Shawn Colvin - Uncovered

Rating: 2/5

Bland and samey

Shawn Colvin is a very good singer, but I'm afraid I didn't think a lot of this collection of covers.  It has it's moments, but overall it's a bit weak.

To be worthwhile, a cover version needs to bring something new to a song – a new musical perspective, an insight which you didn't get before, a different mood which shows the song in a new light or something similar.  This true of James Taylor's classic version of Handy Man, for example, or Bryan Ferry's more recent Johnny And Mary – there are a lot of great examples.  This album started so promisingly with a lovely reworking of Springsteen's Tougher Than The Rest as a rather tender, melancholy supplication that I had high hopes…but I'm afraid the rest was a disappointment.

The whole album has very a very similar feel throughout – minimal backing with sad, echoing vocals – so that it began to sound samey very quickly and some great songs just blended into the general "feel" with much of their individuality lost.  Some do have a different approach from the originals, but for me the general sameness of the album swamped anything in the way of new impact.  American Tune, a truly great song, just sounds like Colvin trying to do exactly what Paul Simon did but not as well, which is a cardinal sin in a cover.  Worse, she makes small changes to the lyrics; in the first verse "I'm all right…" becomes "It's all right, just weary to my bones," and in the last verse "…you can't be forever blessed – still,  tomorrow's going to be another working day and I'm trying to get some rest" becomes "…*and* tomorrow's going to be etc."  These are tiny but important changes; the superb precision of Paul Simon's lyrics is a significant part of his brilliance as a songwriter and altering them robs the song of some of its real insight and depth, showing an insensitivity to great lyrics which I find hard to forgive.

I'm sorry to be harsh about a fine artist, but as an album I don't think this adds up to much.  It's not offensive and it's decently performed but it's very bland and samey overall.  I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think Minnie Driver's album of covers, Ask Me To Dance, is significantly better than this for it's variety and insight into the material.  I know it sounds absurd to say that a Minnie Driver album is better than one by Shawn Colvin but I think it's true, and I'm afraid I can't really recommend Uncovered.

The Imagined Village - The Imagined Village

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Brilliant

I think this is quite brilliant. It's an album giving a new take on traditional English folk songs by an eclectic mix of some of England's finest musicians in all sorts of genres. People have said that "traditionalists" and "purists" will dislike this. Well, I have spent a lot of time in smoky folk clubs listening to unaccompanied ballads, for years I was a member of a Morris Ring side, I still have my box set of A Song For Every Season LPs by The Copper Family and so on...and I love this.

It sounds as though it might be dreadful. Cold Haily Rainy Night with sitar and Indian percussion, for example? In fact it's brilliant - the original is sung very traditionally with fabulous (and very English) harmonies from The Young Coppers and the arrangement and production just make it shine and give it real impact. Benjamin Zephaniah's gently rapped update of Tam Lin is similarly great. Some songs have re-worked words to reflect modern social times rather than those of centuries ago, others just have more modern musical treatments. The production and introduction of more contemporary aspects of English music is perfectly judged throughout and there isn't a duff track on the album - as you'd expect with this excellent line-up.

I think the key is that these are genuinely excellent musicians who are very knowledgeable about the material and treat it respectfully but not over-reverentially. It is exactly in the folk tradition for people to hear songs and make them their own using the language and idioms of their heritage, and the good versions survive while the poor die because people aren't interested in singing them. I think these will survive for a long, long time. It's one of the best "folk" albums I've heard for ages (a friend only recently introduced me to it) and I recommend it very warmly indeed.

The Milk Carton Kids - The Ash & Clay

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Very impressive

This is the first Milk Carton Kids album I have heard, and I am very impressed. It is a lovely album of songs sung in duo close-harmony and accompanied by some fine acoustic guitar work. It has a bit of a feel of Simon and Garfunkel about it, but other influences are evident, too. The opening song, Hope of a Lifetime, brought me up short on just its second line as I heard Graham Nash's top line on Teach Your Children exactly reproduced for a bar or two. Honey, Honey is a rocking bluegrass number very reminiscent of Peter, Paul and Mary, and the spirit of the Everly Brothers hovers close by in quite a few places throughout the album...and so on.

Kenneth Pattengale and Joey Ryan sing beautifully together and their guitars sound just great. They are plainly very good guitarists - there is some terrific virtuoso stuff on Heaven, for example - but they also have the musical sense to keep it relatively simple most of the time, which is entirely appropriate to the material.

The songs themselves are a varied and thoroughly enjoyable mixture of the tender, the soulful and the joyously vigorous. I really like them, and some - the title track, for instance - have real lyrical substance. Whether these songs have the noble bone structure to give them real enduring beauty will only be clear with time. I suspect they may have it and I will be surprised if this album ever fades to become just a pretty period-piece. I think it's something rather special and recommend it warmly.

Minnie Driver - Ask Me To Dance

Rating: 4/5

Review:
A good album of fine covers

I hadn't heard her previous albums but I like Minnie Driver's film work very much, so I took a punt on this. I didn't have high expectations, but it turned out to be rather a good album.

The first thing to say is that Minnie Driver is a good singer with a very nice voice which she knows how to use. She has a slightly husky tone and smooth delivery which is almost jazzy at times. I get several flashes of Maria Muldaur during the album, but Driver is her own woman and delivers this eclectic selection of covers very well. Despite its title, this certainly isn't a dance album; it tends toward the slightly mournful and sultry which works extremely well most of the time. The slow, contemplative version of Stevie Wonder's Masterblaster, for example, is quite brilliant in my view (she wisely leaves out the verse about "Peace has come to Zimbabwe," by the way). I have always hated the song Fly Me To The Moon, and it says a lot for this album that I quite like the version here. Neil Young's Tell Me Why is very good, and others are just as effective.

A good deal of this is due to the excellent arrangements and production, which bring a genuinely fresh take to familiar material. It's beautifully judged and Driver has assembled a fine band who really get what she is trying to do here, so the overall sound is great – fairly laid-back and quite rich while never being overdone.

This isn't an classic album, nor one which will shape music history but it's a very good piece of work which I like a lot. It has significantly increased my respect for Minnie Driver, and I can recommend it.

Keith Richards - Crosseyed Heart

Rating: 5/5

Review:
A cracking album 

This is a cracking album.  I had reservations before trying it because great musicians who have flourished in great bands don't always make great solo albums, by any means.  (This even applies, in my view anyway, to towering musical geniuses like Pete Townshend.)  However, this is a really good solo album even if it's not perhaps a great one.

Keith Richards has been so often lampooned as a mumbling, incoherent, drug-damaged wreck that it's sometimes possible to forget what a truly great guitarist and songwriter he is.  This is a mixture of originals and covers, every one of which is a belter in its way (with the possible exception of Goodnight Irene, which isn't all that memorable but is still perfectly OK).  There's the mix you'd expect of blues in various styles and good ol' Rock & Roll – and I like it, yes I do.  :o)  From the opening title track, a great picked blues with just Keith and his guitar, through world-weary country-tinged songs like the excellent Robbed Blind to Stones-like rockers like Something For Nothing, it's a terrific, varied set.

Lyrics and vocals aren't Keith's strongest suit, but he does just fine here.  Lyrically, it isn't the richest album you'll ever hear, but there's wit and atmosphere, and the words and Keith's delivery fit the music perfectly.  He doesn't attempt vocal feats which he can't manage, and what emerges is just right to my ears.

In short, this is a bit of class from a truly classy musician to whom I owe a vast debt of gratitude for 50 years of great music.  It's well worthy of him, and I can recommend it very warmly.

Elise Weinberg - Greasepaint Smile

Rating: 3/5

Review:
A rather ordinary period piece

This is an album recorded by Elise Weinberg in 1969 but never released.  Weinberg was a part of the Laurel Canyon scene, which shows strongly here – there is a mix of the wistful with just her and her acoustic picking to the fairly rocky in band numbers like City Of the Angels, with shades in between.  Elise Weinberg has a fine, husky voice which put me strongly in mind of Melanie Safka (I am showing my age here, I know), there are some notable guest artists – including Neil Young contributing lead guitar to Houses – and it's all decently produced.

I think I'd have liked this album a lot in 1969.  It went with the mood of the time, it has some decent stuff on it and as a 15-year-old would-be peacenik I searched out a lot of this stuff, some of which has endured and a lot of which hasn't.  I don't really think this has.  It certainly deserves to see the light of day, but I have to say that the material overall isn't that great, the guitar work is perfectly nice but pretty ordinary and after a couple of listens I've heard enough for now.  I'll probably go back to it a few times, but more as an interesting historical record of a time than for real enjoyment of the music.  The lyrics feel a bit limp these days and musically there's nothing especially interesting here.

There's nothing actually wrong with Greasepaint Smile; it's a perfectly competent album which reflects its time, but I think it belongs in that time and it's much more of an interesting period piece than something to be played repeatedly.  I'd suggest finding some samples and seeing what you think; you may like this far more than I do, but personally I can only give it a rather lukewarm recommendation.

Dave Edmunds - Original Album Series

Rating: 5/5

Review:
A brilliant box

This is a simply brilliant 5-CD box.  The five albums in it are: 

Love Scuplture - Forms & Feelings (1970)

Dave Edmunds - Get It (1977)

Dave Edmunds - Tracks On Wax 4 (1978)

Dave Edmunds - Repeat When Necessary (1979) and 

Dave Edmunds - Twangin'... (1981)

I have owned and loved these four Dave Edmunds "solo" LPs on vinyl since they came out, so I'm delighted to have them so cheaply on CD as well, and the Love Sculpture album is a very welcome bonus.

I doubt whether anyone looking at this page needs me to describe or review in detail Dave Edmunds' music from this era because you'll know him well.  It's really brilliantly played Rock & Roll-dominated rock music which sounds deceptively simple but is superbly controlled and played with that restrained edge and precision which gives it real bite.  Edmunds is a fine guitarist and singer and the band are excellent: the core of Billy Bremner, Nick Lowe and Terry Williams are tight and have a fantastic driving beat.  There are also some great guest appearances – most notably for me Albert Lee's sensational guitar on Sweet Little Lisa.

I won't go on.  Classics like I Knew The Bride, Girls Talk, Crawling From The Wreckage (incorrectly titled on this page, by the way) and others speak for themselves, and there's a wealth of hugely enjoyable music here.  My advice is just to snap this up – it's a cracking set which I can recommend very warmly.