Aaron Lee Tasjan Get Over It, Underdog Blue Elan
“You can find your path forward by going backwards” was the advice given to Nashville-based singer-songwriter Aaron Lee Tasjan by his close friend, the late Todd Snider. Tasjan may be described as a ‘nearly man’ as, despite Grammy nominations, adoration in East Nashville, a hugely impressive back catalogue, and praise from his peers, including Elton John, he has often seen deserved stardom slip from his grasp.
Taking Snider’s advice, Tasjan went back to basics, playing solo shows and concentrating on songwriting. Many of the songs that made the final cut were sent to Snider for approval (he also co-wrote the song Real with Tasjan), but he sadly passed away before the recordings were completed. Also credited as co-writers are Mark Miller (Ballad of an East Canton Lowlife, Can She Get An Amen, The Dream Come True), Brian Wright (Twilight Zone Blues), Bobby Bare Jnr. (Clown Show, Lydia’s Boots) Denny Lloyd (Science Fiction), Jeff Ratner (Shiver) and Paul McDonald (No One’s Gonna Know).
Produced by Tasjan and his longtime sound engineer, Mark Miller, this eleven-track record, as the title suggests, comprises a measure of mirror-gazing and self-examination. Clever wordplay has been a consistent feature in Tasjan’s writing, and his latest collection is no exception. Opening with the slow-burning Science Fiction (“Man made the system we all have to live in / Man made machines/Spreading illness within us / Man made machines putting man out of business”) and closing with the piano-led The Dream Comes True, Tasjan drills deeply into matters close to his heart.
The instantly catchy toe-tapper Lost & Alone reflects that period of self-doubt (“How'd I end up so lost and alone? / Afraid of myself, afraid of my phone / I'd give anything to get back home”) and the funky Real, complete with a killer guitar break, is a plea for honesty and transparency in an increasingly dispassionate world. He returns to a difficult period of his life as a young teenager in Ballad of an East Canton Lowlife, recalling the vitriol experienced from frustrated folks seeking something to fuel their anger.
Tasjan was joined by the cream of Nashville on the recordings. Among them were his close friends Brian Wright (electric guitar), Steve Dawson (pedal steel, guitars), Jen Gunderman (Wurlitzer, piano, synth), Fred Eltringham (drums, percussion) and Jeff Ratner (bass).
Like his departed friend Todd Snider, Aaron may see stardom and commercial success pass him by, but he is worshipped by his industry peers and fans. With its impeccable songwriting and absorbing melody GET OVER IT, UNDERDOG is precisely why.
Declan Culliton
Sad Daddy Ozark Shine Free Dirt
Fourteen years since their formation, OZARK SHINE is the fourth album by four-piece band Sad Daddy, and like their previous records, it’s a genre-hopping affair with diversions into old time, jazz, country, western swing, acoustic blues and bluegrass.
A side project for the band members who live in different States and towns, Sad Daddy is Melissa Carper on upright bass, Joe Sundell on banjo and harmonica, Rebecca Patek on fiddle and multi-instrumentalist Brian Martin on guitar, kazoo, mouth horns, and harmonica. The songwriting duties and lead vocals are shared by the four members.
Recorded live to tape, in jug band style, at the Bomb Shelter in Nashville under the supervision of co-producers Andrija (Margo Price, Caitlin Cannon, Hurrah For The Riff Raff) and Dennis Crouch (Loretta Lynn, Vince Gill, Robert Plant), the recordings capture the quality of the quartet's playing and harmonising together with the energy of their live shows.
Thirteen tracks made the final cut on the forty-five-minute record. Standouts are Did We Turn Off the Stove, delivered a capella by the four members, the lively bluegrass inclusions Bossman and Broken Cup, and the jazzy I’ll Come Running.
The lasting impression that OZARK SHINE leaves is one of a collective simply enjoying themselves and paying homage to the music that fuelled their creative juices. A delightful listening experience.
Declan Culliton
Zach Aaron Live Across The Tracks Self-Release
Across The Tracks in Livingston, Texas, at what was previously an artist’s market and is now an intimate listening room/music venue owned by music lover Thom Bruning, it features two Saturday night shows each month for local and travelling artists. Sticking with traditions of previous years, no tickets are sold online; punters call the venue, book their seats and pay on arrival. It was the venue Zach Aaron selected for his first live album. The room was the first formal venue Aaron played at and has returned to over the years, and was therefore the fitting room to record his first live album.
Cleveland, Texas resident Zach Aaron came to Lonesome Highway’s attention with his excellent 2020 album DIRT FILL WANTED (his third album), followed by his equally impressive 2023 release, THIS LOVELY WAR. In characteristic classic troubadour style, both records told tales of misfortune, observations on relationships, life and death, often delivered with a dry sense of humour.
Over half of this live album’s selections are stripped-back performances drawn from the two previously noted albums, performed to an attentive and appreciative audience. May The Iron Horse get Fed, a co-write with another hugely talented Texan, Kayla Ray, which is recorded as a duet on THIS LOVELY WAR, loses little of its charm performed solo acoustic and equally the tender love song It’s You, taken from the same album, impresses.
A standout song is the semi-spoken Latigo Joe, which recounts the tragic tale of a cowboy convict who loses his life while riding in an inmate rodeo show. Dipping back into his 2017 album MURDER OF CROWS, Aaron explains that he only became aware six years into his music career that his dad proposed to his mother at a rodeo show in Southern Arizona, and wrote the song Arizona Cowboy, dedicated to his parents. Fill Dirt Wanted speaks of a lost soul needing to get his life on track again. A few cover versions are also included: Dead Flowers by Jagger/Richards and Alton Delmore’s Deep River Blues, which work particularly well.
Zach Aaron's writing style is vintage Texan, often drawing inspiration from the nomadic roughnecks who travelled the dusty roads of his native State in previous decades. LIVE ACROSS THE TRACKS lays bare his talents as a vocalist and songwriter and is the perfect introduction to an artist whose back catalogue is well worth checking out.
Declan Culliton
Charley Crockett Clovis Atlantic
“You can drop a fuckin’ record whenever the fuck you want. And what’s more important to me is dropping all this really good art right now’’ announced Charley Crockett on Instagram following the release of CLOVIS, his seventeenth studio album, on his Atlantic Outpost label on July 3rd.
The album had originally been released on May 5th but pulled from circulation due to legal complications with Island Records, who had released Crockett’s previous three albums LONESOME DRIFTER, DOLLAR A DAY and AGE OF THE RAM under the title SAGEBUSH TRILOGY. Releasing CLOVIS a short three weeks after the AGE OF THE RAM fuelled Island’s dispute, leading to the new album being temporarily taken out of circulation.
Known as the ‘gateway to the Sierras’, Clovis is a town in California with a marked western heritage. The Norman Petty Studio (Buddy Holly and Waylon Jennings regularly recorded there) in the town was the location for the recording of CLOVIS, which was completed with his backing band, The Blue Drifters, over six days in March of this year. Produced by Shooter Jennings, who is also credited as co-writer on several of the tracks (Jason Lee Moeller also co-wrote some of the songs), it only took a six-day turnaround to complete a fourteen-track album that runs a few minutes short of the hour mark; it is no mean feat, but typical of Crockett’s prolific output.
The Sagebrush Trilogy was steeped in western culture and, if anything, with this record Crockett drills even deeper into that subject matter that has defined much of his writing. Quite an amount of the material reads like personal reflections, whether in real life or in fantasy. Examples are the outlaw barely keeping ahead of the law in Down By Law or the unflappable character in Last Night at The Alamo (“He never said he was an outlaw / Though at times he was / He wasn't in it for the money / He only did it for the love”).
Although pigeon-holed as a country artist, Crockett’s self-titled ‘Gulf and Western’ genre drifts between country soul and blues, alongside more traditional country. The latter is represented here by a few killer mid-tempo inclusions. Country Music and Honky Tonk tick that box, but pride of place goes to Image of a Woman, a gorgeous song with sweeping pedal steel and a backstory of missed opportunity, globetrotting, and self-examination.
The instrumental title track, interestingly placed in the middle of the track listing rather than in the opening slot, is an ambitious, string-kissed, sweeping, cinematic soundscape composed by Stephen Barber (David Byrne, Natalie Merchant, T Bone Burnett), before the album closes with a nod to Waylon Jennings in Waylon Rides Again.
Melodramatic at times but also playful, CLOVIS sounds like something out of a movie soundtrack from an artist revelling once again in his freedom as an independent, whose destiny is summed up by a few lines from Image of a Woman, “Thеre's a million-dollar highway, it keeps on callin' me/It ain't ever gonna make me rich and I ain't exactly free.”
Declan Culliton
Rodney Crowell Then Again New West
Few artists can boast of recording an album, in this case with a host of well-known guests, setting it aside in favour of another project and simply forgetting about it for almost two decades. THEN AGAIN was to be Rodney Crowell’s follow-up to 2005’s THE OUTSIDER, but instead, seeking a change in sound and direction, he headed to L.A. to work with Joe Henry on 2008’s release SEX & GASOLINE. Incredibly, THEN AGAIN only sees the light of day when Crowell, by chance, stumbled across the recording in his vault.
The ten-track album includes two tracks not on the original recordings: Go Light A Candle, featuring his longtime friend and collaborator Emmylou Harris and Lera Lynn. The second added song is a moving tribute to Leonard Cohen, If I Could Speak to Leonard, written before his death in 2016.
Although written almost twenty years ago, several of the tracks sound as vital today as they did when originally put to pen. Are You One Of Us? is a point in case. A duet with Guy Clark, it’s a blistering anger-fuelled affair (“They’ll use ya, bruise ya, pick-and-choose ya, rate or date or complicate ya / They’re gonna force your hand, they’re gonna change your mind / They’re gonna stick your money where the sun don’t shine”). The Has-Been Vents His Spleen is another song that sounds fresh and vital today, with Crowell spitting fire at the industry-manufactured pop/crossover genre (“No, it’s not Dwight Yoakam or George Strait, I’d call a farce / It’s that other milk toast so-and-so who has never seen a horse”).
Kieran Goss and Annie Kinsella add their voices to Sing Your Heart Out, a heartening homage to the power and beauty of vocal expression, and other guests include Lyle Lovett and Chely Wright on the punchy What You Gonna Do Now?
It’s a pointer towards the quality of Crowell’s treasure chest of a back catalogue that, THEN AGAIN, lay gathering dust for so long and has only surfaced by chance. Drilling deeply into themes of mortality as well as forthright reflection, it’s a worthy companion to Crowell’s masterly early 2000’s output.
Declan Culliton
Jess Klein Dreaming Aloud Self Release
Yet another stellar album for the very talented and under-rated Jess Klein. Based in Hillsborough, North Carolina, Jess has been releasing top quality albums for many years now and this represents her fourteenth release since a debut appeared back in 1998.
The title track Dreaming Aloud opens the album, and it is a poignant recollection of youthful love in days gone by. Next up is All It’ll Take and a song about living life large, taking on all challengers and banishing doubt. Angel Choir has a soulful rhythm with acoustic guitars strummed and a big production on the harmonies. What If dreams about a world where everything was easy and there was no uphill battle to be fought against self-doubt, oppression and lack of freedom.
I Wanna Be Love is a melodic joy, full of great interplay and a bouncy chorus. It has a sing-along quality and is one of the more commercial sounding tracks included. In contrast is Delay the Sunrise and a reflective song played on piano with the sweetly plaintive vocal of Jess ruminating on the vagaries of love and chances missed. Never Stop has a deep groove with bass and drums, deep in the pocket, as the anchor to the soulful groove and guitar flights. Jess sings this with so much control and nuance.
Old Rock n Roller is no doubt steeped in self-reflection of a life spent touring her craft, and the hard-earned lessons of the road “All I wanna be is an old rock n roller / Tele on the backseat/ devil on my shoulder / Searching for my next verse a little further down the line, Turn this water into red wine.” The band really rocks on this track.
On Charm Of Finches, we find Jess slowing down to take in all the magical gifts that nature offers. The simple observation of watching birds come and go in building nests, finding food and living instinctively in the moment. Lessons to be taken. The Questions has Jess asking about the big dilemmas that we seek to solve and that need answering. What does it all mean in the end. Comfort in our own skin? Maybe the questions are more important than any given answers that may be offered as possible solutions. Time to shake off the weight and live for the moment.
Mark Addison produced the album, and he also features among the musicians who bring so much colour to the song arrangements. Jess Klein leads from the front (vocals, acoustic and electric guitars, electric bass), with Mark Addison (electric and upright bass, piano and keyboards, acoustic and electric guitars, percussion, Arp synthesizer), Luke Leverett (acoustic and electric guitars, backing vocals), Colin Brooks (pedal steel, dobro, electric bass), John Chipman (drums, percussion, backing vocals), John Pointer (cello), all adding greatly to the impressive sound. There are also the talents of Betty Soo, Pat Byrne, Sheridan Roalson, Gloria Brooker on backing vocals.
Full marks to the bright and punchy production on the entire project. The listening experience is very enjoyable as the tracks bounce splendidly from the speakers with plenty of space in the playing and room to hear every instrument clearly. This album ranks as the most complete album in an impressive catalogue of work that Jess has delivered thus far. It resonates long after listening and draws you back for more. A really confident album and worthy of a wide audience. Highly recommended.
Paul McGee
Phil Hooley Everything We’ll Never Need Self Release
Opening with the classic country sound of Cowboy Dreaming, Scarborough resident Phil Hooley displays his musical influences. The song skips along on a steady rhythm with the resonator slide guitar of Randy Kohrs very prominent in the mix. The next song is more laid-back and House For Sale reflects on the passage of time with Dave Kemp featured on saxophone. On No Guarantee there is more of the subtle guitar playing of Randy Kohrs, this time on Hawaiian guitar, echoing the message that the changes you make in life don’t ever come with a positive outcome guaranteed.
This is the third album that Phil Hooley has released with his debut Songs From The Back Room arriving in 2022 and followed by Provenance in 2023. He plays guitar and sings in a vocal style that has similarities to Mark Knopfler. The assembled musicians provide a very wide talent base upon which to build these mid-tempo song arrangements. Once again, production was delivered by Justin Johnson, and he does a fine job, also playing drums on nine songs, plus organ on one track.
Time On My Hands is leaning again into a country sound with Scott Poley playing great pedal steel, something he repeats on the track Tomorrow, a song of reflection that also includes mandolin courtesy of Frank Rische. One More For the Road features both piano and Wurlitzer on a track that has James Mitchell playing atmospheric electric guitar as Phil Hooley sings of moving on. The tempo lifts for Best Remedy In Town with harmonica parts from Phil interweaving with mandolin and electric guitar support from Frank Rische and Eddie Haddad. Walking Man features an aerophone, a wind instrument, which sounds remarkably like a trumpet, and gives a nice Tex-Mex feel to the song arrangement.
Hope Street has a cool bluesy feel with James Mitchell on electric guitar and Scott Sheriff on Wurlitzer and organ bringing plenty of colour in their performances. You know that Sticky Toffee Pudding is not going to be too serious and is included here as a fan favourite at live shows. Not perhaps the best song to conclude with, and perhaps the pacing and positioning of the track selection is something that could have been changed. However, overall, we are given a very engaging album with fine musicianship and an enjoyable way to while away an evening.
Paul McGee
Matthew Ryan A Little Imperfect Self Release
A singer songwriter who lives in Cape May, New Jersey should gain plenty of inspiration for material, given that it’s the oldest seaside resort in the United States and famous for its old Victorian architecture, beautiful beaches, and panoramic views. It is a National landmark of cultural and historical significance.
Not to be confused with his more famous namesake from Chester, Pennsylvania who started his solo music career back in 1996, this Matthew Ryan decided to focus upon his songwriting and to pivot away from his career as a professional chef. His passion for songwriting was purely outside of his day job until he finally took the leap and committed to put his songs into a debut album.
The title is reflective of the approach taken in the studio with Matthew reluctant to lean towards over-production on the fifteen songs featured here. Instead, he took the decision to let most of the songs breathe in their original format, just acoustic fingerstyle playing and occasional extra instruments added for extra texture.
The results are very satisfying with the entire project sounding fresh and alive in the delivery and the fine musicianship. The producer on the album was Alfred Goodrich, and he is the co-founder of a company called Forte3D that reimagined the cello, offering custom-printed designs on their cellos and violins, through CAD design and 3D printing. Indeed, these instruments are used on the album to great effect with Goodrich contributing traditional cello, 3D cello, mandolin, and dhumbek, a goblet percussive drum.
Other musicians include Lew London, Valerie Voulo, and John Roy Zat on violin across selected songs, David Roth on banjo, Bob Beach on harmonica, Mike Brenner on lap steel, Luis Gonzales on bass, Eddie Morgan Jr on trumpet, with Matt Scorano on drums. These musicians are used sparingly, often just appearing on one song, and thus adding their rich tones when they do make an appearance. It also highlights the lovely harmony vocals of Genevieve, Debra Donahue Suplee, and Toni Teschner with Matthew Ryan featured on lead vocals, bass, trumpet, acoustic and electric guitar.
Matthew has seen his talent result in noteworthy performances at renowned venues like the Bitter End in Greenwich Village, and the Bluebird Café in Nashville. The title track of the album indicates that love can be messy and that we should learn to love our imperfections. There is a very cool cover of the Tom Waits song that he penned for Rickie Lee Jones and the performance on Rainbow Sleeves is quite superb. On Everywhere I Go we find the troubled troubadour seeking spiritual healing, feeling lost and wanting to get home gain. That sense of community and being surrounded by your people runs though Branches and acknowledging people that can help turn our lives around is the message on My Angel Fell Too.
As with any reflective songwriter you are never too far away from digging up the past and on both Frozen In Time and I Never Wanted we are sharing in the regret of a failed relationship, mistakes made and a break-up that still stings. Similarly on The Things That I Got Wrong the artist is aware that poor judgement led to assumptions made, and an admission of flaws that need to be addressed. All these hard truths perhaps come together on A Lot To Learn where the perspective of growing up and maturing shows the way forward. On I’ll Be Your Friend there is the enduring promise of friendship and Thru Your Life has a light jazz swing with trumpet and scat singing celebrating the dawning of each new day.
Hold On is a song to troubled souls and the compromise of suffering from disasters when nature rears up and floods, mud slides and storm damage invades our sense of security. Fan Mail Blues looks at being in debt and unable to meet bill payments the sea shanty of Wish You Were Here (A Postcard From Culdaff) is in stark contrast. Wiggle That Patch is a song that looks at being different and standing out from the norm, when all that is desired is to be included. As debut albums go, this one is full of excellent songs, delivered in some style and with a confidence that shines through.
Paul McGee
Wendy Gregson Mother Tree Self Release
Over seven tracks and thirty minutes of music this little flower of an album reveals itself to the listener in fine style. The songs are all written by mother and daughter duo Wendy Gregson & Renee McLachlan, and the album dedication is to Wendy’s mother, Elizabeth Gregson. Indeed, the extended family are included in the recording process, with both Isabella and Rachel, daughters of Renee, providing sweet harmony vocals and album producer Stew Kirkwood contributing on a combination of dobro, piano, mandolin, guitars, and bass.
The other players who shine throughout are Jeremiah McDade (violin, whistle), Ian Woodman (cello), Shannon Johnson (violin), Jennifer Bustin (violin), and Leanne Maitland (viola). Both mother and daughter, Wendy and Renee sing beautiful lead vocals and play guitar, with both also playing a guitar-ukulele hybrid called a guitalele.
The title song Mother Tree is a sensitive tribute to the sacrifices made in being a parent and raising a family “And you sheltered us through growing pains / while we grew tall with summer rains/ Your canopy/ it kept us safe / and we felt your love running through our veins.” The metaphor of mother and nature in the shape of a strong tree is very apt, and the beautiful string arrangement is delivered with both grace and style.
Losing Your Innocence is a song about family tribulations and the growing pains that result in a pulling away from the nurturing towards being a decent person “Aren't you tired of being mad / armour weighing you down / When you let nothing in/ nothing can get out.” Another song, The Long Way, sings of a relationship that has run out of road with the future direction of things unclear.
Side By Side and Because are both love songs that declare the devotion felt in being a part of someone else in an unbreakable bond and elsewhere The Pull Of Gravity is a song about hope and finding peace in the love of another. A Voice Not Withstood ends the album and it deals with bereavement and the passing of a matriarch when the sands of time run out, no doubt a tribute to Wendy’s mother. The duo received an Alberta Foundation for the Arts grant to record this album, and it is indeed an example of foresight and support in providing funds for this superb project.
Paul McGee