True tales, travel experiences, philosophical musings a-plenty and uplifting string arrangements.  They’re all here on A Sudden Rain, the new album from Cambridge singer-songwriter John Meed

Release Date:  22nd March 2024

Label: Self Release

Formats: CD, Digital

Although he’s now based in Cambridge, singer-songwriter John Meed was raised in the Lancashire town of Rochdale.  He’s a true citizen of the planet and his worldly experiences pervade his music and the ideas he expresses via that medium but, beneath it all, he remains a Lancashire lad with a real gift for putting over his thoughts plainly, simply, and with an unadulterated Lancastrian delivery.

John has been writing, playing and singing since his teenage years, but it wasn’t until 2005 that he took the plunge into preserving his songs and tunes on wax; his debut album, The Children Of The Sea hit the racks that year.  A Sudden Rain is album No.9 from John and he’s taken the opportunity to enhance his thoughtful songs with a little help from some talented friends – I’ll get into the details shortly – and the result is something quite remarkable. 

It took a 2019 trip to Nepal to reawaken John’s songwriting chops after a prolonged hiatus.  Four of the songs on A Sudden Rain were directly inspired by his Himalayan experiences, and their emergence stimulated the rest of the material that ended up on the album.  If you haven’t come across John Meed before, let me tell you that he’s songwriter of great perception and insight, willing to tackle the issues that have the greatest impact upon people’s lives and interactions.  He writes songs that cut to the quick and encourage listeners to nod in sage agreement.  OK, his singing voice is, perhaps, an acquired taste but, once that taste has been acquired, you’ll find that his voice brings an amazing warmth to his thoughtful musical contemplations.

Over the years, John’s songwriting has drawn comparisons to the work of Al Stewart, Leonard Cohen, Christy Moore, Jacques Brel and Richard Thompson – evocative wordsmiths to a man – and, as if to emphasise his lyrical leanings, he cites John Lennon, Ray Davies and Eric Bogle amongst his formative influences.  He’s appeared on BBC and community radio stations across the UK and beyond, as well as at events as prestigious as Cambridge Folk Festival, Cromer Festival and Woodfest.

It’s one of the products of John’s Nepal sojourn that gets A Sudden Rain up and running.  During his time there, he was the guest of a local family in the municipality of Panauti; John takes up the story: “[The family’s] hospitality was remarkable.  And across the country, we were time and again touched by the warmth of the welcome we received.”  John conveys a few of his memories of those travels in opening track, Panauti and the fondness of his memories – and the kindness of the people he met – shines through in John’s lyrics.  The track is also the album’s first taste of Lucinda Fudge’s stunning string arrangements.  Lucinda’s viola and Matt Kelly’s violin mesh beautifully to add an irresistible sparkle to John’s piano and vocals.

We stick with the recollections of Nepal for Real Life, a song in which John’s lyrics explore how the different cultures he encountered set their expectations for life, form their interactions with others and deal with life’s issues.  Rhys Wilson helps out on guitar and there’s more of those sumptuous strings from Lucinda and Matt.

Paris thoroughfare, Le Boulevard de Strasbourg, is a renowned gathering place for the city’s undocumented workers.  In May 2014, 18 such workers took the decision to occupy a hairdressing salon at building No.57 on the boulevard in protest against their appalling working conditions and the practice of human trafficking.  They won their cause and, with it, their right to regularization.  Le Boulevard de Strasbourg is John’s commemoration of those events; his lyrics, including the song’s closing couplet: “De la Côte d’Ivoire, Nigeria: Nous sommes les travailleurs de France (From Ivory Coast and Nigeria, we are the workers of France)” are typically thoughtful and sympathetic to the plight of the migrants and refugees seeking to make a home in a new, often hostile, country and John’s version of their story is told to a soothing accompaniment of fingerpicked guitar, tinkly piano, pattered percussion and a splash of kora from guest Hedy Boland.

We’re really into the storytelling by this stage and Cotton Famine Road is another engaging, and true, tale – this time the subject is the Rochdale cotton mill workers who, aware that the cotton they worked with had been picked by slaves, supported the slaves’ struggle for freedom, despite the impact that their stance had upon their own livelihoods.  Once again, John summarises the workers’ views in succinct phrases and Lucinda’s and Matt’s combined viols soar heavenwards in the gaps between the verses.

Next, it’s back to Nepal, for a walk amongst the mountains of the Annapurna range for the atmospheric, evocative, Summer Rain.  Then it’s Greece, and Thessalonika, for the story of Zoe Kaltaki, a Greek lady who stood against the Nazis during their occupation of Greece, then stood with the communists against the Greek army.  It’s a harrowing story that, as John rightly concludes “…sums up the turbulent 20^th century.”  The instrumentation – violin, viola and mandolin, plus a few sublime passages from The Mnatobi Choir – is outstanding, and John captures Zoe’s attitude to life, once her tribulations were over, with the song’s closing lines: “I say my home is where I can be me, and my land is any land where the people are free.”  I’ll drink to that.

John expresses a similar sentiment to that of Zoe in Rooted – a song of belonging, or seeking to belong – as he sings: “What use are roots?  They just tie you to the ground,” before he’s joined by most of his friends for the stirring Progress?  Lucinda adds dramatic backing vocals at all the crucial points in the song, and John’s refrain: “Nothing makes me feel so good and so bad at the same time” perfectly captures the paradox of what the term “Progress” can mean.  Me – I like to see it as a positive term, but John’s references to climate change, overcrowding and confusing material wealth with true contentment demonstrate that progress is, indeed, a multi-stringed concept.

Lucinda’s viola and Matty’s violin combine gloriously once more to add vivid colour to John’s plodding guitar lines in Arden – a nod in the general direction of The Bard, before John uses the album’s closing track to tie things up neatly.  Perhaps the theme that resonates most deeply throughout A Sudden Rain is the message that we should learn from our past experiences, but look to our future, and closing track, Don’t Look Back, packages that message.  There’s a final chance to savour those lush strings as John leaves us with his final thoughts: “There will be places and hearts to help you through the passage of the night.  Don’t look back.”

Watch the official video to Panauti, the album’s opening track, here:

John Meed online: Official Website / Facebook / YouTube / Bandcamp

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