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.

2012 In Music - Albums - Part 1

No real change in presentation here from the last two years; two lists of a dozen albums each and both strictly in order alphabetical by artist. In no way is this intended to be a balanced list, far from it in fact: It is quite utterly biased to what has caught my attention in a lasting way in 2012.  It is vastly influenced by artists that I have seen live, either this year or somewhat previously, and I make no bones about that fact. Here it is:

• Alabama Shakes - Boys and Girls
• Awna Teixeira - Where The Darkness Goes
• Bex Marshall - The House of Mercy
• Boy - Mutual Friends
• Cowbois Rhos Botwnnog - Draw Dros Y Mynydd
• Ellen and The Escapades - All The Crooked Things
• First Aid Kit - The Lion's Roar
• Hurray For The Riff Raff - Watch Out Mama
• Joanne Shaw Taylor - Almost Always Never
• Karine Polwart - Traces
• Phantom Limb - The Pines
• The Tatsmiths - Curiosity Shop
• Trailer Trash Tracys - Ester

Please feel quite free to add comments, queries, suggestions or questions. It is what this is all about, whether negative, positive or simply mystified!  All comments are moderated (by me alone, so you know that I read them) and while I prefer it that you can put your real identity to your piece, because you should believe in what you are saying and be prepared to stand up and be counted, I will sanction the publishing of "anonymous" comments. Comments that are defamatory, offensive or totally irrelevant will not be published.

I don't bite either. I'll attempt to answer questions and comments either in comments of my own in reply or in a more general 'round-up' post.

I intend to post the second of these lists later this coming weekend. I am intending to add links to related content in both the above mentioned posts as soon as I can.  It is my intention to deal with the ever more interesting category of "EPs and mini-albums" in the meanwhile and I'd like to do that as a post complete with such links from the get-go.

Live Music 2012 - Grip of the Blues

While the title of the post is borrowed from a 2008 album by Finnish blues guitarist and songwriter Erja Lyytinen, who is not actually touring the UK until 2013 but I very much intend to see her live then; it happens to sum up my live music forays in the next couple of weeks rather well.
It all kicks off next weekend and involves only small venues...
If you were watching footage of the Diamond Jubilee Concert in London earlier this summer you might have noticed a rather special guitarist accompanying Annie Lennox for her performance. That was Joanne Shaw Taylor. She is a songwriter and singer too and has very recently released her third album on Ruf Records (Ruf 1181). Here it is.

Live at Bristol Tunnels, 11 October and Tavistock Wharf, October 12.

Having never seen her live before I'm very much anticipating that it will be amongst the live highlights of my 2012 - and there have been many.

  

This next artist I have seen live, in 2009 supporting Seth Lakeman, after the release of her excellent 2008 album 'Kitchen Table'. Bex Marshall also has a new album out and is playing at The Griffin, Frome on 20 October. Here is that album, released on House of Mercy as HOM 002.

The following day, Sunday 21 October, is the first Frome Blues Festival held at the Cheese and Grain. In an exciting line-up one highlight is Chantel McGregor, the recently announced winner of 'Best Female Vocalist' at the British Blues Awards 2012 and an award that Joanne Shaw Taylor had been the recipient of in both 2010 and 2011.
   

  'Like No Other' is her 2011 début album - released by Tis Rock Music as TRM001.

The twelve tracks on it include inter alia a splendid cover of Stevie Nicks' Rhiannon (3:39) and yet the self-written songs vary wildly in length. Track 8 'Cat Song' is just 2:16 but follows the rather remarkable 'Daydream' and another truly astonishing cover version...

More albums I want - 2008, part 7.

Here goes with another selection from 2008 and these are already on order and, indeed the last I already have. One of the most common enquiries here in the last few weeks are about who is supporting Seth Lakeman on his autumn UK tour. I don't know and, when I saw Seth Lakeman live in Frome in July the support act was not advertised in advance as far as I could find.

Only later, when it finally occurred to me that she was not completely overshadowed by Seth Lakeman, I realised that should have bought this at the time but I didn't. Now I have it on order and can't wait to hear her renditions of delta blues and rock again.

With backing musicians playing various instruments on various tracks, this is not the same as the remarkably visceral, if slightly messy, solo performance that she provided when supporting Seth Lakeman back in July. That is not to say that I was disappointed, for I wasn't, but I did wonder at the time that perhaps with backing musicians...
I also, rather contrary-wise, anticipated not liking the album as much. I was possibly wrong on both counts: NOT playing solo seems to make her sound more focussed on CD. Live with a band I can't say but now I wonder.

That topic tempts me to mention another artist of whom, until very recently indeed, I was completely unaware:

Kelly Richey - Carry The Light (2008)

High school history teacher and also blues-rock guitarist, this album is on US import only and that is a pity.

In a completely different style, but still quite American in a totally different sense, is the pop-fusion trio called Brazilian Girls. Brazilian they are not and the only female is Sabina Sciubba, an Italian New Yorker bought up in France and Germany, while Didi Gutman is Argentinian and the trio is completed by Aaron Johnston. The music, which involves a host of guest musicians, is eclectic but involves elements of pop, dance and electronica combined with any other influence that took their fancy (and they are very many and varied) in an unconsciously free-flowing way and similarly employs lyrics in at least five languages, several of which are often combined in one song. It is not however music difficult to listen to, far from it in fact, and I find it hard to pick favourites but here goes:

• Losing Myself
• Berlin
• L'interprete
• I Want Out
  

Some artists have been invoked as influences and Blondie is the one I have seen cited most often. I think that that is an invidious comparison when, as it often is, taken too far. This album doesn't actually, when taken as a whole, sound much like anyone else well known and this is exactly why its unpredictability is so welcome and refreshing - take it as it comes and it is a delight to listen to again and again.
That there are very slight similarities at times, particularly in the prominence of the vocals, that at times make me think CSS - all of who are Brazilian and, Adriano Cintra aside, female - is perhaps no great surprise. While the second CSS album, Donkey (2008), is greatly different to their 2006 début, CSS, it remains a splendid example of how something rather improbable can take hold and soon become something unforgettable; at Glastonbury 2007 they even made the sun come out! I had seen the Glastonbury footage before I saw them at Latitude 2007 in the sunshine a couple of weeks later and, given the circumstances of their formation, they were simply electrifying playing live. That trait, I strongly suspect, is also true of Brazilian Girls and I hope to get the chance to find out.

Poor Man's Heaven - Seth Lakeman live in Frome.

Well, all I can say is that it was something special.

Seth Lakeman and his band were show-stopping. It is probably the only time that an artist with a top-ten album (UK #8), for the first time and on the week of release, has played 'The Cheese & Grain'. That was to a sold-out audience (of 625), as part of Frome Festival 2008, and I wonder if it will ever happen again? The set was brilliant and included tracks from all the albums. There were many highlights but two in particular come to mind:

Solomon Browne from the new album 'Poor Man's Heaven', which is about the disaster that befell the Penlee lifeboat of that name on 19 December 1981.
It was smashed to bits, with the loss of all the volunteer crew and all who they were attempting to rescue, when the ship-wrecked coaster Union Star rolled on to it during the rescue attempt in 40 ft seas. I don't think I've ever been to a concert that reduced a significant proportion of the audience to tears.
On the other hand another potentially sad song, Kitty Jay (the title track from the 2004 album and the story of a suicide), was given a rousing version that, with Seth playing such furious fiddle that he was shredding his bow, means Dartmoor ponies must now forever live in fear of their tails being requisitioned. It was also the song that took the gig, and the audience, into truly remarkable territory.

It was not only a wonderful show but also a fine example of the changing face of music. I was however slightly annoyed by the reception given to the support act; much of the audience simply talked loudly at the back as though they had gone to a pub and there happened to be live music. I know that is not unusual but I still think it rude. In fact I now think the problem was, at least in part, that the sound was set up badly and that her genre of music was not what most of the crowd was expecting.
It wasn't exactly in accord with my expectation either but, as I wanted to be near the front, I wasn't ever going to make that obvious. In fact I had no idea what 'support' to expect as, although that there would be some was mentioned, it was not specified on anything I could find.
To be honest Bex Marshall did a fine job playing electric guitar (country & delta blues style) and singing, without any back up, in what must have been a very trying situation indeed. It just strikes me as an odd choice of support and that it would have been better if she had been with her band rather than solo. http://www.bexmarshall.co.uk/. For all that I wouldn't be averse to listening to the album Kitchen Table and in fact I'm much minded to buy it.

Kitchen Table (House Of Mercy), 5 May 2008.

She played only one cover version and a brave, quite impressively successful, one at that. A bluegrass-rock version of Hendrix' Purple Haze!