Tanita Tikaram - Acoustic

Rating: 5/5

Review:
A very good album

I like this album a lot. I’ve heard bits and pieces of Tanita Tikaram’s work over the years but never really investigated her albums. On Acoustic she shows that she’s a good songwriter and that she can really use that dark voice to great effect.

It’s a collection of good, varied songs, including a great version of the excellent Twist In My Sobriety. There’s quite a brooding air over the album but it’s always soulful rather than oppressive and it’s a good listen throughout. I’m getting more and more out of it with each hearing and I’ll be investigating Tanita’s other albums as a result. If you like a singer/songwriter who has an individual voice both in what she writes and how she sings, try a few samples; I’ll bet you’re impressed. I was surprised by how good this is and I can recommend it warmly.

Seasick Steve - Can U Cook?

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Hugely enjoyable

There’s nothing very original on Can U Cook?; the opener, Hate Da Winter is straightforward, hard-drivin’ bottleneck blues, Last Rodeo wouldn’t sound out of place on an early Bob Dylan album, Down De Road has more than a whiff of Tony Joe White about it and so on...but it all sounds really good and is hugely enjoyable. There’s a right old mixture of styles here and Steve nails them all, I think. As always, there’s no pretension and often a slight roughness which conceals real skill, a great ability to give a song soul and meaning and just a touch of class, somehow.

I really like can U Cook? I wasn’t bonkers about Keepin' The Horse Between Me And The Ground, but I think this is a return to form. There’s variety and class enough to make this an album to listen to a lot of times and still get plenty out of. Warmly recommended.

The Beatles - Let It Be...Naked

Rating: 5/5

Review :
Well worth a listen

Just to add my voice to the generally enthusiastic reviews of Let It Be without the Phil Spector additions. I always liked the original and much of this doesn’t sound that different (if at all) because Spector only produced a few tracks. Most notably for me, The Long And Winding Road sounds wonderful – and if anything better – as a quieter, more contemplative song without all those strings. (It’s such a lovely song that it sounds great almost whatever is done to it, mind you.)

I can’t say that this is a great revelation, nor that it is somehow more “authentic,” but for me it is at least as good as the original release and is well worth a listen. I found rewards here that I didn’t expect and many Beatles enthusiasts will, too, I think.

Stefan Grossman - The Ragtime Cowboy Jew

Rating: 4/5

Review:
Patchy but still good

Ragtime Cowboy Jew was originally a double album and I’m afraid one of the oldest of clichés applies to it: it would have made a great single album. For me, anyway, the instrumentals on here (roughly half the tracks) are classic Stefan Grossman; they are skilful, entertaining and a pleasure to listen to. The songs, not so much. In general, the guitar work on them is far less interesting, they’re not terribly good songs and Grossman’s voice was never that great.

Of course, you may not agree with me and you may like the vocal tracks, too. Even of you do agree that they’re not very good, I think the CD is still well worth having because the good stuff is really good and it’s simple to skip the tracks you don’t like. The digital transfer isn’t the greatest, but it’s perfectly adequate and I can still recommend this, even with my reservations.

Marianne Faithfull - Negative Capability

Rating: 4/5

Review:
A good album

This is a good album from Marianne Faithfull. Her voice is cracked and broken now and she half-sings, half-speaks some of the time, but she can still put a song across with real power and feeling so the effect is very poignant.

The material is a mixture, but by and large it is quite sad, it is sometimes bleak and it has a very valedictory feel; in Born To Live she actually sings of praying for a good death, for example. It’s a mixture of some new songs reflecting (not cheerfully, it must be said) on the state of the world and of her life now, and of the old, like Witches Song, Dylan’s It’s All Over Now Baby Blue and a very potent reworking of her first hit as a 16-year-old, As Tears Go By. It’s all very well done; Marianne Faithfull puts herself fully into each song and the production is largely restrained and pitch-perfect throughout, I think.

Negative Capability sounds like a farewell, although I hope it isn’t. Don’t go looking for happy, melodious pop here; this is a haunting, sometimes scarily honest album which drew me in and hasn’t let me go. Perhaps it’s not a classic of Broken English stature but it’s a good album with real depth to it. Recommended.

Siren - Siren & Strange Locomotion

Rating: 4/5

Review:
Solid blues/rock

I was pleasantly surprised by how good this is. I knew some of Kevin Coyne’s later work but missed out on Siren at the time; it turns out that even at this very early stage of his musical career, Coyne released two very decent albums with Siren.

Neither of these albums is a Lost Classic, but they are good, solid bluesy rock with a varied approach and a slightly witty, knowing edge sometimes. There was plenty of music in a similar style around at the time but I reckon this stands out from the crowd a bit. Coyne’s vocals are as good as always, there’s some very decent guitar work and the whole thing is tight and solid.

If you like the blues/rock of the late 60s and early 70s I would definitely recommend giving Siren a try. This is good stuff and I’m glad to have discovered them at last.

Frankie Miller - Once In A Blue Moon

Rating: 4/5

Review
Still a very good album

This remains a very good album. I was only rather peripherally aware of Frankie Miller at the time and I’d forgotten what a very fine singer he is. His voice is all his own, but has elements of Joe Cocker, Rod Stewart and even Roger Chapman at times and he really knows how to use it to great effect in putting a song over. The material here is largely good, solid bluesy rock with a good mixture of stuff. It’s not all great – I could do without this version of Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues, for example – but there’s some really good stuff here. Brinsley Schwartz are, of course, excellent as Miller’s band and the whole thing is very enjoyable.

Frankie Miller isn’t a household name now, but he’s still very well worth listening to as a really good blues/rock singer. Recommended.