RECORD REVIEWS NOVEMBER 2021

 

Over The Moon

Chinook Waltz (Borealis)

Cowboy country from Canada, Over The Moon are Alberta duo Suzanne Levesque and Craig Bignell, the title being their home studio and, augmented by assorted guest players,  the music being a throwback to old school bluegrass and Western swing. Featuring fiddle and mandolin by Bruce Hoffman, it opens with the self-penned ‘Lonesome Bluebird’, a folksy bittersweet number about having dreams but never having the courage to stretch your wings.

It’s followed by the first of four covers, Denis Keldie on accordion and Levesque singing lead on Ian Tyson’s evergreen ‘Someday Soon’, Tyson’s late sideman Mel Wilson providing the impetus for the second, a stripped down, fingerpicked  take on the Everly’s ‘Kentucky’, a number he’d  always urged them to learn, with Bignell up front and Hoffman on dobro.

The third takes them back to the late 1930s giving a  cowboy touch to Harry Roy’s big band swing number, ‘They Can’t Black Out The Moon’, a whimsical number about lovers making use of the moonlight during wartime blackout, a harmonising duet with embellishments from clarinet, accordion, upright bass and lap steel. Then, completing this clutch of covers, it shifts to Texicali flavours with Levesque on lead and bass for Buddy and Julie Miller ballad ‘I Can’t Get Over You’, Joshua Braca from  Grammy winners The Texmaniacs  providing the signature Tejano accordion alongside pedal steel, piano and nylon string guitar. 

Returning to their own material, the gently jogging ‘John Ware’ relates the story of an Alberta legend, the Black Cowboy who, born a slave in Tennessee, was hired for a cattle drive to Alberta and ended up marrying a Calgary girl and staying, becoming renowned for his horsemanship and an influential figure in the ranching industry.

Bergin’s back in the saddle for another swing style number with the whimsical ‘I’m Not Cool’, the narrator bemoaning how  nobody pays him any attention, but that heads start to turn when he takes up with a girl with the face of an angel and a smile to light the darkest night.  The last of the covers begins the final stretch with Bergin singing lead on another from the Ian and Sylvia Tyson catalogue, albeit written by Steve Gillette and  Tom Campbell, Levesque playing arco bass, Aaron Young on baritone acoustic and again featuring mandolin and fiddle on a lovely interpretation of ‘Darcy Farrow’ (taken at a slower pace than the Matthews Southern Comfort version).

Sung by Levesque, ‘When She Rides’ tells of a cowboy’s daughter and celebrates the bond between girls and horses and the freedom of riding away your heartaches, a bond not broken when she leaves for college and he waits for her return. And, finally, bookended by crickets chirping, there’s the five minute title track duet, an evocation of night at their ranch in the foothills,  the deer in the fields,  the dog curled up, a campfire, the coyotes howling,  the song of the birds and the peace and contentment they’ve found together. 

It doesn’t push any envelopes or break down any walls, but it’s a perfectly delightful listen that should see Over The Moon enjoying a well-deserved place in the sun.

Mike Davies

MIKE DAVIES COLUMN NOVEMBER 2021

LIONS OF DISSENT return with a new single, the distant vocals, loping Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! having a definite Iggy Pop Passenger feel coupled with In-Flight which, with its discordant opening,  effects coloured driving riff and echoey vocals is more of a Lennon psych-blues persuasion. It’s completed with a solid, moody live version of the lead track.

Singer-songwriter SHOSHANNA follows up her jazzy Unapologetic with a more soulful R&B groove on the laidback Sunflower Forest, offering a warm glow as the colder, darker nights set in.

Cherry Red have a stupendous 30CD collection of local rock acts from the late 60s/early 70s gathered together as Once Upon A Time In The West Midlands: The Bostin’ Sounds Of Brumrock  (1966-1974) tracing the evolution and development of that scene as, inspired by The Move, musicians embraced mod pop, psychedelia, blues, progressive rock, glam-rock and heavy metal. The usual suspects are obviously included, among them The Move, The Moody Blues, The Spencer Davis Group, Traffic, The Idle Race, Slade, The Electric Light Orchestra, and Judas Priest, but there’s also a wealth of obscure or forgotten names as well as unearthing some rare recordings.

There’s a handful of the titles you might expect, among them I Can Hear The Grass Grow (The Move), Denny Laine’s Say Don’t Mind, No Face No Name No Number (Traffic), Mr Armageddon (Locomotive), Imposters Of Life’s Magazine (The Idle Race), Ball Park Incident (Wizzard) and Roll Over Beethoven (ELO), but otherwise these are likely to be things you’ve never heard, including some by the top names. 

With 69 tracks, I’m not going through them all, but of the familiar artists I should mention lesser known releases Life’s Not Life, the final single from The Moody Blues prior to Denny Laine leaving (taken from an unreleased album); Rocka Rolla the debut single from Judas Priest after Rob Halford joined; Brown Girl off Steve Gibbons’s 1971 solo debut album (there’s an Uglys track too);  Moonshine from the post Stevie Winwood incarnation of The Spencer Davis Group; When The Train Comes back off the debut Chicken Shack album featuring Christine Perfect;  Climax Blues Band with Like Uncle Charlie and the terrific One Way Hotel from Play It Loud, the first album by Slade under their new name and sporting a pre-glam bovver boys look (as well as an extended version of Security an almost never heard track by The N’Betweens. Former Move member Ace Kefford even gets two tracks, under his own name and as the Ace Kefford Stand (with Cozy Powell) with the hitherto unreleased Daughter Of The Sun.

Elsewhere, there’s also lesser known offerings from names that never quite achieved the same level of success, such as Trapeze, Deep Feeling (who featured  Jim  Capaldi and Luther Grosvenor), Dave Morgan (who replaced Dave Pegg in The Uglys), harmony pop outfit The Californians (with their version of the hit by fellow Brummies The Fortunes, You’ve Got Your Troubles) and the similarly inclined The Montanas. There’s even a welcome inclusion of cult progressive outfit Bachdenkel with Donna plus the ultra obscure An Apple A Day by their earlier – and distinctly very different bouncy beat pop sounding- incarnation as The U-Know Who.

The real collector delights though come from names I suspect will be unknown to even diehard devotees of the era. Disc one kicks it all of with the freakbeat I Must Be Mad by Craig (though the opening threatens to turn into the Bonanza theme)  featuring 15-year-old drummer Carl Palmer and voted by The Observer as second only to Pink Floyd's Arnold Layne as the best psychedelic single of the 1960s, two of the band going on to form Galliard, also represented here with the far folksier psychedelia of A Modern Day Fairytale. Palmer’s not the only formative rock star to be found in their more youthful days. The unimaginatively named The Doc Thomas Group were a Hereford R&B outfit whose line-up included future Mott The Hoople alumni Mick Ralphs and Pete ‘Overand’ Watts, here with their cover of Fontella Bass hit Rescue Me. 

From Shard End came The Bobcats, their career never extending beyond the one single featured here, the R&B pop of Let Me Get By  which never lived up to their assertion they were “the new generation”. Elsewhere on Disc One you’ll find West Brom’s The Extreem whose On The Beach was released on the cult Strike label; Deram signings Double Feature with Bob Lamb on drums covering Cat Stevens’s Baby Get Your Head Screwed On; formed in Erdington, Capitol Systems were fronted by Bob Catley, later of Magnum fame, their hitherto unreleased On Time a particularly strong number; having enjoyed success with things like He’s In Town and Poor Man’s Son, The Rockin’ Berries were on their way out by the time they recorded Yellow Rainbow, co-penned by Graham Nash, the track never getting a release; Young Blood (Don’t Leave Me In The Dark) was another outfit with Cozy Powell on drums; again previously unissued, Ideal Milk were basically a Cream tribute band, hence their  cover of NSU; also seeing the light of day for the first time, the demo of I Know What Her Name Is offers a handclappy goodtime number with Tremeloes echoes by Simon’s Secrets, a Stourport outfit whose singer Cliff Ward later found fame as Clifford T Ward; Cherrywood Green is named for an area of Bilston from whence came Just William, pseudonym side project from their day job as Herbie’s People; hailing from Wolverhampton, Giorgio & Marco’s Men offer the R&B Baby I Need You, the band going on to become The Sad and record cult classic It Ain’t Easy; which leaves the psychedelic organ-driven Yellow Cave Woman by Velvet Fogg.

Moving to Disc Two, you’ll find further forgotten gems such as Like A Tear by psychedelic outfit World Of Oz, perhaps better known for should have been hits Willows Harp, The Muffin Man and King Croesus;  The Exceptions (Don’t Torture Your Mind) featuring Dave Pegg with tambourine courtesy Robert Plant; Walsall’s Jardine with the previously unreleased gloom rock Masochists Of Strangulation (the title might have had something to do with that); former Deep Feeling man Gordon Jackson with the Tim Buckley-influenced Me And My Dog featuring Robbie Blunt on sitar; Cinnamon Quill with the organ-based R&B of Candy; clearly influenced by The Small Faces, Imagination was a Revolver B-side; still featuring Paradox (Imagination) was the new but no more successful name for Capitol Systems; a spin off from World Of Oz and sounding like Robin Gibb fronting  Procol Harum,  Kansas Hook are represented here by a cover of an abruptly fading Dance In The Smoke, better known via Argent; psychedelic blues rock outfit Hard Meat were once big hopes for Warners,  Ballad of Marmalade Emma and Teddy Grimes a lighter and country blues sound than the band name suggested; The Ghost (initially The Holy Ghost evolved from the ashes of Velvet Fogg, but the urgent, clattering When You’re Dead  failed to spook anyone’s interest; Cathedral turned down an offer of management from Don Arden, hence perhaps why The Hard Way never progressed beyond the acetate version included here.  The disc also features offerings from the slightly better known likes of Trapeze, Bakerloo (featuring ‘Clem’ Clempson and initially The Bakerloo Blues line with the only instrumental, Big Bear Ffolly, a nod to Jim Simpson), Medicine Head (the raw single version of His Guiding Hand), and, a band that really should have made it,  Tea & Symphony (Boredom), ending with Big Bertha (the remains of the Ace Kefford Stand after he quit) making a decent fist of Time Of The Season.

And so to Disc 3 which kicks off with Penny Farthing signings Fable and a cover of The Honeybus song She Said Yes, proceeding through the country tinted Lamp Lighter Man by (Mike) Sheridan & (Rick) Price, two stalwarts of the Birmingham scene; We’re Gonna Change All This, an unreleased demo by Fred’s Box featuring Bob Catley and Dave Morgan (who  also has his own  spooked protest folk Ill Wind included); progressive rock trio Luv Machine; Salamander (a psych folk pop mutation of Revolver with People from their ill-conceived concept album The Ten Commandments); Ptolomy Psycon (a bunch of students from Wrekin College, fuzzed folk blues swayer Shadow Bright from their limited edition and ultra ultra rare  10” Loose Capacitor; Cannock outfit Mail with their Move cover Omnibus; the previously unreleased Dishearted and Disillusioned by Possessed featuring Band of Joy co-founder Vernon Pereira; Fairfield Ski (featuring Nigel Wright from Top 40 hitmakers The Cheetahs with the glam-flavoured Circus); regular Radio One sessioners Ironbridge (from guess where) with  their George Harrison guitar sound; and Bedlam, a heavy blues outfit featuring Dave Ball and Cozy Powell from Big Bertha. 

Also to be found, are tracks by bigger luminaries Roy Wood (Dear Elaine), Jim Capaldi (Eve), Selly Oak’s Jimmy Powell (growly German B-side Talking Progressive Blues) and, rounding it all off in appropriate manner, Blackfoot Sue with the stomping Slade-like boogie Bye Bye Birmingham. Licensing issues means there’s no Sabbath, Plant or Froggatt with The Fortunes, The Applejacks, The Renegades (massive in Finland), Small Heath spawned  The Ivy League  and Finders Keepers also disappointingly  absent, while nitpickers will also cite Danny King and The Dukes, Denny and the Diplomats, Carl Wayne and the Vikings and Gerry Levene and the Avengers; however, featuring well-researched notes by David Wells, this is still an indispensable addition to anyone with an interest in the formative history of Birmingham’s rock n roll.