Truck Festival - Part 3 - Solace in The Saloon - Don Gallardo & Friends

Another artist returning once again to The Saloon Bar was Don Gallardo. When in his native United States he performs with his band 'How Far West'. In the UK it is 'Don Gallardo and Friends' and they are many.

Don Gallardo and Friends, Saloon Bar stage, 22 July 2017.

If you haven't heard him live, or failing that heard the live LP --- Don Gallardo & How Far West - Nashville: Live Sunday Night at Third & Lindsley (2017) --- then you need to do that. Really.

The new studio LP, the successor to 'Hickory' (2015), should be out before the end of this year and we were treated to some songs from that. The set finished with a truly magnificent rendition of 'The North Dakota Blues', taken from the aforementioned studio album but that concludes the live one too.
In fact we got some of the live set pretty much as-it-was-in-Nashville but in a mucky little dive-bar in rural Oxfordshire: Life is art, but actually being there is simply like nothing else imaginable!

The full five-piece (and the sound guy too, far right). There really was an audience but it is just not in-shot.

That is not to say that these were the only artists to appear on stage during the gig; far from it.

This was a duet with Hannah Rose Platt.

Truck Festival 2015 - Part 4

This is no secret; I've been working up to it all week. The real reason that I go to Truck Festival time and again is the Saloon Bar stage. It is a microcosm of a festival in its own right; and all in a space of about 8 x 16 metres. This is what it looks like from outside.

That fuzzy blob is a rain drop on the lens filter, not some alien thing...

This is the view from the front porch, with the Market Stage on the left. Let's go inside.

You will find an audience of all ages and the music will be Americana or some such in its many guises.

I'm not sure what Paul McClure (who hails from the back-woods of Rutland) would make of this but, as previously at Truck, he was wonderful. He played solo and also played a few songs with band backing - mostly members of other acts performing that day.

This is very much a trend on this stage and is definitely to be applauded.

Don Gallardo does hail from the USA, and he has his latest and very arresting LP 'Hickory' in tow.

Don Gallardo and friends.  Just the drummer and bassist for company here. As it turned out that didn't last long...

In almost no time this swelled to six-piece backing. OMG this was good.

That folks is probably not even the half of the goodness on this little stage last weekend. You have been warned.

New Music 2015 - Part 47 - Don Gallardo - Hickory

I can't promise that he is appearing here but unless I'm wrong he will be one of the artists at Truck Festival that I most look forward to seeing live.  This is the follow-up to 2012 LP 'Art of Troublesome Times'.

It was released in the UK by Clubhouse Records today.

It has its roots in Americana and indeed country but it spreads its wings rather more than that simplistic diagnosis might imply. I can see that having listened to it right through several times already, I'll be doing that plenty more over the coming weeks. I can honestly say that there isn't a track that I dislike on this - that there are keyboards and brass on some songs only shows evidence of a deft touch at work and are only there for the benefit that they bring at any particular moment.
As an interesting comparison I have also been listening to another album released today (in the UK by Sub Pop Records) and that is 'Carnation' and the latest release by Daughn Gibson; I have chosen to link the label's artist notes here quite deliberately. I haven't listened to the album or indeed his earlier ones enough as yet to venture more than to say that I rather like that which I have heard. There may well be more from me on this subject before too long.