18 April 2021

Joe Bonamassa

Review: Joe Bonamassa ‘Royal Tea’

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King of the blues Bonamassa runs the gamut from blues-rock to cool 40s and 50s dancehall blues to country-blues, always with a rootsy edge. Here the New Yorker heads to his second home and records at Abbey Road, an album that lets him have a late 60s/early 70s prog rock party. He’s written songs with Pete Brown, the Cream lyricist, and Bernie Marsden, guitarist in heavy rock combo Whitesnake. The result is heavy but tuneful, and with that special something Bonamassa manages to bring. The title track – oddly inspired by the Harry ‘n’ Meghan shenanigans – chugs along nicely with girlie backing chorus and there’s plenty of guitar histrionics, in a good way. But there’s another side… the mandolin-fringed Savannah is a relaxed love song, Lonely Boy a horn-swept boogie and Beyond The Silence slow and moody with acoustic touches. Bonamassa’s regular band – including ace keyboard player Reese Wynans, who’s been in both Jerry Jeff Walker’s band and Stevie Ray Vaughan’s Double Trouble – are even joined by Jools Holland for that Brit touch. Bonamassa is always inventive while honouring the music’s roots. By Nick Dalton To stay up to date on the latest country music news, please register to receive our newsletter here. Media contact Zoe Hodges, Editor, Maverick Magazine Tel: +44 (0) 1622 823920 Email: editor@maverick-country.com

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Dave Edmunds

Review: Dave Edmunds ‘5 Originals’

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Guitar and production genius Edmunds was doing roots rock before most people even thought of it, with 1970 transatlantic hit I Hear You Knockin’, producing Shakin’ Stevens debut (and the hit Merry Christmas Everyone) and working with many more stars. This 3CD set unites five albums. SUBTLE AS A FLYING MALLET from 1975 has Edmunds’ wall-of-sound recreating pop and rock classics – and with country-rockers Brinsley Schwarz, including Nick Lowe, on two live numbers. We skip the Rockpile years when Edmunds and Lowe shared a powerful band, leaping to DE 7th (1982), featuring keyboard/accordion king Geraint Watkins and his band the Dominators and songs such as Watkins’ wonderful Deep In The Heart Of Texas and Gulf Coast fiddler Doug Kershaw’s Louisiana Man – and a song gifted by Bruce Springsteen, From Small Things (Big Things One Day Come). INFORMATION (1983) is same band but augmented, curiously, by the synthesiser of, equally curiously, producer Jeff Lynne. Rather poppy but Lynne wrote the classy hit Slipping Away. Follow-up RIFF RAFF, however, saw Lynne preside over a synth-heavy flop. But Edmunds is at his glorious best on the live I HEAR YOU ROCKIN’, Watkins and co back to romp through a string of rockabilly-country favourites… I Saw The Bride, Girls Talk, Queen Of Hearts, Ju Ju Man and, of course, I Hear You Knockin’. By Nick Dalton To stay up to date on the latest country music news, please register to receive our newsletter here. Media contact Zoe Hodges, Editor, Maverick Magazine Tel: +44 (0) 1622 823920 Email: editor@maverick-country.com

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My Darling Clementine

Review: My Darling Clementine with Steve Nieve ‘Country Darkness’

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MDC are, of course, Brit husband and wife team Michael Weston King and Lou Dalgleish who have intelligently and beautifully reinvigorated the country duet over various albums. Nieve, equally of course, is the long-time keyboard campadre of Elvis Costello. Here they unite, with subtle band, to interpret 12 of Mr Costello’s finest, country-soul gems from down the years, in a manner that is far from a simple country album. The couple’s vocals caress the lyrics with music that is near classical at times, Nieve’s elegant piano along with everything from cello to flugelhorn and yet there’s squeezebox, guitar and pedal steel drifting through. There’s a dramatic horn-drenched take on Elvis’s collaboration with Paul McCartney, That Day Is Done, an entrancing Heart Shaped Bruise and Indoor Fireworks, accompanied only by Dalgleish’s piano. Elvis’s co-write with the mighty T Bone Burnett, The Crooked Line, gets a playful Tex-Mex feel, I Felt The Chill Before Winter Came, written with Loretta Lynn, is sweet country while his team-up with singer-songwriter Jim Lauderdale, I Lost You, has an understated country-rock feel. Impressive and imaginative. By Nick Dalton To stay up to date on the latest country music news, please register to receive our newsletter here. Media contact Zoe Hodges, Editor, Maverick Magazine Tel: +44 (0) 1622 823920 Email: editor@maverick-country.com

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Shakin Stevens

Review: Shakin’ Stevens ‘Fire In The Blood’

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Nineteen albums and 292 tracks, this box set rocks and rolls through 40 colourful years. Many listeners didn’t see much beyond his hits and Top Of The Pops appearances (he was the UK’s biggest selling singles artist of the 80s) but Shaky has always been the real deal, combining rockabilly, country and boogie in a breathless rollercoaster ride. And while he looked increasingly slick on his album covers, inside he was the poor boy from the Welsh valleys fronting a dream team of country-rock musicians. This collection starts with his first two rockabilly solo albums, SHAKIN’ STEVENS and TAKE ONE, before things hit a new level with 1980’s MARIE MARIE. Inspired producer Stuart Colman directed a killer band, not least guitarists Albert Lee (fresh from Emmylou Harris’s Hot Band), Mickey Gee (once of Dave Edmunds’ hitmakers Love Sculpture) and Roger McKew (who’d played with the likes of Joe Brown). Then pianist Geraint Watkins (whose own combo, the Dominators, featured Gee and had also been playing souped up rock ‘n’ roll country-tinged boogie), pedal steel genius BJ Cole and Hank Wangford drummer Howard Tibble. Shaky’s vocals conjure up 50s America and there was genius in giving new life to songs we thought we knew (turning Fats Domino favourite Don’t Lie To Me into a squeezebox-led zydeco party) and spotting new kids on the block (Dave Alvin’s Marie Marie was recorded almost the moment it was heard on the debut album by his LA roots-rockers, the Blasters). Each album is here in its entirety, in replica cover, stashed neatly inside a classy hardback book, and with all the hits… Green Door, This Ole House, Oh Julie, Hot Dog and more. Merry Christmas Everyone is here with its own Christmas album, and there’s the dark and rootsy ECHOES OF OUR TIME from 2016. Add two live albums (one a BBC concert) and three packed discs of rarities (B sides, 12-inch versions, radio sessions) and it’s a glorious treasure trove. By Nick Dalton To stay up to date on the latest country music news, please register to receive our newsletter here. Media contact Zoe Hodges, Editor, Maverick Magazine Tel: +44 (0) 1622 823920 Email: editor@maverick-country.com

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