Vive le Rock 'n Roll

Rating: 4/5

Review:
Very enjoyable stuff

This is a lot of fun.  I was only dimly aware of French Rock & Roll at the time and I'm glad to have this as a sample now.

I didn't know any of these tracks before hearing the album; they turned out to be largely at the rockabilly/punky end of the spectrum – with s few notable exceptions like 39 de Fevre, which is a rather inferior remake of Peggy Lee's Classic, Fever.  Most, though, are high-energy and a bit crudely done which gives them an impact which I like a lot.  The two closing tracks are Johnny Hallyday hammering his guitar and singing Heartbreak Hotel and Tutti Frutti frenetically into a cheap tape recorder in his bedroom, well before he got a recording contract.  The quality is terrible, but they're actually rather enjoyable in their way.

The sound quality is pretty good – although it's a bit woolly on some tracks which, combined with French pronunciation and slight inattention, led me to mishear "Mon mari c'est Frankenstein" and think that Nicole Paquin's husband was called Stan and that she had applied a most indelicate adjective to his name.

Amusing mistranslations aside, this is a really enjoyable album of very decent quality Rock & Roll which I can recommend warmly.

Blondie - Rapture in Toronto

Rating: 4/5

Review:
Decent but some reservations

Releases of live FM broadcasts are variable in quality, to say the least.  This one, consisting of two sets from Toronto in 1982 and LA in 1979, is a bit variable.

Blondie were still massive in 1982, although in my view a little past their peak.  Nonetheless they were still a fine band and a glance at the tracklist here will remind anyone who needs reminding that they made some truly great records.  For me, the LA set, recorded in 1979 is the better of the two; it's tighter, more edgy and aggressive while the 1982 Toronto set is more of a big production which doesn't come over so well in this recording.

The sound quality is decent but it's not brilliant.  There's not much hiss, which is a relief, but the balance isn't always great and it has a rather mushy, woolly – especially in Toronto.  I also have to say that Debbie's intonation isn't as secure as it might be in the Toronto set.  This really surprised me because she's a fine singer, but there are moments in The Tide Is High, Heart Of Glass and some others which have me wincing a little.  In LA, where she's largely giving it a full-on New Wave blast, she sounds terrific.

For me, the Toronto set is a three-star affair and LA four-stars.  I've rounded up to four stars overall, and this is probably worth getting to have a record of a legendary band at the height of their fame, but I do have some reservations about some of it. 

American Epic - The Collection

Rating: 5/5

Review:
A brilliant collection

This is completely and utterly brilliant.  No, really – I don't usually use quite such hyperbolic language when reviewing, but American Epic is an astonishingly fine collection of early recordings of American music.  It is curated with immense depth of knowledge, shrewdness of choice and, very noticeably, a genuine love for these wonderful recordings.

Much of this material was new to me.  There is a decent sprinkling of well-known names like Robert Johnson, Ma Rainey, Lead Belly and others, and some tracks have appeared on other compilations but much of this collection is of little-known but fabulous recordings.  We get the blues in all its variety, gospel, jug bands, Cajun music, and so on and so on.   It's a terrific, varied collection and the standard of musicianship and singing is wonderful throughout.

It's also fascinating to hear the roots of so much of the music made since.  I started, as is traditional, with Disc 1 Track 1 – The Coo Coo Bird by Clarence Ashley, which I didn't know.  It's obviously a distant cousin of The Cuckoo, which I have loved since I heard the Pentangle version 50 years or so ago, there are echoes of Jack o' Diamonds, recorded by so many great artists, it seems to have influenced Blues Run The Game, another classic modern blues by Jackson C. Frank…and so on.  Not every song is so rich in resonance, but there is real musicological interest here as well as just the sheer pleasure in the music.

The sound quality is as good as it can be.  Given the age of many of these recordings there's a good deal of hiss but it's never intrusive enough to spoil my enjoyment and for me just adds to the atmosphere. 

I really can't speak highly enough of this set. I haven't yet had the opportunity to see the documentary from which it comes, but I'll be glued to it when it is broadcast. This is a treasure trove of fantastic music which I can recommend very warmly indeed.

John Phillips - John The Wolfking of L.A.

Rating: 3/5

Review:
Nice but undistinguished

I have the greatest respect for John Phillips' work, not least as the organiser of the legendary Monterey Pop and the musical power behind the Mamas and the Papas.  (And I won't mention having been ridiculously jealous, like every other heterosexual male teenager at the time, of his being married to Michelle Phillips).  I liked much of what he did and I was very sad at his untimely death in 2001.  However, I can't really agree with the rave reviews here; this is a decent album but I don't think it's in the same league as his collaborative work.

This is a collection of largely pretty songs which sound very much of their time – a bit Dylan-ish in some places, a bit Al Stewart-ish or John B. Sebastain-ish in others and so on – and they're largely amiable and enjoyable.  Nothing really stands out, though; the opener April Anne is good without being exceptional, most is pleasant but rather forgettable and a couple of tracks - Captain, for example – are really pretty weak both musically and lyrically.  The sound is…well, it's nice.  Nice but undistinguished.  John's vocals are good, but he wasn't really a lead singer so they're quite laid back, and the whole things has a strong late 60s/early 70s/ Woodstock-y tone.  Nothing wrong with that, of course, but there's not much to make me sit up and take notice as there was with the Mamas and the Papas' magnificent harmonies, original music and Cass Elliot's fantastic voice.

I'm sorry to sound critical, but over three-and-a-half decades on, this fades into the background hum of the time for me.  There's nothing wrong with it and it's a nice-sounding album, but it's not one I go back to much.

Leonard Cohen - Massey Hall, Toronto, 1988 (FM Broadcast)

Rating: 4/5

Review:
Very good performance, adequate sound quality

I keep swearing that I will give up these Leonard Cohen FM broadcasts because there are so many being released, probably to cash in on his death…and then I just keep getting one more.  This is a good one from 1988.

The performances are, of course, very good.  Cohen himself is in fine voice and his band play and sing very well.  There's a lot of material from I'm Your Man, which suites me just fine and I like the versions here; they're generally a little quicker than the album originals but they still work well.  And, of course, there's a good smattering of other fine songs.  The balance is pretty good and overall it's a good live performance.

The issue with all these old FM broadcasts is the sound quality.  It's not bad on this album.  There are some moments when the treble sounds unpleasantly harsh - almost to the point of distortion - and there is audible FM hiss throughout, but none of this is bad enough to spoil my enjoyment.  If you want a record of the Great man performing in the late '80s, this will serve you well, I think.

Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit - The Nashville Sound

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Another very fine album fro Jason Isbell

This is another very fine album from Jason Isbell. 

If Southeastern and Something More Than Free were underpinned by Isbell's marriage to Amanda Shires and his consequent sorting out of his life, The Nashville Sound takes us into fatherhood and family as well as enduring love.  He still tells those fine stories of ordinary people and their struggles, but there's a solid, personal emotional core here, too.

At his best, Jason Isbell has an almost magical ability to produce a song of such distinctive lyrical and musical brilliance that you feel that no-one else could have done that.  I think the three opening tracks here are all very good (when is he not?) but for me they don't quite have that real magical spark - and then we get to White Man's World, a brilliant, bitter reflection on where his country and the world are heading. It's followed by If We Were Vampires, a wonderfully poignant and powerful love song, sung as a duet with the excellent Amanda Shires.  Then Anxiety, and Molotov…these are all classic Isbell songs with great, haunting tunes, good harmonic structures and terrific lyrics.  The man has still got it – he really has.

Just as a couple of small examples, there is biting social comment like the brilliantly concise couplet:

"I'm a white man living on a white man's street

I got the bones of the red man under my feet"

(from White Man's World),  and really moving expressions of love and tenderness like this from If We Were Vampires:

"It's knowing that this can't go on forever;
Likely one of us will have to spend some days alone.
Maybe we'll get forty years together,
But one day I'll be gone
Or one day you'll be gone."

That touches me every time I hear it.

The performances are uniformly excellent.  Isbell himself is a great singer and a fine guitarist and The 400 Unit are tight and sympathetic to the songs.  (I saw them earlier this year in London, and they were excellent live, too.)  The album is very well produced and recorded, and it's just a great listen.

Jason Isbell is a genuinely class act both as a writer and performer.  I'm not yet sure whether this has the consistent brilliance to be classed with Southeastern, which is a genuinely great album, in my view, but it is very, very good and contains songs which will be regarded as classics.   It's one of my albums of the year so far and I can recommend it very warmly.

Kronos Quartet - Folk Songs

Rating: 5/5

Review:
An outstanding disc

This is terrific.  I thought it would be good, but this collaboration with Sam Amidon, Olivia Chaney, Natalie Merchant and Rhiannon Giddens is even better than I expected.

The Kronos Quartet are a superb ensemble who, for well over 40 years, have made magnificent recordings of their own and have collaborated with the likes of Bowie, McCartney, Björk, Nelly Furtado and many others.  Here they have recorded an album of folk songs with four outstanding singers.  The choice of material is excellent, some haunting traditional melodies alongside social comment in songs like Factory Girl.  It's uniformly excellent (although personally, I find the closing Lullaby a little ordinary by comparison).

The arrangements are fantastic, with the quartet giving real life to the songs and sounding in some places like a hurdy-gurdy, in others like a rootsy Appalachian folk ensemble and so on.  The singing is quite brilliant, as you'd expect from these four outstanding singers, and the whole thing is a pleasure from start to finish.

In short, I think this is an outstanding disc which I can recommend very warmly indeed.

Kentucky Colonels - The New Sound of Bluegrass America

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Terrific stuff

This is terrific stuff.  The Kentucky Colonels' are chiefly remembered these days for Clarence White (a truly excellent guitarist, later of The Byrds) but there's plenty else to enjoy here, too.

The album features tracks with a pretty traditional bluegrass line-up, with guitar, banjo, fiddle, dobro and stand-up bass.  The standard of playing throughout is excellent with some fabulous pickin' on both guitar and banjo well to the fore.  The singing is also very good, with that slightly rough sound the music needs to sound authentic (even though the band is a bunch of Californians).  I find it a real pleasure, and always end up with a huge smile in my face while listening.

The album was recorded in 1963, but the sound is pretty good – it's certainly good enough for me to enjoy the music without worrying about the quality.  Personally, I think this is a hugely enjoyable album; I'm glad to see it being made available again and I can recommend it warmly.

Martha Tilston - Nomad

Rating: 5/5

Review:
A very good album

I like this album a lot.  I have become a real admirer of Martha Tilston's work over the last few years and I think this is a very worthy addition to her catalogue.

Nomad is a very personal exploration of her life and emotional responses to it.  Her lyrics are excellent – intelligent, perceptive and often self-critical.  I find they often have real resonance with me and set to her sometimes slightly quirky but lovely melodies and arrangements, they often go to the heart of things.  Martha sings beautifully here; she has a fine, characterful voice and the skill and experience really to put a song across.

In short, this is a very good album from a very good singer-songwriter.  Warmly recommended.

Lindsey Buckingham and Christine McVie - Lindsey Buckingham and Christine McVie

Rating: 2/5

Review:
Disappointing

Oh dear.  I have the greatest respect for both Lindsey Buckingham and Christine McVie, but I think this is a pretty feeble effort, I'm afraid.  The material is very average, the performances lack much fire and the production is pretty thin.

This is an album of rather bland pop songs.  The lyrics are unexceptional and the tunes fairly catchy but rather forgettable.  Frankly, the sound reminds me of The Archies.  (Oh come on – you must remember Sugar, Sugar even if you wish you couldn't.)  It's amiable enough pop, but it doesn't add up to anything much in the end.

I won't go on and on about it, but I was disappointed in this album.  I expected something far better from two fine musicians (and a band which, apart from Stevie Nicks is effectively Fleetwood Mac).  Instead, I got an album made up almost entirely of unoriginal, fairly disposable trivia.  It could be worse, but personally I wouldn't bother.

Jade Jackson - Gilded

Rating: 4/5

Review:
An impressive debut

I like this album.  I took a punt on it after hearing a couple of samples and I'm glad I discovered did.

Jade Jackson's style is a sort of rockier, country-tinged Americana which she does very well.  She has a good, slightly strangled, breathy voice which she uses very effectively, often sounding a little like Eliza Gylkison or Lucinda Williams.   Her band is tight and responds very well to her and to the material, so the overall effect is very pleasing.

Jackson's songs are good with a couple of real gems, most notably for me the outstanding Bridges.  I did find that some of the album got a little bit samey, with a minor-key, twangy sound which could have done with a little more variation, but individually they're good songs which are lyrically intelligent and musically interesting.

This isn't a great album but it's a pretty good one – and as a debut I think it's impressive.  I can recommend Gilded and I'll be looking out for more of jade Jackson's work in the future: I think she has real potential.

Thea Gilmore - The Counterweight

Rating: 5/5

Review:
A very fine album from Thea Gilmore

Thea Gilmore is one of the finest of the current excellent crop of singer-songwriters in my view, and a new album from her is a real event for me, especially after four long years waiting for new material.  This is another really good one.

Thea has produced a collection of songs with her trademark mixture of biting social comment and open-hearted compassion and humanity.   She has a real gift for a great melody and brilliant lyrics and although not every song here is outstanding they're all good, with several absolute gems, like the fabulous Rise, for example.  The real heart of the album lies, I think, in The War, a superb, very moving song which is a tribute to Jo Cox, the murdered MP. It includes the lines,

"In the time of hate, throw down the counterweight

Tear out that fang and state

You're worthy of more"

Perfect.  There's nothing I can add to that.

There's plenty of bite elsewhere about the scramble for empty fame, the falseness of the social media life and so on, often with lyrics which are, as always, pithy and original like (from Leatherette),

"God loves a trier, fame loves a liar

You've got to use and abuse to scrape the sky;

Haven't made it yet…"

And often ingeniously witty, as in Another Damn Love Song:

"It's a case of synesthesia,

I'd do anything to please ya

Every colour leads me back to you."

Thea's voice is still simply wonderful and she sings with real commitment and sincerity.  The arrangements and production are musically intelligent and very effective, and the band is excellent. 

There are a number of noticeable lyrical references to Avalanche here.  I'm not sure The Counterweight is the absolute masterpiece that Avalanche remains, but it's still a very, very fine album from one of the very best we have.  I can recommend it very warmly indeed.

Gene Clark - White Light

Rating: 4/5

Review:
Still a good album

This album has held up pretty well over the years.  It's not a classic, but there's some very good stuff on it.

I confess that Gene Clark's solo work passed me by at the time.  I loved The Byrds, but I lost track of Clark after he left, so I thought I'd go back and see what I'd missed.  White Light is a bit mixed, but it's still a very decent album.  Clark, of course, was a fine singer and also a very decent songwriter.  Some of this sounds pretty generically post-Woodstock, with some rather ordinary lyrics and familiar-sounding arrangements and chord sequences, but there at also some genuinely fine songs; With Tomorrow and For A Spanish Guitar, to give just a couple of examples, have real poignancy and some originality.

So...I'm glad I looked into this.  There's certainly enough quality on White Light to make it worthwhile and if you like that slightly mournful, occasionally slightly fey early 70s sound, you'll find a lot to like here.