Early Jul Round Up – Daniel Sherrill, Tu-Kay & Ryan, John Douglas: Album Review(s)

By Seuras Og on 19th December 2023 • ( Leave a comment )

So many discs, so little time as we reach Jul…Jul? Read on….

Daniel Sherrill – Back To P.A.

AST Records, 29th November 2023

Jul isn’t a typo for July; we’re not that early. It is the Nordic solstice celebration of, annexed with Xmas, Jul. Or Yule, as we have it. And what better time to unwrap another speciality of ATB, namely the solo banjo record. You would think that more niche than even our fabled eclecticism, but a legion of fans have written that we should continue to provide pointers to such, actually a second this year, after the mighty Dan Walsh.

Sherrill has been in bands and still is, playing many instruments, generally in that loose crossover of jamgrass bands, sharing the musical nous of bluegrass but with Deadhead attitude and approach. But his main instrument is the banjo, and here is his second solo set to showcase that instrument, and his unique take on the options it allows an inquisitive player. I guess his style falls mainly into the clawhammer style, individually downpicked notes, in rapid freefall, but he also strums. The amateur listener thus, attuned maybe more to rock, find some kindred spirit with the guitar styles of Wilko Johnson or Mick Green, however different the style and outcome. As the album title suggests, it has involved a move, back to rural Pennsylvania, in his case, from Chicago. And these are rural downhome tunes, often transcribed for different instruments, but here he approaches them all in his own idiosyncratic way: “I try to be very clean and precise with my playing, as if the birds were singing the melodies, with the trees, crickets, and creeks.“

Shady Grove opens the show, it taking a while to recognise the tune, buried in the cascade of notes, but it’s definitely in there. Indeed, your ATB badge will be in doubt if you don’t know it and eventually recognise it as the tune appropriated by a certain Oxfordshire-based band: it’s Matty Groves! With that penny dropped, suddenly the intricacies become all the more obvious, hard to believe just ten fingers were here involved. Dry And Dusty navigates around a circular melody, the strums throwing oblique shades across the picking. It is almoost as if he is playing the banjo like a guitar, and is a long way distant from the Beverly Hillbillies. Wandering Boy then has a lilting gallivant about it, with echoes from a Caledonian ceilidh past.

Fisher’s Hornpipe is slower, more of a solemn march really, if with still a twinkle in the eye, and the listener can now relax, calm in the knowledge that there is nothing to spook the horses here. Or any other family member. Brushy Fork Of St John’s Creek sounds like a band of banjo boys, some of the twists and turns introducing an almost raga like effect that is quite a leap. An enjoyable one. Whiskey Before Breakfast is a tune well known and, depending on lifestyle choices, can be a treat or punishment. Here it is the former, uncertain if the picking back up the piece’s catch up motifs are a result of practicing what he is allowing the tune to preach. I’m thinking I’d love to see a banjo stand-off between he, Walsh and, say, Andrew Tuttle, each a’partaking and then a’playing, to see who finishes first.

As titles go, the alternative title of Lake Earnest is That’s Fine, I’ll Use Your Wet Towel, and that alone should have you rueing over quite what’s happening for the duration of this piece, and if you have worked it out by the time of Fly, Eagle, Fly, you’ll have earnt the pleasure of enjoying the exquisite tunefulness of this, the shortest track here, the banjo now singing like a mandolin. An album like this runs the risk of overloading too much, too quickly, onto ears not sufficiently warmed in, but avoids this by having sufficient brevity as not to pall, with enough length to appeal, ringing sufficient changes to still surprise. And it is certainly with a surprise it ends, Fable’s Tune now allowing Sherrill to channel harp play out of his instrument. Which is a tinkling fine way to end this engaging album.

See what I mean?

Daniel Sherrill online: Website / Facebook / Instagram

*****

Tu-Kay & Ryan – Companion

self-released, 3rd November 2023

Me, neither; both names new to me, but showing just how deep the well is, of currently unsigned artists. If proof were ever needed about the ability to make a breakthrough being dependent upon PR and record label hype, these two show that ain’t the truth, they pitching this direct at our ears. And it stuck!

On the back of an earlier four EPs, this is their debut full lenth, bringing a sparkly glow of witchseasony ambience to our ears. Witchseasony? As in Joy Boyd’s legendary stable of Witchseason artists, mostly on the pink Island label and produced by John Wood, the music this duo play and produce having a hefty whiff of those days, when singer-songwriters had the studio option of hooking up with the house band and playing with just a little more than their acoustic guitars alone. OK, I romanticise, and the two duos this couple most resemble were neither any overt part of that ethos, nor, for the latter, of that time at all. But that’s the mood and my glasses are rosy. It’s allowed.

Ash Tu-Kay and Rebecca Ryan have known each other for five years, singing songs together from the start, some from Tu-Kay’s earlier unfinished ideas and, more recently, songs penned between them. With a natural stomping ground of folk clubs, their mix of folk and country has always been met with applause, an earlier single, Temporal Drifter even topping the Amazon Folk chart. Given Tu-Kay is also adept on all manner of instruments, as well as owning and running his own studio, where this was made and produced, by him, one senses this a fully in-house project, with the pair providing all the backing and all the voices.

Companion starts with the light and elegant froth of All That I Am, a semi-samba bossa nova that sways into the room with a pleasing lilt. Ryan is singing lead, Tu-Kay adding a rustier harmony to the pristine polish of her tones, always a reliable mix, tried and tested over the years from Sonny and Cher and ever onward. It’s an inviting start, with Something Real next placing Tu-Kay in the vocal limelight. A sombre song, elegaic even, the lift comes from Ryan’s harmonies, sweetening the sadness in her partner’s voice. (Which is actually a whole lot better than the late Mr Bono.) Strings, synthetic or otherwise, bathe the voices and picked guitar in a glow of , as they sing”something pure, something real”. Breakthrough is then a consummately English construction, guitars and clear and soaring enunciation, that really showcases Ryan’s soaring voice as a thing of no small beauty: “Let the feeling come, let the healing come“. A play again song, it really stands up and out.

Nothing’s Perfect is a plea for realism and acceptance, and, with weaving vocals, has a whiff of peak 80s Fleetwood Mac about it. It’s fine, but not their forte, the simpler construct of No One Left Behind more in keeping with the style elsewhere, this being the stage I found myself thinking of Gay and Terry Woods. Yes, the vocals aren’t that similar, but the songcraft smacks of that degree of care. Lyrically, it is a song written by Tu-Kay to support Ryan at a trough in her life, and it is another high water mark, which is then cemented by Balance, this time evoking Christine Collister and the songs of Clive Gregson. (That’s my two pairs of comparator duos, btw!) On a roll, the gently rocked up Time To Heal is another cracker, which, if I think about it, bridges the Mac versus Witchseason feel.

Safe And Sound billows in on a chiming harp-like guitar, smacking again of Collister and Gregson. Is there better praise? A support slot must surely beckon for any more established artist in the folk and country crossover roots field. (Isn’t Richard Thompson touring in the late spring, should his promotions team be reading?) Today slips down the mood and the tempo into the mellow reflection, Today: “Won’t You Take It All Away?”, referring, I think to, seeking someone to be there and do just that. She’s A Dreamer feels a little too obvious, but only in the company kept, such is the setting of the bar.

Drink It In is a reprise of the now familiar style they have dabbled with throughout, starting off fairly simply, gradually adding layers of vocal. Tu-Kay leads, Ryan gently dipping in, literally allowing the listener to “drink it in, find the beauty within“, which the percussion further embellishes. Finally, A Little Time is, it seems, an older song, well-practiced and well-rehearsed, and, if caught on the hop, you’d swear it was Christine Collister. A good song well sung, which might well sum up the whole here. The future beckons?

Here’s that last track, live and stripped back, A Little Time:

Tu-Kay & Ryan online: Website / Facebook / X (formerly Twitter) / Instagram

*****

John Douglas – John Douglas

Reveal Records, 6th October 2023

The Trashcan Sinatras occupy a comfy space in the memory of many a music fan of, let’s say, middle years, the Irvine, South West of Glasgow, band huge in their tiny circle of stalwart fans, mostly in the Scottish central belt, never quite breaking out of cult status. Not that, of course, the band has ever formally expired, with always the promise of new material to bookend the rash of re-released material of late. Douglas wasn’t in the original 1986 iteration, joining a year later, on guitar, joining Frank Reader, Davy Hughes, Paul Livingstone and Paul Douglas, all of whom remain in the last sightings of the band. Reader? Yes, Eddi is his sister and for good measure, she is also Douglas’s wife, with Douglas being also a member of her band, contributing songs to her repertoire.

These eleven songs are he and he alone, solo in the studio with just his guitar for company, and have a lingering maudlin presence, evoking a solitary one-man version of the Blue Nile, the simplicity of the songs all containing that same sheen of sophistication, despite their stripped back nakedness. (And, should you purchase through Bandcamp, there are a further two songs, exclusive to that platform). Some songs are new, others reprised from the TS’s back catalogue, with another from elsewhere, for good measure.

Lost is a great way to start this record, a new song, immediately revealing what sort of listen this will be, an achingly sad song of feeling lost, trapped by the fast swelling tide of normal life: “Throw me away into the past, that’s where I stay, that’s where I last.” That mood percolates into I Just Want To Go Home, about and around that flat period at the end of festivities, a party or a gig, all the buzz dissipated by an encroach of ennui, his voice the perfect container for introspective angst, a fragile, wistful sound, barely above a whisper, the guitar picking out chords of despair. Beautiful.

Weightlifting may be remembered from the TS 2004 album of the same title. Stripped back, it manages simultaneously to be both even more maudlin than the original, yet to better carry the hint of optimism the lyric points to, that seeming absent at the first time around. Note, also, the slight sway of a languid samba is present, a mood that becomes increasingly persuasive. Orange Crayons was a song the band tried to get to grips with, never quite hitting it off, thus shelved; until now. Given the stock in trade of the band and these songs is on the bleaker side of morose, I can’t see what was earlier deemed missing, but it is another wry reflection, remembering primary school and being shy. Needing some jolly? I fear this may not be the place, as Leave Me Alone is a classic TS break up song. But actually, listen to the lyric, which offers a sense of acceptance and moving on. Provided the instruction in the title is obeyed, that is. An intriguing melodic run in the chorus catches a slim hint of Want You Back, yes, the Take That song. which is both as beguiling as is, perhaps, accidental, not least with the contrary run of the narrative.

Maid O’ The Loch is a boat, moored at a lochside, North West of the Douglas/Reader Glasgow homestead, and where he goes to escape the hurly burly of the city. A song that is as calm and bounteous as the horizon. A pair of TS songs follow, The Sleeping Policeman and I’m Not The Fella, the first becoming near a shanty in style and delivery, having been originally more of a music hall Madness style number. The latter, twenty years later, in 2016, was a little over produced for me, with harps, choirs and pianos. Here, just voice and guitar, it much better fits the smoky mood of late-night alcohol-soaked hubris, reality shattering the whisky goggles. It has become a gorgeous song, as is Oranges and Apples, a third old song reprised, dating midway between the two preceding. A song dedicated to the memory of Syd Barrett, and loosely arranged on Barrett’s song of the same name, the loss of the whimsical erstwhile band arrangement making for a much more contemporary feel. And greater affection, being also the closest here to there being a spring in the step of the album. Douglas describes the song as a warm cuddle, and he isn’t wrong.

The penultimate song will nag, a memory reluctant to unravel and reveal, a meandering melody and sense of insouciance. Let me help you, for it is Paddy McAloon’s We Let The Stars Go, the Prefab Sprout song shining free, without any of the glossy production recalled. The greater fragility Douglas has in his voice suits the sparse arrangement, and points a way forward for a reclusive writer, should he need a way to revisit his past, an acoustic retread of the Sprout being something I could certainly live with. OK, I guess Martin McAloon is sort of doing that for his brother, but without anything quite like this degree of piquancy. And piquant is also the word for Always, the final song, a love song to to his wife of twenty years, which, if it doesn’t have you welling up, then you have neither a soul nor a heart. Mrs Douglas must feel blessed. And the listener, by default, may choose to, too.

I’m Not The Fella, live, possibly its debut performance: