singer-songwriters
Graham Fuller
Inside Llewyn Davis, Joel and Ethan Coen's brooding homage to the Greenwich Village folk scene, is set in 1961 (January probably), just before Bob Dylan's revelatory songs popularised it. The film is named for its protagonist, a working-class singer-guitarist suggested by the seminal Village folk-blues performer and musicians' mentor Dave Von Ronk. The undomiciled Llewyn also inherited Phil Ochs's habit of crashing on other performers' couches.Portrayed with consummate weary restraint by Oscar Isaac, Llewyn is not a prepossessing movie hero. Selfish and self-destructive, capable of being Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Croz is everything a David Crosby album should be. That’s not to say it’s the sound of laurels being rested on or evidence of an artist coasting and returning to default settings. Rather, that instead it’s a statement of who this man is and why he is unique. The album – his first solo outing in 20 years – is crammed with jazzy arrangements and melodic shifts. The warm yet spare instrumentation is sympathetic and instantly identifiable as Crosby’s. The lyrics, observational and personalised, are never predictable. And his voice, still bell-like and pure, is as seductive as it has ever been. Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Damien Jurado last surfaced as one of Moby’s collaborators on the Innocents album. From the sound of Brothers and Sisters of the Eternal Son, Beck might have been a more logical musical partner. Texture-wise, Jurado’s new release sits alongside Sea Change-era Beck as well as the dense, fuggy atmosphere of his own last outing, 2012’s Maraqopa.Like that album, Brothers and Sisters of the Eternal Son is produced by Richard Swift. He has become integral to helping Jurado move from the lo-fi folkie he was characterised as to becoming an auteur breaching musical barriers. The songs are lyrically Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Drawing colour from country and Appalachian traditions while echoing the world-weary moods of singer-songwriters like Karen Dalton, Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson and Townes Van Zandt, the third album from Oklahoma’s Samantha Crain doesn’t surprise musically. Kid Face constructs its world carefully and deliberately, but although like the disclosure of a private world still feels immediate.Kid Face follows up to 2010’s You (Understood) and is more sparse. It’s even more so than the album which preceded that, 2009’s Songs in the Night, recorded with her former band The Midnight Shivers. By Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Jackson C. Frank: Jackson C. Frank“I am afraid of the ocean as much as the possibility it is my mother,” declared Jackson C. Frank in the liner notes to his sole, eponymous album, issued in September 1965. “Songs that I write aren’t mine to admit to,” he went on. “They dwell a little too heavily on the grey area behind my eyes to become my friends.” Presciently, he admitted “you’ll never know me as I do until it’s impossible twilight too late to do anything about it.” This was a singer unafraid to reveal the content of his psyche. He was not pop's usual contender. The album Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
In the right circles, Jason Isbell already has enough of a reputation as one of contemporary Americana’s finest songwriters - both solo and as part of the Drive-By Truckers - that for him to drop an album as subtly stunning as Southeastern shouldn’t really have been a surprise. But what edged this album - the songwriter’s fourth either under his own name or alongside his band the 400 Unit - above The Julie Ruin’s Run Fast in my choice of best of 2013 was its consistency. While previous Isbell albums have featured some of my go-to, favourite-ever songs, the sucker punches were usually held Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Neil Young: Live at the Cellar DoorCrosby, Stills, Nash & Young had fallen apart in summer 1970 and Neil Young was left to promote After the Gold Rush, his third solo album from August that year. He hit the road on his own after "Only Love Can Break Your Heart" had nudged the singles’s chart. As 1971 unfolded, the tour would be billed Journey Through the Past – he was playing recent songs alongside material from his earlier albums, including those made with The Buffalo Springfield.Live at the Cellar Door catches Young in Washington D.C during a series of dates over 30 November to 2 Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
This year, even legendary punk rockers Bad Religion released a Christmas-themed album - as if to underline that, for just about any recording artist, it’s not a matter of "if" but of "when". Christmas Songs only shares one track with Kelly Clarkson’s Wrapped in Red - two if you’re counting the bonus tracks - but I can imagine them nestled comfortably together in some completist’s iTunes folder, alongside every other version of “White Christmas” committed to tape.With a Greatest Hits collection now under her belt, it’s probably as good a time as any for the American Idol-winning Texan to Read more ...
Tim Cumming
And so Dylan’s tour of European theatres, opera houses and concert halls ended on Thursday night at the Royal Albert Hall, his first dates here in 46 years. I’ve seen him plenty of times over the past 30 years. This was the best of them. Dylan’s found a way to use his voice again, and his group is so nuanced to its needs, it’s a pure pleasure to hear. Charlie Sexton plays a warm and refined lead, not rock'n'roll at all, and there’s a quiet glow between all the players; it’s as if they’re facing the same way, looking at the same colours.Appropriately, "Things Have Changed" opens it up as the Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
There’s something in the vocal delivery that calls for comparison to countrywoman Leslie Feist - a subtlety, an unreal-ness - but on her third, self-titled album Canadian songwriter Hannah Georgas has honed a sound of her own. What could easily have been your run-of-the-mill, heart-on-sleeve singer-songwriter material spent a little time in the studio with Graham Walsh of Toronto-based electronica act Holy Fuck and came out with its soul intact, but with just enough bite to make these songs stand out.I confess to writing Georgas off a little last year, while she was opening for, and Read more ...
theartsdesk
Of all the rock pantheon, Joni is the one who has evaded definition and over-determination better than anyone. The seemingly ethereal folkstress who partied with the most grizzled rockers and left them weeping for their mothers; the lover of the rock'n'roll life who can sing jazz standards and stand with the very greatest; the musical maestro who prefers to see herself as a painter - for all the reams of text written about her, the depths of armchair psychoanalysis attempted on her, Joni is always something other, and something more than anything you might expect. That is why, as much as any Read more ...
Russ Coffey
Few artists make critics wince like James Blunt. One described his biggest hit, “You’re Beautiful”, for instance, as being like “Japanese water torture”. Another said Blunt made him want to “rip his ears off”. Still, the erstwhile army officer doesn’t seem to care what critics say. And why should he? Not only have his songs brought him platinum discs, they’ve also helped pay for houses in Ibiza and Switzerland. So, with such a big audience what exactly are the critics' issues? And is Moon Landing going to change their minds?Not a chance. Blunt's mother once opined that some people are simply Read more ...