It’s easy to be cynical about the whole remaster/rerelease game – it’s been abused by the music business for so long as a way of making the same material pay its way several times over. And then a 20-year anniversary of something like “Johnstown” comes along with a couple of really good reasons to make the effort. The technical one is that the vinyl release would demand a remaster and the commercial reason is that there are music-lovers that would have completely missed this in 1999 who are blown away by it in 2019; I’m right at the front of that queue.
In common with her autobiographical 2017 album “A Girl in Teen City”, “Johnstown” has a strong sense of place – the scene is set for the twelve stories against a backdrop of a town that has lived for decades with the ominous threat of floods. And just to ramp up the feeling of impending doom, the album opens with a minor-key murder ballad underpinned by distorted and menacing guitar. So that’s just the title song and I’m buying it already.
There genuinely isn’t a mediocre song on the album; they’re all right out of the top drawer and they’re a varied bunch in terms of themes and arrangements; “You’ll Always Be” is a relatively straightforward love song until an edge of shadow is added with a superbly atonal piano solo, while the hauntingly beautiful triple-time ballad “Alabaster” is wrapped in a minimalist arrangement that emphasises the individuality of Susie Ungerleider’s voice and the octave leaps that give the voice its unique quality. And so it goes, right up to the album’s final song, in triple-time again, the gorgeous “Tangled & Wild”, embellished by some keening pedal steel and bringing the album to a gentle close; but not quite.
That’s where the original album ended, but there are a few little surprises in the shape five stripped-back demo-style versions of songs from the album. I’m also cynical about the addition of ‘bonus’ tracks that are added to tempt the completist collector, but the additions here work well and they have all been previously commercially available as an EP. “Johnstown” proves that the song works without the album arrangement and “Alabaster” (which finally closes the album) is perfect as a solo piece. This is an album that I genuinely wish I’d heard twenty years ago and I’m sure I’ll be listening to in another twenty years.
“Johnstown” is released in the UK on Friday August 30th on Continental Song City (CSCCD 1164) and Oh Susanna will be touring the UK in early September.
It’s fair to say that this isn’t really my manor. Yeah, I love The Railway Hotel in Southend for many reasons, the first being the wonderful bunch of people who choose to drink there. It’s an old-fashioned boozer that has successfully resisted any vogueish makeovers and remains a pub for people that like pubs (oh, and music, definitely music). It’s the kind of place where musicians, artists and poets (and the occasional photographer) meet up to drink, politely and non-judgementally discuss each other’s work and the work of others and drink and then drink some more. I may have fabricated a piece of that last sentence; you decide which bit.
The reason for this trek out to Southend-on-Sea was the launch of books by Ralph Dartford and Phil Burdett and live performances by each of the authors. The last time I saw a live poetry event was nearly four years ago when Dr John Cooper Clarke supported Squeeze in Greenwich, which sets the bar fairly high. No worries on that score; Phil Burdett and Ralph Dartford had the goods and were ready to deliver.
Ralph Dartford
It’s no secret that both of these artists have had their demons and maybe still do; that’s where the authenticity shone out in both sets. Ralph Dartford opened reading selections from his current volume “Recovery Songs” packed with pathos, humour and stark social realism (“Addict” set the tone for Ralph’s performance) joined up by a seamless narrative which demonstrated some superb comic timing. The audience was Phil’s home crowd, but they were attentive and hugely appreciative during Ralph’s set. I recommend the book and you can get it here .
Phil Burdett
And the it was time for Phil Burdett, on a long and unpredictable journey from some very dark places indeed, to premiere his book of prose and poetry “Rhyming Vodka with Kafka”. Never one for convention, Phil delivered a mixture of readings from the book punctuated by songs old and new with support from fellow Southend legend Steve Stott on mandolin and fiddle (I’m not going to ask what happened to the banjo). For a first attempt at this format Phil nailed it, with the audience enthralled by the material and the delivery, pin-drop silent during the readings and wildly appreciative at the conclusions, particularly “The Bad Pub Guide” and “Dogs Accustomed to Loud Music”. Maybe a prophet can have honour in his own country.
Steve Stott
Bottom line – I loved both performances; the audience loved both performances. I bought both books; a lot of the audience bought both books. It’s a long time since I’ve seen an entire audience so totally immersed in a performance. Thank you Ralph Dartford and Phil Burdett for making me realise that I need more poetry in my life.
I guess this is one that was inevitable; a live album that was recorded almost by accident, just because they could, and what an interesting piece of work it is. Unusually, this didn’t grab the attention at the first listen and it wasn’t a grower. On about the fourth listen, the power of the lyrics suddenly hit home and everything started to fit together. Sam Baker’s songs are self-contained stories, told with perfect economy; there isn’t a superfluous word as he tells us about the kind of people we’re all surrounded by, whether we know it or not; the single mothers, the alcoholics, the drug addicts, the widows and the guilt-ridden all doing their best to make it through another day. It’s the life of a small Texas town told in twelve small but perfectly-formed chapters.
The delivery as a live performance matches up perfectly with the stark subject matter. Sam Baker relates the tales in a sung-spoken style that has hints of Tom Waits and an interesting minimalist picked electric guitar style (more about that later), plus a wooden block to tap out the tempo with a foot. It works perfectly because the stark arrangement focusses all the attention on the power of Sam’s writing and the stories of despair and injustice but, ultimately, hope.
Back to that thing about the guitar style. After surviving a terrorist bombing of a train in Peru, which nearly ended his life, Sam’s long and painful recovery eventually led to using his music as a therapy, which included learning to play an upside-down guitar to adjust to the loss of a large part of his left hand. The playing style he’s developed strips all of the arrangements back to basics, shining a spotlight on the beating, bleeding heart of each of the songs.
Highlights? “Mennonite” is a poignant story of an unlikely relationship and forms the centrepiece of the album, “Boxes” is a heart-rending tale of a Vietnam widow and “Odessa” deals with the tragic fallout from a spoilt, entitled upbringing. Seriously though, it’s all good and you get the chance to hear it live in the UK early next year.
“Horses and Stars” is released in the UK on Friday August 23rd.
Natalie Tena of Molotov Jukebox
…….. and helps keep me sane.
This has even more been the case since my gallbladder recently tried to kill me and I spent several days in a hospital ward with absolutely nothing to do.
I loved recorded music for many years and while studying my HND I started to go to live events. This was how I discovered live and recorded music affected me in a way nothing else does. I felt like Jack-Jack in Pixar’s “The Incredibles” when Kari, his babysitter, puts him in his highchair. She puts on a Mozart CD and says ‘It’s time for a little neurological stimulation’. When she presses play, Jack-Jack stops being distracted, sits up, suddenly becomes focused and it releases his inner powers. This is how music makes me feel. On a normal day, I usually listen to at least one album on my own in the car, this helps me dispel the stresses of the day and calms the deeper turmoil of being the head of my family. Before her life changing accident and subsequent cancer treatment my wife and I jointly shouldered the chores and usual trials and tribulations of life. The disability she has been left with restricts her ability to do a number of things. I’ve taken on those things too.
During college, and the years after, I went to many music performances and enjoyed getting wrapped up in the atmosphere of the performance and of being in a crowd of like-minded people. My wife gets the same feelings from music but also going to see her football team play. As with live music, watching on TV is enjoyable, but being there is infinitely more.
My somewhat eclectic tastes in music – influenced by my brothers’ liking for electronica and the indie band music of the nineties – were powered in my 20s by being able to go to nearly 100 events and having access to multiple independent music stores, as well as the wonderful HMV (our local branch still survives and I bought some more CDs only the other day). Since the demise of many independent music shops I’ve found new music via a number of sources. Steve Lamacq and Lauren Lavern’s Radio Six Music shows (DAB only);music festivals; working with Caffè Nero Live, Talentbanq, Success Express Music and Laurel Canyon Music. Even through social media with the many artists I’ve connected with and through my photography.
As an early adopter of CDs, because I found I could listen to them at home, in the car and on the move, I’ve been collecting CD since I left college and now have access to over 15,000 songs via my iPhone, thanks to iTunes Match. Even today I get CDs, having discovered, through the death of a friend, that a digital only library dies with you rather than being passed on to your heirs.
Out of all of those albums there are a few that are so well produced and written, that paired with my Jaybird wireless ear buds, I am transported into a deep rich soundscape, enveloping my senses and soothing my mind whilst stimulating my inner self. I can’t express why the following give me this feeling – they simply do.
Love Over Gold Famous Blue Raincoat
Soft Control Tragic Kingdom
Not the complete list. However, I think it demonstrates a diverse mix of artists, genres and decades. What I like about the above is not their similarities but how diverse the styles are. However, the common elements are the commitment by the artists, engineers, technicians and producers to produce a dynamic and engaging performance.
An interesting thing to note for Jennifer Warner’s beautiful album: The Hunter, is I find the cover of the Waterboys classic song ‘The Whole of the Moon’, although an acceptable cover, sticks out like a sore thumb compared to the amazing production and feel of the rest album. My understanding is this was done to be the launch single.
Supermarkets selling CDs led to the death of independents by offering very popular CDs at lower prices stealing sales from independents. But they aren’t interested in low volume established acts or new unproven acts. However, if you get involved in the resurgence of the live music scene, you can experience emerging acts with all their passion and drive, in an intimate atmosphere. I’ve been to many smaller venues in recent years, and these are the melting pots for future major acts, I’ve seen new bands at several of the venues the global phenomena such as Ed Sheeran and KT Tunstall started playing at to only a handful of people.
Michael Butterworth
