Live review: My Darling Clementine @ The Fallen Angels Club. Glad Café, Glasgow. Friday 24th November 2023.

Glasgow’s no stranger to witnessing the odd bout of bickering between married couples and so it was that an almost sold out crowd crammed into the Southside’s Glad Café to welcome back our favourite marital sparring partners, My Darling Clementine, in anticipation of what we used to call, “a good clean fight.”

Lou Dalgleish and Michael Weston King, the two warring elements of My Darling Clementine, have long proved to be one of the UK’s favourite acts, taking the long held premise that country music can’t abide a happy pairing and transforming that into a hugely entertaining show. It helps of course that the pair have released a series of albums in which they sing superbly of the twists and turns and the ups and downs of being in a relationship, cleverly updating old Nashville tropes.

They used to take to the stage as a recording of George Jones and Tammy Wynettes’ wedding vows was played but tonight it was the stabbing keyboards of Timmy Thomas’ Why Can’t We Live Together which announced their appearance, Dalgleish resplendent in her thrift store glory and Weston King a testament to polyester, his sta-prest trousers featuring the sharpest crease in town. Launching, of course, into a divorce song, the weeping strains of faded love and regret parlayed by each on Unhappily Ever After set the scene for much of the evening’s entertainment, the pinnacle of the disharmony being a glorious rendition of There’s No Heart In This Heartache along with the somewhat redemptive I Know Longer Take Pride which has Dalgleish singing from the beyond to support her grieving husband. Performing as a duo tonight there was no sense that they needed a band behind them especially when they delivered the exotic rhythms of King Of The Carnival and there was even choreography as the pair danced to and from the microphones in step.

With no support act, the pair set out all their wares on stage tonight which meant the inclusion of several songs taken from their latest project where they delved into the country darkness they have exhumed from the songs of Elvis Costello. First off was a Costello song written with Loretta Lynn, I Felt The Chill Before The Winter Came, sung brilliantly in harmony, very much in keeping with the heartache which had come before and a reminder of how well My Darling Clementine have burrowed into Costello’s songbook. I Lost You and Either Side Of The Same Town just cemented this thought.

According to Dalgleish, Weston King has had the temerity to record an album of his own and this led to some inspired duelling dialogue before he was “allowed” to play two songs from The Struggle – The Hardest Thing Of All, a powerful description of solitude, along with his thoughts on a policeman duped by Trump on Weight Of The World. Dalgleish, bless her soul, weighed in on keyboards instead of leaving in a huff.

Of course, the pair revel in the comedy of the bickering – George and Tammy writ large on the stage. But when Dalgleish gets serious, responding to Wynette’s Stand By Your Man with her wife beating tale No matter What Tammy Said (I Won’t Stand By Him) with words such as “She’s seeing black and blue and purple because he’s seeing red,” in a rare onstage moment, she leans on Weston King affectionately. The pair are united when it comes to this.

Signing off with a great rendition of The Embers And The Flame, the duo announced they’d stay on stage for the encore, none of this false exit nonsense, and so, as the crowd bayed their applause they sang a grand version of Joe Henry’s You Can’t Fail Me Now. They would have ended there but an eruption from the crowd demanded more and so, an actual encore proceeded. Weston King dug into his past to bring up Endless Wandering Stars, a song inspired by a James Joyce line in Ulysses (“on page three” he said, he’d never got beyond that page). It was a delightful end to a hugely entertaining night.

Baskery. V: End Of The Bloodline.

The three sisters, Greta, Stella and Sunniva Bondesson, who comprise Baskery, last released an album in 2018, Coyote And Sirens, and toured extensively in support of the album. Originally from Sweden, the trio by then lived in three different countries and when it came time to record a follow up album they were hamstrung by the Covid lockdown. Unlike many other artists who resorted to remote recording the sisters bided their time, each using their enforced isolation to write their own songs. Come the time it was safe again to mingle, they worked up the songs and decamped to Devon to record V: End Of the Bloodline with Sean Lakeman (The Levellers, Imelda May, Equation, Billy Bragg) in the producer’s seat. The sisters had met him when they toured with his brother Seth Lakeman and Seth appears on two of the songs here, playing viola.

Harking back to the coyotes named in the previous album, this disc is quite feral with the sisters rattling out of the traps on many of the songs. The most ferocious is Miss America which is whipped along with healthy doses of slide guitar and rattletrap percussion allowing the trio to sound like a love child of Tom Petty and The Violent Femmes. The opening song, Wolf Hook, while not as wild, finds them prowling in a southern swampish style with just the merest hint of Fleetwood Mac voodoo in its veins.

At times the band veers just a little too close to Stevie Nicks’ like chanteusing but they never fully fall into that trap. Little Lonesome Hate (with Seth Lakeman joining in) is a fully fledged slice of Child like balladry with the sisters playing excellently as the song takes flight while A Little Goes A Long Way is suffused with California power pop guitar. They close the album with some excellent sisterly harmonising on the rather gorgeous Birds Of Passage.

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Tom Heyman. 24th Street Blues. Bohemian Neglect Recording Works

Back in 2012 Chuck Prophet released Temple Beautiful, his hymn to his hometown of San Francisco. It was a bright and vibrant record with many of the songs remaining highlights of his live set. Now, just a little over ten years later, Tom Heyman, a one-time member of Prophet’s Mission Express band records his experiences of San Francisco on 24^th Street Blues, a decidedly lower key effort which is less focussed on past events and more in tune with the city’s denizens who are, in the main, worlds removed from the hi-tech industries which the city is primarily associated with now.

The 12 songs here are rough hewn, appropriate enough for the subject matter. Heyman, accompanied in the main by just a couple of collaborators (primarily Rusty Miller and Mike Coykendall) prowls through the songs, sweetening some of them with his sublime pedal steel guitar but never losing sight of the gritty reality he’s singing about. His characters are the jobbing day to day folk, those displaced by gentrification, those scrabbling to make ends meet. He follows in the footsteps of Jack London and Jack Kerouac, writers who could make San Francisco come to life on the page and who, like Heyman here, celebrated the daily grind.

The centrepiece of the album is the powerful The Mission Is On Fire, a grim song delivered in a dark and ominous manner. Inspired by a disastrous fire in the Mission District which claimed a life (Mauricio Orellana, to whom the album is dedicated) and displaced more than 60 residents, the site is now earmarked for a multi million redevelopment. Heyman’s anger and despair here is almost palpable as he just about spits out the refrain, “The Mission is on fire and some people are getting rich.”  However, it’s the lack of outrage after the inferno which fuels Heyman on the delicate following song Quit Pretending.

The album opens with the folky refrains of the title song with Heyman cleaving to a simple day in the life in San Francisco before bewailing the glowering cranes set to redevelop the city. Desperate is a more personal song (which is revisited at the end of the album) which finds Heyman seeking for a balm, presumably leading to his sojourn in San Francisco where he has found himself (and his wife) surviving in a somewhat bohemian music minded community.

There’s a brace of songs which paint portraits of youthful ambitions and failed promises. Mike Coykendall’s 12 string guitar adds a slight Byrds’ like sense to the story of Barbara Jean while Sonny Jim is given a slinky, somewhat cocksure strut. Much more sombre is the tale of a juvenile pair who deal drugs and run away on Hidden History. He’s banged up and by the time he’s out, she’s married with kids, another dream killed dead. Heyman nails this song which comes across like an Elmore Leonard story set to a lonesome pedal steel flavoured lament. And while Chuck Prophet’s ode to the Ford Econoline is a turbo charged driving song, Heyman drops into Steinbeck territory as his White Econoline is merely the mode to transport itinerant fruit pickers, today’s gig economy not much removed from those days of the Grapes Of Wrath. Back on a more personal note, Heyman delivers the most fully fledged rock’n’folk song here on Searching For The Holy Ghost which finds him accepting his lot as a citizen of San Francisco, in love with its romance and history and still settling in.

24^th Street Blues is available in various formats including a package which includes the disc alongside a very handsome songbook with lyrics, music notation and illustrations by Heyman’s partner, Deidre White. See all options here.

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Daniel Meade. Your Madness Is My Medicine

After a couple of albums (Ever Wonder Why you Get Out Of Bed and Rust) which found Glasgow’s Daniel Meade exploring various musical avenues, he returns to his roots with a bang on this exhilarating rock’n’rollercoaster of an album. Reunited with his long time guitar foil, the ever excellent Lloyd Reid and backed by Ross McFarlane on drums and Deke McGee on horns, Meade positively wallows in the barrelhouse rock and roll which he wallops out on piano throughout. It’s a killer album in more than sense as The Killer himself, Jerry Lee Lewis, is a guiding light here with Meade channelling the tousle headed firebrand who shocked the UK way back when he first toured over here.

Alongside Lewis there are healthy whiffs of Fats Domino, Professor Longhair and James Booker. Even the ghost of George Frayne, AKA Commander Cody is in the mix. McGee’s wonderfully fat horn fills are very much part of the joy here as he punches up the sound giving many of the songs a New Orleans vibe.  Drink It Up Now is in the New Orleans tradition of drinking songs celebrated with saloon piano rollicking away while Ain’t What It Ain’t is a classic sing-along song which one can imagine being as popular in a front parlour as a low down dive.

While he’s well able to deliver raucous and joyous slices of vintage sounding rockers, Meade tops it all with his vocal delivery, his voice just on the right side of Jerry Lee like lasciviousness. While he uses traditional tropes he sure knows how to knock them into shape with the best example here the title song with its repeated title refrain although special mention should be given to Got Me On A Good Day and Don’t Look Back, both of them perfect examples of how to update age old rock’n’roll with vigour.

Overall, Your Madness Is My Medicine finds Meade maybe returning to a comfort zone, the sort of music he can knock out without abandon, the sort of songs he was singing with his band The Flying Mules, but that he does it with such style and obvious love for the period just makes the album that much more compelling.

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Israel Nash. Ozarker. Loose Music

Missouri born Israel Nash continues to sound larger than life on his eighth album Ozarker, the title a nod to his family’s roots although he has long been domiciled in Texas. From folky beginnings Nash swelled into being a flag bearer for cosmic country music on albums such as Rain Plains and Silver Seasons, albums which shone with a psychedelic sheen.

On Ozarker Nash continues to roll back the years although here his template is the sweet sugar rush of prime time American rock’n’roll as delivered by the likes of Tom Petty and Bruce Springsteen. Gone are the almost Pink Floyd like guitar explorations (although he can still toss out explosive solos) of his more recent albums to be replaced by songs which, while not exactly pop fodder for the radio, trim any excess fat. In fact, if you could strip away the biker and storm trooper concerns of the early Blue Oyster Cult albums and concentrate on the sheer sonic joy of the songs then you might be able to imagine how Ozarker sounds.

The album opens with the swirling sounds of Can’t Stop, almost FM Fleetwood Mac in its infectiousness until Nash’s huge voice weighs in, no airy fairy Stevie Nicks here. It’s a punchy song with colossal chords and stinging guitars buzzing throughout. Roman Candle has a similar intro but Nash takes a left turn into Bob Seger land here with the song sounding as if Night Moves has been working out at the gym. The title song is next and it finds Nash in a sweet and sour mood as he parleys a story about his great-grandfather’s love tryst while delivering it in a cranked up to an eleven E Street Band vibe.

Behind the raw bravado of much of the songs here Nash actually is whittling down into the state of America these days. Lost In America, the lynchpin of the album is almost spectral as it opens before swelling into a blue collar anthem while Travel On has a degree of optimism contained within its muscular delivery. Going Back finds Nash ensconced in Texas and pondering (quite loudly) on his Missouri background and Shadowland closes the album with Nash returning to the Ozarks and again Bob Seger comes to mind as the song unrolls celebrating the importance of community.

Big, bold and brash, at times quite exhilarating, Ozarker is a powerful reminder of Israel Nash’s commanding presence.

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Victoria Bailey. A Cowgirl Rides On. Rock Ridge Records

Three years on from her excellent debut album (the wonderfully titled Jesus, Red Wine & Patsy Cline) Victoria Bailey trots back into view with an equally excellent follow-up which finds her standing tall in the saddle and embracing her inner cowgirl.

As on the first album Bailey clings fast to a traditional country sound replete with fiddle, mandolin and banjo and she remains a superlative singer. While Jesus, Red Wine & Patsy Cline had a honky tonk/ Bakersfield like sound to it, A Cowgirl Rides On is more akin to bluegrass with several of the songs having gospel like undertones. As such it’s a more immersive, and, dare one say it, a more emotional and personal listen than its predecessor. On occasion Bailey reaches into the pure Appalachian sounds of The Carter Family for inspiration and she delivers treasures such as the sublime Sweet By And By, a glorious song which resonates with the god fearing tradition and heavenly aspirations of early settlers. More upbeat but in a similar vein is the jaunty Down From The Mountain which is melodically similar to the old chestnut Give Me That Old Time Religion with both songs sounding simultaneously as fresh as a daisy and as old as the hills.

The album opens in a more contemporary vein with the title song which was inspired by Bailey’s reading of Distant Skies, a memoir penned in the ‘70s by Melissa Priblo Chapman which detailed her journey on horse across the US continent. The book resonated with Bailey who herself keeps a horse and she transforms it into a song about a spiritual voyage, a drifter, secure enough in the saddle who is buffeted and occasionally tempted (“Along came a cowboy from San Antone, he wanted to marry and build her a home) but instead she just moseys on along. It’s a tremendous song which deserves to be considered along with the likes of Gram Parson’s Grievous Angel in its portrait of a faded American dream. She tops this however with her own inner travelogue on End Of The Line, a five minute exploration of how best to battle on despite her travails.

Throughout the album, Bailey’s band  (producer Brian Whelan, who also co-wrote some of the songs, on guitar, Ted Russell Kamp on bass, Philip Glenn  on fiddle, mandolin, and banjo, Jeremy Long on pedal steel and Dobro and Leeann Skoda on background vocals) are on excellent form. They can whip it up as on the high spirited Snake Trails, a devil may care gallop of a song, or lay down a wearied cantina like patina on Sabina which is soaked with a liquor infused sense of revenge. There’s a slight return to the mode of the first album on Forever, You & I, a mid tempo tale which finds Bailey drinking alone and reminiscing about the man who walked out on her. Bailey closes the album with a fine rendition of Ricky Skaggs’ Waiting At The Gate, a return to the bluegrass gospel sound we mentioned earlier.

We reckoned Victoria Bailey was a name to watch back when Jesus, Red Wine & Patsy Cline came out and it’s gratifying to see that she hasn’t failed us. A Cowgirl Rides On is a tremendous step up and is destined to be one of our favourite albums of the year.   

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Rod Picott. Starlight Tour. Welding Rod Records

Rod Picott, currently touring the UK in advance of this album’s release, follows on from the superb Paper Hearts & Broken Arrows with the equally superb Starlight Tour. For anyone familiar with Picott there’s little here that is new or innovative and that’s not a bad thing. Indeed, the old idiom if it ain’t broke don’t fix it certainly applies here as Picott has steadily released a series of albums which have met much acclaim while he remains a huge favourite on the UK touring circuit.

Starlight Tour finds Picott once again in the company of producer Neilson Hubbard who also drums while Lex Price on bass and Juan Solorzano on guitars, keyboards and trumpet complete the band set up. They can whip up a fine rocking sound as on the driving diatribe against the opiate epidemic scourging the States which is Wasteland or delve into junkyard blues on the pulverising Digging Ditches but for the most part the band are more restrained, allowing Picott to play to his strengths – the raw emotional impact he carries when he strips his songs back to the bone. He goes straight for that emotional jugular on several songs here with Television Preacher a pitch perfect capture of a dirt poor family sending their money to a televangelist while the title song finds Picott at his best, finding poetry amidst misery and cruel fate.

A songwriter who has turned his hand to writing novels and short stories, Picott is a supreme chronicler of the loss of the American dream. Homecoming Queen (co-written with Amy Speace) tells the tale of a small town girl, once feted, now faded, while Pelican Bay finds an army veteran recalling the love of his life and their resultant daughter as he wanders lonesome on a beach, scratching his wife’s name in the sand and watching the ocean wash her away.

The band feature heavily on the opening song Next Man In Line, adding a fine muscular tension on this ode to Picott’s ailing father which contrasts his prime moments with his latter decline and ponders on his bloodline. At the other end of the album Time To Let Go Of Your Dreams finds Picott in an elegiac mood, not raging at the dying of the light, instead, proposing an acceptance of the inevitable, a good life followed by a good and peaceful death. It’s a wonderful song, tender and moving, a perfect close to a powerful and moving album.

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Rab Noakes & Brooks Williams. Should We Tell Him – Songs By Don Everly

It’s poignant that Rab Noakes’ last album release is a tribute to one half of The Everlys, the brother Don. Noakes made no secret of his love for The Everlys. They were the first concert he attended when he moved to Glasgow from his native Fife back in 1963 and when asked to pick a favourite vinyl disc to play and discuss when at Perth’s Southern Fried Festival a few years ago, he chose one of their albums to enthuse about.

Having long harboured an ambition to record some of Don Everly’s compositions, considering him to be severely underrated as a songwriter, Noakes found a fellow disciple in the shape of American Brooks Williams, a long time fan of Noakes. The pair met when Williams invited Noakes to play on his Glasgow recorded album Lucky Star and happened to mention his love of The Everlys, the spark which ignited this album. It took them a couple of years and a pandemic to eventually get together and do it but do it they did and it’s a glorious listen.

Taking their cues from a mimeographed Don Everly songbook which Noakes had picked up in Nashville back in the 1980s, the pair eschew the hits with most of the songs here originally released as b- sides or album cuts. With the focus primarily on Don’s songwriting there’s not much evidence of the brothers’ trademark sound, their celebrated sibling harmonies. Noakes and Williams do harmonise on several of the songs here but the impetus is on reinterpreting the songs, Noakes famously disliked the concept of just covering a song. It’s a measure of the album’s success that if you had no idea of its provenance, you’d be delighted to hear such a triumphant collection of songs.

With an A list of a backing band (Hilary Brooks (piano and accordion), Kevin McGuire (bass), Conor Smith (electric guitar and pedal steel) and Signy Jakobsdottir (drums)) Noakes and Williams turn in perfect deliveries ranging in style from country rock to rockabilly and all out teenage romance. They open with a bang on the keening pedal steel led It Only Costs A Dime, a sumptuous dip into classic country rock with Noakes sounding quite superb in his lonesome yearnings. Sigh, Cry, Almost Die follows with its slap double bass and walking rhythm harking back to heartbroken teen idols crying their hearts out back in the ‘50s. Should We Tell Him then delves into the early Everly sound as Noakes and Williams join in on the harmonies while the band update it a bit with slippery pedal steel interludes and some tremendous acoustic guitar playing. Williams takes over lead vocals on the sweet country lament of Hello Amy, another song which features the excellent pedal steel playing of Smith who excels throughout especially on the woozy waltz time of I’ll Never Get Over You.

An electrifying performance of Since You Broke My Heart finds Noakes and Williams vying to be considered as honorary members of The Travelling Wilburys on what is a tremendous thrash, a feat they repeat on I’m Not Angry with the band delivering a grand frat-rock rhythm. I Wonder If I Care As Much winds things down with a carousel like arrangement and with Noakes and Williams harmonising perfectly and the album closes on an appropriate note with the valedictory lament which is It’s Over, ironic really as it’s the last song we’ll hear from the much missed Rab Noakes.

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Steve Grozier Back Lane EP

 

It’s been a while since we heard from Glasgow’s Steve Grozier, an artist and songwriter who Blabber’n’Smoke, along with several other websites and publications have lauded for his reflective songs which, as he says are “about the darker aspects of life.” He returns to the fray with this four song EP, surprisingly, a collection of previously released songs but recorded in a stripped back fashion live in Glasgow’s La Chunky Studios with Johnny Smillie at the recording helm.

If you’ve seen Grozier live then you might know what to expect here. His guitar is almost caressed, tenderly picked and played, as his lonesome voice delivers the oh so lonesome lyrics. There are three songs gathered from his album All That’s Been Lost along with a revisit to his E.P. Take My Leave. Stripped of their previous robes (which included Neil Young & Crazy Horse like country grunge and sweet water pedal steel rock) these songs find Grozier in a much more confident solo stance than he was when we last encountered him on stage pre pandemic. He must have been practicing.

Power In The Light, according to Grozier his most popular song on Spotify, ditches the sweeping strings and muscular guitar solos from the album version and arrives here in, strangely enough, a more redemptive fashion. Whereas the original had an inherent sense of helplessness woven within it with Grozier’s voice like a cry from the wilderness across frozen wastes, here it’s much warmer, his voice less prophetic and more hopeful.  Charlie’s Old Mustang/Graveyard, originally a dusty alt-country outing, here, stripped back to its basics, allows this poignant tale of a graveyard visit its full measure.

Twenty Third Street was the very attractive opening song on All That’s Been Lost, delivered in a sweet country rock style with lashings of pedal steel and twangy telecaster. Grozier totally dials it down here taking the song at a much slower place and giving it a fine wintry New York feel as if he’s following in the slushy boot heels of Dylan on the album cover of Freewheelin’ while the mention of losing his mind in the Chelsea hotel inevitable invokes memories of the late and much lamented L. Cohen. It’s the most successful makeover here and is beautifully delivered. The E.P. closes with Take My Leave, a song originally released back in 2016 in an already stripped back acoustic fashion. It might only be seven years in between but this new version does seem to portray a singer who is less strident and more comfortable in his own skin.

While a new set of songs from Grozier is much awaited, this slight return is much appreciated and, with a set of live dates lined up, hopefully will alert folk to a local artist who has much to offer.

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Annie Keating Hard Frost

Blabber’n’Smoke has long been a fan of Annie Keating’s passionate songs which sashay from blue collar rock to country soul with ease. Hard Frost was released a few months ago but with Keating embarking on an extensive UK tour this weekend it’s well time for us to lend an ear.

She opens the album with a twanged guitar introduction on Lies And Dynamite, a classic Keating number. It’s slow and moody with Keating’s voice sounding at times like Patti Smith on a song replete with vivid images of America which she imbues with a sinister touch. She maintains this tough, road tested soul survivor persona on Sunshine Parade which has sinewy guitar battling it out with synthesised strings on a smouldering song while Lovesick Blues is a gut bucket bluesy number with Keating wallowing in her post relationship mess. This is one of the songs from the album which Keating previewed on her most recent UK appearances and, live, she and her UK band ripped the song to shreds, rivalling The Blasters in their ferocity.

Aside from her street savvy songs, Keating has always revealed a more tender side on her albums and none more so than on Belly Of The Beast where she sounds quite vulnerable and almost childlike at times. Again she’s singing of lost love and its emotional hangover – “Heartbreak like a bullet” she sings – but after an almost Dylan like litany of metaphors she comes out as a survivor. A survivor, she reminds us on Wrong Guy’s Girl, who is also a travelling and romantic troubadour. Here, over a wonderfully bruised backing (think of the ragged Dylan songs on the Rolling Thunder tour), Keating delivers a sly travelogue which mentions places she has played which she has fallen in love with while also recounting amorous mishaps which occurred in some of them including the wonderful line “I’ve been chased out of Corfu for kissing the wrong guy’s girl.”

There’s much to admire here. Keepsakes And Heartbreaks is a delightfully frothy folky number which finds her, post divorce, pondering on what to do with her wedding ring while Feels Like Home has a sense of wintry comfort which echoes of Joni Mitchell in its bones. She closes the album with her rendition of The Police’s So Lonely, drastically altered to suit Keating’s style but this listener would have preferred to have heard another Keating song. It’s the only fly in this wonderful ointment.

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Tour dates:

1/9 – Ashcroft Arts Centre – Fareham, UK
2/9 – Little Rabbit Barn – Essex, UK
3/9 – Bob Harris “Picnic” House show & the Tap that night – Oxford, UK
5/9 – House Concert – Liverpool, UK (email info@anniekeating for info)
6/9 – The Atkinson – Southport, UK
7/9 – Glad Cafe – Glasgow, Scotland
8/9 – Biggar Corn Exchange – Biggar, Scotland
9/9 – Filey Americana – Filey, UK
10/9 – The Live Rooms – Saltaire, UK
12/9 – Kitchen Garden Café – Birmingham, UK
13/9 –What’s Cookin (Double bill w/Steady Habits) – London area, UK
14/9 – Chapel Arts Center (Sean duo opening) – Bath, UK
15/9 –September Songs Festival
16/9 – Eastwell Village Hall – Eastwell, UK
17/9 – The John Peel Centre –Stowmarket, UK