Dion - Stomping Ground

Okay, so it’s the season of goodwill and all that, but you know what one of my favourite Christmas movies is?  The Grinch, with Jim Carrey all hairy, green, and most of all grouchy.  So before I get into telling you about the good things on Stomping Ground, I wanna get a couple of gripes off my chest, alright?
Gripe #1:  The album follows the same guest artist formula as 2020’s Blues With Friends.  It’s an approach that can have some artistic value by way of spicing up an artist’s sound and repertoire, but for me repeating the trick seems too much like a marketing tactic.  If the songs are good

Dion - still stompin'!

Pic by Steve Cell

enough, then why not just record with a core band, and pull in name guests on just a couple of tracks if you want some extra stardust?  This is Dion DiMucci fer cryin’ out loud, not Joe Schmo no-one's ever heard of!
Gripe #2:  There are fourteen tracks included here, and while plenty of ‘em are good ‘uns, a few are makeweights.  And are some tracks overextended just to get more mileage out of the guest turns?  Now then it feels like the pudding is being over-egged.
But that’s enough bah-humbuggery for now.  Because when the opening track 'Take It Back' kicks in, it’s a catchy old thing which Dion sells well over a strutting rhythm laid down by the bass and drums.  And Joe Bonamassa, who would probably turn up to provide a guest solo for the opening of an envelope, does in fact elevate the song with a bundle of humorous, on-point and interestingly-toned licks.
The swaying and sinuous ‘Dancing Girl’ lives up to its title with a danceable Latin rhythm fit for your next Salsa class.  And with some pinpoint guitar from Mark Knopfler in his inimitable style, enhanced by some subtle interplay with the piano, it’s very good indeed.  On the other hand, while Eric Clapton brings some decent soloing to the blues shuffle of ‘If You Wanna Rock’n’Roll’, the star of this particular show is Dion himself, singing “I’m a rhythm king baby, I can groove all night long” and other such lines, in a manner that suggests they have less to do with the dance floor than the bedroom.
‘There Was A Time’ is a slow blues with a kinda European feel to its suspenseful melody, and Peter Frampton doesn’t feel the need to fill every crevice with his playing, while there’s plenty more to notice between the deep rolling horns, the rippling piano, and the sweeping strings add to the melancholy feel.  Sonny Landreth delivers suitably weeping slide guitar on the intro of ‘Cryin’ Shame’, but his playing warms up as the song progresses, and instruments interweave on a textured arrangement with a deceptively simple beat.  There’s slide guitar too, courtesy of Keb’ Mo’, on the album’s only cover, a version of Hendrix’s ‘Red House’.  On early listens I was less than impressed, but there is some merit in its rootsy approach and Dion’s plaintive vocal, even if the contributions of Keb’ Mo’ don’t amount to much.
Getting away from the guitars, ‘Angel In The Alleyways’ may not be a classic, but it’s certainly better than ‘Hymn To Her’, Dion’s previous collaboration with Bruce Springsteen and Patti Scialfa.  An acoustic guitar-led piece of Americana, with the Boss and his missus supplying harmonica and hushed harmonies, it manages to combine tension and urgency.  But the two tracks that foreground piano are bigger winners.  ‘That’s What The Doctor Said’ makes lyrical reference to Dr John, and backs that up with a New Orleans groove foregrounding sweeping, swinging ivories from Steve Conn, while horns toot in fine fashion.  And ‘I Got My Eyes On You’ is a rock'n’roll train stoked by Marcia Ball’s piano, rattling along with intermittent horn punctuation and then bright riffs on the chorus, plus twanging guitar from Jimmy Vivino.
There’s more rockn’roll, of the Chuck Berry variety, on the amusing, foot-tapping ‘I’ve Got To Get To You’, on which Dion shares the mic with Boz Scaggs.  But the more interesting duet is the closing ‘I’ve Been Watching’, to which Rickie Lee Jones adds characterful vocals in tandem with DiMucci, the mood shifting between reflective and impassioned in satisfying fashion, while producer Wayne Hood adds fluid guitar that fits the song well.
When you get right down to it, Stomping Ground is a good album.  But it’d be a better one with more focus – focus on fewer songs to maintain the quality, and focus on Dion’s delivery more than a troupe of guests.  Hasn’t the guy earned the right to the spotlight?

Stomping Ground is out now on Keeping The Blues Alive Records, and can be ordered here.

Dion - Blues With Friends

Dion Dimucci is 80.  Let me say that again.  Dion, of ‘The Wanderer’ fame, is 80 years old.  But you wouldn’t know it, listening to Blues With Friends.  He is never betrayed by the quavering pipes of an old codger, but instead owns the songs with the delivery and phrasing of a guy who has kept his primary instrument in full working order.

To be honest, I wasn’t sure I was going to like this album.  But like Topsy, Blues With Friends has growed and growed on me, and I suspect I’ll be returning to its charms on a regular basis.  The tone is set well by the opening ‘Blues Comin’ On’, which shuffles along in easy-going fashion with Dion communicating the vibe perfectly.  Meanwhile Joe Bonamassa does a sterling job as the first guest start turn, adding subtle moanin’ an’ groanin’ slide guitar that fits the character of the song.  Then the following ‘Kickin’ Child’ is a bright but laid back affair that rolls along effortlessly like something from JJ Cale, with twinkling guitar embroidery from Joe Menza.

Dion Dimucci - the smile that comes with a job well done

Pic by David Godlis

These tracks set the tone for the guest guitar contributions that follow on the bluesy tracks that form the spine of the album.  These range from the restrained but effective sparkle-and-twang Brian Setzer adds to the skipping ‘Uptown Number 7’, to the clear-toned Joe Louis Walker breaks that flit around the tune on the Van Morrison duet ‘I Got Nothin’’, the biting and gnawing Sonny Landreth slide on the swaggering ‘I Got The Cure’, and the hand-in-glove conversation between Dion and Samantha Fish’s wiry, expressive playing on ‘What If I Told You’.  This last, in particular, is a blues tune that offers more than your common-or-garden melody, enhanced by Dimucci’s excellent phrasing.

But the departures from the soulful blues core hit the mark too.  ‘Can’t Start Over Again’ may be adorned with some exquisite guitar filigrees from Jeff Beck, but it’s the song that really catches the ear, a simple slice of Americana that Dion interprets beautifully.  ‘Stumbling Blues’, regardless of its title and reliance on a blues progression, sounds like Great American Songbook fare, as Dion croons his way through the lilting, woozy closing time vibe to the hazy accompaniment of Jerry Vivino’s sax.  ‘Song For Sam Cooke (Here In America)’ is an acoustic-led singer-songwriter style duet with Paul Simon on which their voices combine delightfully, complemented by graceful violin breaks from a party I’m not able to credit right now.  And ‘Told You Once In August’ is an absorbing, stripped down folk blues on which John Hammond and Rory Block interweave chiming and moaning acoustic slide over a simple beat, and Block adds some minimalist but spot-on backing vocals.

Not everything is perfect.  ‘Bam Bang Boom’, on which Billy Gibbons guests, feels like it needs a kick in the ass in order to get going, though the groove does generate some toe-tapping in the end.  And the Christian folk leanings of ‘Hymn To Him’ leave me cold, regardless of its pretty tune and the involvement of Patti Scialfa and Bruce Springsteen.

But hey, the strike rate of the material on Blues With Friends is mightily impressive.  Producer Wayne Hood deserves credit too, for the simple, uncluttered sound of the album, and for drawing all those guest contributions into a coherent whole.  The end result is the kind of relaxed but polished affair that’s perfect for kicking back with a beer and chilling out.

I think Bob Dylan puts it best though.  He doesn’t appear on the album, but he does contribute to the liner notes.  "Dion knows how to sing, and he knows just the right way to craft these songs,” says Bob.  “He’s got some friends here to help him out, some true luminaries. But in the end, it’s Dion by himself alone, and that masterful voice of his that will keep you returning to share these Blues songs with him."  Yeah, what he said.

Blues With Friends is released by KTBA Records on 5 June, and is available for pre-order at KTBArecords.com.

Bruce Springsteen - Western Stars

I really wasn’t sure what I was going to think of Western Stars.  Not, I imagine, that many fellow Springsteen fans will give a shit what I think.  But for myself, y’know – when an artist you admire releases a new album, and you’ve got your fingers crossed that you’re going to find it worthy of at least a few plays, it still matters.  And the things I’d been hearing before it came out – chat about a Californian vibe, orchestral arrangements, and some YouTube tracks that seemed distinctly laid back – didn’t exactly give me high hopes.

Like, as Cilla Black might have sung, what’s it all about Brucie?

Well, having given the album a damn good listening to, here’s a few thoughts.

Numero uno.  Western Stars is one of the more thematically coherent Springsteen albums of this millennium.

"Damn - think I've locked myself out."

Numero due.  (I’m writing this in Italy, so humour me eh?) Bruce is up to his old tricks again, easing the listener into some pretty bleak stories by way of disarming music. Not his patented rock’n’roll sound to be sure, as with the likes of ‘Hungry Heart’ and ‘Dancing In the Dark’ in days gone by.  But still, the mix of words and music here is bitter-sweet.

Numero tre.  Bruce is acting his age.  The guy is 70 years old this September.  Do we really expect him to be making love in the dirt with Crazy Janey? It would be a bit – undignified, wouldn’t it?

So what we have here, in various guises, are songs about some old geezers with regrets.  A couple of them, like ‘Western Stars’ and ‘Drive Fast (The Stuntman)’, seem to present characters from the movie world – marginal guys whose heyday is long gone.  The former is the tale of a one-time horse opera actor, with a narrative and a melody that sound like they’ve escaped from Nebraska– but with a very different, less claustrophobic arrangement.  The latter sounds like the guy from ‘Racing In The Street’, older and even more care-worn, reflecting on where he started from – “At nineteen I was the king of the dirt down at the Remington draw” - and where he’s ended up, after a long past fling with a girl in a B-Movie, “trying to get the pieces to fit”.

The opening couple of tracks sound innocent enough though, don’t they?  ‘Hitch Hikin’’ starts off with dreamy acoustic strumming before developing a gorgeous string theme, to accompany the perspective of a guy who seems happy to drift mentally as well as physically, chilled out as the landscape and miles wash over him.  Where’s he coming from though – and why?  And ‘The Wayfarer’ follows in a similar lyrical vein, with an orchestral arrangement that suggests wide open spaces in a dialled down Aaron Copland style – which then flows over into the following ‘Tucson Train’, which sounds like it’s recycling a melody from, I dunno, ‘Lonesome Day’ maybe, as the backdrop to stronger hints of lyrical bleakness.*  Sure, the guy is waiting for his baby to arrive off the train.  But he’s waiting for her after having run out on her in the past, because he had to get his own shit together through the dignity of labour.  And you know what?  We never learn whether she gets off the goddamn train.

"Where did Patti say to pick her up again?"

And that sets the tone for a host of tracks featuring refugees from relationships that somehow, sometime in the past, enigmatically went wrong.  Musically, meanwhile, it’s no surprise to find that Bruce cited Jimmy Webb as an influence – the writer of the likes of ‘By The Time I Get To Phoenix’ for Glen Campbell – when you hear stuff like ‘Sundown’ and (funnily enough) ‘Hello Sunshine’, the latter a song about loneliness and a wish that the sunshine wouldn't go.

‘Sundown’ conjures up the first hint of a most un-Boss like crooning vocal, to go with some ultra-sophisticated harmonies and lush strings, and this reaches its apogee on ‘There Goes My Miracle’, on which Bruce produces a full on, and very convincing, Tony Bennett-style vocal performance.  At first blush it sounds utterly romantic, a love song.  But the sting that shouldn’t be ignored is that the object of the narrator’s affections is walking away.  This is not, I think, the celebration of an enduring relationship.  The song ends with the phrase “Sunrise, sundown.” Things come, things go.

The album ends with ‘Moonlight Motel’.  And the veritable horde of string, woodwind and horn players required on other tracks ain’t needed here.  It’s spare and lovely, as another aging loner visits a once-romantic scene that’s now dilapidated and deserted.  He could be the guy who lit out with the girl in ‘Thunder Road’, now feeling like another of the ghosts of the boys she sent away.

What’s it all about, Brucie? The guy has always had a compunction to hit the road, to follow those white lines in his head, like the Wayfarer. And I’d hazard a guess that some of this material reflects his struggle with depression, which he explored at length in his recent autobiography.  But all these songs about mysteriously broken relationships don’t sound like him pondering married life with Patti Scialfa, who gets a pointed credit for her contribution to the vocal arrangements here.  Are there some other ghosts he’s trying to purge?

Whatever, there’s one song that doesn’t fit the template, and it’s the most accessible track on the album. With a skipping rhythm, and cajun-style accordion courtesy of Chuck Giordano, ‘Sleepy Joe’s Café’ sounds like the cheerful kinda joint that the couple in ‘The River’ might frequent of a weekend, once the kids are all grown up and have flown the coop. It’s a song you hear and immediately think – tune!

Western Stars isn’t an album I’m likely to play to death. But it sure as hell demonstrates that Bruce Springsteen has an artistic brain that’s still got some mileage in it, down those highways of the American experience.

*It was a little after I'd written and published this review that I realised Western Stars had its origins in the tracks Springsteen had recorded in late 2010 with producer Ron Aniello, before setting them aside to launch into what would become Wrecking Ball.  In Peter Ames Carlin's biography Bruce, Aniello observed of the earlier material "It's stunning really.  Like Aaron Copland, the American landscape style.  Soft and deep and open sky." (Page 448)

Duke Garwood - Heavy Love

For people who like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing they'll like.  Duke Garwood is a Londoner, apparently a multi-instrumentalist, and an occasional collaborator of Mark Lanegan.  This last is an indicator of the kind of dark Americana that Heavy Love inhabits.
The arrangements are pared to the bone, the lyrics bleak and oblique.  It's atmospheric,

The stark and spare Duke Garwood

claustrophobic, possibly even cinematic.  I picture a character driving in the dark in some kind of American wilderness, or chain-smoking in an unlit back yard on a humid evening, with the sounds of crickets in the background as he stares into the dark.  It's redolent of a scene in John Updike's novel Rabbit, Run, in which Rabbit Angstrom drives aimlessly in the woods around his home town, getting nowhere.
And that, essentially, is it.  It's a mood piece, virtually devoid of dynamics.  It's sombre, sub fusc, occasionally droning stuff, very much through a glass darkly.  Consonant with the stark and spare instrumentation, Garwood adopts a muttering, keening singing style. Occasionally a guitar is allowed to twinkle a little, as on 'Burning Seas', creating some sharp points of light in the ongoing dusk.  But such contrasts are limited.
I'm forcibly reminded of Robert Plant and Alison Krauss's Raising Sand, and for me that is not a recommendation.  Grammy Awards notwithstanding, RS seems to me a classic example of the Emperor's new clothes, and Heavy Love exemplifies its most infuriating characteristics.  It's a style one could call Gloom Blues, which before long leaves me exclaiming "Cheer up, for god's sake!"  Somewhere along the way Garwood conjures a brief moment that echoes 'The Beast In Me', which Nick Lowe wrote for Johnny Cash - and that lays things bare.  There are good examples of this genre, such as Springsteen's Nebraska and Cash's American Recordings.  But they work because the songs have heart - strong melodies and lyrics that tell stories.  Give me the Man in Black's cracked vocals and simple guitar anyday.

Journey to the Blues #3

The next step on the blues road was an indirect one, when I met my partner Jill.
I had been continuing to explore some new sounds via emusic.com, as well as going to the odd

Foy Vance, pre-twirly moustache

gig by the likes of The Black Keys and The Heavy, and paddling around in the shallow end of some of the blues-oriented rock I'd previously encountered over the years.  But when Jill and I first got together it quickly became apparent that we shared an enthusiasm for music.  In early exchanges we namechecked favourite songs - 'Thunder Road' on my part, Van Morrison's 'Precious Time' on hers.
Jill has more musical skills than I do.  In her schooldays she played the oboe, and when we met she was learning to play Scottish traditional music on the fiddle.  Unsurprisingly then, she likes folk music, but her tastes are eclectic enough to encompass blues alongside soul, country and Americana.  She was in the habit of taking in a few Celtic Connections gigs in Glasgow each January, so we were soon off to see a Gerry Rafferty tribute at the Royal Concert Hall, as well as the likes of Foy Vance and Rock, Salt and Nails at Oran Mor.
Jill is also a holiday fiend, and when we'd been going out for a year or more she was pondering possibilities for a big holiday in the summer of 2013, to celebrate completing a Masters degree.  So when I mentioned that I had the notion of travelling down the Mississippi Delta, vaguely hoping to get some sense of the home of the blues, she leapt at the idea.  And so it was that we set about arranging a trip that was to take in Nashville, Memphis, Clarksdale and New Orleans - a journey which will be recounted in the forthcoming series, 'Adventures in the South'.

You can start reading the Adventures In The South travelogue here.