Pink Floyd - The Endless River

Rating: 5/5

Review:
A lovely album

I think this is a lovely album. It's not a ground-breaking classic like Dark Side Of The Moon, Meddle or The Wall, say, (although there are musical references to all of them) nor does it have individual songs of the brilliance and beauty of Wish You Were Here or Shine On You Crazy Diamond, but in total it is a fine album with some genuinely beautiful music on it.

Put together from off-cuts from The Division Bell and then heavily re-worked and edited, this has been billed as a tribute to the late Rick Wright - and it's s fine tribute. There is plenty of his trademark keyboard sound, along with a lot of truly fabulous guitar work from David Gilmour. He's a great guitarist and there are very few people who can bring that degree of beauty and aching melancholy from the instrument. He's on fine form here, as is Nick Mason whose drumming perhaps doesn't get the recognition it deserves in creating the Floyd sound.

This is almost an ambient album in many ways, although there's more to it than that. There is an unbroken sequence of fairly brief tracks which are varied but hold together well as a unit. There are almost no vocals, just Steven Hawking speaking on Talkin' Hawkin' and a genuine song in the last track, Louder Than Words. Both are about the importance of settling disputes through talking and, appropriately, it is here that the absence of Roger Waters as a songwriter shows most clearly, because for me neither the melody nor lyrics are up to Waters' standard. It's a tiny blemish - not even a blemish at all, really, just a reminder - and the album as a whole is really good, I think.

This won't convert you if you don't like Pink Floyd, but if you do I think you'll really like this album. It's lovely music, beautifully played and produced, and I recommend it warmly.

JJ Cale - Anyway The Wind Blows

Rating: 5/5

Review:
The great man's greatest

This is a wonderful album. I have loved JJ Cale since I first came across him in the mid-70s. I still have his first 8 albums on vinyl and was looking for something to play in the car. This is nearly perfect as a compilation album, with almost all my favourites (no River Runs Deep, Gypsy Man or Katy Cool Lady, though) and not a duff track among them. Almost all the greats are there - and they really are great.

You can't possibly go wrong with this double CD. If you already know and like JJ Cale then it's bound to have 50 songs you like (and many which you love), and if you don't you've nothing to lose. An absurdly low price and you'd have to be made of stone not to be seduced by Crazy Mama and After Midnight. It's worth it for these two alone, and there are another 48, many of which are just as good.

Recommended in the strongest possible terms. Risk a few quid - you won't regret it.

Bryan Ferry - Avonmore

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Great stuff from the old smoothie

I am rather surprised to find that I really like this album. I wasn't expecting all that much, but I thought it was good on first hearing and it has grown even better with a lot of listens since. Ferry is still great singer and this is a star-studded album, with a well-publicised array of terrific guest musicians and singers and a fine producer (along with Ferry himself) in Rhett Davies. The result is a bit of class, I think.

The style and feel remind me rather of the Roxy Music albums Flesh And Blood and Avalon. 35 years on, the sound is richer and the production more modern, but there are still the beautiful vocals from Ferry and great harmonies, a fine selection of singable songs, enough harmonic originality to keep you interested, a compellingly danceable beat even in the slower numbers, and that familiar, distinctive air of yearning, melancholy and occasional real beauty pervades the whole album.

The material is very good. The eight songs written by Ferry are well up to standard musically, and they are lyrically pretty good, too. There are weaknesses: starting a song with the line "Midnight train rolling down the track" is bordering on criminally lazy, even though it's a good song musically, and I'll bet you can guess what the rhyme is, too. However, most of it is much better than that; Driving Me Wild, for example, contains lines like
"I'm dealing with a feeling
That nobody knows
With the kindness of ravens,
The murder of crows"
which I find very arresting even if it might well be pretty meaningless.

The album closes with two covers, both of which I was dreading for different reasons: Sondheim's Send In The Clowns just because it's Send In The <expletive deleted> Clowns again, and Robert Palmer's Johnny And Mary because I think it is one of the very greatest songs of the 80s and I didn't want to see it messed with. In fact, both are excellent. Ferry takes a few more liberties with the melodies than I'd like, but overall they are fine, sincere and meaningful new takes on both songs - exactly what makes a good cover version, I think.

Sorry to go on, but I was genuinely expecting this just to be OK at best. In fact, I think it's really good and I thought it was worth trying to explain why. In a nutshell, it's good material, excellently performed, arranged and produced. If in doubt, I'd suggest you listen to a few samples. If you like the sound of them, don't hesitate - this is a fine album which I recommend very warmly.

Cher - 3614 Jackson Highway

Rating: 5/5

Review: 
An interesting period piece



This is a re-release of the original 1969 album with no extras. Note that it is *not* the Rhino release from 2001 which had a dozen or so bonus tracks and singles added but which is almost impossible to find at the time of writing.

As an album...well, it's OK. It's a reminder of what a good singer Cher was, even without the gloss and electronics she went in for later. She has a fine natural voice which she uses very well, there's a good band with a quality horn section added at times and as a period piece it's decent music making. Frankly, though, the material lets it down.

It's largely good material: Dylan, Stills & Young, Otis Redding...they're classy names. However, if you're going to cover a song which a great artist has already recorded in a classic version, you need to do something very different or very special, and Cher doesn't really manage either here. After four and a half decades the generic late-60s sound and arrangements sound pretty bland, and much of the real soul, passion or eroticism is drained out of these songs. Dock Of The Bay has none of Otis's agonised hopelessness and "Lay Baby Lay" (!) lacks any of Dylan's laid back, sexy delivery, for example, and the same is true pretty well throughout.

For me this is an interesting collection to look back on, but a good singer is largely wasted here, I think. It's available pretty cheaply so you may want to give it a try, but it's not one I'll be taking out and playing much, I'm afraid.

Kelly Pardekooper - House Of Mud

Rating 5/5

Review:
Brilliant

Sometimes – rarely – I stumble across an album or artist which makes me wonder why on earth I hadn't heard of them before.  This is one such album from 2002 – a completely random recent find for me, and it turns out to be quite brilliant.

Kelly Pardekooper, as well as from possessing an absolutely outstanding name, is a terrific singer and songwriter.  It's sort of blues/country Americana, but very varied.  In various places I hear echoes of JJ Cale, Tony Joe White, Tom Petty, Jason Isbell…even people like The Beatles and Lou Reed seem to lurk faintly in some places.  Pardekooper is his own man, though, and this is an album of individual class.  He writes songs on familiar themes of lust, love, home, the country working life: it's not groundbreaking stuff, but it's really, really good.

The songs vary in atmosphere from the magnificently restrained, atmospheric Can't Go There, through the haunting, singable Drown In Alcohol to the more rocky, incredibly infectious Hayseed Girl (which gets me moving every single time).  From just Pardekooper and his guitar to full band, everything here is just a bit of class, I think.  It's hard to put my finger on exactly why because nothing is fantastically original, but a little like JJ Cale, they are unfussy, well crafted songs which carry real sincerity and are played and sung with a straightforward directness which is based in really good but unflashy musicianship.  Pardekooper's singing is just great, with a slightly husky creaky voice that he varies in tone so that it always expresses his mood and meaning beautifully, and the arrangements and production are pitch-perfect, I think.

If, like me, this is the first you've heard of Kelly Pardekooper my advice is to listen to a few samples or find a few songs on YouTube and then snap this up.  It's a terrific album and I'm really looking forward to hearing more of his work.

The Band - Carter Barron Amphitheater, 1976

Rating: 5/5

Review:
A fine live album

This live album by The Band is a long overdue release of a fine concert. They were, of course, a magnificent bunch of musicians who were simply brilliant live and this is a worthy addition to their discography.

Recorded only a few months before The Last Waltz, this is still well worth having even for those of us who own and love that classic - arguably one of the greatest live albums ever issued. This is The Band alone without the starry guest list, performing a very good cross section of their greatest songs. Most are simply superb - The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down and The Weight , for example, have never sounded better or more sincere to my ears - and they sing and play like the geniuses they were almost throughout the album.

There are one or two weaker tracks, I think. King Harvest Will Surely Come plods and clunks a bit and This Wheel's On Fire lacks the real bite and vein of venom it really needs to work perfectly, for example, but overall it's a very fine live album indeed. The sound quality is excellent and the sense of a great band playing brilliantly together is strong. There is almost no talk between songs and the audience noise is mixed well back which I like on an album I will listen to repeatedly, but if you prefer more chat and atmosphere it may possibly be a slight weakness. For me, though, this is a fine record of a very good performance by one of the greatest bands of the 60s and 70s.

It is sobering to remember that Richard Manuel, Rick Danko and Levon Helm are all dead now, but this stands as a fine tribute to them and to Robbie Robertson and Garth Hudson. Very warmly recommended.

Fleetwood Mac - Original Album classics

Rating: 5/5

Review:
A fabulous set

This is a fabulous set of Fleetwood Mac's first three albums:

Fleetwood Mac (later called "Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac") (1968)

Mr Wonderful (1968)

The Pious Bird of Good Omen (1969)

These are great albums, I think.  I still have my original LPs from when they were first issued and they have stood the test of time extremely well. This is the classic pre-Buckingham/Nicks line-up of Peter Green, Jeremy Spencer, John McVie and Mick Fleetwood, and with Danny Kirwan on Pious Bird.  They were a magnificent blues band at this time; the great BB King said of Peter Green that, of all the blues guitarists of that generation, "He was the only one who ever gave me the cold sweats."  You can see why here – there's some magnificent blues playing from Green, with a wonderful tone and beautiful touch.  There's also a good deal of the more knockabout stuff which Jeremy Spencer was keen on – and that's great, too, especially some fabulous, rollicking Elmore James songs.

There's no messing about with "bonus material" here – you just get the original album as they were released, which is just fine with me.  It's excellent as it stands and at this price for 3 CDs (even if they are shortish by modern standards) don't hesitate.  This is an absolutely terrific set.

Bruce Springsteen - The Darkness Tour 1978

Rating: 3/5

Review:
Some very dodgy sound quality

This is a 3CD box set of recordings "made for FM radio" from Bruce Springsteen's 1978 tour.  It's a great record of the man in concert and some of the performances are fantastic, but be warned that the sound quality isn't very good some of the time.

Springsteen's music from this time scarcely needs comment from me; it's almost universally superb.  I think that Darkness On The Edge Of Town remains one of the greatest rock albums ever made, Springsteen has always been a great live performer and the combination of material and performance could sometimes create something quite exceptional.  I saw him live only once, in 1985, and it was an amazing concert.  There are times here which sound as though he may have been just as good in some of these concerts, with some real passion and power and great work from the band.  It's a proper live recording, warts and all, so Bruce hits the occasional note slightly off-key and so on – but I like that.  It's what live performance is about and I don't want airbrushed perfection.  It could be a great live set, but as a whole set it doesn't really deliver as it should. 

Part of this is because it's not a single concert but cut together from a lot of different broadcasts which means that some of the sense of a live occasion is lost.  Much of the problem is the sound quality.  It's very variable: some is OK, but some tracks, for example, are plainly recorded from a dodgy FM radio with some very intrusive fluttering hiss (Racing In The Street is just one instance). Overall, the sound is often just poor enough to keep intruding on my awareness of the music and spoiling it slightly.  It's not as dreadful as some recent old live recordings, but it's bad enough to be a bit of a problem.  I also wonder what they mean by "remastered".  I suspect they've just jacked up the bass a bit – it certainly doesn't sound to me as though there's been any attempt to clean up the sound.

So…you pays yer money and you takes yer choice.  Personally, I'm glad to have this – it's not expensive for a 3CD set, after all – but I'm not sure how often I'll be listening to it.  My old vinyl set of Live 1975-85 doesn't have identical content, obviously, but it is better in many ways and is now available on CD pretty cheaply.  I'd recommend that before this, without question.  This is one for the long-term fans, really – it's OK but not great.

David Bowie - The Next Day

Rating: 5/5

Review: 
A very good Bowie album

This is a very good David Bowie album, in my view. It's a great relief to say it, because when some of the gods of my youth have returned in...well...late middle age after a long absence the results have not always been very good, to say the least. Here, Bowie shows that he is still a major songwriting and performing talent and that he still has a genuine edge.

We have had a little time now to digest the track Where Are We Now? and to assess its true merit now that the "Blimey!" factor following its surprise release has worn off a bit. I still think that it's a very good song indeed. I did worry that some of the fragile, almost-out-of-tune vocal wasn't a deliberate effect but the voice of a man who can't quite sing as he used to, but - thank heavens - I was quite wrong. It is followed on the album by Valentine's Day, a track which wouldn't have been out of place on Aladdin Sane and which Bowie sings superbly, and there's plenty of other evidence here that he's still got it.

The songs seem to me to be vintage Bowie. There is the full gamut from singable, rocky tunes like Valentine's Day, through lovely tender songs like Where Are We Now? to the almost tuneless and weird-rhythmed If You Can See Me, with plenty in between. He certainly hasn't settled into a comfortable rut in middle age - If You Can See Me has joined my list of Almost Unlistenable Bowie Tracks and I'm delighted to see that he is still prepared to challenge and unsettle his audience even if personally I don't like the result.

The lyrics, of course, are complex, allusive and often elusive. As always, you can try to analyse what they "really" mean, but I've never found that a very productive way of approaching Bowie because I suspect that, as many poets have, he often puts together words for their sound or effect without them having any "true meaning." I love his lyrics and I often just enjoy the evocative sound of phrases like this in Dirty Boys: "When the sun goes down/And the die is cast..." and let my imagination do the rest. Similarly, in The Stars, we get things like, "Here they are upon the stairs/Sexless and unaroused..." which makes little literal sense in the context but it's an amazingly arresting lyric which sparks off all sorts of mental images and thoughts - which is what good lyrics should do.

I really like this album. The production is excellent; it is varied and sensitive and shows every song off at its best. It will take a while before it is clear whether or not it is a true Bowie classic. My sense is that it's probably not quite a classic, but it's a very good album indeed and warmly recommended.

Wilko Johnson & Roger Daltrey - Going Back Home

Rating: 5/5

Review:
A cracker from Wilko and Roger

This is a cracking album, I think. It's good, solid British R&B (in the old sense) with two geniuses of the genre on fine form. Seeing The Who at Charlton in 1974 and Dr Feelgood (twice) at close range in the Cambridge Corn Exchange around the same time remain among the great musical experiences of my life even 40 years on, and while Wilko, Daltrey and I are all old gits now, it's good to see that at least two out of the three of us have still got the old magic.

There is a mix of old Dr Feelgood songs, Wilko's own stuff and one Dylan cover in Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window. I think it's a joy from start to finish. They open with Going Back Home which Daltrey delivers (brilliantly) with a Brilleaux-esque growl way down in his throat (Wilko bends a string and that's all she wrote, of course) but it's recognisably his own take on it. Later in a fantastic Keep It Out Of Sight he really goes for the full Daltrey singing an octave above Brilleaux and, as Pete Townshend once memorably said of Love Reign O'er Me, Roger gives it his bollocks. It's just great stuff all the way through.

Wilko is...well, Wilko. Brilliant, distinctive and perhaps slightly more solid and less bonkers than of old, he chops and hits that great beat like a teenager and in my mind he's still staring like a madman and moving around the stage as though he's on casters. Just perfect. The two of them and a very, very good band produce something really good here. Anyone with any interest in this type of music will love this and fans certainly won't be disappointed. This may well be Wilko's swan song and the decision to close the album with All Through The City is inspired.

If this is Wilko's last album it is one he can be proud of. Thanks for this, and for everything, Wilko. Go well.

Leonard Cohen - Live In Dublin

Rating: 5/5

Review:
A fine live album

This is a fine live album. There's a really good selection of Cohen's works, a terrific band and the Old Tom Cat himself is on great form.

This is a recording over 3 CDs of a concert in Dublin from the Old Ideas tour in 2013 - the two "halves" either side of the interval and the 8-song encore which is effectively a third half itself. A glance at the track list will show you that it's a great programme from throughout Cohen's career (I find it incredibly evocative to hear these arrangements of Suzanne and So Long, Marianne almost 50 years on, by the way) and they almost all sound great. The arrangements are very good indeed and the band is absolutely brilliant; they are musically tight but sound relaxed and easy with the material and each other and the overall sound is superb. The "sublime Webb Sisters" as Cohen himself calls them are indeed sublime and there is real new life in every one of these great songs.

Cohen is brilliant. His voice sounds great - it is deep and rich and he sounds much more like an out-and-out singer than he does on Old Ideas itself. I love his mixture of singing and whispering on the studio album, but I love this too and it's a treat to have both. His relationship with his audience is warm, witty and self-deprecating. There's a lovely bit of banter from him in Tower Of Song, for example, and a genuine, affectionate whoop from the audience at the line "I was born with the gift of a golden voice." It really makes me wish I could have been there.

I don't find every song brilliant - there's something slightly disappointing about Halleluja, for example - but others may well not agree because these things are a matter of personal response. Whether you agree or not, if you're a Cohen fan you certainly won't be disappointed with this album and will probably love it. It's a wonderful record of a genius in fine form and I can recommend it very warmly.

Rod Stewart - Unplugged...and Seated

Rating: 4/5

Review:
Rod approaching his best

This is very good stuff from Rod Stewart.  I have thoroughly disliked quite a lot of what he has recorded, which seems to me to be a monumental talent wasted on self- regard and pap, but the man is a superb singer at his best.  This is something approaching his best.

Stewart, of course, has a fantastic voice with its unique half-strangled sound and remarkable power and range.  He can also, when he chooses, give a song real depth, passion and meaning and when he does that there are few singers who can touch him for sheer class.  A good deal of that is in evidence here: he is passionate, powerful and genuinely committed to these performances of a mixed set, featuring some of his greatest songs and some less well known ones.  It's all really good, with an excellent band, Ron Wood on fine acoustic form and excellent recording quality.

Until the release of the very good Time I'd pretty well written Rod Stewart off since the late 70s.  I did it with a heavy heart because he has the capability to be so brilliant, and it's good to see that he had still got it in the 90s, even of it was well hidden much of the time.  I think "brilliant" might be going a little far in describing this album, but it is very good and has flashes of the genius which has always lurked in Rod Stewart.  Recommended.

Patsy Matheson - Domino Girls

Rating: 5/5

Review:
An excellent album

I am ashamed to say that I've only just come across Patsy Matheson - but better late than never. I am very impressed with this album, the first of hers that I have tried. She writes very tuneful and harmonically interesting songs with intelligent and witty lyrics and sings them with a lovely, slightly breathy voice. Several tell a very good story, too. The production is excellent - full enough to bring each song to life, but never swamping the fine acoustic guitar work and never straying into insincere gloss. It's a pleasure to listen to from start to finish.

Patsy Matheson is very much her own woman, but I found echoes of people like Thea Gilmore, Kris Delmhost and Eliza Carthy in places here. This is high praise indeed, and I'll be looking into her other albums very soon. I'm delighted that I've discovered this album and recommend it very warmly.

Kate In The Kettle - Swimmings of The Head

Rating: 5/5

Review:
A terrific album

I think this is a terrific album. I tried it because I enjoyed Laylam so much, but had little idea what to expect from Kate In The kettle. What I got was an innovative musical treat which is varied, unusual and very enjoyable.

Kate Young is a very fine musician. Her violin playing is quite remarkable in places; she is capable of real virtuosic pyrotechnics but also has a wonderful, subtle touch where necessary, with superb precision and technical control throughout. She uses all of that here in a terrific programme based in traditional UK and Scandinavian music and featuring some original compositions, too. There is a recognisable traditional fiddle sound much of the time and some very good singing, often combined with unusual instrumentation like Indian tabla and some extraordinary rhythmic effects. It's a really successful fusion which I find irresistible - in much the same way as I did with Imagined Village's first album. There's also some more conventional folk music (all very well done) and some jazzy influences in places - I heard echoes of Pentangle in Push and Spark and other places, which to me is a very good thing indeed.

My advice is to give this a try. It's a very enjoyable and musically rewarding album. I'm delighted to have discovered it and I can recommend it very warmly indeed.

Aretha Franklin Sings the Great Diva Classics

Rating: 2/5

Review:
Very disappointing

I'm afraid this album isn't very good. It's something I say with great sadness because Aretha is one of the true Greats and her work over the decades has almost always been excellent, and has been simply magnificent at times. However, The Great Diva Classics is a rather insipid and uninspired collection of songs which just don't work here.

Aretha's singing here is ordinary and uninspired (I can't believe I am saying that of Aretha Franklin, but it's true), the selection is pretty pedestrian and the arrangements and production are unexciting to say the least. There's a sort of glossy, corporate and soulless feel to the whole thing. (Making Aretha sound soulless is quite some achievement, but they've done it.) I've tried several times to see whether I'm missing something, but it just doesn't do anything for me at all.

I am sorry to have to be so critical of an album by someone whom I admire greatly and whose work has brought me such immense pleasure in the past, but I really can't recommend this. My advice is just to dig out some of Aretha's old classics from your collection and to give this one a miss.

Vena Portae - Vena Portae

Rating: 4/5

Review:
A nice album, but not Emily Barker's best work

I like this album, but I don't have quite the enthusiasm for it that I do for Emily Barker's work with The Red Clay Halo.

It is a good album and the overall sound is lovely. Emily Barker is a fine singer who is on good form here, and the arrangements and harmonies are all nicely done, reminding me just a little of The Civil Wars in places. There's much to like and nothing to object to at all, but...

It's hard to put my finger on my exact reservations about this album. I think it's that it sounds a little like an awful lot of other music around at the moment. Emily Barker's previous work has been so classy and distinctive with really interesting music and lyrics, and arrangements with The Red Clay Halo which really give it a sound of its own, whereas this blends slightly into the background for me. There's nothing with the really lasting quality of some of the songs on Almanac or Dear River, I think, so I am just a little disappointed in this.

Don't let me put you off; it's a perfectly decent album of good songs performed with skill and taste so perhaps it's unfair of me to carp so much. It's just that I expect something really special from Emily Barker, and this isn't particularly special. However, no-one who likes this Americana-ish genre could possibly dislike it and I can still recommend it.

Jennifer Crook - Carnforth Station

Rating: 4/5

Review:
Fine performances but weak material

Following correspondence with another listener I have listened again to this album and although I still have the same reservations about the material, I think there's enough good stuff on it to round 3.5 stars up to 4. I have left my original review below and stand by much of what I said, but the instrumental passage which closes Apples and the last two two tracks especially are genuinely good, so a four-star rating seems more appropriate.

Original review:
I took a random punt on this album because it looked like the sort of thing I enjoy and I liked the sound of the samples here. Sadly, I found it rather disappointing.

The performances and production are excellent. Jennifer Crook is a very talented musician and she has great support from her small band. She's also a good singer with a very nice voice, so the overall sound of the album is very sweet. However, I found the songs themselves rather weak, I'm afraid.

There are some quite good songs here - I like the opener Long Drive Back Home From Love, for example - but most are pretty ordinary. There's little in the way of original or interesting melody and harmony here, and much of the album sounds rather derivative, even familiar. The tune of The Net, for example, sounds very, very like Leonard Cohen's Suzanne in places and I was constantly finding that I recognised phrases of melody from other songs.

Many of the lyrics aren't that good either, I'm afraid. There is some decent stuff in places, but this from Angel In Disguise rather typified the standard for me:
"What about the lady who was waiting at the station?
She said to me that maybe I would reach my destination;
The only thing she said was that you must know where you're going
And as she turned around I thought there is no way of knowing."

It's not dreadful, but it's pretty banal really and reminded me of the sort of rather facile lyrics a lot of us teenagers with guitars wrote in the early 70s. Even Black Fly, which I found musically lovely and evocative, is let down by weak lyrics.

I'm sorry to be critical of such a well performed and produced album, but in the end fine performances and production can't make up for weak material, and too much of the material here is pretty weak. I would like to hear Jennifer Crook and her trio performing better songs because they are very good, but I'm afraid I can't really recommend this album.

Paul Rodgers - The Royal Sessions

Rating: 3/5

Review:
Disappointing

Hmmm. I really like Paul Rodgers' work and I've always thought him a very fine singer. I still own and play my old vinyl records of Free and Bad Company with great pleasure, and I was hoping for great things from this album. I'm afraid I didn't get them.

The man can still sing fantastically well. His voice doesn't sound that different to me from the way it did 40 years and more ago, and there are some moments of vocal brilliance here. In I've Been Loving You Too Long the held discord which slurs up to the money note is terrific, for example. But...the whole thing all feels so generic and (I hate to say it of a hero of mine) ordinary. Perhaps it's just me, but it all sounds as though they've chosen a few "classic" songs, hired in a session band, singers, a horn section and a safe arranger and producer and made an inoffensive, uninspiring album.

I don't want to be too critical because there's nothing actually *wrong* with any of it, but I really feel that Paul Rodgers is wasted in this sort of stuff. He can invest a song with real brooding passion and genuine excitement but, apart from the odd moment, this just feels like another of those Great American Songbook-type things, which I've had more than enough of now. For example, the first time I heard it I genuinely wondered whether Walk On By was ever going to end, and it hasn't improved at all on repeated listening. A song like this which everyone knows in a single, classic version needs something really special to make recording it again worthwhile and this simply doesn't have it - it's well sung but pretty bland, the arrangement sounds like a million others and it just meanders on and on at the end without actually going anywhere. I feel much the same about most of the album - in Born Under A Bad Sign the line "If it wasn't for bad luck I wouldn't have no luck at all" has the air of someone at a comfortable dinner party complaining that their Waitrose delivery was late this morning, complete with soulless, by-numbers lead guitar.

I'm sorry to be harsh, but Paul Rodgers is still a great singer and is better than this. It's not much more than inoffensive background music and isn't worthy of someone of his class.

Canned Heat - Stockholm 1973

Rating: 4/5

Review:
Decent but not great live Heat

This is a decent live recording of Canned Heat from 1973. Old Heat fans like me will want it and will probably enjoy it but for me it's not a great live album.

The first thing to say is that the sound quality is fine. For an early 70s live recording it's pretty good, in fact. Balance is OK most of the time, it's reasonably clear and the audience noise is at a level where it doesn't interfere with the music. (This is in marked contrast to the dreadful sound quality on the recent release of a 1971 Heat and John Lee Hooker concert, which is best avoided.)

The performances are OK, but not much more than that to my ears. Bob Hite was always good and sometimes electrifying, but he sounds just a bit lacklustre to me here. Similarly, the band are fine but lack that real drive and bite they sometimes achieved. It may just be me, but I get a feeling of a band just a bit jaded with being on tour and slightly going through the motions. I know, too, that fans all have their own favourite Heat line-up, but this isn't mine. Alan Wilson especially gave them a balance and a touch with his voice and guitar (particularly his bottleneck work) which was never quite regained after his death and I think it shows on this album.

There's nothing wrong with this and others may well enjoy it very much. Personally, I think it's one of those albums I'm glad to have heard but probably won't be playing that often in the future so I can only recommend it with some reservations.

Various Artists - And I'll Scratch Yours

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Some excellent Peter Gabriel tributes

This album is a sort of repaying of the compliment by many of the artists whose songs Peter Gabriel covered on his Scratch My Back album in 2010. Whatever you thought of that album (I wasn't all that keen) I'd suggest giving this a try. It's very well worth hearing and there's some great stuff on it.

I really like hearing other takes on familiar Peter Gabriel songs, partly because they are so familiar and a new version really makes me listen to what the song is about again. There are also some genuinely excellent performances here, although which ones you think they are will probably depend on your personal taste. For me, the distinctively Bon Iver version of Come Talk To Me, Paul Simon's largely acoustic Biko and David Byrne being David Byrne in I Don't Recall stand out, and both Arcade Fire and Elbow surprised me by producing really good versions of Games Without Frontiers and Mercy Street respectively. You may disagree with all of that, of course. Similary, lots of listeners will probably love Lou Reed's version of Solsbury Hill, whereas I think he utterly murders a beautiful song which has meant a lot to me for three decades and more. You'll have to form your own judgement.

It's hard to give an overall rating, but there's a lot of really first-rate stuff here and I've given it five stars on that basis. I would urge any Peter Gabriel fan to try this. You'll probably love some tracks and dislike others, but I reckon it's well worth a try and there are a lot of tracks here that I will be playing for years to come, I suspect. Warmly recommended.

Donovan - Original Album Classics

Rating 5/5

Review:
A very good 2CD set

This is a great set for what it is: three of Donovan's most successful albums packaged up together in a 2CD set – Mellow Yellow, The Hurdy Gurdy Man and Barabajagal.  The digital transfers are good and the sound seems to me to be excellent throughout.

I am, sadly, old enough to remember Donovan being described as "the English Bob Dylan." Well he wasn't, bless him – he really wasn't. Nevertheless, he wrote some very enjoyable songs and there's some enduring quality here – not least the three title tracks of these albums. He was also a very decent guitarist; he was unflashy so his guitar work didn't often get the credit it deserved but House Of Jansch, for example, shows both his quality and some of his influences.  (The clue is in the title.)

This is brilliant if you're looking for some of Donovan's best work on CD. It's also very well worth getting if you just have an interest in the music of the late 60s. Donovan was quite a significant figure at the time and these albums show why. They're not towering masterpieces, but they are albums of good, quite varied songs which are well performed and I can recommend this set warmly.

The Far West - Any Day Now

Rating: 4/5

Review:
Good but not outstanding

This is a very decent album from The Far West. They write good songs which they perform well and it makes an enjoyable listen, although I don't think it really stands out from the large wave of pretty good Americana/alt-country which is around at the moment.

This is a varied collection of songs, beginning with On The Road a fine, mournful, minor-key song which sets the tone of loneliness and heartbreak which pervades most of this album. It drives along well, though, and one of the album's strengths is that it never gets bogged down. This is followed by Walk Light On This Poor Heart a pretty much out-and-out C&W heartbreak song (although there's no pedal steel anywhere), Leonard is jazzy and feels a little like Minnie The Moocher and so on. It never begins to sound samey.

The band are very good. I like the vocals very much, with their slightly cracked and weary feel, and the instrumental work is tight and thoughtful. I also like that they can set a sad song with the refrain "I just can't see the bright side any more" as a really up-tempo rocker (with some terrific drums driving it on) without losing the sense of the song.

All that said, after a couple of listens I was starting to look for something a bit more, although it's hard to put my finger on quite what. There's plenty to like here, but nothing that really stands out and stays with me, and I suspect that this will be one of those albums which sinks quietly into my collection and surfaces every few years, gets a listen and then sinks again. Others may well like this better, and I can understand why, but although I like it, I can't really rave about it.

Kate Rusby - Ghost

Rating: 5/5

Review:
An excellent album

This is an excellent album. It is a lovely mixture of traditional songs and Kate Rusby's own compositions and all are fine pieces, beautifully performed.

Kate Rusby has a fine, distinctive voice which she uses brilliantly to give every song a distinctive and often fresh feel. The arrangements are excellent, with a fine variety of instruments and the whole thing is beautifully produced so that the overall sound is extremely attractive but never bland or samey. It's exemplary stuff, I think.

As an old folkie who spent a lot of time in traditional music clubs and dancing the Morris during the revival of the late 60s and early 70s, it does my heart good to see that English folk music is in the excellent hands of a lot of terrific, committed and imaginative musicians at the moment. Kate Rusby is certainly one of them, and this is a fine example of her work. Very warmly recommended.

Pistol Annies - Annie Up

Rating: 5/5

Review:
A very good album

This is hugely enjoyable album of very good songs, very well performed. There's a good variety here and many of the songs are intelligently aimed at targets like the beauty industry (Being Pretty Ain't Pretty), the hypocrisy sometimes concealed by religiosity (Hush Hush), a song called Unhappily Married which speaks for itself, and so on.

The singing is exceptionally good with three fine performers giving great individual performances and really good close-harmony stuff with a strong country feel but also elements of blues, jazz and even rock in various places. The band are terrific - tight, sensitive and full of guts when needed - and the production shows off each song at its best.

I think this is album is a genuine bit of class among the best of the great amount of good (and not-so-good) Country/Americana around just now. Very warmly recommended.

Anonymous 4 - 1865

Rating: 3/5

Review:
Rather disappointing

I was a little disappointed in this disc. Anonymous 4 are an outstandingly good ensemble and I was looking forward to hearing them bring their brilliance to these 19th Century songs which relate to the American Civil War and its aftermath. Sadly, I don't think it really works as a collection.

The performances are excellent in their way. Exquisitely sung and harmonized as one would expect from Anonymous 4 and with some songs sparsely but very well accompanied, there is a beautiful overall sound to the disc. However, the sound didn't seem to me to be always appropriate to the material which sometimes needed a bit more emotional oomph and perhaps even a little roughness. It also gets very samey after a while. I really am sorry to say this of a group of musicians whom I greatly admire and whose work I have enjoyed immensely, but I just get a bit bored after a while. There's not really enough variety to distinguish one song from another and, for example, while Abide With Me can reduce me to tears, here it just seemed to go on and on in an unvarying way which eventually took away much of its emotional power.

Others may respond differently, and certainly the quality of musicianship and the beauty of sound is remarkable, but for me this collection doesn't quite succeed and, to my surprise and disappointment, I can't really recommend it.

The Waterboys - Modern Blues

Rating: 5/5

Review:
A very good album

I have a rather shameful confession to make: until now, my knowledge of The Waterboys extended no further than The Whole Of the Moon, which I loved. I can't explain why they have passed me by but they have, so I have come to this album with no real knowledge about their history, just an open mind to the music and lyrics...and I think they're excellent.

This is an album of lyrically interesting, original and sometimes quirky songs. This from November Song gives a flavour:
"We walked along a while like we were old companions
But I could feel the gulf between us yawning like a canyon,
Her with her turgid(?) coat, her extravagant beliefs
Me a creature of the road, a child of dust and grief..."

Good stuff, I think and it's all set to very singable tunes and extremely well arranged and produced. The result is a very satisfying sequence of first-rate pop music with some genuine depth to it in places. The singing is passionate and the band is terrific - tight and sensitive, but with a great driving energy when needed. I was reminded in different places of Van Morrison (just listen to the start of November Tale), Mark Knopfler and Lloyd Cole - all very fine songwriters and musicians - but this is its own album and has its own distinctive feel.

I was surprised by how much I liked Modern Blues, and if you enjoy really good, melodic songs with a rocky feel which are excellently performed and produced, you'll like this too.

Suzanne Vega - Live at The Speakeasy

Rating: 4/5

Review:
A good early live album

This is a good live album. It is a recording of Suzanne Vega playing live in 1984, before the release of Solitude Standing, and before she had achieved anything like the sort of recognition she has today.

There is and endearing and refreshing simplicity and almost innocence to this recording. It is Vega and her guitar only, which lends songs like Luka and Marlene On The Wall, now familiar in their high-production versions, an immediacy and sincerity which I like very much. There is a nice atmosphere over the whole album, set by Vega's rather shy-sounding introductions and even an endearing moment in Small Blue Thing where she has to clear her throat (which anyone who has ever played and sung to an audience of any kind will empathise with!) It is, in short, a good selection of songs, well performed.

The sound isn't brilliant. It's quite adequate, but there's a slightly muddy quality to it which some people may find troubling. I don't mind it too much, but it does tend to make this more of an interesting historical record than an album I listen to just for pleasure.

I'm glad to have this and to have heard it, but now that we have both the Close Up series and the excellent Live At the Barbican recording from 2012 I'm not really sure how often I will listen to this album. It's good, and an essential for Vega fans like me, but I certainly wouldn't start here and if you don't already have the superb Close Up series or Live at the Barbican I would buy them first.

Bob Dylan - Shadows In The Night

Rating: 2/5

Review:
Oh Bob, what have you done?

I love Bob Dylan. His music has been part of my life for over half a century and, like many people, I feel as though a lot of his songs are woven into my very bones. He is one of the very greatest of all singer/songwriters, he has profoundly influenced the music and the consciousness of generations with his work and he has obviously earned the right to record anything he pleases. Most professional critics think this is very good. And even taking all that into account, I think this is a terrible album.

Bob's singing voice, bless him, has always been awful by any ordinary standards, but the way he used it and the superb songs he wrote to sing with it made it great in the context, and absolutely magnificent sometimes. I can still remember the sheer visceral thrill I felt the first time I heard Ballad Of A Thin Man, for example, and it's happened plenty of other times, but it's not a voice cut out for these crooner's standards - it really isn't. Tempest showed that Bob has still got it both as a writer and performer, but here he sounds feeble, tremulous, cracked and downright out-of-tune some of the time and that just won't do with this material. To me, this is painful and embarrassing. Even songs I like a lot, like Autumn Leaves, make me cringe inwardly here.

I say all this with real sadness about one of my greatest musical heroes, but it is my honest reaction. I have forced myself to listen to this several times in case it grew on me, but it really, really didn't. Aside from Bob's singing, much of the material is uninspiring, and the arrangements are decent but so samey that they sound dull after a couple of tracks. I have given this two stars because I simply cannot bring myself to give a Bob Dylan album just one star, but I suspect I'm being over-generous.

And now I'm off to play Tempest, Highway 61 Revisited, Blonde On Blonde, Blood On The Tracks, Bringin' It All Back Home and probably several more to remind myself of the sheer genius of the man and to try to expunge this hideous mistake from my mind. May Bob forgive me, but this is bad.

Michael Jerome Brown - Sliding Delta

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Excellent blues playing

This is a very good album of blues originally from the 20s and 30s, by great Delta bluesmen like Missisippi John Hurt, Blind Lemon Jefferson and others. It's terrific material, of course, and performed very well indeed.

Michael Jerome Brown is a good singer and a very fine blues guitarist who gives all these songs a great feel and a genuine sense of their origins. He plays a variety of instruments, all very well, but it is the guitar work which makes this really good. I think it's just great; clean, sincere playing and singing makes it a real pleasure to hear this material in modern recorded clarity.

This is a little bit of class, I think. My advice is to listen to a few samples and if you like what you hear, don't hesitate - it's a fine album of great blues, very well played and sung. Warmly recommended.

Phosphorescent - Muchacho

Rating: 5/5

Review:
A haunting, beautiful and intelligent album

I came to this album as a Phosphorescent novice on the recommendation of a friend. I have plainly been missing out by not hearing him sooner.

I'm not in a position to compare this to other Phosphorescent albums, but I think Muchacho is a very good album indeed, with thoughtful, haunting and intelligent songs, beautifully arranged and - in their idiosyncratic way - very well sung. The instrumental backing is rich, electronic and very beautiful. There is a mixture of the mournful and the hopeful here, and a mixture of styles, too, held together by the slightly cracked, mixed-back and multi-tracked vocals which I found very expressive and affecting.

I think that there are some things about this album which remind me of Leonard Cohen. Now, I know it sounds absolutely nothing like a Cohen album, but Matthew Houck has the same ability to write a straightforward but lovely tune and to put things into extremely evocative, sometimes elusive words. The brilliant Muchacho's Tune is a good example - haunting, self-excoriating and in search of redemption. I don't want to push the comparison too far because things like the vocals and overall sound here and on Old Ideas, for example, couldn't be more different but I do think he shares some of Cohen's genius for conjuring insight and feeling in a song. I mean that as the highest praise.

This was a surprising and delightful discovery for me, and I'm now off to seek out some of Phosphorescent's other work. It's a really fine album and warmly recommended.

The Blues Band - Rock Goes To College 1980

Rating: 4/5

Review:
Decent but not great

This is a decent live album, but I don't think it's a great one. It's a recording from 1980, very early in The Blues Band's career at the time of The Official Blues Band Bootleg Album, from which much of this set is taken. It's an album I've always loved and Death Letter remains an absolute classic for me, so a record of the band playing this material live is very welcome.

There's a lot to like here. Paul Jones is in good voice, the band are pretty tight and together, and there's some fine slide guitar work from Dave Kelly in particular...but somehow it doesn't really come together for me, and I don't get much of a sense of the excitement of a live gig - which, of course, is most of the point of a live album. There's a drunken, rowdy and slightly disrespectful-feeling atmosphere among the student audience which doesn't help, and the sound isn't that great. It's adequate, but the balance is poor in places and the bass and drums which ought to lift and drive the music (which they do on the studio albums) sound like a soggy mess a lot of the time.

I don't want to be too harsh. This is an album I'm glad to have heard and will probably refer back to at times, but it's not one I'll be returning to again and again like the Bootleg Album, Itchy Feet and other studio albums. If you're a Blues Band fan like me, you'll want it and will enjoy quite a lot about it, but I can only recommend it with reservations.

Martin Simpson - Vagrant Stanzas

Rating: 5/5

Review:
An excellent album

I don't know how this is possible for an old folkie and guitarist (albeit a pretty rubbish one) but I have managed to miss out on Martin Simpson's work until I came across the superb Murmurs with Andy Cutting and Nancy Kerr.  I'm delighted to have discovered him now – however late – and to be able to say how very good this is.

Martin Simpson is a fabulous guitarist.  His fingerstyle shows amazing technique and skill, but it all sounds as easy and as natural as breathing so you're often unaware of just how skilful it really is.  He has a lovely touch and the guitar work as a whole is just a joy.  He doesn't have the greatest of natural voices but uses it perfectly, so that it's evocative and speaks directly to you; it's really good singing, I think.

As well as the top-class musicianship, I think what also stands out in this collection of covers and traditional songs from the UK and USA is Simpson's sincerity and humanity.  Sometimes it's in the words, sometimes just in the performance and delivery, but there's an engagement and unforced from-the-heart quality here which is very engaging and genuinely affecting at times.

In short, this is a really top-notch album.  I suspect people reading this will already know Martin Simpson's work and won't need any encouragement from me, but for what it's worth I can recommend this very warmly indeed.

Richard Thompson - Grizzly Man

Rating: 4/5

Review:

Good, but not a Richard Thompson classic 

Film soundtracks don't always make great albums, however brilliant the artist may be.  I think that's true of Grizzly Man; it has its moments and is pretty good overall, but it's not among Richard Thompson's most memorable albums.

This is effectively an instrumental album.  There is a track in which Timothy Treadwell (the subject of Herzog's film) tells his own story in a rather unsettling staccato narration and the closing song Coyotes is a classic country number sung by Don Edwards, but other than that it's Thompson's guitar with minimal accompaniment and a couple of discordant cello tracks.  Thompson, of course, is superb and the music he produces (largely improvised) is very beautiful in places.  The whole thing has an almost ambient feel to it much of the time and, while I'll happily listen to anything the man does, it doesn't grip the attention in the way a fully crafted album of his own songs does.  There's absolutely nothing wrong with it, but it's not an album I choose to listen to repeatedly as I do with plenty of his others.

In the end, it depends on what you want.  This is very nice, quite gentle guitar music for the most part (although the cello pieces are anything but gentle and personally I find them almost unlistenable).  As relaxing background music it's excellent – beautifully played and very well done all round.  Just be aware that it's a long way from Old Kit Bag, Mock Tudor, Electric or Still, for example, and for me it's very good for what it is, but not a Richard Thompson classic by any means.

Mark Knopfler & Chet Atkins - Neck & Neck

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Ooh yeah, the boys can play

Just to add my voice to the chorus of praise for this excellent album.  Two real guitar virtuosi in Chet Atkins and Mark Knopfler produce an immensely enjoyable disc, clearly relishing each other's company.  It is country-tinged, full of fantastic guitar picking from both and manages to have real musical quality while being thoroughly good-natured.

If you like slightly country-flavoured music, fantastic guitar picking or just an enjoyable album of good songs performed by two real geniuses of the guitar, this is for you.  Personally, I love it and, twenty years after its release, it still gives me huge pleasure, raises a smile and causes my toes to tap involuntarily.  Very warmly recommended.

Chet Atkins & Les Paul - Chester & Lester

Rating: 4/5

Review:
Great, great playing

This is a magnificent exhibition of guitar playing.  Two of the very greatest show just what greatness means with a display of astonishing technique, breathtaking skill and quite magical touch.  Any guitarist or fan of the guitar will be open-mouthed in admiration.

My sole caveat is the choice of material.  It is very much based in musically fine but inoffensive arrangements of familiar standards, with little in the way of real thrills for me.  It's rather summed up by the white tuxedos and bow-ties worn by the Chet and Les in the cover photo.  There's nothing wrong with it at all, but it's not the sort of stuff I listen to repeatedly, however wonderfully played, and for me it doesn't have the quite the appeal of the brilliant Neck & Neck which Chet Atkins made with Mark Knopfler.  If it's your thing, though, you'll love this – and even if it's not there's a wealth of great, great playing to enjoy.

JJ Cale - Ebbets Field 1975

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Fine live performances from JJ Cale

This is a very good record of JJ Cale playing live in 1975, plus three very early singles and their B-sides. It's a fine live album and a great indication of how great a songwriter and guitarist JJ was.

This recording was made not long after Okie was issued. That remains a truly great album but sadly the recording of the show has only partially survived and we don't get any songs from Okie at all. However, the nine live tracks we do get are crackers, all excellently performed. JJ is on fine form and his band is terrific, sympathetic and tight. The vocals are good, although there's the odd cracked note and JJ's guitar wanders slightly out of tune a little on occasion, too. Personally, I think that's just fine: it's a live performance and that can happen to anyone playing live. It doesn't spoil the music at all and gives it a genuineness which I like a lot. It's a fine set.

The sound is very good on the whole. The music comes over very well, and so does the atmosphere in the small venue. There are the usual loud whoops from some very persistent souls in the audience (even in the most sensitive and delicate passages of Magnolia, for heavens' sake) but it's not too intrusive.

The final six tracks are three singles and their B-sides put out by JJ as Johnny Cale in 1958, 1960 and 1961 respectively. They are...er...interesting period pieces, shall we say, some of which seem to be taken from slightly scratchy 45s rather than master tapes. There's nothing wrong with any of them, but they're pretty undistinguished, generic stuff as JJ was finding his musical feet. Shock Hop, amazingly, is an instrumental which sounds like a slightly dull Shadows track with the odd Monster-Mash-like comic/scary laugh superimposed, and the others are pretty ordinary blues-based songs. I'm very glad to have them as a historical record (I had no idea they even existed) but I won't be taking them out and playing them much, I'm afraid.

In summary, this is a very good live performance by JJ Cale which any fan like me will want and will enjoy. The juvenilia isn't up to much, but so what? The meat of this is nine tracks of the Great Man performing really well, and it's warmly recommended.

Thea Gilmore - Avalanche

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Genius at work

There's perhaps little point in reviewing this album now – I'm twelve years late, after all – but I've been listening to it a lot recently and thought it worth saying what a superb piece of work it is.

The Gilmore is a superb songwriter and performer; it remains a mystery to me that she is still relatively little known.  The material here is absolutely top class, I think.  Gilmore's lyrics are intelligent, allusive and incredibly evocative, and she's musically magnificent.  Songs like Have You Heard or Razor Valentine have the same extraordinary quality you find in Leonard Cohen's best work and she can write a beautiful ballad in God Knows or a singable hit in Juliet.  She also comes up with songs which are uniquely brilliant and which I don't think could have been written by anyone else. 

I once read this about the great physicist Richard Feynmann, written by another distinguished physicist: “With the work of most great physicists you think that if only I was ten times cleverer and worked solidly for years and years I might have come up with that.  And then there are the magicians – and you know that however much cleverer you were and however long you worked at it, you could never manage what they did.  Feynmann was a magician.”  Sometimes Thea Gilmore is a magician in the same way, as in the title track here, which is utterly original and quite spellbinding in its imagery, its music and its arrangement. Take this:

"There's a rumour
Dirty as a chimneystack
Quiet as roadkill
On the northbound carriageway"

Stunning.  And then the meat of the message:

"Well, they sold you back your outrage
In a neat little shrink wrap and a beautiful face

And you think you've found your purpose
Well, they've been trailing the breadcrumbs
Of a water-tight case
So you're shouting, you're shouting softly
So no one can hear you and get the wrong idea"

I don't know of any song anywhere which better excoriates the way in which youthful rebellion is packaged, sanitised and marketed.  There is genius at work here – and I don't use the word lightly.

I won't go on any further.  This is a masterpiece – which you'll already know if you know Thea Gilmore's work.  If you don't, then don't hesitate. You won't regret buying this.

Roy Harper - Man & Myth

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Hats off... 

This is a really good album. I've admired Roy Harper ever since I was about 16 years old and spent hours sitting next to the record player with my guitar, lifting the needle on and off Flat Baroque And Berserk while learning Baby Don't You Grieve and others. I've not always liked what he has done since (including seeing him live where he could scarcely sit up, let alone perform), but when he's on form the man's a fantastic songwriter, composer and performer and he's really on form here.

These are classic Roy Harper songs: great chord structures, fine melodies and intelligent, thoughtful lyrics. The songs are honest, poetic and remarkably insightful in their typically Harperish sidelong, allusive way. He sings and plays with all the old finesse and passion, and he's gathered a terrific band around him (including the likes of Pete Townshend). The result is a sequence of riveting songs, excellently played and produced and reflecting on a very rich and varied life. Time Is Temporary really speaks to me especially and the epic, Greek-myth-tinged Heaven Is Here is quite outstanding, but I think every single track is very good and some are real Roy Harper classics - which is saying a lot.

I've not enjoyed a Roy Harper album as much as this since Stormcock, which I regard as a true classic. Very warmly recommended