With his latest album, All My Strangest Companions, Freddie Stevenson returns from Nashville, Tennessee a little older and a little wiser. So how did this Scottish afro’d punk poet end up in Music City, USA? Accidentally. But that’s another story altogether. Stevenson’s music catches everything from acoutsic melancholia to lap steel scratch, at times abrasive, at others so gently lulling it wraps you up and stroked you like you were a twelve day old child. His Secret Playlist is fittingly scattered. A bit of this, a lot of that.
Levon Helm / The Mountain
I first heard this song on the record Steve Earle did with Del McCoury, but this version is just heartbreaking. There is something so ancient and authentic about Levon’s voice. It transports you to the lonely, broken mountain he’s singing about in this song.
Nick Cave / Babe, You Turn Me On
The ups and downs of sexual love have always been fertile ground for Nick Cave, and as he moves into his second half century on this planet, it’s a subject he treats with even more tenderness and humour. This song manages to be both moving and hilarious, with a beautiful piano led melody.
Van Morrison / Got To Go Back
This is a real comfort song for me when I’m traveling. I imagine him half drunk, reeling through the airport in Los Angeles, clutching a ticket to get him back to Ireland, back to the country of his childhood, back into the mystic for the healing to begin.
Joni Mitchell / Amelia
Hejira is another comfort record. The whole thing is about travel, about moving, and it floats by in that restless way of landscapes in train windows, that weird suspended animation of airplanes. In this song she is remembering an absent lover and consoling herself in the simple act of forward motion.
Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy / After I Made Love To You Like Nick Cave
Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy is not afraid to delve into the darker aspects of human relationships. On the surface this is a simple love song, but there is a menacing aspect to it, and an air of desperation. The characters are doing ‘something filthy in a rented room’, but the melody is so gentle and sweet.
Jimmy Smith / Ol’ Man River
This is from the record Bashin’, one of the many Jimmy did with the arranger Oliver Nelson. I went through a period where I would listen to this every morning without fail. There is something so joyful and life affirming about it. If you listen to it on the street on your iPod, it takes everything in your power to stop yourself dancing like a madman.
Josh Ritter / Empty Hearts
Josh Ritter writes really tasty, well made songs, and I love this Springsteen-ish number. He has a knack for creating simple, catchy hooks and there is something about him which shines through in his voice and lyrics. He seems like a really good bloke.
Bob Dylan / I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine
I’m not sure if you would call Dylan a really good bloke, but this song is written in the primordial sludge, in the language of dreams, and connects on a level below and above and beyond the limits it sets itself as a song lasting about four minutes with bass, drums, guitar, harmonica, and, of course, his voice.
Related posts:
- Anna Ternheim Anna Ternheim is a singer/songwriter from Stockholm who has...
- Wendy Rae Fowler, We Fell To Earth We Fell To Earth’s debut album contains grains of...
- Clare and The Reasons Brooklyn-based Clare and the Reasons, fronted by collaborators Clare...
- Dave Williams, Augie March There’s little about Augie March that could be called...
- Rude Boy Savage, Salmonella Dub Salmonella Dub have just released their auspicious seventh studio...
{ 0 comments… add one now }