LOVE: HOLY LOVE

 

Holy Love

You possibly or, more likely, probably don't know the song. It would be great if you do, and there may be some, but I fear the band of aficionados is more select and smaller than I would prefer. And, who knows, this may alert new ears to both the singer and the song, and I hope it can. The singer you may have heard of. Or at least, heard his voice. So who he? 

Strange Kind Of Love

James Grant, or the James Grant you will be more familiar with was the guiding force behind and in Glasgow white soul and white socks band, Love and Money, something I confess to finding a bit of a surprise. I mean, they were OK, but a bit sort of generic. Or so I thought then, pleasantly surprised by my currently designated dip in their repertoire, finding, instead, a smooth and rich sound redolent of, of all people, Jackie Leven. The song above, from their second and "breakthrough" album, "breakthrough" in that it produced their first chart appearances, in the lower reaches of the UK singles top 80, has an interesting pedigree, in that their drummer had left the band, necessitating some substitution. With big name producer Gary Katz having been signed to buff up their sound, he drafted in Jeff Porcaro from Steely Dan, the band he was better known as the producer for. Sloopy/Edgar Winter man, Rick Derringer, the 70s guitar ace, also appeared, as did an uncredited Donald Fagen. (And you thought he smooth sound seemed familiar....) Hindsight reveals this, Strange Kind of Love, to be a terrific album and I feel their memory, based more on their eponymous earlier single, Love and Money, has been wronged by my failure to give them a second go. Plus, if I am honest, the, um, mismatch between the dark brown honeyed voice and the somewhat gangly youth projecting it. (And he has, I can say, grown into his vocal timbre with appropriate grace and gravitas.)

Having failed to set the world alight, Love and Money lurched on to a further couple of albums, bedogged by issues with record companies: their 3rd album was initially rejected, ahead of coming out, substantively altered, on another label, the 4th then being, to all intents and purposes, self-released. Despite all this, that difficult 3rd album, when finally released, as Dogs in the Traffic, was seen fit to gather a number 30 in the Scotsman newspaper's all time top 100 Scottish rock and pop albums. they split up in 1994.

My Love Lives In A Dead House

Grant embarked on a solo career. Given he had now hooked up with the husband and wife, Donald Shaw and Karen Matheson, both of Capercaillie, this unsurprisingly is a rootsier effort, with strong country and folk flavours to the anthemic melodies. Sawdust in My Veins came out in 1998, and in the same year he was included as a guest in the prestigious Transatlantic Sessions. My Thrown Glory followed in 2000, with an album of other writer's poetry set to his music, I Shot the Albatross, bridging the gap ahead the album that produced the song that heads this piece. His high water mark, I would say, with the song also the name of the record, a splendid record of truly celtic soul, and well worth searching out. The song itself, despite the title, is neither religious nor sanctimonious, being more a spiritual ode to love, using the analogy of love being a higher force. I think. It uses holy in the same way as is, say, Steve Winwood's evocative Holy Ground, his hymn to the planet.

If You Love Me, Leave Me Alone

Blue Train

During these same years he also returned the favour, working on Karen Mathesons's solo albums, writing four songs for her first record, six for her second and two for her third, as well as providing instrumental ballast to the backing throughout. Indeed this has continued to the present, with her most recent album, 2021's Still Time, containing another four. 

The Dreaming Sea

His  own solo career continued with Strange Flowers, in 2009, ahead of a reunion concert of Love and Money, for the yearly Celtic Connections festival, in 2011, led to new work and an album, Devil's Debt, a year later.

Strange Kind Of Love

If his profile has seemed subsequently low, let's just hope it a hiatus. As the new songs with Karen Matheson have shown, his muse is still within him. He remains a loved figure on the Scottish live scene: a live solo disc of his 2016 Celtic Connections (again) gig showed updated and invigorated songs from throughout both his band and solo career. whilst it did not, sadly, include Holy Love, there is at least this glorious retread of Strange Kind of Love, the second song I featured earlier up the thread. Indeed, whilst I was researching this piece I learnt he has a couple of shows arranged for later in the year, in London and Edinburgh, details through his website. (This also reveals the possible enticing option of having him write a bespoke song with and for you........ )

Holy Love

BIGGER STRINGS: DANNY THOMPSON

Well, strings don't  come much bigger than Victoria. Who she? Victoria is the stand-up bass guitar Danny Thompson bought for a fiver (£5) in around 1954, when he was fifteen. And who Danny Thompson? Shame on you for asking, but I guess not all tastes are as rarified as mine. Sir Danny of Thompson, as he has yet become officially recognised as, an MBE having to suffice, is the fella who has gone as far as most in making stand-up bass other than an old fogey associated item. If you are familiar with Pentangle, Nick Drake, John Martyn and Richard Thompson, the chances are that you are familiar with his work. If you have watched the Transatlantic Sessions, live or on TV, the chances are that you have seen him, an avuncular presence, holding all the virtuosi musicians also featured in check, more that likely with a beatific beam on his face, itself usually under a hat of some intrinsic coolness.

With Martin Simpson, 2014

I used to hate the double bass, it encompassing everything old and fuddy-duddy of the pre-rock era. All these bloody b&w jazzers, with the bass perpetually walking up and down in the background, whilst the usual focus of attention showed off in the foreground, besuited drummers tip-tapping away politely alongside. Sometimes they crossed over into my awareness, notably in the Seekers, my father's favourite band, courtesy the comely charms of Judith Durham. They could always be relied upon to turn up on BBC Saturday night variety shows, I finding the grinning buffoon on bass an offence to my pre-pubertal sensitivities. (Apologies thus due, now, to Athol Guy, the player in question, even if I have not the heart to go back and actually check out his playing.) This prejudice took forever, a bit like trumpet, to rid, but, boy, when I did....

With Richard Thompson, 2001

Thompson was the man from the start, even if I was slow to get up to speed. As an RT freak, it was when he first started appearing alongside Richard, his Thompson 'twin', that I got up to speed. You know how it is, when you sometimes 'get' something, the scales fall from your eyes like roof tiles in a hurricane. Suddenly I was hoovering up John Martyn and, even, if a bit later, Nick Drake. (His vocals still alienated for longer than I care admit.) Suddenly big ol' bass was cool, she even when one Gordon Sumner came on board, I was already, o yes, on message.

So, Daniel Henry Edward Thompson..... Like the recently deceased Charlie Watts, he too was an alumnus of Alexis Korner's Blues Incorporated, taking over bass duties from Jack Bruce. Following that four year period, 1664-7, he became a member of Pentangle, that undersung folk-jazz hybrid, ploughing their idiosyncratic acoustic vibe at the same time as Fairport and Steeleye were inventing an electric folk tradition. He and Terry Cox, drums, both crossed the then gulf between traditions, joining nominal folkies Bert Jansch and John Renbourn, with the consummate purity of Jacqui McShee on vocals. 

With Pentangle, 1972

The John Martyn years, which followed, were as famous for their onstage "dynamic" as for the often mercurial music, both not averse to the occasional pre-, per- and post-stage snifter. Thompson was able to take a longer view, and withdrew. Martyn, sadly not, his death as much to do with the ravages of alcohol as anything else, if sober at the time of his death. 

With John Martyn, 1977

A solo career beckoned, or at least as bandleader, his band, 'Whatever' a sonic free for all, genre-wise, with some astonishing material. When this expanded to into an even wider ubiquity, as 'Songhai', featuring flamenco purists, Ketama, alongside Malian kora maestro, Toumani Diabaté, any sense of categorisation became redundant.

Songhai, 1988

Round about the same time he hooked up with kindred spirit, Richard Thompson: each had embraces Islam, possibly, in part, as an escape from the hedonism of the musical life. For several years he was the right hand man to his namesake, whether in a band format or as a duo. An interesting memento of that time comes with 1997's 'Industry', a joint production, encompassing both the songs of RT and the music of Whatever. It's a worthwhile listen.

Industry, 1997

A jovial presence, he was also getting work as an amiable onstage presence at Fairport Convention's Cropredy Festivals, as host and master of ceremonies. I remember my horror, I think in 1998, as it was announced from the stage that Thompson had sustained a stroke. The audience were invited to sing Danny Boy, so that, by phone, he could hear their well wishes. I thought that the end, but he made a decent recovery and was soon playing again, seemingly as well as ever. The couple of times I caught the Transatlantic Sessions tours, in the early 20 teens, he was terrific, the cheer for him, when introduced, as big as for any of the other performers. Grab a look at his website for a list of records he has appeared on, a ridiculously large roster, encompassing jazz, folk, blues, world, everything, including a number of surprises. Did you know he played on Cliff Richards' Eurovison winner, 'Congratulations'? Or with artists as diverse as T.Rex, Kate Bush and David Sylvian, let alone most of Donovan's recordings. Not bad for an old jazzer!

Transatlantic Sessions, 2016

Back with RT, 2019

Here's rather a good interview, from only a year or so ago.

Get this!

RIGHT: FATE'S RIGHT HAND/Rodney Crowell

Couldn't resist. Or at least I think I couldn't, but maybe not. Fate. Kismet. Call it what you will, it's all pre-destined, yeah? Maybe.

In keeping with my last posting, I thought I would again follow on the dextrous direction that began with red and was followed by the devil. In truth, I am not sure of what fate's right hand, or indeed left, might mean, or how they may differ, unless the former is the butter side up, the latter, butter side down. Indeed, is luck the same as fate? Is fate the same as luck? I am uncertain whether this metaphysical troubled Rodney Crowell much when writing the song. It just sorta sounds good, the lyric then being one of those stream of consciousness lists like Reasons to be Cheerful (right hand) or We Didn't Start the Fire (left hand), the words as important for their order and sound as their meaning, yet entirely also dependent thereupon. Clever, if confusing.

Rodney Crowell feels to have been around forever in my musical lifetime, first as the callow youth alongside Emmylou Harris in her Hot Band, writing the knock-out (and album stand-out) side one closer, Till' I Gain Control Again, on Elite Hotel. That was back in 1975, and he has kept on keeping on. Marrying into country royalty, becoming husband to Roseanne, daughter of Johnny, Cash in 1979, until 1992, will have done no harm either, but he was already successfully penning material for a range of significant other artists, including Bob Seger, as well as a roster of more typical country performers. Having had limited success with his solo records, he effectively put his career on hold to helm her own, writing much of the material and producing. In the 80's he hit his own paydirt, with a run of records that cemented his reputation. 1988's Diamonds and Dirt managed 5 (country) number ones alone. Here's one of 'em.

However, for me it is his later trio of recordings, starting with The Houston Kid, in 2001, that hold the strongest appeal. Biographical in style, I strongly commend these three, with Fate's Right Hand, containing the eponymous song of this piece, and The Outsider making up the triad, now commonly referred to as the Houston trilogy. This period of his life also produced his book, the commendable and likewise autobiographical Chinaberry Sidewalks: a Memoir, covering the same somewhat tumultuous childhood as do the songs. Wonderful stuff. Here's a song:

Into the last decade he has again teamed up with Emmylou Harris, producing a brace of duet albums and going on tour with her, still managing other output as well. This years Close Ties reveals him now to be an elder statesman, performing alongside ex-wife Cash and Sheryl Crow, amongst others. I have seen him twice within the last five years, once with Emmylou, and once as a featured singer with the celebrated Transatlantic Sessions, the show that brings together the best of scots/irish with american musicians, held every year over here in the UK. On both occasions he shone, the grittier counterpoint to Emmylou at the one, and an altogether americana tour de force at the other.

A final word, lest all this talk of country be off-putting. This isn't and never has been any saccharine "& western": his genre has always been in those slightly rougher roadhouses, where rockabilly meets western swing, leaving always room for a weeping steel barroom ballad, ahead of another rousing rocker. I'd like to shake his hand. Right hand.

Choose Rodney!