Jason Isbell - Southeastern

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Exceptionlly good

I think this is something rather special. This was an almost random selection for me on a vague recommendation and it turned out to be an outstanding album of real quality, with fine songs and excellent performances.

The album has a feel of singer-songwriter about it. Even though there is some lovely support work from a band and some other singers in places (including the very good Kim Richey), the real impact is from Jason Isbell's fine singing and guitar work. There is a melancholy air over the album, with the songs dealing with loneliness, broken relationships, human flaws and the like. This sounds very miserable but isn't; Isbell creates lovely singable melodies with excellent arrangements and production, and a variety of tones from solo voice and guitar to full rock band sound. It is certainly often poignant and touching but somehow never depressing.

What makes this quite exceptionally good, though, is Isbell's lyrics, in my view. He tells stories and conjures emotional states with exceptional depth and it gives the songs real impact. This is at its most raw in Elephant, a stunning song about a friend dying of cancer. There are a lot of great lines in it, like "Surrounded by family, I saw that she was dying alone..." I have had far more experience of loved ones dying of cancer than any one person ought and, among the euphemism and untruth the living comfort themselves with, it is very unusual to find anyone with the perceptiveness and insight to see the truth and the courage to speak it. I think it's a remarkable song, and Isbell brings a similar level of thoughtfulness and honesty to many of the songs on this album.

It is always a joy to discover new music of this quality, and I will certainly be listening to Jason Isbell's back-catalogue very soon. For now, I'm listening to this album repeatedly and getting more out of it each time. I'd recommend this very warmly to anyone who likes beautiful, thoughtful and intelligent songs.

For Adults Only (Compilation, Fireball Records)

Rating: 4/5

Review:
Very amusing and some good music, too

This is very funny, and in places rather good musically.  It's what it says it is: a load of filth in various styles from Doo-Wop to Soul to Surf… you name it, really.  Much of the humour comes from the contrast between the apparent innocence of the style and the frankly outrageous language and subject matter of the lyrics.  I'm afraid it just makes me smile to hear explicit sexual acts described in a song which sounds like one of those completely innocent Inkspots numbers, for example.  And Think Twice by Jackie Wilson is a first-rate soul record, to – albeit with language which is not for the faint hearted.

Not all of this is all that good and it's not something I listen too regularly, but just a few favourites now and again always lift my mood.  Pretty obviously, if you're offended by explicit sexual references and bad (well, appalling, really) language, then this isn't for you, but personally I think it's an enjoyable hoot.

(I have appended a track list, with some words abbreviated to try to allow this review throught Amazon's filth filters.)

1. Marty And The Mufftones  - It's So Hard To Say I Love You (When You're Sitting On My Face)  

2. Connie Lingus - F Me Forever       

3. The Perversions - Did He Eat Your Titty? 

4. The Echos - Sit On My Face          

5. Couto & The Milligans - Everybody Is An A-hole (To Somebody Sometimes)    

6. Jackie Wilson & LaVern Baker - Think Twice ['X' Version]        

7. The Blenders - Don't F Around With Love

8. Harry Hepcat & The Boogie Woogie Band - Streakin' USA          

9. The Clovers - Derby Town

10. Screamin Jay Hawkins - Bite It (Last Night)        

11. Blackie Kidd - Hot Nuts  

12. Slim Gaillard - F Off (The Dirty Rooster)           

13. The Bangers - Baby Let Me Bang Your Box        

14. The Clovers - The Rotten C-suckers Ball

15. Chinga Chavin – A-hole From El Paso    

16. Connie Vannett - The Pussy Cat Song      

17. Adam Martin & The Pickers - Yo Yo      

18. P. Vert - Stickball

19. Jack & Basil - Get Ready (French Style) 

20. The Dildos - F Off           

21. David Trout - The Fast Food Song           

22. Dicky Williams - Come Back Pussy        

23. Dick Curless - The Iceman           

24. James Lee Meadows - Uranus Is Out Tonight      

25. Screamin' Jay Hawkins - Constipation Blues       

Suzanne Santo - Ruby Red

Rating: 4/5

Review:
A very good album

I am very impressed by this album.  I tried it because I like HoneyHoney but wasn't sure what to expect from Suzanne Santo on her own; what I got was a very good album with some fantastic highlights.

The first thing to say is that this woman can really sing.  I don't mean that she belts it out all the time (although she has real power when it's needed), but she has a great, slightly husky voice, excellent control and an ability to really put the meaning of a song across.  There are places here (notably in Best Out Of Me) where her tone, phrasing and ornamentation remind me quite strongly of Adele – and I mean that as high praise.  The material is pretty raw stuff, with lots of drink, drugs, unhealthy relationships and obsessions and so on (including some very frank language); Santo sets the tone in the searing opener, Handshake, and although the album is quite varied in style, it's largely pretty dark – which is just fine with me. 

I confess to being surprised by how good this album is.  Not everything is brilliant, but there's nothing poor or weak, and the best tracks are really excellent.  Ruby Red deserves plenty of attention, and personally I'll be looking out for more of Suzanne Santo's solo work.  Warmly recommended.

Richard Thompson - Acoustic Classics II

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Another excellent album from RT

This album shows yet again that Richard Thompson is a great songwriter, a fine singer and a genius guitarist – which will come as no surprise to anyone.  It's a second helping of his songs in stripped-down solo versions, and it's excellent.

There is a good mix on here, from the spiky, angry RT in things like Bathsheba Smiles to the more tender and sadder in several songs, most notably for me two Fairport classics, Meet On The Ledge and Crazy Man Michael.  I bought both What We Did On Our Holidays and Liege And Lief when they came out and these versions took me right back there, with the added poignancy of losses since, including the great Alexandra Elene MacLean Denny, of course.  Even putting personal experience aside, the whole album is first-rate; RT is in fine voice, his guitar work is outstanding (of course) and the recorded sound is excellent.

RT aficionados won't need me to recommend this, but I do anyway.  It's a fine piece of work from one of the great musicians working today as well as being a very enjoyable saunter through a magnificent body of work over the last 50 years.  A gem.

Ana Egge & The Sentimentals - Say That Now

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Another fine album from Ana Egge

I like Ana Egge's work very much.  This is a newish departure for her, recording with The Sentimentals and developing a rather harder band sound; for the most part it works very well.

Ege still writes excellent songs; the material here is varied and looks at matters of the heart (and other organs) as well as some burning social issues – notably in He's A Killer Now, which is an excellent, haunting song from the point of view of a mother whose son has committed a murderous act of terrorism.  I was gripped from the moment I heard the opening line, "Forgive my son…" sung with all the quiet heartbreak which Ege can do so brilliantly.  Other songs are also very thoughtful and well crafted.  The quirkiness which made albums like Road To My Love so brilliant isn't quite so evident here, but this is still a fine collection of songs.

The band are excellent and Egge's distinctive, haunting vocals remain quite wonderful to me.  It is evident how good she is when the lead vocals on Still Waters Run Deep are taken by MC Hansen; it's a perfectly decent song, well sung and played, but it just doesn't have that something that Egge brings.  Nonetheless, I think this is another fine album from a very good but rather overlooked singer/songwriter, and I can recommend it warmly.

Cross Country - Cross Country

Rating: 4/5

Review:
A very decent album

This is a very decent album, originally released in 1973.  It has some great moments and the overall sound is lovely, but some of the material isn't all that great.

Cross Country produce a lot of very nice close harmony.  It's not just lazy cliché to compare them with CS&N – they often use very similar harmonic structures and their sound is often somewhat similar to them.  Other obvious influences are The Byrds and The Beach Boys, while the title track is very reminiscent of a couple of Beatles songs – principally the "sun, sun, sun" bit in here Comes The Sun.  They do it all very well and the effect is enjoyable.  (I confess that when I first heard the Wilson Pickett classic The Midnight Hour given the hippy-harmony treatment I rather recoiled, but I was utterly seduced by the end and I love it.)

Not everything works so well.  The opening of the album is very good, but tracks like Things With Wings and a couple of others seem like filler to me – a pretty sound but not much substance.  However much Cross Country may resemble them stylistically the material certainly doesn't have either the musical or lyrical quality of songs by Lennon & McCartney, Stephen Stills or David Crosby, for example.

Reservations notwithstanding, I think this is very well worth investigating if you like that late 60s/early 70s harmony sound.  It's stood up pretty well after all this time and I can give it a slightly cautious recommendation.

Tampa Red - The Guitar Wizard

Rating: 5/5

Review:
A fine collection

This is a very good compilation of recordings by a very fine bluesman.  Tampa Red isn't as well know as some blues singers, but he was an excellent guitarist and recorded a fine variety of blues, from solid slide blues to a more jug-band sound.  His singing is also very good and I find the whole collection very enjoyable indeed.

The sound quality is generally pretty good considering the age of some of these recordings.  One or two, like If You Want Me To Love You and That Stuff Is Here do have an awful lot of hiss and crackle, but they're so good that it's well worth it.  I can recommend this to anyone with any interest in original blues.