Strange? Certainly welcome, a further dose of East Sussex Appalachiana from Naomi Bedford & Paul Simmonds to charm the soul.
Release Date: 28th June 2024
Label: Dusty Willows Recordings
Format: CD / digital
When an artist of the calibre of Justin Currie calls you an “English Emmylou” you just have to sit up and pay attention, and, with others comparing Naomi Simmonds to the likes of Dolly Parton and Iris Dement, surely there is something going on. Pair her up with Paul Simmonds, one of the frontline of folk-punk stalwarts, The Men They Couldn’t Hang, and the writer of many their best known songs, clearly that too should demand attention.
And rather than this being earnest fauxmericana, something we Brits are certainly good at, no, this is a refreshing fusion of Appalachia with the Sussex Downs, English folk meeting the Midwest and winning at their own game. I know this, having caught them live, Wickham, in 2022, as well as familiarity with the earlier works they and the Ramshackle Band, have put out. Ramshackle in name, that is, capital R. This is the first since Singing It All Back Home, a collection of Anglo-Appalachian ballads, back in 2019.
“Even in a time like this, I find a reason to resist…. I try to be an optimist” are certainly prescient words, being part the chorus of the jaunty opening number, The Optimist. Well it would have to be, as well as summing up the thoughts of us with glasses half full, when most are half empty. But it wasn’t written for now, emerging rather more around lockdown and the pandemic, tho’ Lord knows, how apt is it now. With a melody that reminds of many a sepia tinted hootenanny, the contrast between Bedford’s mellifluous warble and Simmonds’ gruffer grit is a warming tonic. Mandolins plink, brushed drums and upright bass provide ballast. A fiddle is in the mix somewhere. Uncertain about the shouty bits, but they add some local yee-haw, I guess.
Happiness Is A Way Of Travelling immediately explains the references and comparisons, Bedford not afraid to maximise that presence, with the backing vocals of Donna Edmead and Xan Tyler providing the other two voices. (Tell me again, who were those American singers who recorded a pair of albums, Trio and Trio 2; you thinking of them too?) Some rinky dink piano, from Loz Bridge, adds to the lustre. This one really catches the ear, strummed guitars and bubbly bass contributing to the bittersweetness evoked, the fiddle now dipping in and around the vocal frontline. Haunted River then drops things back and down, a sombre tale of shipwrecks and unforgiving waters. A doleful banjo and the lonely foghorn of a bansuri give added atmosphere. For a change, it is Shirley Collins I am now hearing in Bedford’s vocal.
I Love You Too is, at first, a more conventional country weepie, which features some steel from the onetime Redlands Palomino Company steel man, David Rothon, which can’t hide the never more English pattern of notes. (This probably ought find me making an apology to the co-author, that Justin Currie himself, he being a proud Scot.) It is a decent song, with harmonies, rather than Simmonds, from Richie Leo. The mood then switches gear into near jugband, for Lewiston Factory Girls, a traditional song from the 1800’s that often abbreviates to Factory Girls. If I say it isn’t markedly dissimilar to the Rolling Stones song of that name name, well, let’s say Jagger and Richard were playing a little loose with the tradition. Jagger says pastiche. (Then again, lets not mention Beeswing…..) Bedford plays dulcimer and Simmonds mandolin and it is altogether mesmerising.
Another change of mood for the slower folk rock of Asylum, with a very Mattacks like drum pattern. Piano and Ben Paley’s fiddle offer an eerie backdrop. The story line however, is much more up to date, recounting the fate of three so called “illegals”, crossing over from France. A chilling and extremely contemporary song, not least as we are being exhorted, daily, to “Stop the Boats.” Only one of them survives, ahead of detention in Napier Barracks. Sobering. I’ve Got A Fever then starts with some spoken word, but once the vocal starts it is Simmonds’ first lead appearance, with little doubt as to quite what the fever may be: “Cover your mouth, better stand still, if the germ don’t get you then the government will“. Sounding the full Jed Clampett, he offers a cautionary tale, wrapped in jocular clothing. The contrast between these two songs, both written by Simmonds couldn’t, beyond the acerbic lyrical undercurrent, be much wider.
Mortality remains a constant for Dark Rolling Road, a song that, literally, rolls along on a bed of plucked and strummed strings, Bedford, Edmead,Tyler, and Simmonds variously and collectively, the narrators of a spooky hitch hiking encounter. Sure, the end point announces itself well ahead any denoument, but it is a cracking yarn, in the mould of Long Black Veil. Which takes us to, nominally, the title track. Those unable to scratch quite the itch where those words come from, will kick themselves as they recall the words of trad staple, The Blacksmith. Indeed, they open the song with that refrain, and it all sounds quite different from Steeleye Span, or anyone else, for that matter, courtesy the keening steel of Rothon, and the decidedly mountains and moonshine feel gifted it. It’s different and it’s a grower, sinking in deep hooks well before it finishes.
More jugband sounds, even down to the huffed and puffed jug sounds, accompany a second Simmond’s lead vocal, the lively canter of Opposite Day, harmonica adding train sounds to the clackety clack rhythm. An almost raga like guitar snakes around the vocals, the song increasingly drawing in further disparate tropes, distant sirens for one. Play it again and catch the lyrics, suddenly it all makes sense. The Lapwing’s Call then calls proceedings, with a lilting piano line, for Bedford to glory in the wonders of nature, another song written in the aftermath of covid. The combined instrumentation here, with slide guitar, mandolin and guitars is perfect to convey the sense of delight.
This is. very pleasing album, and is one that will surely hasten their rise up through the ranks of first rate roots musicians, as they cast a transatlantic spell, like the songs that inspire them, from Blighty to West Virginia and the Canadian Eastern Seaboard, and all the way back again. Praise is also due to Ben Walker, again at the production desk, as well as providing extra mandolin and guitar. Likewise the members of the Ramshackle Band, too many to mention, where I haven’t, individually. July sees the band out a few select festivals, beginning with Maverick, on 6/7/24, ending up back at Wickham, on 1/8/24. (And, if anyone did read my 2022 review, the “tiny woman with a gigantic voice” turned out to be Donna Edmead, such a vibrant part of the whole, both live and on disc.)
Here’s Haunted River:
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