My Music in 2016 - Albums - Part 2

Seconds away; round 2.
The rules are exactly the same as before and in no way should you think that this list is 'second fiddle'. One of the featured acts would soon disabuse you of that notion simply because of its four members three play fiddle, almost always concurrently!
In addition, this list includes an entry for which the primary language is not English.

Anian - 9 Bach
Applewood Road - Applewood Road
The Black Feathers - Soaked To The Bone
Cale Tyson - Careless Soul
Fara - Cross The Line
The Honeycutters - On The Ropes
Joanne Shaw Taylor - Wild
Kelsey Waldon - I've Got A Way
Margo Price - Midwest Farmer's Daughter
On Dead Waves - On Dead Waves

This post is entirely me fighting my own corner as concerns the kind of music that I like. The links above might have indicated that. It includes one of the two US artists that I most wanted to see live in 2016 and I did so.

Margo Price and Jeremy Ivey, wife & husband, Woods stage, End Of The Road Festival, 2 September 2016.

The other US artist I really wanted to see live in 2016  was Jason Isbell and I did that too, at Green Man Festival 2016. The above list also includes two of the US artists that I would most like to see live at a UK festival in 2017 - The Honeycutters and Kelsey Waldon. It's looking promising.

This is from the Saloon Bar stage at Truck Festival in slightly challenging circumstances.

Applewood Road, a capella. 15 July 2016.

The few invading troublemakers - they were not merely drunk and disorderly - were soon removed without any further fuss by Security. This is the first time in ten years of festival-going that I have ever been in a situation like this and it was reassuring in the way that everyone reacted to it. Such things happen in many towns each weekend, more is the pity. Ten minutes later everything had returned to normal, but with even more camaraderie.

This is the 'Saloon Bar Stage' after all, so perhaps it isn't such a surprise?

Should you wish to attempt to prefigure 2017 then there is this. Its title is 'Powerplant'. I'm not saying much about it because crystal-ball-gazing is not my thing and look where professional pollsters led us in 2016! I would be lying if I were to deny that there are a couple of items that are interesting prospects indeed. The second album from this duo is one of them.

Girlpool, Big Top stage, End Of The Road Festival, 5 September 2015.

The Saloon stage - Truck Festival 2016

I've been here before. You might already know about my liking for the Saloon Bar stage at Truck Festival...
Yet again I failed to see every act on that stage over (this year for the first time in the stage's existence) three days. On the other hand I came far closer than I have ever done before over just two days. Here is some of what I saw, heard and pointed my camera at.  It is not in chronological order, because over three days that makes no real sense anyway. There are also a few things that belong in that world which, at festivals in particular, is largely forgotten or used for trips to the facilities or for food: the hiatus between acts can also be an interesting time for people-watching and photography.

Multi-cultural Oxfordshire, complete with cider-drinking rancheros. What was that stuff about Brexit all about?

This was his first ever UK performance and the start of his tour to promote recently released LP 'Silver Line'.

All the way from Austin, Texas came Chuck Hawthorne. A man, his guitar and some very fine songs.

Headlining on Friday was a trio that I have mentioned before - Applewood Road. It is trio formed of UK-based Australian Emily Barker and US artists Amber Rubarth and Amy Speace. (R - L, below).

Three-part close harmony acapella in a corrugated metal agricultural shed.

I have no doubt whatsoever that the self-titled album 'Applewood Road' will appear in a number of year-end best-of lists. The Telegraph, which has recently been one of the most reliable reviewers in this regard, gave it the accolade of a full five stars. I'm not minded to argue with that.

Another coup for the organisers of this small stage was someone who is better known as the front man of American Aquarium. This was Saturday evening.

BJ Barham was however sans band and over in the UK (also for the first time) a week before the release of his début LP 'Rockingham'.

On Saturday the stage was opened at 12:15 by Hannah Rose Platt, whom I posted about last year and who is the creator of 'Portraits', one of the best début albums of 2015, and already a brilliant storytelling songwriter.

Another artist, whose début LP 'Cracked Picture Frames' I reviewed here last year but had previously failed to see live, played early Friday evening. More storytelling... welcome to the often rather dark world of Robert Chaney.

Because of the prevalence of children in the audience he refrained from playing 'The Ballad of Edward and Lisa' and it was as well; it makes most murder ballads sound reasonably humane. Astonishing though it is I was fairly pleased not to hear it again myself, if I'm quite honest.

Returning after a very solid set on the same stage last year, shortly before the release of début LP 'Bow out of the Fading Light', this is Brighton-based The Delta Bell.

The second full-length comes soon and we got to hear a couple of tracks that might be on that. Suffice to say it's sounding rather good. It's not possible to cover everything I saw on this one stage in a single post. I have already written about Rachel Laven here.

This however cannot go without a further mention. I was looking forward to seeing Speedbuggy USA live from the moment I discovered the band was playing. To say that I was not disappointed would be misdemeanour by litotes.

Never mind the fact that this is an original 1930s 'National Resophonic' resonator mandolin.

To finish here are two more photos that don't directly involve the music. The first is that it is wonderful to see so many kids getting involved. Even if they fall asleep...

... and when the adult audience doesn't even notice that the camera is pointed towards them.

Now we are back to that hiatus-between-acts thing; when the all cowboys have left the saloon...

If you want me I'll be in the bar...

Another attempt to write a post about a road-trip through music has just been cunningly subverted, this time by a festival announcement. As for the title, it's just a case of me with apologies to Joni.
For all that I shall start with the artists and the LP that I was intending to start with anyway.

This album has been out in the US for a while now but is released in the UK very shortly and there is a tour in the offing too. It should be clear that we are on a trip and that we are starting in California. Or at least this outfit is.

Speedbuggy USA - South of Bakersfield (Wagon Wheel Records, 2015).

The four-piece are purveying the Bakersfield sound of Californian country rock that grew up in counterpoint to the increasingly highly polished and produced sounds emanating from Nashville in the late 1950s and early 1960s. This music is definitely the concern of ordinary, blue-collar folk.  They are coming to a small festival that takes place on a farm in Oxfordshire, England in July. It is rather appropriately called Truck Festival. Those trucks may run on rails as in this, taken from 'South of Bakersfield'. Speedbuggy USA plays Truck Festival on Sunday 17 July.

In fact this trip through music is defined only by the end-point of the various journeys and that is a single small stage - The Great Western Saloon Bar - at the above mentioned gathering. The starting points vary wildly and indeed some of the artists have already been mentioned in these pages. Here is the full schedule.

Applewood Road headline on Friday. Top of the bill on Saturday is BJ Barham, perhaps better known as the on-going lead singer and songwriter for American Aquarium. This is his solo side project that includes the soon-to-be-released LP 'Rockingham'. Robert Chaney, whom I mentioned with regard to his album 'Cracked Picture Frame' early last year, is a must-see as far as I am concerned. In fact there is nothing that I don't want to see, whether I have seen that act or artist live before or have not! Indeed, and as well as the above, at the very least these six have already been mentioned by me specifically in regards to LP releases: The Black Feathers, Danni Nicholls, Delta Bell, Redlands Palomino Company, The Rosellys, Paul McClure. I know quite a bit about them. I have seen Stevie Ray Latham live too, I think, but I need to look into that.
What interests me now is all the rest of the artists on the above list; many of which I know little or nothing about. There is no point whatsoever in going to festivals just to see acts that one is already well aware of.
What I dig up about this will form the second part of this post.

New Music 2016 - Part 5 - Applewood Road

One day in 2014 three songwriters met in a coffee shop in East Nashville. They had not met before but they wrote a song called Applewood Road.
Shortly afterwards the three - Amber Rubarth, Amy Speace and Emily Barker - recorded it and decided to expand the project to a whole LP. In 2015 they had written the whole set and returned to the same place where they recorded that first song. This is that record and what you get is three part harmony and sparse acoustic accompaniment.

It was recorded at Welcome To 1979 Studio in Nashville around a single microphone to two-track tape using all analogue equipment.  The tapes were edited together and mastered at Gearbox Records, again using all analogue process and the acetate masters lathe-cut there too.

Applewood Road:

1. Applewood Road
2. To the Stars
3. Old Time Country Song
4. Home Fires
5. Honey Won't You
6. Give Me Love
7. Sad Little Tune
8. Lovin' Eyes
9. Josephine
10. I'm Not Afraid Anymore
11. Bring the Car Round
12. Row Boat
13. My Love Grows

It is released by Gearbox Records on 12 February 2016 (vinyl, digital). Here is a little preview:


Note added 10 February 2016: You can currently listen to a legal stream of the full album courtesy of For Folk's Sake, ahead of its release this coming Friday, here. Or indeed, courtesy of The Bluegrass Situation, here.