Gary Fletcher - River Keeps Flowing

In need of a soothing soundtrack for you to lay back, close your eyes and chill for a bit?  This latest solo album from Gary Fletcher, a founding member and still a stalwart of the Blues Band could be just the ticket.  River Keeps Flowing is a semi-acoustic affair that weaves together strands of folk and Americana as much as the blues.

Gary Fletcher - have guitar, will travel

The eerie opening instrumental vignette carries echoes of Dire Straits, à la the intro to ‘Private Investigations’ perhaps, and that’s a useful touchstone for at least some of what follows, starting with ‘No Shadow On The Wall’, a song that lives up to its enigmatic title, with gentle acoustic strumming and subtle bass and piano contributing to the backing for Fletcher’s hushed vocal, ahead of a steely, sparking acoustic guitar solo.  The patient and‘Hearsay’ is in a similar vein, a meditation on memory and pain that combines subtle banjo from Fletcher, pattering drums, melancholy harp phrases from Alan Glen, and elegantly soaring and dipping violin from Tom Leary, like a bird on the wing.

folky

There’s more of an Americana flavour to ‘Back To Your Heart’, set to a swaying rhythm from drummer Sam Kelly, with Leary’s violin playing in more fiddle-like mode to mesh with accordion from Charlie Hart.  It’s dreamily romantic and hopeful, with harp licks from fellow Blues Band member Paul Jones on this occasion, and an impressive violin solo from Leary, whose playing is also to the fore to good effect on ‘It’s Just Feel’, a simple tune for a contented love song which is given a warmer sound, with Fletcher’s voice taking on a lower, more muscular timbre.

But some songs call for more drive they don’t always find top gear.  The social commentary of ‘Something’s Got To Give’, a Gerry Rafferty-like tune, is gently pushed along and is given some bite by an electric guitar solo, but it would benefit from a more assertive vocal.  And in fact Fletcher’s voice does have its limitations, even if the production does a good job of giving it thickness.  He’s a bit under-powered on ‘Jacob Burkle’, a tale of the slave-emancipating Underground Railroad set to rippling banjo, more swatches of violin, and slide guitar, but feels a little bland until a lift in tempo gives some impetus to its harp and violin solos.  Meanwhile ‘You Can, You Can’ hints at a ‘Take Me To The River’-type groove, pushed along by the bass and drums, but never really acquires enough dig.

‘Don’t You Come Creeping’ is a success in bluesier, more upbeat vein though, with its skipping rhythm and rising and falling slide guitar riff producing a surprisingly perky vibe for what appears to be a reflection on paranoia.  And there are always good moments to savour, even if some of the material begins to sound a bit samey.  ‘You Just Can’t Know’, for example, is nicely delivered if not especially distinctive, until a good instrumental passage lets the violin, guitar and Lol Plummer’s piano flow.  ‘I Couldn’t Be Asking’ has a rather prosaic melody for its ‘Dark End Of The Street’-like narrative, but Glen’s yearning harp is good, there are excellent harmonies on the chorus, and it closes with a tastefully tumbling guitar line.

Fletcher’s lyrics are always thoughtful, whether ruminating on relationship questions or other subjects, and the frequent focus on harmonica and violin in the instrumentation suits the songs well.  Few of the individual songs may knock your socks off, but as a mood-piece to wash over you River Keeps Flowing is a collection with a lyrical charm.

River Keeps Flowing is available now as a CD or download on most platforms, including Amazon and Spotify, and here.

Paul Jones and Dave Kelly - Voodoo Rooms, Edinburgh, 20 January 2016

Paul Jones and Dave Kelly have been at this game a long time – and it shows.  I mean this in a good way, of course.  As they progress through this  set comprising a wide range of blues classics, and a few originals, it’s apparent that musically they can read each other like a book.  Their playing dovetails with an impeccable sense of timing throughout, as they back each other up and trade off each other.

Dave Kelly - slide supremo

They trade the lead vocals on songs throughout the set, and occasionally do a solo number, and it’s worth saying that while Paul Jones may have the more celebrated history as a singer, Dave Kelly more than justifies the co-vocalist billing that he has with the Blues Band.  This first comes to the fore on ‘When The Levee Breaks’, where he delivers a strong and expressive vocal to match his ringing guitar and the neat injections of harp from his partner in crime.

Jones, meanwhile, introduces songs with a nice line in patter and plenty insight into blues history, as on ‘Noah Lewis Blues’, which he explains is a tribute to his favourite acoustic harp player.  It’s got a spare sound, notwithstanding Kelly picking up a Strat to add a strutting guitar riff that leans on the bass strings.

Howlin’ Wolf’s ‘Dust My Blues’ is an early highlight – a song that, as Kelly explains, he actually played with the Wolf every night on a UK tour way back when.  It features impressive interaction between the two of them as they give it an extended workout, Jones contributing a great harp solo, while Kelly delivers some walking bass patterns alternating with twanging slide – something of a dress rehearsal for the terrific slide segment he produces on the following ‘Crossroads Blues’.

‘Sit Back Down’, from Jones’s latest solo album Suddenly I Like It, is a rollicking piece of R&B, with rolling bass lines from Kelly on his Strat, and an enjoyable call and response segment between slide guitar and harp.  They take a decidedly different turn though, with

Paul Jones gets reflective

Skip James’ ‘Hard Times Killin’ Floor’, which features intricate, sombre guitar underpinned by subdued harp.  It also showcases one of Kelly’s best vocals of the night, weary and sensitive.

Paul Jones introduces ‘Sonny Boy Williamson’ with plenty of detail about the Sonny Boy song, ‘Mighty Long Time’, displaying a fine sense of the ridiculous as he recounts its history.  He then adorns the song with some delightful falsetto moments – as well as a ‘hands free’ harp solo with the instrument lengthways in his mouth, cigar-style, in the finest tradition of some of the harmonica greats.

The Nat Adderley tune ‘Work Song’ is another peak.  With its jazzy feel it’s one of those tunes that whether you’ve heard it before or not, has a nagging sense of familiarity.  Jones invests some drama into the performance, as a reminder that he’s done some time in musical theatre in the past, as well as belting out some wailing, squawking harp.

They close with Muddy Waters’ reliably rocking ‘I Can’t Be Satisfied’, and encore with Jimmy

John Alexander gets atmospheric

Reed’s ‘You Got Me Running’, into which they neatly insert a slice of ‘Bright Lights, Big City’.  It serves to demonstrate how well they swing – as if they haven’t done so already – and also shows off how well they harmonise vocally.

As an exhibition of what a guitar and a harp can deliver together when in the right hands, accompanying some time-served high quality blues voices, this was a gem.

Opening for the evening was Glasgow’s John Alexander, who made a positive impression with a beautifully full and warm acoustic sound and a slightly husky voice.  Songs like ‘Piece Of My Skin’ showed off his way with guitar lines that took interesting turns with a well-structured framework.  ‘Dangerous Wind’ offered a simple vocal melody balanced with rolling guitar runs and some moments of sharp punctuation.  The slightly Western feel of ‘Seven Cold Curses’, meanwhile, was atmospheric, suspenseful, and shimmering.  All in all a set that hinted at influences without being beholden to them – suggesting his album Rain For Sale may be well worth a listen.