It came as a bit of a shock last year when Henrik Freischlader announced that he was undertaking his farewell tour in support of the “Night Train to Budapest” album. To UK fans, the announcement seemed to come out of nowhere but whatever Henrik’s reasons are, you have to respect them and make the most of the fairly substantial legacy that’s already out there. As a parting shot, he’s pulled together some live recordings from the final tour for release as “Night Train to Budapest Farewell Tour – Live 2014” which is released on Cable Car Records on Friday March 27th.
I was quite critical of Henrik’s previous live CD, mainly because it was spread over four CDs and felt a bit unfocussed. “Live 2014” is very different. It comprises ten tracks on one CD and it’s all (apart from a small excerpt) original material. When you’re a supremely gifted player like Henrik, it’s tempting to throw in a cover as a crowd-pleaser but it can be a distraction; there’s none of that here. As you might expect from the title, songs from “Night Train to Budapest” predominate; “A Better Man”, “Everything is Gone”, “Point of View” and “Gimme All You Got” all feature, while there are two each from “Get Closer” (“Too Cool for Me” and “Keep Playin’”) and “The Blues” (“Disappointed Women” and “She Ain’t Got the Blues”) and one from “Recorded by Martin Meinschäfer”, the slow, powerful closer “Desert Love”.
As a closing statement from Henrik, it’s pretty good. The band are excellent throughout, Dirk Sengotta (drums) and Theofilos Fotiadis (bass) providing a solid platform for the melodies and improvisations of Henrik and Moritz Fuhrhop (keyboards). The songs showcase Henrik’s voice (very under-rated, in my opinion) and his guitar mastery across a variety of styles from the straight raucous blues of “She Ain’t Got the Blues” through the funkier “A Better Man” to the slow controlled power of “Desert Love”. He nails the fast stuff, but his mastery of the slow and soulful is complete; there isn’t a modern guitar player I would rather hear playing slow and emotional. Because this is a live set, the emphasis is very much on the playing (which is exceptional) and sometimes the songs and the vocals lose a bit of value. I would have loved to hear something from “House in the Woods”, which was a very strong set of songs. Maybe “Breaking my Heart Again”, a powerful song with a great vocal.
I’m sorry that Henrik has decided the band thing isn’t working for him but it’s good that he’s still involved in Cable Car Records as a musician , writer and producer. If the label continues to release artists as talented as Layla Zoe, Linda Sutti and Tommy Schneller, then he’s still making the world a better place.
“Night Train to Budapest Farewell Tour – Live 2012” is out on March 27th on Cable Car Records (CCR 0311-45).
You certainly can’t accuse Henrik Freischlader of taking time out in 2013. After the release of the superb “House in the Woods” in September 2012, he took his band on tour over the winter to support the album. When that tour finished he went to live in the studio for a few months to produce his four-CD live album, play virtually all the instruments on, and produce Layla Zoe’s album “The Lily”. After that, he went on to record this album, “Night Train to Budapest” which was released in December 2013; he did some shows to promote this album as well. Henrik is self-taught and plays guitar, bass, drums and organ; he also has a great blues/soul voice and writes powerful songs in a second language.
Following the “live band” approach he adopted for his previous studio album, “House in the Woods”, Henrik has reverted to his favoured studio approach with “Night Train to Budapest”, playing all the parts himself with the exception of keyboards which are played by his live collaborator Moritz Fuhrhop. The album begins in the way you would expect, with “Point of View”’s blistering riff and powerhouse solo before shifting through a wide variety of blues-rock stylings and even a ballad, the acoustic-led “Caroline”, which would sound at home on a 70s American west coast album, although it really didn’t need the trucker’s gear change for the last chorus.
There are a few funky blues tunes, “Gimme All you Got” and “A Better Man” (which has more than a touch of Ike and Tina’s “Nutbush City Limits”), the mid-tempo riff-driven “Down the Road”, “Everything is Gone” and “Shame” and the reggae-tingedf “If This Ain’t Love” with its clean chords and over-driven lead guitar.
There are a couple of slow blues songs which demonstrate the control and finesse of Henrik’s vocals and playing. “Thinking About You” is a relationship breakdown song with washes of controlled feedback as the song builds to a climax, while “My Woman” is very slow with a minimal arrangement held together by Moritz Fuhrhop’s Hammond chords, leaving plenty of space to emphasise Henrik’s powerful, clean guitar work. The album closes with the slow, brooding (almost one-chord) menace of “Your Loving was so Good” after just over an hour and eleven very good songs.
It’s a very good album, but that’s what you would expect from a Henrik Freischlader studio effort. His songwriting seems to be taking a more introspective direction over the last two studio albums, with an increased emphasis on loss and loneliness in the lyrics, but it is the blues after all. If you like blues and blues/rock, then I’m pretty certain you’ll like this. If you don’t like those styles, it’s still worth a listen because of the quality of the performances and the songwriting.
Out now on Cable Car Records (CCR 0311-42).
