Category: Singers
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Stevie Nicks: Bella Donna / The Wild Heart
Stevie Nicks is the bonkers but brilliant singer with Fleetwood Mac, whose ethereal, scratchy voice is famous. You know the sound, so you know what these two remastered CDs contain. Bella Donna was her first solo release and is the better of these two, presumably because she had a batch of songs written over the…
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Dr John Cooper Clarke and Hugh Cornwell: This Time It’s Personal
The original new wave poet and Strangler produce an album of their favourite tunes. Given that an early Stranglers classic was Walk On By it’s perhaps no surprise; what is a surprise is how good Cooper Clarke’s voice is; think Richard Hawley. Nearly as good as Walk On By is their cover of MacArthur Park,…
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Xylaroo: Sweetooth
After reading the biog, this is not what we were expecting. The sisters that make up Xylaroo are from Papa New Guinea and now live in London, via Hong Kong, Sri Lanka and the Philippines, and we were expecting something a bit world, but opening song, Track A Lackin’ is a rollicking country tune. It…
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Natalie McCool: The Great Unknown
We feel we should be kind about McCool’s new album. She has a tenuous Cheshire connection, so she’s almost local, and we’ve heard her earlier stuff and thought she had potential. But, as people sometimes say, this would be a vinyl album, where you play side one but rarely flip it over for side two…
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Joan As Police Woman and Benjamin Lazar Davis: Let It Be You
The Guardian review of this says it “doesn’t quite do the pair justice” but we think they’ve not listened to it enough. It takes a number of plays for its charms to become apparent, but they are there. The album sees Joan Wasser link up with New Yorker Benjamin Lazar Davis, a multi-instrumentalist, for a…
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Will Varley: Kingsdown Sundown
He’s an interesting guy is Mr V. He began playing open mic nights in London in the early 2000s, then set up Smugglers Records with the band Cocos Lovers (who we last saw at Green Man). He released his debut album Advert Soundtracks in 2011 and toured the album on foot, and has since toured…
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Dan Whitehouse: That’s Where I Belong
Anyone who saw Danny And The Champions Of The World at Biddulph this year will know the Whitehouse sound — soul mixed with a splash of country and folk; this pleasant new album is in fact produced by Danny of Danny And The Champs. That’s Where I Belong is the standout song; it’s very familiar…
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Seasick: Steve Keepin’ The Horse Between Me And The Ground
This is undoubtedly Seasick Steve’s best album; the title aside it has no music hall showmanship about it — or at least no back of the cowboy wagon showboating — and it’s got depth and subtlety. Maybe Mr Wold is as sick of Seasick as we are, though it’s been an excellent career move. Though…
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