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with them – a session which subsequently opened the door to recording with Odetta, Oscar Brand and Josh White Jr. Fourteen years later those sessions, together with tracks recorded in London, have finally sur- faced on general release.

Seeger is in fine voice on Midnight Spe-

cial and Kisses Sweeter Than Wine, and also adds a spoken narration to Bourgeois Blues, recalling Lead Belly’s arguments with “old man John Lomax.” Odetta supplies a passion- ate Take This Hammer and Josh White Jr con- tributes a poignant Precious Lord – the song sung by his father at Lead Belly’s funeral. Oscar Brand recounts The Last Concert over an atmospheric instrumental based on Black Girl.

Back in the UK, Ella Speed motors along

on Ralph McTell’s driving twelve-string guitar and powerful vocals, and Tom Paley delivers a joyous Ha Ha This-Away on his own guitar and banjo, accompanied by John Armer’s tea- chest bass and a kids’ chorus, while Rodney Slater and Sam Spoons do their legendary Bonzos thing on Rock Island Line.

The Lonnigans get to showcase their instrumental chops on Cow Belly Breakdown, and Connie and Bonnie Lonnigan (aka Sharon Drain and Harriet Thomas) sing terrif- ic versions of Black Betty and Careless Love. Steve Simpson (veteran of Ronnie Lane’s Slim Chance and Juice On The Loose) delivers con- vincing versions of Western Plain and album closer Goodnight Irene.

This a marvellous Transatlantic collabora- tion and a salutary reminder of just how piv- otal the folk revival songs of Lead Belly, fil- tered through Lonnie Donegan, were in the birth of the big beat in Britain.

www.atributetoleadbelly.com Steve Hunt

VERA VAN HEERINGEN Proper BrewWood And Steel WASR 1014

Come the day if we need a reason to stay in Europe, play this CD. Vera is Dutch, lives in Wales and records music that sits well along- side the best American acoustic music. The label is owned by Dirk Powell, a stunningly talented musician himself, whose musical input fills in some of the holes left, deliber- ately, by Van Heeringen and Dave Luke (the album’s workhorse). The songs are all origi- nal, and range from the slow, haunting, Wildest Truth to the light western swing of Riverside House, through the neat waltz of Mad Jack right to the closing track It’s All Been Said, perhaps the most immediately appealing song of all. Points between include an excellent duet with Tim O’Brien, and an abundance of memorable guitar lines from Van Heeringen. Just one instrumental this time, the title track, a guitar duet with Kris Drever that follows a lengthening line of well-played, melodious tunes from Vera. On the basis of the two CDs I have heard, this lady oozes class.

www.veravanheeringen.com John Atkins AMERANOUCHE

Sun Shine Soul Red Squirrel Records 888295243032

Ameranouche are a trio who play two Selmer style guitars and a double bass. They hail from the Boston area and call their music ‘Gypsy Flamenco Swing’. By claiming three virtuosic styles rolled into one, they rather set themselves up for a fall.

The album opens with the title track Sun

Shine Soul. This is a bouncy jam with no clear melody that highlights the difficulty of bal- ancing the fun the musicians are having with the need to communicate with the listener. In

Vera Van Heeringen

contrast the second track, For My Old Home, is a delightful melody by guitarist Jack Soref who has a lovely touch on the instrument. He also contributes the quirky What Now?.

Guitarist Richard ‘Shepp’ Sheppard, gives

us Sun Shine Soul, and also For Stochelo, Andalusian Dreams, Till We See Each Other Again, and Miah Maull.

Demonstrating eclectic tastes, they play

Hicaz Mandira, a 19th Century Ottoman piece, which was brought to the band by the bass player, Michael K Harrist, and also the Philadel- phia soul hit Could It Be I’m Falling in Love. However, home is definitely the gypsy jazz style, as demonstrated by the inclusion of Clair De Lune, and Django’s Rythme Futur, but if this is to be compared with the best exponents, it lacks the relaxed virtuosic preci- sion of the original. There are too many rapid and imprecise runs, too much trying too hard.

Ameranouche are a trio of very capable musicians with eclectic taste. Check out their website and see what you think.

www.ameranouche.com Jon Moore

THE DESLONDES The Deslondes New West NW6325

Putting this disc on the player with no idea who these guys might be, I soon found myself reeling in confusion, uncertain that I could be hearing what appeared to be passing through my eardrums – sounds at once warm- ly recognisable and unsettlingly unfamiliar. I thought I was getting my bearings at cut four, Less Honkin’, More Tonkin’, on its most immediate level a rockabilly romp. Then that genre marker, too, grew uncertain. Ostensi- bly about a traffic jam, it begins to take on the character of a voice confiding something one must lean closer to hear. Maybe, say, what the Deslondes have in mind, a genre of their own invention that we may as well call untraditional traditional country.

It turns out that the Deslondes hail from New Orleans, nobody’s notion of a country- music mecca (as distinct from northern Louisiana, where hillbilly and bluegrass bands have long thrived). Having heard country since my tender years – let’s just say some time has passed since then – I have had many opportunities to observe that country is more often better as an idea than as a practice. Something of this appears to have occurred to the five young men who comprise this curi- ous outfit, perhaps explaining its relationship

to country music, which is reassembled here into (maybe) its true self.

Except, that is, for the honky-tonk parts,

country’s cliché and glory. If the honkin’ is in short supply, the Deslondes’s definition of tonkin’ starts with Hank Williams, just not the heartbroken drunk most of us think of, but the other, more rarely glimpsed Hank, the haunted train-riding rambler of the open spaces. Several songs (eg Low Down Soul, Time to Believe In) conjure up what might have been generated had Hank in his prime collaborated with Woody Guthrie in his.

Except, that is, for the arrangements and the melodies, a jambalaya of homegrown spices plucked from the vernacular music gar- den. There are hints of Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry, hobo laments, hillbilly boogies, 1950s Crescent City R&B, and street-corner jug bands, fully integrated into a grand grass- roots American orchestra. In a purer, less cor- rupt world, country in its own, now-distant prime would have sounded like this.

As we staggered listeners return to our senses, anxiety pushes awe aside. Is the Deslondes’s vision sustainable, or is this but a passing, if brilliant, novelty? Keep your eyes on the prize, boys.

thedeslondes.com Jerome Clark

LEILA GOBI Leila Clermont Music CLE010

After you cross the parched Sahara and arrive at the great wet Niger, some kind of joyous explosion of the spirit is clearly on the cards. Gao in northern Mali is one such contact point, conflict and suppression notwithstand- ing. An extraordinary number of fine musi- cians have come from Gao and around, and here’s another someone special: a prodigious young woman playing here with her group of bass, drums, guitars and – for this record – guests on keyboards. It’s a tight, bouncy sound, not unfamiliar at all (Sidi Touré comes to mind) and it’s beautifully recorded, espe- cially on vinyl, which I now clutch. How pleas- ing to have sleevenotes big enough to read! Formerly a back-up singer, perky-voiced Leila formed her group in 2010 in Bamako. This is her third album and mostly it shines with sim- plicity and groove, quite measured and calm. But the occasional ill-advised outburst of rock- fireworks lead guitar needs to be watched.

www.clermontmusic.com/leila Rick Sanders