Favourites : Tom Waits - Bawlers

In 2006 Tom Waits issued Orphans a sprawling 3 CD ser of lost songs and out takes.   It was subtitled Brawlers, Bawlers and Bastards with each CD reflecting a different Waits' style - 

Brawlers being the noisy, cranky songs that have occupied much of Waits's output since Swordfishtrombones in 1983 (although the fantastic Road to Peace could probably have been included on any of the discs).  Bastards is a mix or weird covers (Heigh Ho from Snow White), Kerouac and Bukowski poetry readings, tall stories and jokes told at concerts.  

Bawlers however represents the more romantic and sentimental songs that Waits has always been so good at.   

Prior to the release I already had a few of these songs as they were released on sountracks that I had picked up in sale bins.  These included Jaynes Blue Wish, Long Way Home (from Big Bad Love),  Little Drop of Poison, (The End of Violence), and Walk Away (Dead Man Walking).   Waits even covered two Ramones' songs, The Return of Jackie and Julie on Brawlers and Danny Says on Bawlers.  I particularly like the latter. 

It is the schmaltziness of Bawlers that I am repeatedly drawn to with some of Waits' best latter day songs.  The aforementioned songs are great tasters and Norah Jones did a great cover of Long Way Home.  John Hammond did a great version of Fannin Steet but I always enjoted Tom's original.  The collection finishes on a great high with a great cover of Young at Heart, a song that Sinatra made his own.  While I like Sinatra's version I think I prefer Tom's.  

Re-assessments 1 : Tom T Hall - Nashville Storyteller - start with the song "Homecoming"

I am pretty sure my introduction to Tom T Hall was the same as many others in New Zealand, the early 70s cheesy country cross-over hit "Old Dogs and Children and Watermelon Wine".  The next songs of his I heard were I Love and I Like Beer.   I never hated them but I never rated them either.  No need for further exploration - or so I thought.  

Never gave him or his music another thought for probably 20 years or so.  In the mid-90s I was exploring what at the time as being called alt-country.  A name that kept cropping up around that time was Buddy Miller, then the go to guitarist in Nashville.  He was lead guitarist in Emmylou Harris's Spyboy band and was also recording albums with his wife Julie and in his own name.  

Buddy's debut solo album, Your Love and Other Lies contained a song that I really liked.  That's How I Got to Memphis.  So reading the CD booklet I noted that it was written by none other than Tom T Hall.  Intrigued I did a little research and learnt that he was known as the Nashville Storyteller and had written a number of spongs that were rated by artists I liked.  An early song of his was Harper Valley PTA by Jeannie C Riley.  Knowing this I could see how he got his nickname.  

So I started listening and buying the occasional record - they werent much of an investment as you can usually pick them up for less than $10 and many for only $1 or $2.   One of the albums even had a song on it I Know Who I'll Be Seeing In New Zealand.  All very listenable.  

However one song in particular really stands out and is a great example of how sometimes it is what the lyrics don't say that is important. Homecoming is also one of the saddest songs I have heard.  It captures  how someone has lost touch with their roots and what is important and do not even appear to recognise it.  

I guess I should've written, dad
To let you know that I was coming home
I've been gone so many years
I didn't realize you had a phone
I saw your cattle coming in
Boy, they're looking mighty fat and slick
I saw Fred at the service station
Told me that his wife was awful sick
You heard my record on the radio
Oh, well, it's just another song
But I've got a hit recorded
And it'll be out on the market 'fore too long
I got this ring in Mexico
And no, it didn't cost me quite a bunch
When you're in the business that I'm in
The people call it puttin' up a front
I know I've lost a little weight
And I guess I am looking kind of pale
If you didn't know me better, dad
You'd think that I'd just gotten out of jail
No, we don't ever call them beer joints
Nightclubs are the places that I work
You meet a lot of people there
But no, there ain't much chance of gettin' hurt
I'm sorry that I couldn't be here with you all
When mama passed away
I was on the road and when they came and told me
It was just too late
I drove by the grave to see her
Boy, that really is a pretty stone
I'm glad that Fred and Jan are here
It's better than you being here alone
Well, I knew you was gonna ask me
Who the lady is that's sleeping in the car
That's just a girl who works for me
And, man, she plays a pretty mean guitar
We worked in San Antone last night
She didn't even have the time to dress
She drove me down from Nashville
And to tell the truth, I guess she needs the rest
Well, dad, I gotta go
We got a dance to work in Cartersville tonight
Let me take your number down
I'll call you and I promise you I'll write
Now you be good
And don't be chasin' all those pretty women that you know
And by the way
If you see Barbara Walker, tell her that I said "hello"

Jouney through the Past : Controversial Opinion : Neil Young's Best Period

For someone who has been releasing music for approaching 60 years now most Neil Young fans would point to those early years and then add in Rust Never Sleeps as his golden period.  I do enjoy that period and the quality is undeniable.  My favourites from that era being Rust,  Zuma,  After the Goldrush, Tonight's the Night and, in particular On the Beach.   

However, and to be a bit controvesial I believe he was at his best when he rediscovered his muse in the late 80s and produced the run of albums that I keep coming back to.  Later releases of live albums from this period also show that he was on fire on stage as well.  

I think the resurgence started with his return to the Reprise label (Geffen must have been really pissed off) with This Note's For You.  The songs on that were genrerally pretty solid even if the arrangements did not seem to bring them to life.  That took the quadruple live album (Bluenote Cafe) released years later.  Things were definitely looking up. 

Then, following the Japan, Australia and NZ only EP Eldorado, came Freedom, now my most played Young album.  Terrific songs and arrangements.  He repeated the Rust Never Sleeps trick of opening and closing with acoustic and band versions of Rockin' in the Free World.  Between those songs were some great originals like Crime in the City, Don't Cry, Someday and the Emmylou covered Wrecking Ball and then a nice bluesy version of the Goffin/King classic On Broadway. 

After the mix of acoustic and band tracks on Freedom,  Young reconvened Crazy Horse for what I now think of the definitive Crazy Horse album - Ragged Glory.  What an aptly named album - typical Horse sound, sloppy, driving and glorious.  A key question was whether it was inspired by or inspired grunge and it was after this and the accompanying tour that Neil was dubbed the Godfather of Grunge.   We are very lucky that the tour is so well documented with both Weld and Way Down in the Rust Bucket 

After such a great hard rocking album, clearly recorded in the ditch,  you could probably have put money on Neil returning to the middle of the road.  However whether you could have anticipated just how well he would do that.  Calling his next album Harvest Moon clearly referenced his much loved earlier album.  The songs reflected an older Young looking back on how he got to where was at that stage in his life.  It was a big success.  The band he assembled even resembled the band for Harvest with the addition of Spooner Oldham (if there a keyboard player with a better feel and who can make such a big contribution by playing so little?)  

The next album, Sleeps with Angels, was another curve ball, back with Crazy Horse but with only one song, the 14 minute epic, Change Your Mind,  recalling the grunge sound of Ragged Glory.   In much the same way that Hey Hey My My (out of the blue/into the black) was inspired by Johnny Rotten with its "Better to burn out that to fade away" line  the title track and
Prime of Life was inspired by the death of Kurt Cobain who quited that line in his suicide note.  

While not my most played Young album it is my favourite as I think, apart from the god awful and aptly titled song Piece of Crap, is his most cohesive thematically and lyrically. To me it seems like his reflection of the breakdown of the American Dream, whether it is the ghost like image of the abandoned  "Safeway Cart" rolling down the street,  the songs bookending of the album My Heart and A Dream that can Last or the reflection on the Western Hero.   

For his next album he really embraced his new mantle as Godfather of Grunge and went into the studio (and then on tour) with Pearl Jam.  Many people did not like or rate Mirror Ball  the album that came from those sessions but I always thought it was a solid "Heavy Neil" album with a couple of really stand out tracks.  I particularly like I am the Ocean (which would easily be in my top 10 (or 20) Neil songs, Downtown and Throw your Hatred Down.   It would be good to get a release of a live album but I understand that is locked up in record company politics.  

The run of great albums then finished with the release of the good but not great Broken Arrow and Silver and Gold.  Following the heavy Crazy Horse then more acoustic country approach he so often takes and while these were maybe not to the same standard as to what came before they still included some excellent songs with Big Time and Music Arcade on the former and Silver and Gold, Buffalow Springfield Again and Razor Love on the latter.

After these I feel his efforts have been quite patchy - Three great albums (Le Noise, Psychedelic Pill and Barn), some patchy ones and some I never connected with.   But for me these five albums represent a real purple patch and a middle/late career resurgence/reinvention that perhaps only Bowie has matched with his last 5 albums - but that is another story. 

A (potentially) unwanted song sequel : Rita Wrote a Letter - Paul Kelly

"Hey Dan, it's Joe here, I hope you're keeping well,  

It's the 21st of December and they're ringing the last bell" 

The 21st of December is now known to many in Australia as "Gravy Day" as How to Make Gravy a song offering hope and redemption, while acknowledging human frailty captured the hearts of people across the world.  The song had a similar hopeful feel to it that his earlier To Her Door had where a couple appeared to survive setbacks.  

The version in the link made the song even more poignant by linking the story of someone in prison missing family Christmas to those caught out by Covid.  The song captured Christmas family dynamics really well.  No doubt because Kelly drew upon his memories of big family Christmases, with all their stresses and strains. 

The song included the verse 

"And you'll dance with Rita, I know you really like her
Just don't hold her too close
Oh, brother, please don't stab me in the back
I didn't mean to say that, it's just my mind it plays up
Multiplies each matter, turns imagination into fact"

I am not sure why and I am not sure how I feel about it but Paul Kelly decided we needed an update and as he said in concert last week Joe was right to be worried about his brother and Rita.  And on or before getting out of prison  Rita Wrote a Letter and then Joe's life did not really work out and he is singing from his grave.  As usual Kelly is able to capture some of life's realities in a few of the stanza's that make the dissappointment for wh

"The day I walked out of prison
I knew that I was still in stir
For the crime committed I was still doing time
Behind the walls between me and her"
 .......
Rita wrote a letter
And this is what she had to say
She said, 'Joe I'm really sorry
But me and Dan, our love is here to stay
With the kids it's getting better
And now a little baby's on the way'
........ 
She said, 'Joe, I gave you good chances
But half a year turned into two
You could never hold your temper
And you always made it all about you'
...... 

Yeah, Rita wrote a letter
I'm still hugging it under the clay
Rita wrote a letter
Deep down I know it's better this way
And maybe she and Dan feel guilty
And the children sometimes cry at night
But I made my bed, I'm lying in it
And I know they're gonna be alright

And then at the end he recalls the earlier song 

But Dan, I don't forgive you
Oh, I didn't mean to say that
It's just my mind it plays up
Multiplies each matter ......................................

Recent Additions : Sunflare by Alan Sparhawk with Trampled By Turtles

Sunflare with Trampled by Turtles has quickly become one of my favourite new releases of the year.   Sparhawk's 2024 release White Roses, My God had many fans scratching their heads with its mix of electronics and Chipmonks style vocals.  The match with modern bluesgrass/folk group for Sunfare seemed much more logical collaboration.  

My Spotify Release Radar playlist (which AI algorithms update each week based on my listening and favoured artists) highlghted a couple of songs (Stranger and Too High) in August and September which made me listen to the whole album.  

This album stands up well against anything that Sparhawk did with his wife with the much beloved  Low.  Low formed in 1993 and was a much loved band by critics and some super fans like Robert Plant (who seems to cover a Low song every one or two albums.  If you have not explored Low's catalogue I recommend you do - you are in for a treat.   

You May Have Missed This - Ben De La Cour - Sweet Anhedonia

I am a fan of what some call Gothic Americana.  Dark Country, sometimes with an underying sense of humour, but that is not some essential. 

It has always been in country music with its murder ballads and songs like Long Dark Veil and Leon Payne's magnificent Psycho (check out Elvis Costello's version. The modern take may have started with artists like Nick Cave exploring Johnny Cash's dark side and its trail runs through Nick Cave, The Handsome Family, 16 Horsepower, Willard Grant Conspiracy and probably my favourite Jim White.  

Sweet Anhedonia by Ben De La Cour was released in 2023 and was one of my favourites of that year. Jim White produced it and his influence is evidenced in both the sound and the songs themselves.  Anhedonia is a mental health issue where sufferers fail to get enjoyment or pleasure from life's experiences.  

Sweet Anhedonia

I should have known you'd be back

With your sickle and shawl

Your dreams dressed in black

How does it feel

To feel nothing at all?

Nothing at all

If that is not dark enough for you you can also try Appalachian Book of the Dead

There's a sinkhole fallen from the cold grey sky

Where they scraped that trooper off the highway side

Two runaway convicts, kids on dope they said

Cops flooded out the holler dragged the river still

They never found them boys and I doubt they will

Just another lonesome chapter

In the Appalachian Book of the Dead

Where you gonna go when you can't go home

Where you gonna go? Where you gonna go?

Blood calls to blood bone cleaves to bone

Where you gonna go when you can't go home?

Winter came early the cold wind blew

And my grandma painted her porch haint blue

That night in Ammit County when the corn moon turned blood red

But something cold is stirring at the bottom of the creek

Where that little boy drowned back in '63

And the ink is running over

In the Appalachian Book of the Dead

Buckshot rattling in a garbage pail

A sliver of truth dug into every tale

A weeping angel painted on rusted shed

The dead hate the living but what do they know?

Just little white crosses on a county road

But they're writing out the ledger

In the Appalachian Book of the Dead

It is not all doom and gloom though, the reflective I've Got Everything I've Ever Wanted that seems to show that Ben has got a hold of his Anhedonia or it as least in remission. 

I took life by the hand and I gave it some kind of a whirl

Just another left foot walking through a right shoe world.........

......I used to watch through the windshield

At the coming of the night

Now I'm sitting in the kitchen

Laughing at the morning light

Song of the Day 65 : Our Lips are Sealed : Fun Boy 3

Our Lips are Sealed was originally a hit for The Go Gos but it is the version by Terry Hall and Fun Boy Three that is what I know best and enjoy the most.

When The Specials broke up the smart money was on Jerry Dammers having the most successful afterlife.  But the smart money is not always right and Hall's contribution to The Specials was probably under-estimated.  Evidence of this is that post Specials he probably had the most successful career.  First with Fun Boy Three, then The Colourfield and, after a few collaborations as a solo artist. 

Always interesting and now sadly missed. 

Favourites - Gomez - In Our Gun and How We Operate

Gomez is a five member band from both Southport and the English resort town Weston-super-Mare just across the Bristol Channel from Cardiff.  They play a mix of styles and writing and singing and swapping instrument leads from time to time - reminiscent of The Band's approach.  

I have been a fan since their Mercury Prize winning debut Bring it On and until she saw them Jan thought some of their music just noise.  

While I was in Dublin last year I came across an anniversary edition of their 2006 album How We Operate.  Jan and I (and Chris) saw the tour that supported this album.  It was fun and also what got Jan across the line in terns of enjoying Gomez's varied sound,.  Probably because it is their popiest album and while some fans were pleased others were put off by the overt stab at the charts. 

While I enjoy the pop of Girlshapedlovedrug I am more drawn to the dreamy Charlie Patton Songs  or the more representative Hamona Beach. 

I bought my first (CD) copy of In Our Gun in 2001 in Hong Kong when I heard it playing in the HMV
store.  But a few years ago I picked up this vinyl copy in Melbourne.   

A lovely pressing that helped me appreciate it all over again.  From the opening track - Shot Shot (the track that was playing in the store, through the title track and onto the close out Ballad of Nice and Easy you really get a good taste of what Gomez is all about.  

I have bought a couple of CDs since How We Operate but they never seemed to capture that magic again. We also saw Ben Ottewell solo at the San Francisco in what was a fun show.  They still play and record and who knows there may be another great album yet.  

Song of the Day : Almost Blue - Elvis Costello

Elvis Costello twice recorded songs with the same title as an album but then did not include the song on that album.  Almost Blue appears on the album Imperial Bedroom and is a great example as to why Costello is such a revered songwriter

Chet Baker plays trumpet on the album and then recorded his own version as well for the soundtrack album - Let's Get Lost

Almost blue

Almost doing things we used to do

There's a girl here and she's almost you, almost

All the things that your eyes once promised

I see in hers too

Now your eyes are red from crying

Almost blue

Flirting with this disaster became me

It named me as the fool who only aimed to be

Almost blue

It's almost touching it will almost do

There is part of me that's always true...always

Not all good things come to an end now it is only a chosen few

I've seen such an unhappy couple

Almost me

Almost you

Almost blue

You may have missed this - James McMurtry - The Horses and the Hounds

Way back in 2014 I wrote a blog about how much I liked James McMurtry's debut album Too Long in the Wasteland.   

More than 30 years after releasing that fine album in 2021 I think he released his finest work to date with The Horses and the Hounds.  While I enjoyed it immedirately it has steadily grown on me, the depth of the songwriting becoming clearer with every play.  

It was the opening song Canola Fields that drew me into repeated listening.  The best song I have heard about rekindling youthful love.  You can always expect some evocative phrases and this was the one that got me 

In a way back corner of a cross-town bus

We were hiding out under my hat

Cashing in on a thirty-year crush

You can't be young and do that

One song later, after the romanticsm of that track there is the pointed critique of Operation Never Mind how the US engages in war (or operations) these days.  With the profiteering and eliticsm of the KBR Man versus the poor country boy doing the fighting.

The country boys will do the fighting

Now that fighting's all a country boy can do

But all the time being very aware to avoid the public getting too het up about it. 

We got a handle on it this time

No one's gonna tell us we were wrong

We won't let the cameras near the fighting

That way we won't have another Vietnam

No one knows, 'cause no one sees

No one cares, 'cause no one knows

No one knows, 'cause no one sees it on TV

Later we have the funkiness of Ft. Walton Wake-Up Call built around relationship issues and how losing your glasses can make a whole day turn to shit.  

She's camped in the shower and she won't come out

And I don't have a clue what that's about

I'll just have to wait and see

Can't get online to check the bank

Twitter's on fire, my stocks all tanked

But what's really getting to me is

I keep losing my glasses

After more trials and tribulations the day ends as it started 

My daddy told me, if you got any sense

Better feed the woman, many years hence

I know what he meant and I got me a plan

But I can't read the menu 'cause, damn it

I keep losing my glasses (glasses)

Those are some of my highlights but as I am playing the record now - I could have picked three of four others 

Favourites - North Mississippi Allstars - Shake Hands wwith Shorty

I keep a list of favourite CDs I would like to have on vinyl.  These are genrerally ones that were released in the 90's and early 00s that have never beeen on vinyl.  I made the lisr some years ago now and there were about 70  on it originally.  Wuth the vinyl revival some have now seen the light of day and there are now ONLY 50 to go.  I am resigned that some by some pretty obsure artists or artists that have now left us may never see the light of day. 

So I was really pleased when Shake Hands with Shorty was released on vinyl for the first time on Record Store Day last year.  I first heard the CD when I was browsing in Radar Records in Christchurch around 2000 and it was playing in store.  

The band is built around brothers Luther and Cody Dickinson who are the sons of Jim Dickinson, the almost legendary member of the Dixie Flyers who backed many soul artists in the 60s, played piano on Wild Horses and produced The Replacements.  

Shake Hands with Shorty is their debut albium and is steeped in the hill country blues style of Mississippi Fred McDowell,  Junior Kimbrough and RL Burnside.  It starts with the MCDowell classic Shake 'em on Down, includes Burnside's Going Down South and ends with Kimbrough's All Night Long. 

I already had McDowell's I Do Not Play No Rock'n'Roll and knew him through songs like Good Morning Little School Girl and You Gotta Move (check the Stones' version on Sticky Fingers) but this was my introduction to the other two.  This is a different style of blues, driving repetitive and a link to some more modern sounds.  

I have continued to track the Dickinson boys both with the North Mississippi Allstars (their Up and Rolling album was my favourite of 2019) and as session musicians where they have supported favouries like John Hiatt and Anders Osborne. 

Song of the Day : My Old Friend The Blues - Steve Earle

Confession time.  The first version of My Old Friend The Blues was by The Proclaimers on their excellent Sunshine on Leith album.  I was aware of the buzz around Steve Earle's Guitar Town album but it was not enough for me to buy the album at the time.   However it is Steve Earle's Version that I now play the most. However I did play The Proclaimers recently and that too is bloody good.  

Steve Earle has written some other great songs that are equal to this but what a good (late) start to a career.

Simple

Elegant

Complete

My Old Friend The Blues

Just when every ray of hope was gone 

I should have known that you would come along 

I can't believe I ever doubted you 

My old friend the blues 

Another lonely night, a nameless town 

If sleep don't take me first, you'll come around 

'Cause I know I can always count on you 

My old friend the blues 

Lovers leave and friends will let you down 

But you're the only sure thing that I've found 

No matter what I do I'll never lose 

My old friend the blues 

Just let me hide my weary heart in you 

My old friend the blues

Favourites - Tom Petty - Wildflowers

I have been listening to Tom Waits since I bought his first album from a sale bin in a record store in New Brighton in 1979.  I caught him live at the Majestic Theatre in Wellington in 1980 and also saw the infamoouly poor Athletic Park gig with Dylan. 

I will admit it took me a while to get into Wildflowers.  However itt is now firmly my favourite and its scope is really pretty amazing.  It was also Petty’s own favourite album.  So much so that while he was alive he kept promising a definitive version with tracks left off the original double album and remixes of tracks he included on the soundtrack to She's the One (his least favourite album).    

The Petty Estate eventually made good on his promise with a number of releases that capture the full scope and achievements of the Rick Rubin produced sessions along with live material from the time.  There are now multiple places you can get songs from those sessions, and I have ended up with five on vinyl (that I can happily spread between my various listening systems and homes) as I would listen to something from the album every two or three weeks.

·       Two versions of Wildflowers and All The Rest – I have both the expanded three lp version and the sprawling box set with 7 albumsincluding live versions

·       Finding Wildflowers – with alternative unreleased takes and, unbelievably a few extra songs

·       Angel Dream – a reimagining of what She’s the One could or should have been, and

·       An original of She’s the One

I can happily listen any of them all the way through and each time marvel at the consistency of the songwriting and excellence of the playing (generally The Heartbreakers and 
the occasional guest like Ringo). 

So what of the songs.  While there are no major hits, there are just too many to choose from the title song Wildflowers, rockers like You Wreck Me and  Dylan's favourite Honey Bee, the reflective Harry Green, his cover of Lucinda Williams Change the Locks and You Don't Know how it Feels. 

I have often described my musical collecting journey as the ongoing search for the perfect album.  This is possibly as close as I have got.  

 

Favourites - Semi Twang - Salty Tears

I bought my first copy of Salty Tears in the sale/secondhand section of Everyman Records in Nelson not long after it was released.  

Whoever discarded it did me a great favour as it has endured as a favourite record for many years.  What attracted me to the album, apart from the price, was the production team with Jerry Harrison, Mitchell Froom, and Chris Thomas sharing production duties.  Clearly the record company was getting behind this release.  

It is a record that does not have a lot of standout tracks but holds together overall but check out the Title Track and No Other Girl

About once a year or so I go through a phase of playing the record a few times over about a month.  On one of those occasions, I started googling about what happened to them and why there was only one record.  No real answer but I did find that the lead singer and main song writer had in fact released a few solo CDs and I managed to track down 3 of them – each had the spark of something good going on but I suggest you start with Quiver.

Then in 2011 they got the band back together and have since released 3 excellent CDs which I bought directly from the band’s website.  All three are worth checking out but I suggest you start with Wages on Sin.

 

 

 

 

I'm Not Here - Let's not forget this interesting take on Dylan

There is a lot of energy and talk now around the Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown
at the moment. It is not going to get to New Zealand for another week or so but Dylan himself has endorsed it.  It comes with a new soundtrack that is basically the actors singing the songs in copies of Dylan’s originals.  I am looking forward to seeing the movie but the sound track does not interest me. 

This is not the first Dylan biopic.  In 2007 Todd Haynes wrote and directed I’m Not There.  This is what, in my opinion anyway, is a great and very Dylanesque take on Dylan’s life.  He is presented in different guises by different actors to represent different stages in his career.   The choice of actors is interesting, and the soundtrack reflects both the quirky nature of the movie and the man himself. 

What I like about the soundtrack is that it is a mix of fairly straight covers to some really interesting takes by a variety of artists some of whom you might not normally expect to associate with Dylan.  It is also where you can find some of the last, at least to now, available recordings of Tom Verlaine’s fluid guitar work.  His Cold Irons Bound is worth the price of admission alone.   Other highlights include Antony and The Johnsons’  Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door, The Hold Steady’s Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?, Cat Power’s Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again and Willie Nelson and Calexico’s Senor (Tales of Yankee Power).

However, in truth, every time I play the album a different track impresses me. 

 

 

Favourites - Grant Haua - Awa Blues - Judging a record by its cover

I liked the look of Awa Blues when I saw it in the NZ section at Slowboat Records in Wellington.  I had never heard of Grant Haua but it looked like something worth checking out.  I did a little research, checked out a couple of tunes on Spotify and decided that it was worth buying.   So $50 later and a short work home I was listening to it in full.  

Awa Blues is his first solo album.  Prior to that he was in what has been described as a Power Blues duo (Black Keys anybody) Swamp Thing.  

Not long after we caught him doing a live acoustic show and was impressed by the strength of his presence and show.  Unfortunately it was poorly attended with less than 30 people.  I  have therefore recommended to friends whereever he plays that they should catch him play and so far all have reported being very impressed. It is a pity that he seems to be better recognisd in Europe than he does in his homeland with good reviews, particuilarly in France and he records on a European label. 

The music is a mix of John Hiatt, Taj Mahal influenced acoustic country and Maori blues.  Grant's songwriting is strong throughout with some really great songs. 

When he plays Tough Love Mumma live he tells the great story of getting all his Aunts together, paying them with wine and the fun they had recording the video.  You can certainly see the fun, and love, in the video.  This is the Place portrays well the importance of land or whenua to Maori.  

New Addition - Perry Keyes , Black and White Town

 Perry Keyes has been described as “Redfern’s (Sydney) answer to Bruce Springsteen”.  I get that but while his lyrics reflect some of early Springsteen – think Meeting Across the River, and Backstreets in particular, the content is generally darker and reminds me more of Lou Reed.  His music also tends to be more pub rock than cinematic (but that is probably more a budget issue). 

My introduction to Keyes was 10 years ago now when I picked up his excellent Sunnyholt album.  Check out Home is where the Heart Disease is and the title track from that album.  That lead me to explore his back catalogue and stay tuned for new releases. 

In late 2023 I was notified he was releasing a new album, Black and White Town, and it would be his first available on vinyl.  It is another solid outing and as good a place as any to start.  Worth checking out Streets of a Black and White Town and Last Night in Redfern Park as tasters.