Big Daddy - Cutting Their Own Groove

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Completely brilliant

I absolutely love this album.  It's musically extremely well done, it's very, very funny and a genuine pleasure to listen to.

Big Daddy take hits of later ears (mainly 80s here) and perform them in the style of well-known 50s and early 60s hits.  This album features gems like The Living Years (Mike & the Mechanics) sounding like Leader Of the Pack, with a brilliant, sneaky bit of Deadman's Curve thrown in; Once In A Lifetime (Talking Heads) in the style of The Banana Boat Song by Harry Belafonte (or Spike Jones) and The Greatest Love Of All having it's overblown self-regard magnificently undermined by being performed like The Marcels' Blue Moon.

("Whatever they may take from me,

They can't take away my…dig-dig-dig-a-dingy-dong-a-ding-dong…")

The whole thing is just a joy, because the clowning and wit is underpinned by top-class musicianship, so the result really does sound like a well-produced record of older songs.  Every song makes me smile with its cleverness (try Paul Simon's Graceland as a mix of All Shook Up and Teddy Bear) and some make me laugh out loud.  (It helps to know both the songs which are being parodied and the older ones which these arrangements are based on, but it's not essential.)

I'm not a big fan of comedy/novelty records by and large, but this is a real favourite of mine because it's so good and I can recommend it very warmly indeed.

Beach Boys - Live in Chicago 1965

Rating: 3/5

Review:
Not a great live album

Hmmm.  This is a recording of the Beach Boys playing live in 1965, so it's definitely worth having just as a record of one of the great groups of the 60s in concert, but as an album to play and enjoy regularly it's not that great, I'm afraid.

This is a recording of two concerts given on successive nights with a very similar set-list although the order varies a little – and I'm pleased to say that they added 409 on the second night which has always been a favourite of mine.  There's lots of familiar stuff and some great songs like Surfer Girl, I Get Around, Fun, Fun, Fun and so on, and some covers including The Monster Mash which are quite fun…once or twice.  The boys give a good show, but the sound is very variable and it has to be said that at times the vocals are a bit dodgy, with some slightly iffy tuning and a bit of a chaotic feel in places.  You expect a bit of this in a live album and it's fair enough, but the overall sound and impression isn't that good.

Apparently Capitol had to issue these recordings in some form to retain copyright and to be honest I'm not sure they'd have seen the light of day otherwise.  For ardent fans of the early Beach Boys (like me) this definitely worth having, but as an album it's average at best, I'd say, and I can only give it a very qualified recommendation.

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Brilliant

This is an album of some of the cream of contemporary folk, so it hardly needs me to tell you that it's excellent – but I'm going to say it anyway.  This really is a cracking compilation.

There is a wide range of talent here, with veteran colossi like Richard Thompson and Joan Armatrading, a later generation of now-established greatness like Eliza Carthy and The Unthanks and a great variety of people who were not so well known to me but with whom I'm very glad to be better acquainted.  Whoever is playing and singing here, the standard of musicianship is consistently excellent and it really is a delight for an old folkie to hear the magnificent music being produced by folk musicians at the moment.

Folk has always been a diverse field; that's true here so there will doubtless be some tracks which you prefer to others, but the whole thing is quite remarkably good.  Just as an example, it's fascinating to hear the contrast between the brilliant, quite traditional playing of Richmond Cotillon from the wonderful Murmurs album and the modern, jazzy take on folk dances by Ross Ainslie on Skins.

This is an album which has made me listen again to the people whose music I already know and made me search out several others.  No one with any interest in folk music could possibly be disappointed in this, and I can recommend it very warmly indeed.  It's terrific.

John Smith - Great Lakes

Rating: 5/5

Review:
A fine album

I think this is a really fine album. I took a bit of a risk on it as I'd not heard John Smith's work before, and I'm really glad I did. It is full of melodious, intelligent songs and some lovely instrumental work.

John Smith is a folk artist from Devon who often sounds older and more world-weary than his still relatively young age. The title Great Lakes sounds rather Americana-ish and Smith isn't afraid to sound faintly Country at times (on Freezing Winds of Change, for example), but he has a distinctly English style of his own with a husky, haunting voice, fine guitar work and a beautifully produced sound from a very good small band. It is hard to categorise him, but there were echoes of John Martyn, Bert Jansch, John Renbourn and even Billy Bragg in various places, and I caught a hint of Springsteen, too, in songs like Town to Town.

John Smith is a songwriter of real quality and a fine performer. Great Lakes was a joyful discovery for me and I would warmly recommend it as a beautiful, thoughtful and sometimes very moving album

Dust On The Nettles

Rating: 5/5

Review:
An excellent set

Just to add my voice to the chorus of praise for this excellent box set.  There is some stuff which will be very well known to anyone interested in the folk scene at the time, and which is genuinely nostalgic for me.  Fairport, Trees, Pentangle and other bands and artists I loved then in their early days are well represented.  There's also a fabulous wealth of stuff which is less familiar (to me, anyway) and I'm very glad to have it.   Not everything is brilliant, but it's never less than interesting and some of it is fantastic.

At a very reasonable price for three discs and with excellent notes, this is a real bargain as well as being musically very rewarding.  Very warmly recommended.

Rough Guide to Americana (2nd Edition)

Rating: 5/5

Review:
An excellent compilation

I think this is an excellent compilation.  I say that not because I love every track – I don't – but because it contains some truly excellent music and gives a wide and interesting selection of some recent Americana. 

I suspect that most people will be like me with this disc; there will be some tracks and artists you know and love and some which are new to you.  I have known and loved the work of Patty Griffin and Mary Gauthier for years and have both the albums from which their excellent contributions come.  I also knew a little of some of the others, but I'm very glad to have been introduced to some of the artists here like Noah Gunderson and Robert Earl Keen (what a great version of Richard Thompson's 1952 Vincent Black Lightning !).   You may like others more, and even dislike some of the album as I do – and that's fine because it's what this album is for.

In short, this is a really good sampler of some contemporary Americana, which I can warmly recommend to anyone who wants to know more about what's been going on recently.

Teddy Thompson & Kelly Jones - Little Windows

Rating: 4/5

Review:
Good songs, well performed

I like this album.  There are ten tracks but it's nearer EP length at about 25 minutes, showing the tight songwriting which has produced these brief tracks which really do act as little windows on aspects of love.

If I had to sum up the style, it sounds a bit like The Everly Brothers singing Buddy Holly songs.  The harmonies are great, and the songs themselves have a melodic and rhythmic catchiness whatever their emotional feel.  They're not all that varied, but they are different enough to make a good set, I think.  And there are some very good, witty lyrics here, especially in I Thought That We Said Goodbye and You Can't Call Me Baby which I think are exceptionally well done.

This isn't a ground-breaking classic, but it's an enjoyable album of good songs, well performed.  I'm looking forward to more collaborations between these two, and I can recommend Little Windows warmly.

Leonard Cohen - The Complete Studio Albums Collection

Rating: 5/5

Review:
A great box

This is a great box at an absolute bargain price.  It includes Leonard Cohen's first 11 albums (listed at the end of this review), so you don't get the brilliant Old Ideas or the slightly less brilliant Popular Problems, but it's still an amazing collection.  All the albums have been remastered and sound very good indeed.

Frankly, the music in this collection scarcely needs a review from me.  It's Leonard Cohen, which is pretty well all that need be said.  Personally, I think these albums are a bit variable in quality but they're never anything less than good, and the real Cohen classics like I'm Your Man or the first three albums remain superb.  In short, this is a great box, and if you want to fill in the gaps in your Cohen collection or to investigate the work of one of the truly great songwriters of our age, don't hesitate.  Very warmly recommended.

The albums:

Songs of Leonard Cohen

Songs from a Room

Songs of Love and Hate

New Skin for the Old Ceremony

Death of a Ladies’ Man

Recent Songs

Various Positions

I’m Your Man

The Future

Ten New Songs

Dear Heather