Review: Majestic Halls By Graham Robins.

What a great start to the week. Monday morning arrived bright and sunny and the new album by Graham Robins called Majestic Halls popped through my letter box. I was pleased because it has been a long wait since Parish Papers & Other Stories was released in 2015. I must say it has been worth the wait because Majestic Halls is another fine effort by Graham.

The CD is very attractively designed with photos of Graham wandering around with his dog among the ruins of some ancient majestic hall. It’s the contents that are most important though. Graham’s harmonica introduces the first track Hall Of Faith which is a very spiritual song awash with biblical references. I think Graham’s confidence as a lyricist has grown over the last few years. I first discovered his music with the Shipping News album and although that work contained some great music I thought the lyrics were maybe a little too influenced by Van Morrison, but that is definitely not the case here. As well as Graham’s great voice, the backing vocals by Sallyanne Scarbrow deserve a mention on this opening track.

Three Foot Spoon is a fun track which seems to be set in a greasy spoon café that has a juke box. Perfect to listen to with a cup of Rosie-Lee. The sax arrangements by Paul Devonshire are wonderful on this album, as you can hear on this great slice of R & B. By contrast The Learning Game is a very powerful spiritual song with fine harmonica playing and impassioned vocals by Graham. On first listen this was my favourite song on the album. Northern Ireland fans will love the next track called Nights In Coleraine.  All the musicians who worked on this project do a great job, none more so than Ellie Hill on violin. I’m not sure who plays the drums on each track but the drums are mixed very much to the fore. I like the sentiment of Family Ain’t Always Blood which is a message about the value of true friendship and Paul Devonshire again plays wonderful saxophone. Indianola, Mississippi is the home town of B.B King we are told in the next track. This very bluesy song is a homage to B.B and as you would expect it calls for some expert guitar playing which is provided by Chris Newman.

One More Margarita is a very atmospheric country flavoured taste of Americana. You can’t pin down Graham to any particular genre. On this album you will find elements of Soul, Blues, Jazz, Celtic, Country & rock & roll. This gives a great variety to the album. It never gets ‘samey’. The Great Awakening is an eight-minute tour-de-force with Graham’s soulful vocals accompanied by a jazzy horn arrangement in the background. Pure Soul is just what it says on the tin, pure soul with Rufus Thomas, Marvin Gaye and Otis Redding being channeled down. It is ‘Soul-connected’ as Graham might say. This song demands saxophones and they are amply provided. The eponymous Majestic Halls brings the album to a majestic conclusion. You can hear this track below if you scroll down.

I have really enjoyed hearing this album today which a great addition to Graham Robins fine body of work. If you would like to find out how to buy the album for yourself then visit Graham’s website. http://www.grahamrobins.com/

Majestic Halls By Graham Robins

Parallelograms.

I am listening to a brilliant album called Parallelograms by Linda Perhacs which I bought about six years ago. This is what I said about it at the time.

Linda Perhacs is an American psychedelic folk singer, who released her album Parallelograms in 1970 to scant notice or sales. The album was rediscovered by record enthusiasts and grew in popularity with the rise of the New Weird America movement and the Internet. It was reissued on CD and 2-LP in 2005, and again in 2008. I found it had been released by Sunbeam Masters in a limited numbered edition of 1000 copies so ordered it and my copy arrived. I am number 0184. It has a very attractive gate-fold sleeve and liner notes written by Linda herself. I must say it is a quite brilliant album and hard to define. I am listening to it now on a rainy Winter’s morning. I  like the opening track Chinacum Rain. It reminds me a little bit of the song Wind Chimes on the Beach Boys Smiley Smile album. 'I'm Seeing silences between leaves', sings Linda. The vocals shimmer like sunlight on a lake. I am not so enamoured of the second track Paper Mountain Man which is quite bluesy and featuring harmonica. The third track though, Dolphin is wonderful.  Her vocals are amazing and just accompanied by acoustic guitar. Call Of The River is next. The way the vocals are mixed, so she harmonises with herself is very clever. Sandy Toes is more upbeat. The title track Parallelograms is next, and it is a tour de force that I urge you to listen to. On first hearing it I thought Joni Mitchell meets Pink Floyd. Considering it is 40 years old it is very experimental and avant-garde. How people didn't pick up on this album when it came out is hard to understand because it was in the zeitgeist of the times but apparently it didn't get any airplay or publicity. Hey, Who Really Cares is the next track which is followed by Moons And Cattails.

Morning Colors is the next track which is superb, featuring some beautiful flute playing. The flute is an instrument that goes really well with psychedelic music because it’s so spacey. Porcelain Baked-Over Cast-Iron Wedding is quite vitriolic about the shallow middle-class values of some of the people where she lives. This is one of the more conventional songs on the album. The last track is called Delicious which is exactly that. There are eight bonus tracks on the album including a BBC interview from 2005. Check it out for yourselves. I heartily recommend this album which I have enjoyed listening to this morning and it's even made the sun come out.

Linda Perhacs - Parallelograms

A Pocketful Of Starlight by Bridget St. John

So, I was sitting in my kitchen today, staring out of the window and pondering my next move, when suddenly there was a knock on the door. It was the postman delivering a package. It contained a CD A Pocketful Of Starlight, The Best Of Bridget St. John. I had ordered it a few nights ago after I heard a song by Bridget played on BBC 6 Music. I knew her name but somehow, I had never heard her music before.

There are nineteen tracks on the album and I must say after two plays that I like this album very much indeed. It was the influential DJ John Peel who gave Bridget her first break when she recorded sessions for his radio show. Peel also started his own record label called Dandelion and Bridget released three albums on that label, the first being in 1969.

The first track is called Fly High and features her life long friend John Martyn on acoustic and electric guitars. This is followed by Some Kind Of Beautiful which is a very upbeat reggae type song. You can dance to this song, there is some fabulous wah wah bottleneck guitar playing on this song. Curl Your Toes is a celebration of sitting by the fire and relaxing. John Martyn plays guitar again. This track and most of the other songs have a timeless quality that all great music has. Music like this can never go out of fashion because it never was in fashion in the first place. If You’ve Got Money is a rocker with a message. Kevin Ayers features on this track and his guitarist of the time, a certain Mike Oldfield. The next track yep was written by Kevin Ayers and Daevid Allen who would go on to form the band Gong. Bumper To Bumper isn’t about traffic jams. It features some nice guitar and vocals by Pete Berryman. 

Jumblequeen by contrast is quite a sombre song and possibly inspired in part by a bad air flight to Belfast. The River was written by John Martyn and is taken from one of those Peel sessions, Bridget’s version of this song is fabulous. Thank You For was the title track of one of her albums, a love song and Bridget plays twelve string guitar. I think her favourite guitar players are John Martyn and Michael Chapman. Back To Stay is another hauntingly beautiful John Martyn song. On first listen Goodbaby Goodbye was my favourite song but now I’m on my third listen I like all the songs. City Crazy has some very lush arrangements of string and brass. Long Long Time is a beautiful melancholy ballad and features two members of Ten Years After, namely Leo Lyons and Chick Churchill. Autumn Lullaby is inspired by the wonders of nature. I really like A Day Away, with it’s jolly woodwind sound it reminds me slightly of another great singer of psychedelic folk which is Vashti Bunyan. Nice features some tasteful pedal steel guitar by Gordon Huntly who I remember from Matthews Southern Comfort. The Hole In Your Heart is possibly the saddest, most profound song on the album. It was inspired by the 9-11 tragedy. Ask Me No Questions was the title track of Bridget’s first ever album in 1969. Again, it features John Martyn on guitar, but I love the way birdsong and church bells are mixed into it. It reminds me a bit of early Pink Floyd. This track is seven minutes of pure magic. I have put a video below. The final track is Catch A Falling Star which everyone associates with Perry Como, but Bridget’s version makes it her own.

This album is wonderful, it made my afternoon. I urge you to listen to Bridget St. John because she deserves to have far more recognition. Actually, I see she contributes a song to a Nick Drake tribute CD which is in Mojo magazine. I must try and get that. 

Bridget St. John - Ask Me No Questions 1969

Van Morrison - Just Like Greta