Paradise Of Bachelors
A renowned Texas poet, journalist, artist, activist, and musician; Roxy Gordon was a Choctaw and Assiniboine native American. He lived from 1945 until his death in 2000 and is remembered on this reissue of a previous work that was first recorded in 1988. In his day he was feted by the likes of Townes Van Zandt, Leonard Cohen, and Terry Allen. Butch Hancock, Ray Wylie Hubbard, and Billy Joe Shaver also identified with him as fellow Texan songwriters. However, Gordon was more defined by his wide-ranging work that encompassed poetry, short fiction, essays, memoirs, journalism, and criticism. His primary subject as a writer, musician, and visual artist was always American Indian culture, specifically the ways it collided and coexisted with European American culture and with his own life experience.
I am reminded of the similar works created by John Trudell (1946-2015), another native American author, poet, actor, musician, and political activist. He served as the chairman of the American Indian Movement, and his pregnant wife, three children and mother-in-law were killed in 1979 in a suspicious fire at the home of his parents-in-law.
On this album of ten spoken word pieces, Gordon comments on the way in which history has been written and distorted by the white man in the search for land and wealth across the great plains of America. History is always written by the victors and in subjecting native American first nation peoples to life on reservations, the hurt and callous disregard for empathy and human kindness can never to forgotten.
The indomitable spirit of a subjugated people can never be broken and that very fortitude is perfectly captured in the soul of Crazy Horse. He stands as an enduring symbol for the ongoing fight and for the past suffering that has paved the way towards a challenging future. Both The Hanging Of Black Jack Ketchum and I Used To Know An Assiniboine Girl recount the true stories of events that went unpunished and Life As A Living Target sums up the reality of having to survive against the odds of keeping others alive by personal sacrifice, being willing to die for the ultimate survival of other races.
In An Open Letter to Illegal Aliens Gordon highlights capitalism, communism, materialism and money, Christianity, and Judaism, as the sickness imported by European immigrants to the USA and to unspoilt lands that had been thriving for thousands of years before their arrival. This is a timely message that conservative white America should absorb in the midst of their current hysteria about immigration policies.
The musical accompaniment is provided by Brad Bradley on keyboards and guitar and Frank X Tolbert on washtub bass. It is a stark recording, raw at both the core and along the edges. It is an absorbing listen that reaches from beyond the grave full of insight and sharply honed wisdom.
Review by Paul McGee
Carter Sampson, Robbie Fulks, Ben de la Cour, Sam Munsick, Jake Ybarra, Dougie Poole
Spencer Cullum Jr., Maggie Fraser, Roxy Gordon