Gretchen Peters - The Night You Wrote That Song

Rating: 5/5

Review:
A bit of real class

This is an excellent album of great songs, excellently performed.

Mickey Newbury was a remarkable songwriter. He is perhaps not as well known as he might be but is held in the highest regard by other songwriters – including Gretchen Peters. Newbury’s songs songs were most often of emotional damage and difficulty, but they have an insight and humanity which to me makes them moving and involving rather than miserable. They have real musical weight and the lyrics are exceptional – on a par with Leonard Cohen or Joni Mitchell at times, which is about the highest praise I can offer.

Peters sings them wonderfully. She has the emotional depth and intensity to give them real meaning and obviously cares very much about what she is singing. The arrangements, the band and the production are all top-notch and every one of these shines like the gem it is. Several tracks here give me goose-bumps (including a phenomenal version of the extraordinary I Just Dropped In) and there’s not a weak track on the album.

In short, this is a bit of real class and warmly recommended.

Jess Jocoy - Such A Long Way

Rating: 5/5

Review:
A very impressive debut

I am really impressed by this album. It is full of fine songs, very well performed and especially as a debut album it stands out for its quality.

Jess Jocoy writes very good songs. They are tuneful and listenable but they also have real lyrical substance. The opening track is entitled Existential Crossroads which gives you the idea that this isn’t just a lot of moon/June cliché and nor is it pretentious; with intelligent, insightful lyrics Jocoy gives us songs which bear repeated listening and have brought me back to this album several times since my first hearing.

Even at a time when we are exceptionally blessed with high-class female singer-songwriters, I think Such A Long Way holds its own very well. I can recommend it warmly and I’ll be looking out for her work in the future.

Amy LaVere - Painting Blue

Rating: 5/5

Review:
A terrific album

Painting Blue is a terrific album, I think. I have enjoyed a lot of Amy LaVere’s work in the past and this is probably her best to date.

It is, as always, full of personal songs with excellent, intelligent lyrics and fine music. No Room For Baby, for example, is lyrically heart-rending and musically just great. There are also a couple of outstanding covers in John Martyn’s Don’t Want To Know and Robert Wyatt’s Shipbuilding, both of which stand very well beside the excellent originals.

Amy’s voice is wonderful; she has a slightly breathy soprano and a technique where she often slides onto a note rather than hitting it directly, which lends every song a distinct and engaging sound. She is also a very good bassist and combined with the fine band and excellent production, the album sounds really good throughout.

Amy LaVere is very highly regarded by critics and fellow singer-songwriters but is far less well known than she deserves. If you like a classy bit of Americana from a really good artist, you’ll like this – a lot, I suspect. Very warmly recommended.

Albert Ammons - Chronological Classics

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Truly great boogie-woogie

All three of these Chronological Classics discs of Albert Ammons are just brilliant. Ammons was a phenomenal pianist and probably my favourite among the great boogie/blues pianists of the time. His technique is breathtaking and the result is immensely enjoyable music which for me is often quite impossible to sit still to. The recordings are as good as we can expect from the period – which is pretty decent throughout – and this set represents an excellent collection of his work. (I confess that I don’t know how complete it is, but it’s pretty thorough.)

In my view, you simply can’t go wrong with these discs. Very warmly recommended.

VA - American Tunes, Songs by Paul Simon

Rating: 4/5

Review:
Mixed but well worth it

Collections of cover versions like this are almost always a mixed bag. This is no exception, but for me it’s well worth having because there’s some terrific stuff on it.

It’s an extremely diverse collection, which is a very good thing. Naturally, these things are a matter of personal taste so plenty of people will like the tracks which I don’t like and vice versa. Some of my own favourites are Harpers Bizarre’s sunshine version of The 59^th Street Bridge Song, Emmylou Harris’s soulful The Boxer and a wonderful, haunting rendition of Leaves That Are Green by Dorris Henderson and John Renbourn. On the other hand, The Tennors’ version of of The Only Living Boy In New York is horribly mangled, I can’t stand what Peaches & Herb do to The Sound of Silence and even as a huge Aretha fan I don’t think her interpretation fits Bridge Over Troubled Water.

Of course such a collection is going to provoke reactions like this in all of us and we’ll all have different responses – which is part of music’s delight. Everyone will find plenty to enjoy here and even the ones you don’t are interesting and you can always skip. Personally, I’d recommend this collection warmly.