Gary Hall & The Stormkeepers may not be a name that necessarily trips off journalists’ tongues when discussing the development of the UK roots rock scene, but their contribution to shaping what we now broadly refer to as ‘Americana’ shouldn’t be under-estimated.
Based in the Preston, Lancashire, the band made a couple of truly accomplished, roots-imbued LPs for the Devon-based Run River label on the cusp of the 1990s before splitting around the time NME-friendly bands such as The Rockingbirds started to get noticed for their ‘pioneering’ roots-y sounds.
Hall subsequently re-located to Nashville, where he recorded two further critically-acclaimed LPs, ‘What Goes Around’ (1993) and 1996’s ‘Twelve Strings & Tall Stories’ for the Round Tower label, while two fellow ex-Stormkeepers, Michael Weston King and Sean McFetridge would establish a second under-rated UK roots outfit, The Good Sons. Then, in 1997, Hall reformed The Stormkeepers to cut a new LP (‘Return To the Flame’) for Scottish roots imprint Goldrush, playing acclaimed live shows with country/roots legends such as John Prine and the much-missed Townes Van Zandt before finally retreating to the confines of his Voodoo Rooms studio to produce new acts around the turn of Y2K.
The first this writer heard then heard of him was through his production of highly promising Lancashire-based singer/ songwriter Ian Bailey. But finally in 2011, Hall returned as a performer in tandem with Bailey, releasing ‘Songs From The Voodoo Rooms’: a low-key, but affecting acoustic collaboration which has been a favourite round W&H Towers ever since.
‘That Old Brand New’, however, is the first fully-fledged Gary Hall solo LP in 15 years. Again, it’s a relatively intimate, mostly acoustic affair, though Ian Bailey and several other long-term Hall collaborators (including ex-Stormkeepers strings meister Richard Curran and slide guitarist Mark Wilkinson) also make telling contributions.
As the title suggests, That Old Brand New finds Hall embracing both future and past. Several of the tracks are re-worked versions of key moments from his back catalogue. Both ‘Let’s Talk About It’ and ‘Slow Moving Train’ initially featured on The Stormkeepers’ 1991 LP ‘Wide Open To The World.’ Possibly Hall’s very own ‘(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love & Understanding’, ‘Let’s Talk About It’ was a slice of organ-drenched country soul when first recorded, but it works well in its stripped back format, as does ‘Slow Moving Train’, which retains its restless, Dylan-ish vibe as well as Richard Curran’s swirling violin motifs.
|
Elsewhere, tracks like the plaintive ‘Let The Music Take You’ and the string-drenched elemental drama ‘Shipwrecked’ successfully revisit Hall’s past, while the fatalistic ‘Some Cry Words’ (also featuring on ‘Return To The Flame’ and ‘Songs From The Voodoo Rooms’ in slightly different guises) is a striking, Townes Van Zandt-ish commentary on the creative troubadour’s lot (“if you tell it like it is, guess there’s a price you gotta pay”) stuffed with poetic twists aplenty.
Long term fans, though, will be especially heartened by the clutch of freshly-minted Hall tunes here, not least because there are several absolute gems. The gentle, rippling ‘High Wire Blues’ sounds like a distant cousin of Robert Johnson’s ‘Love In Vain’, while the slow, harmonica-assisted blues ‘A Little Ray Of Sunshine’ is superficially groovy but proffers the sort of social realism (“It’s gettin’ harder now for a gentle soul to survive”) that sounds all too credible in recession hit 2012. Possibly best of all, however, is the wonderfully infectious ‘The Sinking Faster Than The Titanic Going Down Blues’ which – aside from being a wicked slice of Delta-fried loveliness - actually lives up the brilliance of its title.
‘That Old Brand New’, then, takes up from where ‘Songs From The Voodoo Rooms’ left off and ticks boxes for both long-time Hall admirers and casual, roots-inclined bystanders with style and verve to spare. It’s been well worth the wait, all things considered.
Gary Hall online
|
