Earlier this year, we reviewed “Twang” by The James Oliver Band. He’s from a long line of Welsh guitar wizards he has a lot in common with, including the ability to inject a bit of humour into their music. Anyway, Allan loved the album and would have been really happy to see the band play live. And then COVID reared its ugly head and all bets were off. For someone breaking through and relying on live performance to do that, lockdown was the worst thing that could happen. As you can see below, James has made the best of it. Here are his High Fives:

 

Hi. For those who don’t know me, I’m a rock ‘n’ roll guitarist from South Wales, following in the footsteps of the likes of Dave Edmunds, Mickey Gee and Man. My debut solo album Twang came out in April and has done way better than I would ever have thought, which makes up for going from playing 250 gigs a year to a mere handful. It spent five weeks at number 1 on the Amazon Blues Chart; got three plays on BBC Radio 2 from Cerys Matthews (keeping the Welsh flag flying!) loads of press and reviews. Just a shame I couldn’t really support it on the road.

 

 

I started my YouTube channel in March for something to do, and since then I’ve gained 10,000 subscriptions and over 5 million views. Also got positive comments on social media from Albert Lee, Bill Kirchen, Greg Koch, Kenny Vaughan and the legendary John ‘Drumbo’ French from Captain Beefheart’s Magic Band. A real buzz to be recognized by some of my heroes. People might not associate me with Beefheart’s music from the stuff I play, but he’s absolutely one of my favourites. I even genuinely like Trout Mask Replica!
 

 

During lockdown I’ve also been lucky to have lessons from Eric Klerks of The Magic Band and, in a different style, one of the masters of the Telecaster (my guitar of choice too) Redd Volkaert – two major influences on my guitar playing. They’ve really helped me improve as a guitar player.
 

 

 

Many of my friends know I’m a huge Pirates fan, especially their guitarist Mick Green. I was asked by Romek Parol and BJ Anders to join a band called Gibson Martin Fender, which is the title of a Pirates’ track. Romek and BJ played with Green in the ’90s. They made 3 records with him and toured the world. It was put on hold because of COVID, but I’m looking forward to playing my Mick Green licks in this cool side project.
 

I had the shock of my life earlier in 2020 when I won the UK Blues Federation’s Emerging Artist Of The Year Award. I hope to be a Re-emerging Artist in 2021…!

 

 

 

 

And by way of a bonus here’s a video clip for you as well:

James oliver band stay outta trouble official video – YouTube

 

 

 

 

“Twang”; simple, it does what it says on the tin. OK, front cover, but you know what I mean and, actually, it does quite a lot more than it says on the tin. The twang is certainly present, but there’s a lot more to this album than Dick Dale influences. “Twang” is much more than surf or surf-punk. James Oliver pulls in many more guitar influences including Elmore James, Chuck Berry, Link Wray, Mick Green, Wilko Johnson and George Thorogood. And that’s before we even mention the legendary Dave Edmunds, whose collaborator Paul Riley mixed “Twang”. If you want another Welsh guitar connection, James is from Blackwood, home of the Manic Street Preachers – all part of the service.

The album’s opener, “American Cars”, is a humorous swipe at the role of the car in rock ‘n’ roll music and the conspicuous absence of the American models in the Welsh Valleys, in a similar vein to Billy Bragg’s “A13, Trunk Road to the Sea”, but with more guitar; loads more guitar and plenty of piano as well. It sets the scene for the album; the musicianship is cracking, it’s one hundred miles per hour and there’s a lot of humour running through it.

Did someone mention Link Wray? The instrumental, “The Missing Link” is the surf equivalent of Stevie Ray Vaughan’s version of “Little Wing” as James runs through the various techniques of surf guitar, demonstrating his complete mastery of the genre (and more besides); and just like SRV’s piece, it’s a masterclass.

There are a couple of Big Joe Turner covers, “TV Mama” and “Honey Hush”, where James pulls in a few other references as well; “TV Mama” hints at Dave Edmunds’ 1970 No. 1 cover of the Dave Bartholomew classic “I Hear You Knocking”, while “Honey Hush” hints at a Phil Spector  production, which Dave Edmunds also emulated for a while in the early seventies.

The James Oliver Band is much more than a simplistic tribute to sixties surf music. The stylings are complex; there are multiple tempo and rhythm changes throughout, particularly on “The Missing Link” and “Clean House” and the album’s closer, the Dick Dale classic “Misirlou” winds down with a bottom E string being gradually de-tensioned as the tune winds to a close. These are all examples of a musician with technical expertise and a clinical understanding of how a song is put together.

With the death of Cavan Grogan earlier this, maybe it’s time for James Oliver to make his breakthrough; after all, sixty-five years down the line all Chuck’s children are still out there playing his licks.

“Twang” is out now via The Last Music Company (2REV101).

Here’s a little video clip for you as well:

It’s a bit of a rock/pop tradition; the weekend song. They’re liberally sprinkled through the history of the rock era and the best of them have a bit of an edge. Dave Edmunds, not surprisingly had more than one, his Nick Lowe co-write “Here Comes the Weekend” and the John Fogerty cover “Almost Saturday Night”. Even Elton got in on the act with “Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting”.  As we moved towards the 21^st century, the emphasis shifted from booze to clubs and chemicals – David Gray’s “Babylon” and Hard-Fi’s “Living for the Weekend”. Which points us to 2020 and the new single from Anton and the Colts, “Boy Living for the Weekend”.

Anton O’Donnell, who fronts Anton & The Colts, is based in Glasgow (bear with me here) the subject of a very famous music-hall song on a similar theme, “I Belong to Glasgow”, written by Will Fyffe a hundred years ago in 1920. “Boy Living for the Weekend” opens with a plaintive harmonica evoking the horn of a train heading for the city before breaking into a Celtabilly shuffle that has a lot in common with the Dave Edmunds offerings. Lyrically, it’s a 2020 version of all the songs above – let’s shake off the shackles of the weekly grind and take everything (every little bit) that the weekend has to offer. After all, we’ve got five days to regret and recover.

Sonically, it’s a lot like a seventies/eighties Dave Edmunds Spector-like Wall of Sound mix. There’s a lot going on, with two guitars, the punchy rhythm section, piano and loads of harmonica fills under Anton’s gruff American-tinged vocal. It’s the kind of production that would take your head off played on a Rock-Ola; it’s a full-on assault on the senses in the same way as the anticipated weekend will be, and once it starts, there’s no letting up until it’s over.

“Boy Living for the Weekend” is out now as a download and on streaming platforms and will be available as a limited run of 300 seven-inch singles later in the year.

Here’s a bit of a late addition, the video which was released this week:

OK, so just to save a bit of time, we all know about Eddie Manion, yeah? Whaddya mean, no? Where have you been for the last forty years? You really should get out more. If you want the whole nine yards, check out his Wikipedia entry, but, just for the moment, his first major gig was with Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, and since then he’s played with Dion, Dave Edmunds, Diana Ross, The Allman Brothers, Willy De Ville, Keith Richards and Bob Dylan and many, many more. He was part of the E Street Band for Bruce Springsteen’s “Wrecking Ball” tour and, more recently, he’s been touring Europe with the Light of Day Foundation raising money for Parkinson’s Disease research. His motto is ‘Have Sax, Will Travel’.

Eddie Manion plays tenor and baritone sax (mainly baritone when working as part of a horn section) as well as having a pretty good voice, which you can hear on his first solo album, “Follow Through”, released in 2004. At the end of the gargantuan “Wrecking Ball” tour, Eddie started work on his second solo album “Nightlife”, opting this time for instrumental interpretations of standards and not-quite-so-standards, rather than his own compositions. It’s a double-edged sword. Both ways you’re going to be judged; one way you’re compared with others’ songwriting, the other way you’re compared with previous versions of the same songs. So how does “Nightlife” shape up?

I guess it’s natural for anyone who’s spent their entire adult life as a professional musician to want to do their own thing once in a while. Eddie Manion’s spent a lot of time playing in horn sections in big bands where nuance isn’t always too high on the agenda, so when the window of opportunity opened, he pulled together a superb bunch of musicians to make an album placing his sax playing firmly stage centre against a backdrop that allows him to interpret songs with style and subtlety. From the album’s opener, a gorgeous version of the theme from the 1961 movie “Town Without Pity”, with its piano triplets and wah-wah trumpet, to the closer “”The Only One, from Roy Orbison’s final album, the album demonstrates Eddie’s ability to create flawless interpretations of jazz standards such as “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” and “Stardust” whilst also combining Springsteen’s “City of Night” in a medley with King Curtis’s “Soul Serenade”.

Throughout “Nightlife”, Eddie Manion combines a jazz-styled finesse with a rawer rock edge to create a satisfying and varied set of instrumentals that embody great musicianship and sympathetic arrangements. If you value musical skill and the ability to pick a good tune, then you’ll love this; Eddie’s a superb player and he’s surrounded himself with like minds to produce a real musician’s album. As an added bonus, Eddie’s also a very good photographer and the CD packaging includes some of his own fabulous photos taken mainly on the “Wrecking Ball” tour; it’s the icing on the cake of a lovely album.

You can order it here.