Steve Hill - Hanging On A String

Steve Hill’s last album, 2022’s Dear Illusion, was an upbeat affair on which his usual one-man band sound was frequently augmented by horns on a bunch of songs dead set on brightening up your day.  Hanging On A String, it’s fair to say, is not a similarly sunny sequel to that album – and perhaps no wonder when his life in between included waking up in the middle of a house fire, and surviving a couple of serious road accidents.
That house fire experience is referenced in the first line of the title track, in the midst of a storm of serrated edge guitar and stomping kick drum.  You might say there’s a whiff of ZZ Top boogie about the riffing, except Hill isn't aiming for the Texas trio’s easy vibe.  Instead you get a screeching

Steve Hill prepares to bring the walls tumbling down

Pic by Jean Sebastien Desilets

guitar solo, and Hill musters some extra angst on the way to a scrabbling conclusion.  It’s a first salvo of the agitation and anxiety that pervades much of the album.
‘Devil’s Handyman’ is a dark and menacing grind, with Hill’s voice echoing like he’s in a cavern of night as he serves up the viewpoint of the title character – a dealer taking advantage of people’s vulnerability, with a very fitting danse macabreof off kilter guitar.
Later, ‘World Gone Insane’ stirs up more darkness, opening with a slow and haunted guitar motif before letting rip on a nightmare voyage of paranoia about the modern world, driven by a Sabbath-like fast-churning riff coated in fuzz and feedback.  Hill pounds away for nearly 7 minutes until a final scraping drone of guitar spirals down the proverbial plughole, and to be honest I reckon the radio edit does the job rather more crisply.
The issue of Artificial Intelligence rears its ugly head on ‘You Know Who’, a mid-paced outing whose melody carries a Bowie-like sense of alienation – though Hill’s delivery is growling rather than fey.  But ‘Turned To Dust’ is a rather better tune, lamenting a past that’s gone and can’t be recaptured, accompanied by an intriguing, slurring guitar line.
Hill brings these themes to a conclusion with a cover of The Doors’ ‘When The Music’s Over’, which comes with a spooky intro of snaking lead guitar and half-buried spoken conversation before settling into it’s ponderous groove.  It’s a clear fit in terms of the dark vibe that’s threaded through the album, but its brooding through-a-glass-darkly progress doesn’t do much for me, at least until Hill whips up a bit of a storm in its second half.
It's not all doom and gloom mind you.  ‘Show Ya’ is an elemental, breathless declaration of the determination that has enabled him to make music his career.  It’s basic rock’n’roll with an almost punkish energy, and gives the album a welcome shot of adrenaline.  ‘Maggie’, meanwhile, is a celebration of its eponymous heroine, with an Angus Young-like teasing bluesy intro that gives way to a good time boogie as Hill recounts Maggie’s qualities – with a few dubious notions along the way, until the final line delivers the pay-off.
There’s a bonus track too, in ‘Just Have To Ask’.  It’s a mid-tempo refection on the need for a helping hand – which is, in fact, at hand if one could only ask.  There’s a suitably uplifting tune lurking in there too, if it could only escape the rather too measured backing.
Steve Hill continues to confound with the sound his one-man set-up produces.  But a couple of tracks here are overlong, and the saw-toothed guitar tone that dominates much of the album becomes a bit wearing.  A wistful or romantic acoustic song such as he’s produced in the past would have helped to balance the atmosphere.  But I bet he’ll be back in a couple of years to ‘Show Ya’ again.
 
Hanging On A String is out on 1 November, and can be ordered here or pre-saved for digital here.

Steve Hill - Dear Illusion

Wait, what?  This is Steve Hill, right?  Long-haired Canadian dude, pretty intense looking?  Purveyor of hard-riffing blues-rock and shimmering acoustic blues?  Generally to be found playing as a one man band these last ten years or so?  This is that Steve Hill?
So what in Sam Hill is going on with all these horns plastered all over his new release Dear Illusion?
I’ll tell you what’s going on – Steve Hill is having a shitload of fun, that’s what.
Okay, so ‘All About The Love’ kicks off with a trilling guitar riff and a simple stomping beat that sounds very much like Hill in his one man band mode – but then the swell of horns preceding his rat-a-tat vocal makes you prick up your ears.  As well you might, because when he hits the

Steve Hill has himself a quiet night in

Pic by Scott Doubt

chorus – BLAM! - there’s a virulent outbreak of horn-blaring gospellation fit to have Jake and Ellwood Blues jigging about like a pair of loons.  And that’s just for openers.
Swear to god, I could well imagine Mick Jagger prancing about at the end of a catwalk to the likes of ‘Keep It Together’ and ‘Everything You Got’.  The first kicks off with a harp riff that’s taken up by guitar, with perfect punctuation from The Devil Horns, while Hill hollers “Wake me up when it’s over, please somebody spiked my drink,” given extra oomph by spot on backing vocals.  And the razor-edged slide guitar that plays off against the hook is a pretty cool too.  ‘Everything You Got’ opens with a horn fanfare that swiftly gets elbowed out of the way by a nailed-on, ZZ Top-like fuzzy guitar riff over swinging, punchy drums and more horn interjections.  It’s stuffed with vitality, everything fitting together hand in glove, and catchy as hell.  (Be sure to click on the link for the video, which captures the good-time vibe brilliantly.)
In a similar upbeat vein, ‘Steal The Light From You’ is a whomping good-time shuffle, with a carefree ascending riff and the horns flaring brightly, and expertly twanging guitar breaks.
So who are they, these Devil Horns that are so much to the fore?  No, they’re not some legendary outfit like the Muscle Shoals gang.  It’s just the moniker Hill has given to the various groups of brass exponents he conscripted at different times, and in different places, to beef up particular songs – the point being that regardless of their disparate recruitment processes, somebody or somebodies have done a A1 job of getting exactly the right contributions out of them.
Oh yeah, and those swinging, punchy drums?  It’s worth noting that Wayne Proctor does the skin-walloping on six of the tracks here, bringing extra groove to proceedings as well as mixing and mastering the whole caboodle.
But Hill also makes room for his sensitive side.  ‘Dear Illusion’ itself is a yearning contemplation of self-deception in love, the chorus borne aloft by the horns.  ‘So It Goes’ is a reflective, iridescent acoustic breather, and the closing ‘Until The Next Time’ is laid back and romantic, with Hill’s crooning vocal accompanied by swooning horns and some sparkling guitar. 
It has to be said that Hill’s voice sounds in particularly good fettle too.  On both ‘Don’t Let The Truth Get In The Way (Of A Good Story)’ and ‘She Gives Lessons In Blues’ the name of Paul Rodgers sprang into my mind.  Not that Hill could seriously be taken for Rodgers – who could?  But I could imagine Rodgers offering a polite round of applause for the soul Hill applies to these tracks.  The first comes with an irresistible snappy rhythm, another decent hook, and a twirling solo.  The second is a funky sorta blues, with more on-the-money horn moments, and Hill’s guitar ramping up the swaggering fun quotient.  And there’s more soul in ‘Follow Your Heart’, of which Hill admits nicking the chords from a song played at his mum’s choir’s Christmas show, though he can’t recall the song itself.  Well, my money is on the jazz classic ‘I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free’, and he does it justice with this swinging, sunny, but measured take, including some splendidly free’n’easy guitar work.
Some albums you like because they intrigue you, some because they push the envelope and show some imagination.  Dear Illusion is an album to be enjoyed because it’s terrific entertainment, pure and simple.
 
Dear Illusion is out now on No Label Records, and can be ordered here.

Steve Hill - The One-Man Blues Rock Band

One good thing about reviewing Steve Hill - there’s none of that having to go checking the names of his bandmates.  That album title, The One-Man Blues Rock Band, is the literal truth.  Credit to Hill though, I didn't spend the duration of this live album, recorded in Quebec last autumn, brooding about the truly solo nature of his enterprise.

The album opens with the spiky guitar intro of ‘Rhythm All Over’, leading into a jagged, ringing riff. And the rhythm in question is stomping. When Hill sings “I’m beating on your door”, you very much get the idea.

Steve Hill - full spectrum one-man blues

Pic by Szymon Goralczyk

To begin with this may seem like his default mode, with the grinding beat of ‘Go On’ and the pounding ‘The Collector’.  But the latter meshes single note guitar work with chords and slide in impressive fashion, while Hill delivers an original lyric with a rumbling vocal.  And once you get past the lurching, bluesy riff of ‘Damned’, Hill displays more variety.

‘Tough Luck’ ripples with steely, acoustic-sounding guitar played off against measured harp, in a slow and reflective outing featuring very bluesy lyrics.  ‘Never Is Such A Long Time’ meanwhile, is a tense affair, with Hill spitting out twitchy guitar licks over low key drums, before stretching out on a squealing solo on which he somehow manages to work in counterpointing figures.  How he does that is beyond me, but the bottom line is that he manages to conjure up the full sound of a band.

The uptempo classic R’n’B of Little Walter’s ‘Hate To See You Go’ – also recorded by the Stones - maybe demonstrates that it’s not so easy for Hill to do drums that swing like Charlie Watts.  But hell, I ain’t going to damn him for that, and with its ‘Baby Please Don’t Go’ groove it still delivers plenty of voltage from the crunching chords and squalling notes of its intro to its eyeballs out solo.

But if he can’t quite pull off swing single-handedly, Hill still manages to get laid back and soulful on the simple, different, and romantic ‘Emily’.  And then he does a handbrake turn into the downbeat, brooding, ‘Nothing New’.  Its lyric, about how “I been thinkin’ ‘bout all the things I’m gonna do to you” has a dark, borderline obsessive vibe akin to The Police’s ‘Every Breath You Take’.  And in fact, in the midst of pondering the singularity of Hill’s musicianship, it would be easy to overlook his penchant for good words, whether his own or someone else’s.  But they keep cropping up - even if the Black Keys-ish ‘Still Got It Bad’ has a bit of a plodding air, it manages to tell a tale of marital deceit in withering fashion.

‘The Ballad Of Johnny Wabo’ is a down home blues with a low key opening, that then rouses itself into a slide bonanza over nothing, it seems, but a bit of hi-hat – and appears to have the crowd going nuts.  It’s a good warm-up for the set closer of ‘Dangerous’, an iconically strong track with a grabber of a riff over a great, simple rhythm.

Personally I could do without the encore of ‘Voodoo Chile’, mountainously OTT guitar solo and all. Going toe to toe with Jimi seems like a futile exercise to me, but I’d hazard a guess I’m a minority on that point. What I will say though, is that the mastering of the album could have been better.  The whole damn thing should simply be louder – I had to whack it up to 11 to get an acceptable degree of punch – and on a few occasions crowd applause is clipped off so abruptly that it undermines the live experience.  And on another tack, I’d have liked Hill to take a real time-out to deliver the kind of shimmering acoustic playing he demonstrated on the likes of ‘Troubled Times’, from his last studio album.

Steve Hill may be The One-Man Blues Rock Band, but he’s not a one-trick pony.  He may not be a game-changer, and his approach may wrap him in some artificial limitations, but there are layers in his material that I think we’ve still to fully grasp.  What this outing proves though, and what I already knew from seeing him live, is that Steve Hill is a guitar-totin', cymbal-whackin', drum-bootin', ass-kickin' joint-rocker.

The Blues Enthused Christmas Stocking 2017 - Part 1

So this is Christmas, and what have we done?  Another year over – and it’s been a pretty good one on the blues’n’roots’rock’n’rollin’ front.  It’s been a year of discoveries too.  Not necessarily all new artists by any means, and not all written about here either, but people I’ve tripped over the first time. Let’s unwrap some of the new finds Blues Enthused made in the course of the year, shall we?

Simon Campbell unwraps some 60s British blues - 21st century style

Just to prove the point that there are old timers out there you can still get acquainted with, I had fun reviewing the latest album by Washington DC’s The Nighthawks for Blues Matters magazine.  All You Gotta Do is a pretty damn enjoyable collection of old-fashioned R’n’B from a gang who’ve been around for god knows how long.  Check out this footage of ‘Livin’ The Blues’, from their earlier album 444.

Simon Campbell has also been kicking around for a looong time.  But in the company of his missus Suzy Starlite, he put together new outfit the Starlite Campbell Band to release one of my favourite albums of the year, Blueberry Pie.  It’s a crackling modern take on Sixties British blues, with strong songs, great guitar work, and sharp lyrics.  Lend an ear to these snippets of tracks from the album, and see what you think.
Just to complete a trio of oldsters, while I was on Blues Matters reviewing duty I also encountered James Litherland, once upon a time guitarist and vocalist in Colosseum.  His latest album Back'N'Blue is a classy collection of tunes showing the songsmithery of an old pro.  Often cool and funky, with clear, looping guitar lines snaking around your ears, he also weaves in some other styles with ease, and whenever I give the album a spin it's a treat.  Here he is wandering around the music shops of Soho, and going for a pint in the Angel pub - good choice by the way - to the strains of his single 'Can't Live Without You'.  Oh yeah, and there's Les Binks, once of Judas Priest, on drums!

I’ve also been introduced to a couple of truly solo performers, of the one-man band variety.  Latterly there’s been Canadian Steve Hill, who manages to get all Zep-tastic with guitar, cymbals and kick drum, all on his ownsome.  Here he is giving it big licks on ‘Dangerous’, from his album Solo Recordings: Volume 3.  And earlier in the year I reviewed High Dollar Gospel, the latest album by a fella from Virginia called Eli Cook, for Blues Rock Review.  In

Sean Webster - naturally soulful

the review I wondered why I hadn't heard of him before.  But bizarrely, I think I may have caught a bit of Cook playing live a few years back, late night in a bar in Charlottesville, Virginia.  I gather he does play with a band on occasion, but he was on his own that time, and he’s on his own here with this version of ‘Catfish Blues/Gasoline’.

Nearer to home, I reckon the newcomer making the most impact on record this year was Ash Wilson, with his album Broken Machine.  Wilson didn’t just announce himself with some bloody good soulful blues, served straight up, he chucked in a few twists of Josh Homme-like stylings for good measure.  You can also read here about how a rather iffy synth gave an edge to the title track of the album.  Wilson has ended the year taking over from Innes Sibun as guitar honcho for Sari Schorr, but here he is playing his own haunting tune ‘The Hitcher’ in London back in August.  And yes, those are indeed Bob Fridzema, Roger Inniss and Wayne Proctor making up his band.

Ash Wilson also described how he’d played previously with Netherlands-based Sean Webster, and spoke enviously of Webster’s aptitude with an emotional, soulful vocal.  By complete coincidence, it turned out Webster was the support act to King King on a jaunt I took to the Netherlands back in February, so I swiftly had the chance to catch him live

Elles Bailey - the kid shows promise

before reviewing his impressive new album Leave Your Heart AtThe Door.  Here he is performing one of my favourites from the album, ‘I Don’t Want To Talk About It’, with guest vocalist Pennyleen Krebbers, who also featured on the album version.

And it wouldn’t do to end this instalment without a contribution from the fairer sex – in this case the up and coming Elles Bailey.  The husky voiced Bristolian’s album Wildfire showed real promise, and she and her band lived up to that promise live too, straddling roots genres to good effect.  Here she is with a stripped back take on one of her best songs, the Janis Joplin-inspired ‘The Girl Who OwnedThe Blues’, from a Whispering Bob Harris session.

That little lot should keep you entertained for a while when the rest of the family decide to watch some rubbish Christmas telly.  Look out for Part 2 before the leftover turkey is finished!

Don't miss out on Part 2 of the Christmas Stocking.  Check it out here.

Wishbone Ash/Steve Hill - The Jam House, Edinburgh, 10 November 2017

Out in the shed I have a box of cassette tapes.  Remember them?  And among them is a C60 of a BBC broadcast of Wishbone Ash playing at the Hammersmith Odeon sometime around 1980, I guess.  That tape got played a lot, back in the day.  Yet somehow – don’t ask me why - I’ve never got round to seeing Wishbone Ash live until now.

Which is a pity, because they’re a band with a classy repertoire built on a unique mix of ingredients, and they absolutely have the skill set to do it justice.  They’ve been a revolving door over the decades of course, but led by Andy Powell on guitar and vocals the latest incarnation are still the real deal.

The signature

Heads down, no nonsense, mindless Renaissance folky prog rock

clean guitar harmonies are there from the opening instrumental, along with some of the folky elements that contribute to their distinctive sound.  They can also power out a good, gutsy riff though, getting the crowd going.  It doesn’t take them long to turn to one of their classics, ‘The King Will Come’, and when they do there’s immediate lift-off, with new guitarist Mark Abrahams contributing a stirring wah-wah solo.

It’s evident on ‘Warrior’ Andy Powell is still in fine fettle vocally, which can’t be said for some of his contemporaries, and his harmonies with bassist Bob Skeat are spot on.  Powell also manages to exude an affable elder statesman charm – without feeling the need to say very much he still makes an obvious connection with the audience.

They turn to acoustic guitars for ‘Throw Down The Sword’, and some more of those distinctive elements come to the fore in the almost courtly, Renaissance feel of some passages – yet they still swing.  They’re proggy, to be sure, but after their own particular fashion.  The following ‘Wings Of Desire’ is a bit more lightweight, but still features some tasteful interleaving of the two guitars.

‘F.U.B.B.’ is a whole other animal, built on a stonking bass groove, with passages of discordant guitar, precise guitar harmonies and a revved up, duelling ending – it’s an iconic instrumental.

They get down to some hard riffing with ‘Standing In The Rain’, with Powell and Skeat getting down in a neatly choreographed fashion.  It’s a good warm-up for them showing their blues roots with ‘Jail Bait’, a second cousin to ‘Roadhouse Blues’ if ever there was one.

Which just leaves time – well, quite a lot of time really – for them to get the crowd into hands aloft mode with the trademark epic ‘Phoenix’, before encoring with a brisk read through of ‘Blowin’ Free’ to end a set that clearly went down a storm with the aficionados.  Now, I wonder what state that C60 cassette is in?

Steve Hill - trapped in the middle of a drum kit

But first a word about support act Steve Hill, who has been doing the rounds with Wishbone Ash throughout this tour.  The Canadian is singular for his efforts in delivering hard-hitting blues rock as a one-man band, managing to play kick drum, hi-hat, cymbal and god knows what else in addition to guitar and vocals.  Now that runs the risk of being seen as a novelty act - except that he somehow packs enough punch to blow away a hell of a lot bands you’ll come across.

‘Damned’ is a Zeppelin-like stomp, and on the following ‘How Can I Go On?’ it’s clear that he relishes the rhythm he manages to build up.  For some light and shade ‘Change Your Mind’ features a howling solo and a neo-classical outro – on album he also demonstrates that he’s a dab hand with intricate acoustic guitar.

‘Rhythm All Over’ absolutely lives up to its title, with a great, ringing, Bad Company style riff, and the following ‘Dangerous’ is yet more rollicking rock’n’roll, and by now a good old chunk of the audience are definitely paying attention.

Hill closes with ‘Something That You Said’, on which he doubles up the tempo and takes an excursion into ZZ Top territory.  What he’s doing with the percussion must be a feat of concentration, unless it’s simply second nature to him after doing it for years, but he still manages to invest it with bags of energy.  He overdoes the outro for me – he could have got another song out there in the time he goes round the block – but the punters lap it up.  And shit, I think he deserves to do what he likes anyway with the effort he puts in.

Steve Hill may not sound anything like Motorhead, but I think Lemmy would applaud his rock’n’roll spirit.

Steve Hill - Solo Recordings: Volume 3

Titling this album Solo Recordings: Volume 3 may be a bit prosaic, but Steve Hill isn’t kidding.  Even in the studio, Hill likes to record as a live one-man band. Which seems like an unnecessary constraint to me – why make life difficult for yourself?  But regardless of his approach, he manages to produce material of considerable variety and quality across this outing.

Hill sets out his stall in convincing fashion with ‘Damned’, a stomp reminiscent of early Black Keys, with fuzzy, scratchy guitar that hits the mark.  He continues in a similar vein with

Steve Hill - ain't nobody else there

‘Dangerous’, which features a great riff crashing around a more soulful vocal of Paul Rodgers-ish depth. There’s a bit too much of a splashing cymbal sound in evidence, but that quibble aside it’s a cracker.

Hill doesn’t stick to the multi-instrumental template throughout though.  He introduces a lighter mood with the likes of ‘Slowly Slipping Away’ and ‘Troubled Times’, both of which feature twinkling, tasteful, Jimmy Page-goes-Bert Jansch acoustic guitar picking.  He adds harp to the mix on the former, along with vocals in a slightly higher register, producing a more relaxed vibe over a laid-back beat.  ‘Troubled Times', meanwhile, is a more reflective, shimmering piece, with plenty of variety in the guitar work to create a really interesting, excellent tune.

He takes it easy on ‘Emily’ too, with some fun acoustic strumming over a bouncing beat, imbued with summer sun and romantic hope. ‘Going Down The Road Feeling Bad', meanwhile, is a ripping and light acoustic number that manages to meld a gospel feel with a chilled vibe, vaguely recalling fellow Canuck Matt Andersen.

There are still some heavier grooves though, such as ‘Rhythm All Over’, on which Hill describes his usual modus operandi while adding a bit more variation to his typical stomp. It opens with a jagged riff that Hill proceeds to take in different directions around the chorus, and features a strong slide solo. ‘Walking Grave’ is an old-fashioned blues made heavy, and busy with some shifts in tempo, while Hill rips out some big guitar chords.

A couple of other stompers are satisfactory, if less dynamic. And I could probably live without both ‘Still A Fool And A Rolling Stone’ (aka ‘Catfish Blues’) and Hill’s version of ‘Rollin & Tumblin’, even if neither lets the side down.  The former is in a slow tempo a la Hendrix and adds an interesting coda, while Hill’s sonorous vocals continue to impress with their authenticity. The latter is a straight ahead reading, though it eschews the classic ‘shave and a haircut, two bits’ rhythm, but does feature some shuddering slide and a more arresting ‘Stop Breaking Down’ interlude that plays around with the rhythm.

Steve Hill explores some heavier dimensions than the aforementioned Matt Andersen, but as Solo Recordings: Volume 3 demonstrates, he too does a damn good job of carrying the torch for the true solo musician. This is an album with guts and taste, and I say more power to Steve Hill’s elbow.

Solo Recordings: Volume 3 is released on 6 October 2017 by No Label Records.

Steve Hill is touring Germany in September, and supporting Wishbone Ash on a 27 date UK tour in October and November.