Concept album? Well. I’m not quite sure that’s an adequate description for Rita Hosking’s sixth studio album, “Frankie and the No-Go Road”. You can just take it at face value as a collection of twelve beautifully-crafted songs, delivered with stripped-back folk/Americana arrangements and a striking, sometimes fragile but always impassioned, voice; it’s all of those things but it’s much more as well. The album takes the popular mythological theme of the questing hero and weaves this through the fabric of our journey through life while interleaving mystical and mythological references from various cultures. Each of the songs has a subtitle relating to the progress of the mythological hero, Frankie (whose gender isn’t specified) through their heroic quest.
But before we go any further, let’s hear it for the guys in the band; Rich Brotherton (playing virtually everything plus production and backing vocals), Glen Fukunaga (upright bass), Don Wynn (drums, percussion), Sean Feder (dobro, djembe), Kora Feder (harmony vocals) and Andy Lentz (violin) supply masterfully understated backing for Rita’s guitars, banjo, harmonica and vocals, creating an understated soundscape that evokes “Harvest” and “After the Goldrush” and perhaps the austerity of Springsteen’s “Nebraska”.
The opening songs “A Better Day” and “Wetiko” set the scene for the album; “A Better Day” is a delicate exposition, gently identifying a malaise in the writer’s life and creating the link with fictional hero Frankie. Rita’s voice, with a hint of vibrato, and the mournful harmonica create an aura of melancholy which is crying out for resolution. “Wetiko” identifies the malaise with the Native American concept of a parasitic psychosis, devouring the individual from within, relying on a sparse banjo/drums/bass arrangement to evoke menace and malice. As the album progresses the two narrative strands are woven ever tighter with episodes of denial (“Magic Carpet”) and resolve (“I See Storms”) before the quest reaches its crisis.
“Black Hole”, with its hints at a support group meeting and “Mama Said” reveal that the demons are within and always have been. The telling image is that of a dog dying of thirst but afraid to drink because of his reflection in the water in “Mama Said”; once that fear is overcome by a leap of faith, then the journey becomes easier. The quest continues with the hazardous journey home, challenges to the outcomes, and a sharing of the lessons learned in “Sing” which finally reunites the two narrative strands with a simple solution; put your faith in the natural world and express yourself freely.
“Frankie and the No-Go Road” is a fascinating and haunting piece of work; the instrumentation is sparse and the vocals powerful, yet simultaneously vulnerable, pulling us in to two narratives linking the inner and outer worlds. It’s an ambitious concept, but the deliberate musical understatement and complexity of the narratives and themes create a tremendously satisfying album which occupies the mind long after the last notes fade away.
“Frankie and the No-Go Road” is released in the UK on Friday October 30th.
So, Kimmie Rhodes. Singer-songwriter, former Willie Nelson collaborator and duet partner and generally overlooked talent from way back when, she has been quietly taking care of business by writing, recording and performing since 1981 without ever achieving the recognition she deserves. Well, maybe now is the time to put that right. On “Cowgirl Boudoir”, Kimmie works with multi-instrumentalist Johnny Goudie, producer Gabriel Rhodes and Sunbird Studios house band to create a poignant, forthright and sometimes achingly beautiful set of songs that deserve a wider audience. And it’s not just a collection of songs, the album has a narrative which flows from the hauntingly world-weary opening duet, “I Am Falling” with Johnny Goudie to the positive and uplifting closer, “Yes”.
With “Cowgirl Boudoir”, you get a lot of bang for your buck. There are fourteen songs on the album and absolutely no filler; every song is there on merit. It’s fair to say that there aren’t too many cheerful little toe-tappers but the songs are well-constructed, beautifully played and sung from the heart. There’s a theme which runs through the album; about half of the songs are about dysfunctional and flawed relationships, but that’s not really news in the singer-songwriter genre or in country music generally, is it?
Musically, the core of the studio band is Kimmie Rhodes (vocals, guitar), Johnny Goudie (vocals, guitar, piano), Gabriel Rhodes (just about everything), Dony Winn (drums, percussion) and Glen Fukunaga (bass) with the seasoning supplied by Jolie Goodnight (backing vocals), Tommy Spurlock (steel guitar, Dobro) and Stephano Intelisano (keyboards). The musical settings emphasise the mood of each song on the album, from the plaintive steel guitar of the opening track and “Lover Killing Time” to the uplifting piano on “Me Again” and folksy feel created by mandolin and guitar on “Always Never Leave”. Not forgetting the psychedelic feel of the electric sitar on “The Sky Fell Down” and the Hammond B3 filling out the mid-range of “Worthy Cause”.
The lyrics are deceptively simple; they sound very straightforward, but they’re actually very well-crafted. “Me Again” uses themes and characters from fairy stories and fables to evoke childhood, and buying “Eight Days a Week” to represent a rite of passage into adulthood and music, while “Trouble Is” has the listener trying to work out what trouble actually is before working out that trouble just is. And I could go on, but the best bet is for you to have a listen for yourself.
“Cowgirl Boudoir” is out now on Sunbird Records (SBD 0021) and you can see Kimmie Rhodes on tour here.
