It’s an album of interesting contrasts where the lyrical themes run the entire range of human emotions, from the joy of becoming a parent to the gut-wrenching agony of losing loved ones. Despite the melancholy considerably outweighing the celebratory, “Sideways Rain” still manages to leave you feeling strangely uplifted and a lot of that is down to Steve’s ability create memorable melodies. Steve Mayone’s influences shine brightly through this album with Jeff Lynne-like string arrangements, Tom Petty jangling guitars and some laconic vocals that reference George Harrison. This could so easily have sounded like a Wilburys tribute, but there’s so much more going on, so many more influences, that Steve manages to create a sound that is his alone. 

The album’s title song typifies Steve’s approach to writing and performance; he takes a real event from his past, uses this as a symbol of the futility of struggling against insuperable odds in our lives (sometimes you just have to hole up and wait until the storm blows itself out), then creates a lovely melody with a sublime chorus which hints at the late seventies work of Ian Matthews. Of the thirteen songs on the album, the only one I wasn’t entirely convinced by was the cheerful and optimistic “So Many People Get it Wrong”, a song about becoming a father for the first time. But hey, it’s one song and the rest more than make up for it, even the raucous, feelgood “The Long Way Home” with the messiest, most joyful guitar solo I’ve heard in a long time. 

“Sideways Rain” feels like a very cathartic album, processing the deaths of close family members, contrasting it with the birth of a son and creating something positive and forward-looking. And the other standouts? Well, the last four songs on the album really. “Pretty Mama” is a slow blues with some lovely horns, “Early Morning Train” is a finger-picked ballad from the viewpoint of a driver in a train wreck, while “Strange Bird” and “Save You” have different takes on suicide. I know it doesn’t sound cheerful, but the final message is positive and the album is life-affirming. 

“Sideways Rain” is released in the UK on Friday June 30 on Janglewood Records. 

Want to know why Southside Johnny still has a fanatical fanbase after over forty years? It’s really simple: he has a stellar group of musicians working with him, they have a lot of fun, and the audience never knows what’s coming next. There are a few songs that are non-negotiable, but for the remainder of the set it’s like “Thunderbirds”; anything can happen. Where else would you hear someone drop a verse of the Ramones classic “I Wanna be Sedated” in the middle of an instrumental break. And, talking of surprises, who expected Gilson Lavis (Squeeze and the Jools Holland Rhythm and Blues Orchestra) to make a guest appearance for the blues classic “Key to the Highway”? And did you know that Johnny and Jeff Kazee are huge fans of Squeeze?

It isn’t just about Southside Johnny; it’s about a group of eight people who are very good at what they do – take a bow Jeff Kazee (keys), John Conte (bass), Tom Seguso (drums), Glenn Alexander (guitar), John Isley (tenor sax), Chris Anderson (trumpet) and Neal Pawley (trombone) – and to enjoy every minute of it. They can all sing, so the harmonies are spectacular, and they’re a band, not eight individuals (don’t take my word for it, read Jay Lustig’s just-published interview with the man himself).

Now if you come to a Jukes show expecting a carefully-choreographed run-through of the same songs they played last night, and the night before and so on, you came to the wrong show. The audience at a Jukes show expects to be surprised, they expect randoms (though I bet not too many expected “I Wanna be Sedated”) and they want the thrill of not knowing what’s going to happen next. Hell, most of the band don’t even know that. And what they got, from the piano intro and horn riff of “Love on the Wrong Side of Town” was about 135 minutes of old songs, new songs, Lyon/Kazee songs, Little Steven songs, covers, blistering solos from the horns, guitar and keys and just enough quiet moments to offer a contrast to the power of the rest of the set.

And standouts for the night? Well, they hit the ground running with punchy versions of two early classics, “Love on the Wrong Side of Town” and “This Time It’s for Real” and then time-warped forward forty years to “Spinning” from “Soultime” and for over two hours it was a roller-coaster; all killer, no vanilla. You wanted blues; you got it. You wanted soul; you got it. You wanted rock; you got it. You got a singer who’s been in the business over forty years and still wants to go out every night and give every audience a unique experience aided and abetted by the best band in the business. It really doesn’t get any better than that, and every UK gig now is a bonus; make the most of it. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes – living legends.

You can see the photos from the gig here.

Why do a live album? Well when you’re as good live as Eleanor Underhill, Molly Rose and Salley Williamson, the prospect of being recorded live holds no terrors. They can even play without any amplification if they have to. “Live”, recorded in Asheville, North Carolina, over two nights was an attempt to let a wider audience hear the songs in their live incarnations: three voices and four instruments (including Eleanor’s harmonica). And it’s a highly successful attempt; the quality of the performances is superb and with fifteen songs, no-one can complain about quantity.
The mix of songs is fairly representative of the live experience, featuring songs spanning their studio albums and a couple of interesting covers, “These Boots are Made for Walking” featuring Salley Williamson’s vocal and upright bass, and a deft stripping-down of the eighties classic “Bette Davis Eyes” that shows exactly how powerful the song is without the synthesised eighties percussion.
Throughout the album, the harmonies are perfect and the recording captures the warmth and intimacy that’s a huge part of any Underhill Rose show, highlighted in the celebration of community and friendship, “They Got My Back”. There’s no inconsistency; the performance is perfect throughout. If I had to pick standouts, I would go for the sultry “Whispering Pines Motel” or the combination of photographic imagery and reminiscence of the lovely “In Color”. If you haven’t seen Eleanor, Molly and Salley live yet, this is the next best thing. If you have seen them, it will bring those memories back.
Now let’s wait for Tony Visconti to tell us it was eighty percent overdubbed.
“Live” is released on Friday June 30.

The band’s name is HVMM (pronounced ‘hum’, you know like Chvrches) and they were playing Camden Rocks Presents at Proud Camden. An early evening slot on the hottest weekend of the year didn’t look too promising, but this band were determined to go on and kill it. HVMM is Sam Jenkins (drums), Andy Teece (vocals), Ebony Clay (guitar) and Jack Timmis (bass) and they’re based in Worcester, which might be relevant because they’ve got a bit of a Peaky Blinders image including some serious facial hair (apart from Ebony).
On stage they erupt in to a six-song set with their upcoming single “Lacerate” and from the outset it’s blindingly obvious that this isn’t some shambolic indie outfit or Shoreditch hipsters. This band means business and they ain’t taking prisoners. Powerhouse drummer Sam stokes things up from the back and alongside bass player Jack builds a platform for Ebony’s monster over-driven riffs and Andy’s manic, demented prowling and half-shouted/half-sung vocals. It’s loud, aggressive and in-yer-face but make no mistake, they’re great players and the songs are all carefully crafted. When they crank out “Pummelling a Monk” and “Modern Pussy” to close the set, you know you’ve witnessed something a bit special. As for musical genre, who knows; it’s hard and heavy but the lyrics are fairly leftfield, maybe nu-metal indie? Anyway, they make a glorious noise and you can’t take your eyes off the stage. That spells great gig to me.

We’ll be down at the front again some time soon, meanwhile have a look at this:

This one’s going to need a little historical perspective; I’ll try to keep it brief. Young guitar-slinger/singer starts to create a buzz in the early seventies, takes half a lifetime out to raise a family but never stops playing and writing, eventually comes out of self-enforced retirement to take up a writing and performing career with his wife, teams up with I See Hawks in L.A. to make an album. The context is important here, because musical influences and stylings that underpin the album from the late sixties/early seventies are married up with stories of rural America. There are little hints of Harry Nilsson, maybe Jim Croce as well in some of the arrangements, but the influences don’t stop at folk and country.

“Be Nemanic” opens up as a barrel-house blues which morphs into a Stax brass-driven stomper (á la Otis and Carla’s “Tramp”) telling the story of the granite-hewn immigrants who helped build the United States; it’s a rousing story of pride and a hint of a warning. There’s a similar raw edge to the opening song “Dirt” but with a raucous chain-gang feel, as the song explores the futility of mineral exploration. There’s a lot of humour in there too in the zydeco-tinged story of two knowing drug mules and the everyday day tale of country jealously, “Mr and Mrs Jones” with a rockabilly beat, some lovely Hammond and some very Steve Cropper-like guitar fills.

The title song, “I Hold Gravity”, is a love song, pure and simple, made achingly poignant by the fact that Gerry’s wife and songwriting partner Susan died as the album was nearing completion and the album’s closer “Into the Mystic” evokes a sense of deep loss before consolation is sought in communion with nature and the desert.

The ten songs on “I Hold Gravity” will pull you through a wide range of emotions. You’ll smile at “God Lubbock”, laugh out loud at “Mr and Mrs Jones”, yearn for the idyllic setting of “Here In the Pass” and cry at “I Hold Gravity” and then you’ll want to put yourself through that emotional wringer all over again; it’s that good.

“I Hold Gravity” is released on Friday June 23.

Straight up front, you need to know; this album won’t be for everyone. I have a strong suspicion that this is deep into Marmite territory, that it’s an acquired taste. Texan Sam Baker is one of those songwriters who is revered by his peers (Malcolm Holcombe’s another) who understand the journey he’s on and appreciate the craft involved in his work. One of his aims with “Land of Doubt” is to tell the stories or convey the feelings to his listeners in the most economic way possible without losing any of the nuances. Stripping back music usually involves leaving out instruments that add texture to arrangements, keys, horns, even electric guitar and bass. The approach Sam Baker has taken is to work out the minimum of sounds necessary to create the feeling he wants to evoke and to add nothing extraneous to it.

The economy isn’t just applied to the instrumentation. The melodies and the rhythms are kept sparse and simple and even the number of words is restricted, a bit like applying the haiku discipline to every aspect of making an album. Producer and drummer Neilson Hubbard, guitar player Will Kimbrough and cool jazz trumpeter Don Mitchell create perfect minimalist arrangements that allow the songs plenty of space; each of the elements is honed to perfection like a setting designed to emphasise a perfect gemstone, but not to overpower. There isn’t a hint of a standard format or template here. Each song gets exactly the instrumentation it needs; nothing more, nothing less. The percussion ranges from the almost non-existent on the country waltz “Love is Patient” to loud drums competing with the vocal on the swampy “Moses in the Reeds” and the military beat of “Some Kind of Blue”, telling the story of a Vietnam veteran who looks back to the war as the happiest time of his life.

At first glance, the track listing seems a little long, but ten songs are interspersed with five instrumental interludes that help to alleviate the sombre mood of the songs while additional colour and texture come in the form of Will Kimbrough’s ambient atmospherics, some piano and harmonium and some deft Chet Baker-style trumpet from Don Mitchell, particularly on “Say the Right Words”, the story of parents who disapprove of their daughter’s choice of partner but are too scared or smart (you decide) to tackle the matter head-on. One of Sam Baker’s strengths is in picking out these little tragedies from the background noise we’re surrounded and showing us the importance they have to the protagonists. It’s not always comfortable, but you can’t stop listening.

As I said at the top of this piece, it won’t be for everyone, but if you like the craft of the songwriter and the arranger, then you won’t be disappointed.

“Land of Doubt” is released on Friday June 16.