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.