67 f The band were mighty impressive at
May’s Hangvetö-directed World Music From Home showcase concert at Budapest’s Palace of Arts, and appear in London in late June. The CD, recorded in Serbian tambura heartland in Novi Sad, gives a good sense of their capabili- ties. They’re joined on some tracks by leading elder tambura player Jószef Kovács, and for couple of songs each by the very strong female singer Kátya Tompos, who was a highlight of the Budapest concert, and the larynx-straining ecstatic male vocals of Roma singer Antal Kovács from the band Romano Drom.
The material is mostly Serbian, some of it Roma, with an occasional touch of the influ- ence of Croatian tambura bands, moving to Macedonian and the non-tambura instru- ments for the final three tracks. The earlier part of the album is largely played, with mas- terly fluency, on the tamburas, but the band’s Salamon Eredics also delivers a snappy lead on frula, the wooden whistle, for one of the several kolos (tunes for the ever-popular Ser- bian circle-dance), and on accordeon leads a Serbian song tune that fades in and out, slightly oddly but as a contrasting insert between tambura tracks.
www.worldvillagemusic.com www.sondorgo.com
Andrew Cronshaw Pura Fé
IAN SIEGAL AND THE YOUNGEST SONS The Skinny Nugene Records NUG1101.
British bluesman Ian Siegal decamped to Coldwater, Mississippi, last year to record this album with the baby boys fathered by RL Burnside, Junior Kimbrough, Jim Dickinson and Bobby Bland.
Bassist Garry Burnside and drummer/pro- ducer Cody Dickinson both have a history with the hill country’s North Mississippi Allstars, and bring much of that band’s trademark muddy sound with them. Rodd Bland plays drums on the six tracks Dickinson doesn’t han- dle himself, and Robert Kimbrough con- tributes both lead and rhythm guitar.
Siegal settles into the band’s embrace for much of the album, calling aloud for Kim- brough to take the solo on several tracks, and including two of Burnside’s songs alongside his own seven compositions. It’s very much a band project, rather than a star fronting his hired hands, and Siegal is rewarded with a sense of palpable respect from the young princes.
The downside of this approach is that the album sometimes sounds more like an NMA record than one of his own. There’s a nimble little wah-wah pattern from Siegal to enjoy on Stud Spider, and a pleasant breathy growl to his vocals throughout, but no deny- ing that the first six tracks’ mid-tempo rockers are more or less interchangeable. This isn’t helped by Siegal’s workmanlike lyrics, which lean rather too heavily on the old blues clichés of desire, death and damnation.
Relief comes with track seven’s Better
Than Myself, when Siegal finally takes the spotlight. The clean, sharp tones of his acous- tic slide guitar cut through the album’s pre- vailing murk like cool rain after a long day’s suffocating heat. Siegel’s slide playing is the highlight of this whole project, and it never shines brighter than it does on this track. Bet- ter has easily the album’s most memorable tune too, and the only one which lingered in my head when it was done.
There’s more impressive slide work on
Garry’s Nite Out, where Burnside takes over the vocals to let Siegal concentrate on play- ing an extended showcase. The amount of chatter on the take suggests it was meant only as a rehearsal, but that Siegal’s lightning- in-a-bottle performance won it a place on the album anyway.
Sadly, nothing else here quite reaches the heights those two tracks achieve. Con- firmed Siegal fans will want to pick it up any- way, but the merely curious might find 2008’s The Dust a safer bet.
www.nugenerecords.com Paul Slade PURA FÉ TRIO
Live! A Blues Night In North Carolina Dixiefrog DFGCD 8699
VARIOUS ARTISTS
The Music Maker Revue Live! In Europe Dixiefrog DFGCD 8699
Earlier this year the Pura Fé Trio performed in London, playing an impressive opening set before the Music Maker Review took the stage (fRoots 335). The Trio’s live expertise is in full evidence on this new double-CD recorded (over two nights) at the Shared Visions Retreat Center, Durham, N Carolina, in front of attentive and appreciative audi- ences. Pura Fé’s previous studio album proved her best to date but with the range of music and the live performance dynamic, this is even better.
With a total running time of two hours and 11 minutes you feel that you’re hearing the full concert programme. After a short intro, the trio of Pura Fé (vocals and slide Hawaiian-born guitar), Cary Moric (guitars and vocals), and Pete Knudson (percussion and vocals) ease into Red, Black On Blues, the first of the 14 original pieces programmed that Pura Fé either composed or co-composed. It’s a gentle opener but as the album progresses the dynamic range increases. Instrumentally the trio meshes superbly, forming the base around which Pura Fé’s vocals rise and swirl like an eagle riding a mountain thermal... her softly-spoken introductions giving way to a vocal torrent as she swoops in and around the lyrics. The vocal influence of Joni Mitchell is very apparent, but she has her own distinc- tive voice, singing in a lower register than Joni, and incorporating a rougher edge. The last track of CD1 features guest Justin Robin- son (The Carolina Chocolate Drops) playing autoharp and harmonising with the trio on a smooth rendition of Phil Phillips 1959 R&B/pop hit Sea Of Love.
With CD2 the tone changes immediately with the introduction of the Dear Clan Singers (David Locklear, Mark Deese, Chad Locklear and Pura Fé). The trio then returns to deliver a fine version of the Skip James blues Hard Time Killing Floor with Pura Fé’s atmospheric slide playing shadowing the moaned chorus. The varied programme throughout is both absorbing and uplifting.
Pura Fé is also the opening act on Music Maker Revue Live! The two songs she sings are both on Blues Night In North Carolina but in different renditions. All the artists who appeared at the London gig (with the excep- tion of Ms Pat Wilder) get a featured spot on the CD: Dr Burt, Eddie Tigner, Alabama Slim, Albert White and big-voiced Pat ‘Mother Blues’ Cohen. At the close all the other Review artists join Pat for a mass rendition of the anthem The Blues Is Alright. Live In Europe is a fair representation of the Review’s show but lacks the atmosphere and the overall excitement that was generated at their London performance. They should have recorded and released that one.
www.bluesweb.com Dave Peabody ELIZA GILKYSON
Roses At The End Of Time Red House Records RHR-CD-238
The daughter of folk singer Terry Gilkyson has considerable achievements to her name. She wrote the opening song of Rosanne Cash’s album King’s Record Shop and was the first to record Woody Guthrie’s Peace Call. Following Eliza’s largely self-penned release Paradise Hotel (2005), Joan Baez recorded Requiem and another of her songs on Day After Tomorrow. Gilkyson’s Beautiful World (2008) amply confirmed her gifts as both writ- er and interpreter.
As in the 2005 album’s Bellarosa, con- temporary Mexico is reflected on one track of Roses: a lament by uprooted farm workers. Otherwise it’s the country twang of Texas that predominates. Gilkyson’s acoustic, elec- tric and National steel guitars are deftly engi- neered by Cisco Ryder, her drummer son. Together with banjo and fiddle, the har- monies of John Gorka and Lucy Kaplansky enrich brother Tony Gilkyson’s lyric, Death in
Photo: Patricia de Gorostarzu
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