My Music in 2015 - Albums - Part 3

Right! Here we go again and for the last time specifically concerning 2015.
This is not a list of odds-and-ends, far from it. Two of the LPs in this list have appeared near the top of many lists, proffered by major news outlets and suchlike, that are supposedly arranged in some order of merit. That consensus approach is not the way I work. All these lists are about what I liked and in particularly the impact that it had on me.

• 9 Bach - Tincian
• Emily Barker - The Toerag Sessions
• Father John Misty - I Love You, Honeybear
• Hannah Rose Platt - Portraits
• Jess and The Bandits - Here We Go Again
• Lanterns On The Lake - Beings
• Mandolin Orange - Such Jubilee
• Public Service Broadcasting - The Race For Space
• Robert Chaney - Cracked Picture Frames
• Samantha Fish - Wild Heart

There is so much more that I have liked and listened-to-death that isn't included yet still some say that there is a shortage of new music. This, even were it to be true, is a symptom of the malaise that has beset the industry and the majority of consumers for a long time. It was geared to prescribing to listeners what it wanted them to listen to and for the most part the consumer was compliant.
My introduction to two of the acts in this list goes back a long while - I saw them live for the first time at End Of The Road Festival 2009 and 2010 until which point I was completely unaware of both!
I could never have imagined what I suspect, for I do not count listens, would become my most listened-to music of 2015. This is a case of not being led by the nose but blind-sided, in a good way, instead.This third selection of LPs also includes one of the most harrowing songs that I have ever heard. It is not about some industrial accident or natural disaster. It is about the peculiar failings of humankind and is a rather sad place to end this post.



Robert Chaney is the author of The Ballad of Edward and Lisa.

Southampton Blues, Rhythm & Rock Festival 2015

I would. I could. I am.
Just a thought.
Southampton Blues, Rhythm and Rock Festival 2015.

New Music 2015 - Part 39 - Kansas City blues...

There is no particular rhyme or reason to this. It is just the result of my innate curiosity, I suppose. My last post was about a modern blues artist from Kansas City, Missouri - Samantha Fish, and she releases her third LP soon and I am well aware of the previous ones.
The result was that this evening I found two more that I deem worthy of listening and I think that neither are much known in the UK.
The first is power trio Katy Guillen and the Girls. The connection here is that they supported Samantha Fish in KC just the other day, as she previewed new album 'Wild Heart'. This is Katy and the Girls playing 'Grind' live at International Blues Challenge 2014 and the band's self-titled debut album, 'Katy Guillen and the Girls' (2014) is already released.

  Katy Guillen & the Girls - Grind live at IBC 2014 from McKinney Makes Media on Vimeo.

My personal thought is that this next is even better and yet almost certainly less well known. It is 'Down In The Dirt' (2015) - Amanda Fish Band and the two Fishes are not related, in as far as I can tell.
This is slower, more soulful and measured, than the aforementioned LP. I could listen to it on repeat (well actually I already have).
It is rare that an album, let alone an artist, that I have only just discovered provokes that kind of response. I must turn it off and go to bed instead.

The King is dead. Long live the King.

When BB King was born into a life of poverty 'blues' was a curiosity, if even that, unnoticed by the classes that "understood" music. It was simply something black people did to amuse themselves and their kind. There was no mass market for it and therefore no money to be made.

That little of Robert Johnson's early playing, in relative terms, survives is testament to that. BB King came to prominence at the cusp of the change in Civil Rights and regardless of race or colour to a market that few might have imagined. He didn't stop there - until last October he was touring with relentless fervour. Goodness knows how many he inspired along the way, from Clapton et al to many far more recent recruits - it was, I'm thinking, his lifelong mission.
When it came to young women playing blues - well I guess that is something that he would've approved wholeheartedly too.

Without him this would in all probability never have happened at all.
'Wild Heart' is released by Ruf Records on 29 June.

I should perhaps mention that she is playing Southampton Blues Festival (a single-day indoor event) on 27 June 2015 at Southampton Engine Rooms. 

New Music 2013 - Part 30 - three forthcoming rock/blues albums

I said early last week that this would be the next in my 'New Music' series and it is. That various things including more on End Of The Road 2013 that came between them is just how the cookie crumbles.
In the last few years I have got to like blues more than ever before. In particular in that I no longer regard it as an semi-historical genre. That is something that I should have known was not true. In many ways I have my friend John to thank for this: we had intended to see Gary Moore, who we both much admire, live but ultimately we left it too late.
About the same time I saw Bex Marshall live in Frome, supporting Seth Lakeman, and that rekindles my interest in modern blues artists especially. This forthcoming album is by US artist Samantha Fish from Kansas City, MS.

UK release date (physical): 23 September 2013 (Ruf Records).

This is her second studio album, following Runaway (2011) and 'Girls With Guitars 2011', a live album also featuring Dani Wilde and Cassie Taylor.

    This next is the second studio album by an artist that, whilst I had no idea who she was at the time, I caught very briefly on one of the smallest stages at Latitude Festival. Once I had worked out that it was Lissie Maurus (from Rock Island, IL) I bought the two EPs that preceded the release of her début album Catching a Tiger (2010). It was a surprise hit in the UK charts and UK audiences also took to her live show, which can be understood and resulted in a  CD/DVD Live At Shepherds Bush Empire (2011).

Back To Forever is slated for UK release (Columbia) on 14 October 2013.

The last of these three is UK artist, although now resident in the US, Joanne Shaw Taylor. Three studio albums into her career the live CD/DVD treatment follows soon (all on Ruf Records), This was recorded at one take during an intimate performance at The Borderline in London earlier this year. I saw her at Tavistock Wharf last October and shall do so again at London's Shepherds Bush Empire in November.

UK release: 25 November 2013.