Red Sammy Holy Fluorescent Light Self Release
The band name is a performing vehicle for Adam Trice and this tenth album adds to the consistently fine work he has been releasing since the debut record appeared in 2007 and brought him to media attention. The band on this album is Bruce Elliott (electric guitar), Greg Humphreys (bass, backing vocals), Kenneth Noble (drums, percussion), and Adam Trice (lead vocals, acoustic and electric guitars). The eight songs kick off with the driving beat of Getting It Over, a rocking rendition of guitar riff and reckless reverie. The following Some Days I Feel Crazy has a slower tempo that captures a loose abandon ‘Getting down with the down-and-outs, Baby I’m feeling fine.’
I Couldn’t Find A Way Home Last Night sums up the sense that feeling lost is not always the worst possible outcome to relationship woes. There is an echo of Lou Reed in the song arrangement with the sweet lead guitar wrapping the song in a rhythmic resonance. Yesterday the World Opened Up is a song that reflects upon what to do with feeling that old keys don’t open new locks. Ernest and Bukowski is a tip of the hat to great writers that influenced Trice over formative years and the sense of independent attitude that runs through their respective works in the fruitless search for the ‘American dream.’ The laid-back tempo and feel is very much in line with the Alt-Country songs that bands such as Uncle Tupelo spawned in the early 1990s. Don’t Know What To Say walks in similar shoes with the guitar lines highlighting a nice song dynamic.
Last Night looks at lessons learned from the passing of time and the refrain ‘but that was last year’ mirrors the reflective guitar melody and the infectious chorus. The final song is I Worry Sick About You and the easy groove belies the concern for another in the lyric. If you want to plug into a great example of all that sounds relevant in the Americana genre these days, then a visit to Adam Trice and his Red Sammy collective is a recommended stop along the highway.
Review by Paul McGee
Alice Di Micele Interpretations Vol 1 Alice Otter
Celebrating a career that commenced in the 1980s and one that has seen sixteen albums released by this independent artist, it is appropriate that Alice Di Micele indulges her own personal preferences for other artists songs on this new album. It is a collection of nine cover songs and a tribute to some of the songwriters that she has drawn inspiration from over her extensive career. Judging by the title of this celebration to others in song, there will be a second album along similar lines, and this initial batch of tracks feature the impressive roots style and vocal range that Alice brings to her body of work.
It could be seen as dicing with danger to interpret classic songs such as Neil Young’s Old Man and Harvest Moon. These songs have been covered on so many occasions that one has to wonder what can be brought to the table that could be viewed as either fresh or new in the renditions. Happily, Alice makes each song choice very much her own and the intimate setting of acoustic guitar and voice bring a resonance, such as Give Yourself To Love (Kate Wolf), while the impressive blues groove of Death Don’t Have No Mercy (Rev Gary Davis) highlights the extent of talent on display with a stirring version, featuring the superb guitar work of Dirk Price and Nick Kirby.
The soulful Over My Head (Christine McVie) is another fine example of appropriate song choices with warm keyboard sounds lifting the arrangement and Square One (Tom Petty) has a gentle tone to the reflective nature of the lyric. Lesser known songs such as Throw It Away (Abbey Lincoln) bring a light, jazzy touch in the arrangement and the inclusion of a bluesy Sugaree (Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter), together with the sense of longing on The Hounds Of Winter (Sting), are examples of both the diversity and range of styles that are impressive in their construction and delivery. Taking the project as a guilty pleasure, these songs blend together into a cohesive whole and deliver a seamless progression from start to finish.
Review by Paul McGee
Lars Nagel Tomorrow Never Knows Self Release
Growing up in Stockholm and dreaming of journeys to other continents could never have prepared Lars Nagel for the reality of finding himself living in California and spending his days as both a tennis pro and a budding musician. Having played in a number of bands in earlier days, Nagel released a solo album in 2015, and followed it with another album that same year. After this burst of activity over such a short space of time, Nagel went off the media radar until an EP surfaced in 2022.
Now we are treated to a new album and a return to the original intention of building upon his prior experiences. Currently based in Atlanta, Georgia, Nagle takes the opportunity to include a number of different music genres on the ten tracks and his writing instincts deliver strong performances here. Daniel Groover, Diane Coll and Nagel co-produced and played on the album with appearances from Sam Rountree, Tom Cheshire and Steve McPeeks on selected tracks.
Opener Years Gone By talks of leaving the past where it belongs and living in the moment. There is a nod to the Boss in the arrangement and the song includes a hint of the melody on Out In the Street from the River album. The guitar attack on Johnny Was Right is pure cow punk, with pedal steel adding to the dynamic and references to Johnny Thunders land nicely in the refrain ‘You can’t put your arms around a memory.’ The country vibe on Fool’s Way Home is a song about being stuck in addiction and doomed to repeating the same mistakes. The sad tale of broken relationships is the focus of Love Don’t Live Here Anymore with self-pity no solution to the pain. You Will Never Change is a real rocker with an urgent backbeat and plenty of blame being thrown around ‘ You blame everyone for your present and your past.’
The poignant Now That You’ve Left Me is a song to his deceased father and the lessons imparted since childhood. The sad reality that ‘My childhood is gone, You can no longer right all of my wrongs’ goes straight to the pain and loneliness that grief brings. The gentle sway of So It Goes strips everything down to a life lived by the rules and expectations of others and the price paid for living such a lie. The addition of pedal steel and piano makes this reflective song one of the highlights.
The spoken intro to Gotta Move is not credited but it speaks of the ills in American society and a nation that has forgotten how to feel empathy is expressed in the lyrics as Nagel drives the musicians on an up-tempo song full of anger and frustration. Old Photographs is a look through the telescope to Nagel’s childhood, capturing the adventures of youth and remembering a trip to the USA with his father. The album title and final song is an instrumental piece that has plaintive pedal steel to the fore and a thoughtful ending to an album that has lots to recommend it in the sentiment and the delivery.
Review by Paul McGee
Wayward Jane The Flood Down The River
Scottish four piece Wayward Jane have been honing their unique sound from their base of Edinburgh for a few years and this third release on their own label is a beautifully produced album demonstrating their fusion of American folk, old time and English folk music with their strong Scottish influences. Across five instrumentals and seven songs, they have produced an album of soothing acoustic music, sometimes mesmerising, always soulful.
As the title track would suggest, the theme of water infiltrates its way across quite a few of the compositions. Edinburgh Rain introduces us to the distinctive and slightly vibrato vocals of Sam Gillespie (guitar & wooden flute) in a paean to their home city, ‘full of dreams’. His acoustic guitar motif is picked up by the versatile fiddle playing of Rachel Petyt. Michael Starkey leads us into the instrumental Brokeback with his sweet claw hammer banjo playing, weaving in and out of Petyt’s superb fiddle contributions, backed by acoustic guitar and Dan Abrahams’ double bass - it would be hard to believe this music wasn’t created in Southern Appalachia. Elizabeth Cotten’s Shake Sugaree gets a sweet makeover, with Sam Gillespie on vocals again, and is another acknowledgment of their influences.
The instrumentals Doucement and A Stone’s Throw are the only two tracks which have a distinctive Scottish flavour, thanks to the combination of wooden flute and fiddle. Michael Starkey sings lead and plays clawhammer on a cover of Little Satchel, from the North Carolinian old time fiddle player, Fred Cockerham, who was one of the best known exponents of the Round Peak style. The album closer Liberty features some fine finger picked guitar and vocals from Sam Gillespie, in the service of a plea for freedom, ‘Liberty shall be a dream/while a single soul is still unfree’. And so say all of us.
Review by Eilís Boland
Stoll Vaughan Dream In Colour Self-Release
This album represents the Kentucky-born singer/songwriter's fifth album and one that helps to define his take on his music and output further. There is a definite link to a primary influence for Stoll, which was and is Bob Dylan. That sits alongside other influences like Townes van Zandt and John Prine. All writers have a story of their own to tell, and this album finds Stoll in engaging form. He recorded and produced the album at Iroquois Studio in Kentucky. He moved to that State with his family after living in Los Angeles for a number of years. He gathered together a set of musicians who have played with the likes of John Mellencamp, Sheryl Crow, and the Allman Betts Band. In other words, a top-notch crew to bring these songs together. The team included guitarist Duane Betts on one song, as well as Johnny Stachela's effective slide guitar on two other tracks. Mike Grosser and Dane Clark were the solid rhythm section, while John Ginty filled out the sound with his keyboard dexterity.
His songs have a cinematic quality, so it's no surprise they have appeared in True Blood, Treadstone, Shameless and The Office, showing how such varied television programmes found something in his songs to suit their different moods. Initially, he was mentored by Mellencamp’s guitarist Mike Wanchic, and this album proves he learned well. It has a solid, intense sound, topped by a voice connecting the listener with the songs, which range from the go-west story 1883 of migrating into the unknown hard-scrabble "badlands" territory, undertaken by those seeking a new start. It has a hint of a tribal beat and atmospheric guitar and keyboards. Brother James is a reminiscence of a man "raised by drunkards with no dreams." The title track affirms that life, love, dreams, and the faith one holds, all look better viewed in colour. It has an appropriate sense of reverie in the musical context.
The move Vaughan made in returning to Kentucky is at the heart of Farmer's Market. It is a song that relates to getting into a rural lifestyle and assuming the role of a farmer without becoming one. Again, the lyrics create much of the overall picture that is conjured, along with the arrangement. Closer to home and again using the keyboards to give the song its setting is Fate. It recognises fate's role in shaping how a life and attending partnership is fundamental to a well-lived life and a lasting love. Somewhat broader in context is the life on a road subtext of Just Another Day, which is what is in store for so many.
More bluesy and with a guiding slide guitar riff is the journey across a murky territory that is a Killing Floor. Shades of John Hyatt abound, at least to these ears. It also sees him more in a Dylan phrasing mode along with that of Just Another Day, where the influence is apparent without ever becoming a mimicking process; it also has a harmonica prominent throughout. The Thick Of It has a reflectiveness that notes that we are all largely in that particular state for one reason or another.
Vaughan is another name to add to the growing list of Americana songwriting troubadours who have the ability to look at their own lives and observations and turn them into pieces of music that marry a crated lyricism with an appealing musical performance that is as colourful as it is engaging. It also underscores Vaughan's growth in each of his releases.
Review By Stephen Rapid
Bela Fleck Rhapsody In Blue Self-Release
Exactly one hundred years to the day that composer George Gershwin premiered RHAPSODY IN BLUE at Aeolian Hall in New York, seventeen-time Grammy Award winner Bela Fleck pays homage to Gershwin’s classic and timeless composition. There are many similarities between the two composers. Fleck may be best known for his masterful banjo playing, but like Gershwin, he has explored numerous musical genres over his forty-five-year performing and recording career. Gershwin died from a brain tumour at the young age of thirty-eight, and his compositions included jazz, classical and popular music. Fleck’s work in classical music includes the album PERPETUAL MOTION, a collaboration with bassist Edgar Meyer, involving classical music played on the banjo, which was awarded a Grammy as Best Classical Crossover Album.
This five-track album includes three interpretations of the title track, a reconstruction of Gershwin’s Rialto Ripples, and a previously unrecorded track, Unidentified Piece for Banjo. Rhapsody in Blue features Eric Jacobson and the Virginia Symphony Orchestra. Rhapsody in Blue (grass) is an upbeat and spirited jam with Fleck’s My Bluegrass Heart band members Sierra Hull, Justin Moses, Mark Schatz and Bryan Sutton. Fleck’s long-time collaborators Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas and Victor Wooten joined the party for the bluesy-shaped Rhapsody in Blue(s).
A lifetime lover of Gershwin’s work, Fleck’s interpretations breathe new life into the compositions, offering the listener an entirely different listening experience. “A piano player can play Rhapsody a lot faster than I can… but it’s going by so fast that I’m not getting it all,’’ explains Fleck on this experimental project that should appeal to both his fanbase and a wider audience who appreciate exceptional banjo playing and much more. It may even find appeal amongst some of the notoriously elitist jazz hipsters; you never know.
Review by Declan Culliton
Morgan Lee Powers How Naïve Self-Release
For my ears, there is a fine line between what qualifies as modern country and mainstream pop music. Quite a few female artists are mastering the former, writing their own material without ever descending into the predictable and tedious. Emily Nenni, Hailey Whitters and Kaitlin Butts immediately come to mind, and this debut record from Waco, Texas-born Morgan Lee Powers, finds her following a similar path, and equally impressively.
A graduate with a bachelor of science degree from Belmont University in Nashville, where she currently lives, the twenty-one-year-old, having completed her studies, turned her focus towards attempting to pave a career for herself in music. Writing songs from an early age and raised on country and classic rock, Powers paid her dues by playing three-hour sets on Broadway in Nashville to establish a foothold in the increasingly competitive market. She hooked up with Music Row engineer Sean Neff (Reba McEntire, Jennifer Nettles, Glen Campbell, The Doobie Brothers) to record HOW NAÏVE and his sympathetic production underscore Powers’ vocals just right. Eleven of the album’s thirteen tracks are solo writes, and Cowboy Killer, a co-write with Elizabeth Cook, also features.
A concept album of sorts, its content works around the highs and lows, growing pains and teenage angst while growing up in a small southern town. It’s hardly an original theme, but Power follows in the footsteps of Brandy Clark in writing clever and astute songs from both personal experience and a watchful eye.
She sets the scene with the opener, Southern Living, telling the tale of her upbringing and ambitions. Content aside, it showcases Powers’ crystal-clear vocals supported by slick fiddle and pedal steel. Teenage crushes, love won and lost, yearning to meet ‘the one’ surface on the mid-paced ballad Dear Whoever You Are and Like A Gentleman. The album’s title track - not autobiographical - reflects on blind-sighted innocence and marrying too young. Pearl Snaps, which is autobiographical, weighs up the perils of falling for someone much older than yourself. Teenage insecurities and the darker side of social media are voiced in Hate My Mirror (‘She’s the reason I did not eat today, she makes me cry because she looks so happy, everything I ever wanted comes naturally to her’). The defiant anthem-like and previously mentioned Cowboy Killer is instantly catchy, with a driving rhythm ideally suited for a live show. Advocating cherishing life’s simple pleasures, the album bookends pragmatically with Simple Things.
Powers’ debut album will most likely attract the attention of industry labels. With a pristine voice and the capacity to write perceptive lyrics, she ticks all the boxes for a pop/country market breakthrough. Let’s hope she gets the support to continue to write and record her own material and not be channelled into a more mainstream musical direction. If this evolves, we’re likely to be hearing a lot more from Morgan Lee Powers.
Review by Declan Culliton
The Steel Wheels Sideways Big Ring
Mid- to long-term plans for Virginia-based band The Steel Wheels were scuppered by Covid 19, as was the case with all artists and bands dependent on travel and touring to make a living. The pandemic was not the only upset that The Steel Wheels were confronted with, far from it. Band member Eric Brubaker’s young daughter passed away from a rare disease, and frontman Trent Wagler’s daughter experienced a mental health crisis. Not surprisingly, much of the content of SIDEWAYS, the band’s thirteenth album, deals with devastation and a reminder of the unpredictability that we face daily.
The Steel Wheels is Trent Wagler (vocals/guitar/banjo), Jay Lap (guitar/mandolin/vocals), Eric Brubaker (fiddle/vocals), Kevin Garcia (drums/percussion/mallet keyboards), and Jeremy Darrow (bass). The recording of SIDEWAYS took place at the Great North Sound Society in Parsonsfield, Maine. Taking advantage of the first opportunity for the five band members to all play together in two years, they holed up at the venue for a week to create their latest record. The production duties were overseen by Sam Kassirer (Lake Street Drive, Josh Ritter, Langhorne Slim), renewing a relationship that worked well on the band’s well-received 2017 album, WILD AS WE CAME HERE.
In a similar vein to their musical peers, Chatham County Line, The Steel Wheels have become more experimental both musically and lyrically on recent recordings, moving on from their early acoustic incarnation and four players around a single mic. The tracks here see-saw between darkness and light, yet the compositions sit comfortably side by side. The thought-provoking title track touches on the grinding reality of dealing with a world of ongoing challenges. Two haunting instrumentals, Dissidents and Past The Breaks, also characterise the former. In contrast, Wait On You and Good Thing Now are buoyant, heartening and loaded with soaring harmonies.
SIDEWAYS offers a broad canvas to the listener, with excursions into rock together with the band’s traditional bluegrass, folk and gospel leanings. It’s a formula that earned them a loyal and committed fanbase, and this project is another worthy addition to their impressive catalogue.
Review by Declan Culliton
Sour Bridges Down and Out Self-Release
The fusion of bluegrass, country and rock, currently named 'browngrass,' is one of the fastest-growing music genres. Ausin-based four-piece Sour Bridges falls into that classification, and DOWN AND OUT is their fifth studio album. The band members are Pucci brothers Bill (vocals, guitar, banjo) and Matt (lead guitar, mandolin, vocals), Will Vaughan (bass) and Marc Randal Henry (drums and percussion). Also lending a hand on this record were Camille Schiess (fiddle), Trevor Nealon (keys), Zack Wiggs (pedal steel) and Jessica Pucci (vocals).
The band hooked up with co-producer Grant Eppley (Spoon, Ryan Bingham) at Hen House Recording in Austin, their main objective being to recreate the passion and verve of their live shows. They do achieve this, from the racy toe-tapping title track that opens the album to the jaunty closer A.M.Jam. They hardly draw breath in between with standout honky tonk barroom songs, A Pair Of Arms, Drinkin' All The Way Home and Scarlett Woman.
Combining recently written songs, two of which were written the day before recording and others which had been penned ten years previously, the album showcases the band's stellar playing, clever lyrics and rousing harmonies. If the playing field is becoming overcrowded with bands jumping on the 'browngrass' wagon, Sour Bridges is most definitely up there with the pack leaders. On the evidence of this album, I can only imagine how entertaining a Sour Bridges live show would be. Hopefully, they will showcase at Americana Fest next September, and I can witness that for myself.
Review by Declan Culliton
RED SAMMY, Alice Di Micele, Lars Nagel, Wayward Jane, Stoll Vaughan, Béla Fleck, Morgan Lee Powers Music, The Steel Wheels, and Sour Bridges