Linda Draper - Modern Day Decay

Rating: 3/5

Review:
Disappointing

I'm afraid I didn’t think this was a very good album.  Linda Draper has a nice voice and has assembled a decent band, but the material really doesn't add up to all that much.  The melodies and harmony are all pretty forgettable and there is some terribly clunky lyric writing in places; the scansion is especially poor with syllables often stretched implausibly.

I am sorry to be critical: it's not an actively bad album, but there are so many really good singer songwriters making excellent music at the moment and this simply doesn't compare for quality.  I can't really recommend it.

Neil Young - Peace Trail

Rating: 3/5

Review:
Mixed, but some decent stuff

My reaction to this album is similar to that of several other reviewers: it's not as bad as some recent stuff by Neil Young.  After the dreadful Monsanto Years and the painful A Letter Home, I realise that's not saying a lot, but some of this is actually pretty decent.

Neil has obviously had some rough ideas, gone into the studio with a few people and rattled off these tracks; the result is a slightly shambolic album with the sense of a couple of good songs trying to be heard.  The title track, for example, is rather a touching song with a decent tune and good lyrics which Neil actually sings in tune almost all the way through (something of a rarity these days).  One or two others qualify for a similar description, and you can't doubt the overall message which has been coming from him loud and clear for some time now.  Even in the better songs, though, some of the lyrics are really pretty ordinary and downright clunky in places.  There is also some dross, frankly.  I know Neil Just bangs out stuff and doesn't care much whether it works or not because he's already on to something else, but the long-suffering listener has to endure it and Texas Rangers and a couple of others really are tests of our endurance.

It's not a good sign when my main response is relief that an album isn't as terrible as I'd feared, but there's enough here to warrant three stars and to suggest that decades-long Neil Young fans like me might want to give it a try.  Treat it with caution (and I suspect you'll find yourself being selective about what you play subsequently) but I can give this a qualified and tentative recommendation.

Rumer - This Girl's In Love

Rating: 4/5

Review:
A good album from Rumer

There's an awful lot of Bacharach and David on record (unsurprisingly, as they are one of the truly great songwriting teams of the 20^th Century)  and a good deal of it is in classic recordings by world-class singers.  My question was, do we really need yet another collection?  Well, on this evidence, yes we do.

Rumer is a very fine singer with a lovely voice.  I haven't always liked her choice of material, but when she gets it right she produces something really special – like her sublime version of Cifford T. Ward's Home Thought From Abroad, for example.  The material on this album is, of course, very good and Rumer sings it all very well, with some real highlights.  The production is generally pretty restrained, using largely piano and light-touch backing band and strings, which works very well because it highlights her beautiful voice.  She uses it to great effect here, phrasing and expressing truly beautifully in places (Close To You is wonderful, I think), an it's unfailingly true to the spirit of the songs.

If I have a reservation, it is that the album can sound just a tad samey after a while.  This may not bother you, because it's an album to relax to and allow to wash over you with waves of lovely sound, and it achieves that very well.  It's an impressive achievement and, if you like this style of music, I can recommend it.

Becky Warren - War Surplus

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Remarkably good

I think this is remarkably good, and for a debut album it is quite exceptional. It was a complete shot in the dark for me; I hadn't heard of Becky Warren but I was intrigued by the idea behind the album and it turned out to be a powerful, insightful and moving collection of very well crafted and performed songs.

War Surplus is the story of a veteran returning to the USA from service in Iraq terribly changed by PTSD, and the title is a bitterly ironic reference to this. The songs are all first person narratives by the veteran and his partner, which describe how things develop as he goes to war, his experiences there, his return and his inability to deal with the trauma and the consequences of it. It sounds grim, and it is in a way, but the songs are varied, musically appealing and sometimes even sing-along and the lyrics are exceptionally good. They are honest, insightful and written with understanding and compassion for both parties. They are some of the classiest lyrics I have heard from a new-ish artist for some time.

The songs are generally Country-tinged, often quite rocky –Take Me Back Home is an out-and-out rocker reminiscent of Jason Isbell's Super 8, for example - but with some very affecting and beautiful numbers, too; San Antonio is simply lovely and the closing track, Anything That Lasts, is just Warren and an acoustic guitar with a gut-wrenchingly poignant effect. The spirit of Springsteen's Born In The USA is obviously strong in this album, I get hints of Lucinda Williams, Eliza Gilkyson and others, but this is very much Becky Warren's own work and her own voice – and it's great.

The arrangements and production are very good, the band is excellent and this is an all-round classy piece of work. It's a long while since I have been so taken with a debut album and I can recommend this very warmly indeed.

Charlie Feathers - Jungle Fever

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Brilliant

I think this is completely brilliant.  I'm delighted to have such a fine compilation, which is well put together and with good sound.

Charlie Feathers was a truly great Rockabilly star; he had a great voice, played a mean guitar and had an excellent, tight band which meant that his records were – well, they were just great, in my view.  I don't think there's a duff track among the 30 presented here and some, the title track included, are outstanding.  They are almost all under 3 minutes long and distil the spirit of Rockabilly into fine, compact little gems.  The sound is well transferred to digital and is clean while being pretty true to the original.  It doesn't sound to me as though anyone has tried to "improve" it, thank heavens.

Not much more to be said.  A fine collection of terrific tracks, which is warmly recommended.

Bert Jansch - Live at the 12 Bar

Rating: 5/5

Review:
A fine live album

This is a really good recording of one of the great guitarists of the last 50 years.  Recorded in London in 1995, it captures both the excellence of Bert's playing and the atmosphere of a live performance.

This is just Bert and his guitar, and he's brilliant.  A glance at the track list will let you know what to expect: his usual mix of traditional songs (including Blackwater Side, which he pretty well made his own) and more modern, jazzier stuff.  It's all fantastically enjoyable; the guitar work is just miraculous in places – and there are a couple of minor fluffs which I like very much because it's what happens in live performance and gives the whole thing authenticity.  Bert's singing is also really good, in that voice which by any objective measure ought to be terrible but actually sounds wonderful in this repertoire.

The whole thing is excellently recorded and it's a really enjoyable album all round.  Warmly recommended.

Leonard Cohen 1934 - 2016

Hineni

When we were very young

We played and sang and loved your songs

And you have spoken to me ever since.

Half a lifetime later

And much too soon,

When my lovely, lovely sister’s

Wasted and mutilated body finally failed

She asked that you should sing her into the fire.

Your music has sounded throughout my life

And you have spoken wisdom to me.

The chords you played have pleased the Lord, Leonard;

May He be good to you

And in your heavenly mansion

May there be tea and oranges

And an unmade bed.

I wish you peace.

Shirley Collins - Lodestar

Rating: 4/5

Review:
A long-silent legend returns

It is really good to see the great Shirley Collins recording again.  This isn't a classic album, and nor is it an straightforward, relaxing listen, but it is good and it's a reminder of what a huge contribution she made to English folk music.

The songs are a pretty eclectic mix, from the enjoyable nonsense of Johnny Buckle to an arrangement of Orlando Gibbons's great madrigal The Silver Swan, but many of these are what Collins describes as "bloody old songs," with foreboding, death and gore in abundance.  It's what she feels comfortable singing these days – and that's good enough for me.

The arrangements and production by Ian Kearey (ex-Oysterband and all round musical good egg) are excellent.  Imaginative but never overdone and often with few instruments or just a solo guitar, they really bring these songs to life.  Collins's voice has emerged from decades of silence much deeper and huskier, slightly trembly at times and with, it has to be said, some dodgy intonation in places.  That's fine by me; it's a minor miracle that we're hearing that great voice at all and she still really knows how to put a song over, and how make herself its conduit rather than making the song a vehicle for the singer's ego.

Easy Listening this ain't, so it's probably one for seasoned old folkies like me (I'm proud to say that still have my original vinyl copies of No Roses, Anthems in Eden and others), but it's an honest, authentic and  involving album which I can recommend.

Lady Maisery - Cycle

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Another fine album from Lady Maisery

I think Lady Maisery are a genuine class act.  They are vocally brilliant, with wonderful harmonic skill and invention, and the kind of virtuosic precision which allows the whole thing to seem simple and natural.  Instrumental work is subtle but superbly done.  Their material is varied but invariably excellent and they pack a real social punch when needed – for example their cover of Todd Rundgren's Honest Work here is quite stunning, as was Palaces Of Gold on their last (also excellent) album, Mayday.

British folk music is in excellent hands at the moment, and Lady Maisery are a prime example of how it is flourishing, being nurtured and being taken forward.  This is an excellent, hugely enjoyable album.  My advice is to snap this up; it's a gem.

Richard Shindell - Careless

Rating: 5/5

Review:
A very good album

I hadn't come across Richard Shindell before, but a friend recommended this to me and I'm delighted he did; I think it's exceptionally good.

Shindell largely tells stories, and he tells them brilliantly.  He has a fine voice, there's some very good guitar work and the whole thing is very well arranged and produced.  What makes these songs special, though, is the lyrics.  Set to lovely tunes which really bring out the meaning of the words, there are quite extraordinary images and references in songs like Infrared, quirky and amusing stuff like a blues narrated by a stray cow, and Careless, Your Guitar and especially All Wide Open all have me close to tears. 

It's not often I hear a new album and am quite so taken with it, but I'm genuinely impressed by Careless.  It's a fine, intelligent piece of work, and I can recommend it warmly.

Leonard Cohen - You Want It Darker

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Profound and brilliant

I was given an advance copy of You Want It Darker a week or so before its release; it has been a pretty constant companion ever since and I'm still enjoying it immensely.  Old Ideas was a masterpiece in my view, but I wasn't nearly so impressed with Popular Problems and wondered whether Leonard Cohen had another really good album in him.  He had.  This is it.

Aged 82 now, Cohen is looking death squarely in the face throughout this album which has a very valedictory feel to it.  The images of getting out of the game and the flame going out each occur in two separate songs, he sings "I'm angry and I'm tired all the time," and so on, and he's still dealing with the ideas of sin, grace and resignation which have underpinned so much of his work for so long.  I'm pleased to see the old social bite still there among the spirituality in lines like "As he died to make men holy, Let us die to make things cheap," and there's rage against those who use religion as an excuse for hate, killing and oppression, ("I didn't know I had permission to murder and to maim"), as well as a wry take on his…er…lively sexual past: “I don’t need a lover; the wretched beast is tame.” 

A large part of what makes Cohen's songs and lyrics so great (and I don't use that word lightly here) is that he often works less by addressing an idea directly and more by allusion and suggestion which, with his genuine poetic ability, allows him sometimes to express something of the inexpressible.  This means that it is often a mistake to try to ascribe too specific a meaning to his lyrics, but it seems to me that throughout much of this album, even while talking about love and relationships, Cohen contemplating his own mortality, and wrestling with his relationship with his God, which has never been an easy one.  Lines like "I'm so sorry for that ghost I made you be, Only one of us was real and that was me," and "A million candles burning for the help that never came" show that's still true; he isn't expecting an easy, loving reconciliation and is possibly expecting nothing at all.  It is met with typical Cohen insight and honesty which permeates the whole album and which I find very powerful and profoundly moving. 

You Want It Darker was produced by Cohen's son Adam, who has done a superb job, I think.  The sound isn't quite what we've become used to; there's rather less of the female backing sound from the likes of the Webb Sisters, for example, and there are strings and choirs (some with a Gospel tinge) in places, and also a good deal of mournful, Klezmer influenced violin (not a plywood one, judging by its lovely sound).  The arrangements and production serve the songs and Cohen's performances beautifully and Leonard himself sort-of-speaks, sort-of-sings much of the time, while managing to imply the melody somehow.  As we all know, he was born with the gift of a golden voice, and it sounds fabulous here.  Of course it's weary and full of cracks, but there's still a magnificent depth to it - a sort of whispered basso profundo - and he puts these songs across like the master he is.  The effect of the whole thing is absolutely mesmerising.

Old Ideas closed with Cohen in Old Tom Cat mode with Different Sides.  You Want It Darker ends very differently with an absolutely stunning reprise of Treaty, superbly arranged for string quartet and with Cohen reciting just a few lines, sounding rather like Last Words, to close the song and the album.  It's a masterstroke, I think; it's a perfect summing up of the mood of the album and leaves me moved and in silence every time I listen to it.

It may be too early to use words like "masterpiece," but I strongly suspect that time will show You Want It Darker to be among Cohen's finest work.  I hope very much that this isn't to be his last album, but if it is, it's a fitting way for one of the very greatest of singer-songwriters to bow out. I think this is a real gem.

Kate Rusby - Life In A Paper Boat

Rating: 5/5

Review:
A very fine album

I love Life In A Paper Boat.  Kate Rusby has again produced a fine mix of the traditional and her own compositions, all excellently arranged and performed.

Really, the first two tracks tell you most of what you need to know: Benjamin Bowmaneer is a traditional ballad about the Napoleonic Wars (which I used to sing along to in my Folk Club youth and which brought back real nostalgic pangs) beautifully arranged and produced to give quite a modern sound but remaining absolutely true to the spirit of the original, and Hunter Moon is a stunningly lovely song written by Rusby herself…and that's the story of the album.  Beautiful arrangements and production (by Damien O’Kane who has done a superb job) of fine material.  Kate herself sings magnificently (of course), the musicianship throughout is top class and especially in the title track, the social bite is still there.

It really is a pleasure for this old folkie to see English folk music being both preserved and developed by so many brilliant artists in recent years.  Kate Rusby is at the forefront of them (and has been for many years) and this is a very fine album even by her extraordinarily high standards.  Very, very warmly recommended.

Pentangle - Finale

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Excellent live Pentangle

This is really good.  One can never be sure with archive live material whether the recording quality will be decent, and there's sometimes a risk with great groups who re-form that the music won't be up to standard (although with Pentangle that risk was very low indeed).  In fact this is excellent on all: five superb musicians creating something really special together, and beautifully recorded.  One of the things which made Pentangle so truly great was the fact that although they were near-genius musicians, what mattered was the ensemble; there's no ego or jockeying for position, they just play together and for each other - and that is just as evident here as it ever was.

This is a compilation of recordings from the 2008 reunion tour.  The repertoire speaks for itself - great, great songs from throughout their recording career with the classic mixture of traditional and contemporary tracks.  All five are on excellent form, perhaps mellowed and deepened by 40 years of playing (and life) experience; John and Bert play superbly, Jacqui is perhaps a little huskier and less pure of tone than of old, but still makes the perfect voice for the band and Danny and Terry play with their usual quiet brilliance.  It really is first-rate stuff and it brought me out in goose-bumps in places – for example, in superb versions of Light Flight and The Snows.   

The recording quality is excellent.  Both John and Bert had a hand in the final production and it is beautifully done.  The recording quality is first-rate, it's perfectly balanced and everything sounds wonderful; I think Danny Thompson's bass is especially well recorded and is a pleasure to listen to. 

I saw Pentangle live sometime around 1970 (and still have the autographed programme).  They were astonishingly good then, and here they are just as good - possibly better.  It's just a joy to listen to from start to finish, and very, very warmly recommended.

(And just in case you missed it, John Renbourn's last live recording, Joint Control, has just been issued and it's excellent, too.)

Bon Iver - 20, A Million

Rating: 1/5

Review:
Oh, per lease!

I had what I would normally consider to be the good fortune to have access to an advance copy of this album, but after a couple of weeks in its company, good fortune is not what it feels like.  I have liked much of Bon Iver's work up to now, but the ridiculously pretentious track listing tells you most of what you need to know about this album, I'm afraid.  It's a collection of largely unpronounceable, meaningless symbols, presumably to be read, in the time-honoured manner, as "The Artists Formerly Known As A Good Band."

The music (I use the term loosely) matches the silly incomprehensibility of the titles.  It is fragmented, full of odd, disjointed sound and lyrics and with just the occasional passage of recognisable musical structure.  I'm sure the band had a good time making this and they might well describe it as "experimental,"  but it's not made with an audience in mind and I'd describe it as self-indulgent nonsense.  I have forced myself to listen several times, but it gets no better.  There are some decent moments – but some dreadful quarters of an hour.[1]

Here's one description I've read:

"The album’s 10 poly-fi recordings are a collection of sacred moments, love’s torment and salvation, contexts of intense memories, signs that you can pin meaning onto or disregard as coincidence. If Bon Iver, Bon Iver built a habitat rooted in physical spaces, then 22, A Million is the letting go of that attachment to a place."

Er…what?  If that means anything to you whatsoever, you might enjoy this album.  Personally I'd say it was less a case of "letting go of that attachment to a place" and more letting go of any attachment to musical coherence or credibility.  I have respected and enjoyed Bon Iver's previous music, but this has very few redeeming features and I'm reluctantly compelled to denounce it as mostly vacuous drivel. 

My advice? Avoid.

[1] I adapted this line from Rossini (talking about Wagner) and am happy to acknowledge my source.

Amanda Shires - My Piece Of Land

Rating: 5/5

Review:
A very fine album

I love Amada Shires' work.  It is quirky in a way, but often still singable and direct and she continues her distinctive style on this excellent new album.

Marriage and impending motherhood seem to have taken some of the spikiness from her style (probably temporarily) and these songs are more about the subtleties of the life of the heart.  She still has the ability to create a very fine song, though and this is a terrific, varied set.  The opener, The Way It Dimmed has a driving but subtle beat to it (with some great twangy guitar from Jason Isbell, whose influence is detectable in a lot of places) while Harmless is a thoughtful, delicate song about the fine lines between friendship and the beginnings of unfaithfulness.  My Love (The Storm) has a minor-key, slightly dark but infectious feel, When You're Gone is an out-and-out rocker (and a very good one, too) and so on.  There's probably nothing here with the sheer impact of the brilliant Devastate, but it's really good, varied set of songs. (I'm not so keen on the Nellie-The-Elephant feel of Nursery Rhyme, to be honest, but every album has songs which appeal more than others.)

It's all beautifully done, with excellently crafted songs, intelligent lyrics and very well-judged production.  Shires sings with that unusual, slightly breathy voice which sometimes cracks a little or bends notes unexpectedly and which gives her music such a fine, individual style.  In short, this is a really good album from a very fine songwriter and performer, and I can recommend it very warmly.

Jacqui McShee's Pentangle - At The Little Theatre

Rating: 3/5

Review:
Jacqui McShee - but definitely not Pentangle

This is a perfectly competent album.  Jacqui McShee sings very beautifully and expressively, the material is great stuff and her band are good musicians – but Pentangle it ain't.

Part of the problem for me is that I love Pentangle's work – and by that I mean the work of Jacqui McShee, Bert Jansch, John Renbourn, Danny Thompson and Terry Cox together.  They were all quite exceptional musicians and together they produced something really special.  Among their truly exceptional work were their versions of many of the pieces on this album; Once I Had A Sweetheart, House Carpenter, I've Got A Feeling, Cruel Sister and others were absorbed into my musical bones in my teenage years and the versions here, while perfectly acceptable, aren't a patch, I'm afraid.

I don’t think this is just an old fogey's prejudice (although it may be, I suppose).  There's nothing here to mach the brilliance of Jansch and Renbourn's guitar work, the wonderful fluidity of Thompson's bass or the subtle expressiveness of Cox's percussion.  In places I think McShee sounds better than she did back then, but the whole isn't much more than a very competent but slightly ordinary set.  I'm glad to have heard Jacqui sing so well, but I doubt that this will get many outings in my player and I can only give it a lukewarm recommendation.

Rockin' Bones: 1950s Punk and Rockabilly

Rating: 5/5

Review:
A brilliant set

This is a brilliant collection of Rockabilly and some obscure but wonderful stuff which might be included in the notion of Rockabilly but is hard to classify. It's a pleasure from start to finish – full of gems, and often full of surprises. I was just a little young to be listening to this as it came out, but grew up with it in the background. Some is familiar to me and some isn't, and the craziness of things like Black Cadillac or the astonishingly explicit sexuality of Little Girl (did they really allow those vocals to go out in the 50s?) were unexpected and very enjoyable.

The collection is crammed with gems of all kinds. How a Rockabilly collection can omit Nothin' Shakin' by Eddie Fontaine (or 'Til I Waltz Again With You by Bill Reader, for that matter) is beyond me – but any compilation will have inclusions and omissions that I disagree with, and this is a fabulous set.

The sound is good, the music is fantastic. Enough said. Warmly recommended.

Track list:

Disc: 1

  1. Rockin' Bones - Ronnie Dawson

  2. Let's Go Baby - Billy Eldridge

  3. Baby Let's Play House - Elvis Presley

  4. Little Girl - John & Jackie

  5. Cat Man - Gene Vincent

  6. Lobo Jones - Jackie Gotroe

  7. Juvenile Delinquent - Ronnie Allen

  8. Froggy Went A Courting - Danny Dell

  9. Rattlesnake Daddy - Joe D. Johnson

  10. Down On The Farm - Al Downing

  11. Rockin' In The Graveyard - Jackie Morningstar

  12. Dancing Doll - Art Adams

  13. Long Blond Hair, Red Rose Lips - Johnny Powers

  14. Action Packed - Johnny Dollar

  15. Boppin' High School Baby - Don Willis

  16. Believe What You Say - Ricky Nelson

  17. Sunglasses After Dark - Dwight Pullen

  18. Rumble - Link Wray

  19. Down The Line - Buddy Holly

  20. Pink Cadillac - Larry Dowd

  21. Black Cadillac - Joyce Green

  22. Who's Been Here - Commonwealth Jones

  23. I Need A Man - Barbara Pittman

  24. Please Give Me Something - Bill Allen

  25. Sinners - Freddie And The Hitch-Hikers

Disc: 2

  1. Rock Around With Ollie Vee - Buddy Holly

  2. Lou Lou - Darrell Rhodes

  3. Rock Crazy Baby - Art Adams

  4. Love Bug Crawl - Jimmy Edwards

  5. Fool I Am - Pat Ferguson

  6. Red Hot - Bob Luman

  7. Love Me - The Phantom

  8. She's My Witch - Kip Tyler

  9. Lordy Hoody - Tommy Blake

  10. Bloodshot - The String Kings

  11. Trouble - Jackie DeShannon

  12. Hot Shot - Ronnie Pearson

  13. Long Gone Daddy - Pat Cupp

  14. Curfew - Steve Carl

  15. Put Your Cat Clothes On - Carl Perkins

  16. Pink And Black - Sonny Fisher

  17. Domino - Roy Orbison

  18. Jungle Rock - Hank Mizell

  19. Ubangi Stomp - Warren Smith

  20. Chicken Walk - Hasil Adkins

  21. Chicken Rock - Fat Daddy Holmes

  22. Eeny-Meeny-Miney-Moe - Bob And Lucille

  23. Shirley Lee - Bobby Lee Trammell

  24. Woman Love - Gene Vincent

  25. One Night Of Sin - Elvis Presley

Disc: 3

  1. Blue Suede Shoes - Carl Perkins

  2. Duck Tail - Joe Clay

  3. Stack-A-Records - Tom Tall

  4. Daddy-O-Rock - Jeff Daniels

  5. Move - Boyd Bennett

  6. Brand New Cadillac - Vince Taylor

  7. Rumble Rock - Kip Tyler

  8. Hep Cat - Larry Terry

  9. Cast Iron Arm - Peanuts Wilson

  10. Switch Blade Sam - Jeff Daniels

  11. Ballin' Keen - Boby & Terry Caraway

  12. Sweet Rockin' Baby - Sonny West

  13. Get Rhythm - Johnny Cash

  14. Rock Billy Boogie - Johnny Burnette

  15. Crazy Baby - The Rockin' R's

  16. Susie-Q - Dale Hawkins

  17. Worried 'Bout You Baby - Maylon Humphries

  18. I Love My Baby - The Phaetons

  19. Come On Little Mama - Ray Harris

  20. Whistle Bait - Lorrie And Larry Collins

  21. Spin The Bottle - Benny Joy

  22. Bertha Lou - Dorsey Burnette

  23. Real Gone Daddy - Jim Flaherty's Caravan

  24. My Pink Cadillac - Hal Willis

  25. Draggin' - Curtis Gordon

Disc: 4

  1. Action Packed - Ronnie Dee

  2. Shakin' All Over - Johnny Kidd

  3. Who Do You Love - Ronnie Hawkins

  4. Summertime Blues - Eddie Cochran

  5. The Way I Walk - Jack Scott

  6. Wild Wild Women - Johnny Carol

  7. Oooh-Eeee - Ric Cartey

  8. Get Hot Or Go Home - John Kerby

  9. Swamp Gal - Tommy Bell

  10. Miss Pearl - Jimmy Wages

  11. Mercy - Lorrie And Larry Collins

  12. Rock Boppin' Baby - Edwin Bruce

  13. Rockin' Daddy - Eddie Bond

  14. Rock It - Thumper Jones (George Jones)

  15. Rhythm And Booze - Corky Jones (Buck Owens)

  16. Flyin' Saucers Rock 'N' Roll - Billy Lee Riley

  17. Shake Um Up Rock - Benny Cliff Trio

  18. Red Hot Rockin' Blues - Jesse James

  19. Bang Bang - Janis Martin

  20. One Hand Loose - Charlie Feathers

  21. Whole Lot Of Shakin' Going On - Jerry Lee Lewis

  22. Fujiyama Mama - Wanda Jackson

  23. I Got A Rocket In My Pocket - Jimmy Lloyd

  24. Oh Love - Don Wade

  25. School Of Rock 'N Roll - Gene Summers

  26. Rock-N-Bones - Elroy Dietzel

John Renbourn & Wizz Jones - Joint Control

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Great stuff

Listening to John Renbourn play the guitar has been one of the great pleasures of my life for half a century or so now.  This, his final recording is well up to the standard we'd expect from the man. 

Recorded live with his great friend and musical partner Wizz Jones, this is a record of two outstanding guitarists and very, very fine musicians having a great time playing together and generating a terrific set as a result.  The standard of guitar work is, of course, phenomenal from both men (including the odd tiny fluff you always get in live performance) and their obvious enjoyment of what they're doing is infectious – several tracks end with a delighted laugh from Jones, and quite right, too.

On the inner gatefold of Sweet Child in 1968, Renbourn said "I started off trying to play like Big Bill Broonzy, and I'm still trying."  In my case, that could read "I started off trying to play like John Renbourn, and I'm still trying."  I'm nowhere near playing like John and never will be, of course, but he's still a huge hero of mine, and this just confirms his stature.  All Renbourn fans will really need to know is that this is a well recorded disc and that John plays as we all know he can.  Warmly recommended.

The Beach Boys - Becoming The Beach Boys

Rating: 2/5

Review:
Oh, dear...

I have loved the Beach Boys for half a century and more, but this really is stretching my loyalty.  It's a collection of outtakes, rejected takes and odd bits of banter from 1961-2 before the band signed with Capitol Records; nine songs are represented here, over 63 tracks.  That's seven, yes seven, versions of each track on average including the master of each.  They're the sort of thing it might be interesting to hear once (and certainly not all together) but as an album release?  Come on!

Frankly, there's an air of desperation about this release, especially after the pretty poor Live In Chicago 1965 from last year.  That was made into a commercial album purely for copyright reasons, and one wonders whether the same applies here.  Certainly, I can't think of any other plausible reason for making this commercially available in this form.  Serious completists may want to have it in their collections, but my advice to anyone else is just to get out your old Beach Boys albums and give this a miss.

The Stray Birds - Magic Fire

Rating: 5/5

Review:
An excellent album

I'm pleased to say that I really like this album.  I enjoyed Best Medicine (their previous one) but, unlike many others, found it just a little lacking in genuine emotion, somehow.  Not here – this is full of zing, sincerity and superb musicianship.

A few samples will give you the feel of this album.  It often has a rootsy feel, enhanced by the instrumentation which includes banjo and fiddle, and it's just great.  There is such energy and obvious joy in the music they're making, backed up by some real instrumental virtuosity, excellent singing (with great harmonies) and a fine ensemble feel, too.  They have a genuine mutual understanding which I think underlies the whole thing and makes it rather special.  There's a good variety of material and feel throughout; Third Day In  Row put me in mind of Tom Petty, Somehow is an out-and-out Country/Everlys heartbreak song, Hands Of A Man has the feel of a passionate traditional ballad (with a real political bite) and so on – and all of it's done very well indeed.

Any slight dubiety I had after Best Medicine has gone: Magic Fire is a really fine album which I have been listening to repeatedly with great pleasure and which I can recommend wholeheartedly.

The Rough Guide To Blues Women

Rating: 5/5

Review: A brilliant collection

This is absolutely fantastic.  It's a superb collection of great music in great performances which have been well remastered so they sound pretty clean but still thoroughly authentic.

Before I heard this, my knowledge of blues women of this period didn’t extend much beyond Bessie Smith so I'm no expert, but there is some simply brilliant stuff here.  There's a variety of styles including solo guitar or solo piano accompaniment (often excellently played), New Orleans-style jazz band and plenty of others.  I'd never heard of many of these women and, having heard this collection, I am heartily ashamed of the fact.  When I got to Track 3, Pick Poor Robin Clean by Geeshie Wiley, it stopped me in my tracks and plenty of others have had a similar effect.  There are some truly excellent performances here and I find the whole thing a delight.

I don't know what a true aficionado would make of this, but to this very amateur enthusiast it's an utterly brilliant collection of gems of which I was almost completely unaware.  If you have any interest whatsoever in this period of blues/jazz, don't hesitate.  This is a monumental bargain which I can recommend wholeheartedly.