dO-it-yourseLf!

 

In this new Flyin Shoes section we'll be looking at discs that have been self-released rather than put out through a record company. With the availability of new technology and webzines like this there are an increasing number of highly accomplished works appearing that circumvent the normal distibution/ record company pattern. In some cases you'd be hard pressed to realise that these discs were self-financed such is the quality. If you have a self-released disc you'd like considered give us an e-mail or better still if you know of some work of genius out there you think we should be covering let us know. We start off with Tom Flannery on just such a work of genius -Bob Martin's 'River Turns the Wheel' on his own Riversong label. Tom also talks about Lorne Clarke's disc which is tied in with Tom's own Kikomusic website. I'll be reviewing Tom's own 'Song about a Train' in the near future. As for the multinational record businesses -well we ain't dancing on the ruins yet but something is happening and Mr. Jones still don't understand- suppose they'll survive by building missiles as usual or trying to encode MP3's so they only play every Tuesday in a leap year!

 

 

The Best Folk CD of the 90’s

Bob Martin's 'The River Turns the Wheel'

Once again the best music I've heard this year has never been prominently featured on the radio. The artists are relative unknowns, and the CD's for the most part are released on small, independent labels, sometimes released and paid for by the artist themselves. More and more listeners, turned off by the hit making machinery of the major's, are turning to these independent releases, and more and more are being rewarded. It is said that the major labels are growing quite concerned over the emergence of these small labels, and they should be.

The best folk CD of the 90’s (so far) was cut by a 55 year old Lowell, Massachusetts native named Bob Martin. It's called 'The River Turns the Wheel', and it's on a small label called Riversong Records. Martin’s record is full of powerful tales of loss and redemption, all sung in a well worn raspy voice that invites comparison to Bob Dylan. Yet don't be fooled. While showing enormous respect for folk traditions, Martin has carved out a style uniquely his own. I can't help but think that if Dylan had released this record, the mainstream press would call it a masterpiece. God knows I'm not the mainstream press, but I am calling it a masterpiece.

While growing up in Lowell, the Merrimack river was a constant presence in Martin's life, and that river snake's it way through his songs like a dream. In the record's title track, he recalls the days when the mills were cranking full force, and in his youthful optimism he figured that's the way things were always going to be. Yet all that changed, and the boy became a man.

When I was a boy working in the mill
never dreamed of a day the wheel was still
thought the work in the weavin' room went on forever
but the yard bell rang for the skeleton crew
just a handful of men
when the shift was through they said the paymaster
will give you everything that you got coming
but when the river turns the wheel
money in your pocket and you got a good deal
back down to nothing when the company fails
the river turns the wheel *

Those tender words could be used to describe the decline of the Anthracite Coal industry in my hometown as well. Such losses can be devastating to a community, and Martin simply will not forget. In 'Better Than No Luck' he looks back once again, with remarkable restraint.

That was back in another time
when we all made a living from the river
now parked on the street
blanket on the back seat
looking like home to me *

I remember my father telling me how he and his brothers used to collect coal during the winter months of the depression. Always one step ahead of the company police, they would wait for the train to roll by, and collect the pieces that would inevitably fall from the overloaded cars, filling up their sacks like so many Santa Claus's. It seems that some of the engineers were sympathetic to the boys, and would lurch the train back by applying the brakes, thereby allowing more coal to fall from the overflowed cars.

Martin recalls such days as well, and the experiences are eerily similar. He sings in 'Sweet River Days':

The ground shook like thunder
from the bridge we hid under
when that loaded coal train would roll down
then we'd walk the old tracks with old burlap sacks
picking the coal off the ground *

Like few others, the depth of Martin's lyrics is matched by a peerless sense of melody. His songs, all driven by his straightforward acoustic guitar, are instantly memorable, and nowhere is that more apparent that on the record's closer.

'Goin' Home' is a low key protest song, focusing it's attention on the needless ravages of war. In it Martin focuses on the common foot soldiers who die in the last days of a war, making their deaths even more wasteful.

He was nineteen years old fighting in the desert of Kuwait
the word came down we're pulling out
but the word came down a day too late *

Then comes the chorus, sung as sweetly as anything you've ever heard:

Goin' home
on a bright silver bird goin' home
the sweetest words I think I've ever heard
when you say 'day is done'
goin' home *

As the final bars to 'Goin' Home' fade away, you're left with a sense of melancholy, as if this one man, hunched over his acoustic guitar, is alone in fighting to keep traditions alive. 'The River Turns the Wheel' is remarkable not only for its content, but for its enormous sense of purpose as well. It is indeed a masterpiece.

*All lyrics reprinted with permission.

Tom Flannery

 

"Lorne Clarke" by Lorne Clarke

Canadian songsmith Lorne Clarke remembers his unusual childhood in Schefferville in the Ungava Region of northern Quebec this way..

Schefferville, now abandoned, was an Iron Ore Company of Canada town. It was completely isolated in the wilderness on the 54th parallel – 365 miles north of the "end of the road" at Sept Isles. The town could only be reached by rail or air.

The summers were short, the black flies fierce, the game abundant, the lakes without number, and in their water, which was clean enough to drink, the fishing was incomparable. The native kids and Newfoundlanders (whose fathers worked in the mines) made interesting if tough companions. The Ungava was a boy’s paradise.

It was from this harsh environment, in which not much from the outside could penetrate, that Clarke came up with his style. Lyrical, totally and fiercely non-commercial, and brutally honest. His songs can be seen as throwbacks to an era when folk music was sung to change things. Or, at the very least, to get people to question the why things have remained stagnant.

With his long awaited self titled debut CD, Clarke announces the arrival of a player to be reckoned with…

Well I’ve got some news to give to you

And you’d better believe it

If you don’t quit your bullshit now

I’ll get even

Oh I heard you say you’re not afraid of me

But I think you’ll change your mind

The next time you climb on my back

It’ll be the last time

"The News" is a passionate angry song, much like Clarke’s live showpiece "Fulcrum", with it’s chilling opening that pulls no punches…

Well he woke himself up early

On the day the last ship sailed

He still could not believe it

The company had prevailed

In both songs Clarke rails against the injustices of big corporations, but there is no happy ending here. ‘The company had prevailed’ is what he cries out, and he is much too honest to cover the cold ugly truth.

From his experiences with the Great Lakes comes two beautifully written pieces. Both "The Bargeman" and "Coaster" are as good as anything Stan Rogers ever wrote. In "Coaster" Clarke sings of a man faced with a terrible dilemma. Should he stay where he is and toil in the mines, or set off for a life away from his family sailing the Great Lakes?

I was born on the coast

One too many children in a family of ghosts

oh my father worked the mines

And my mother died each time

She heard the thunder roll from the cold black earth

But my window looked out on the harbor

I could see the ships as they’d come in to take a load

Oh it made me want to wander

It finally drove me to the road

But perhaps "The Bargeman" is Clarke’s finest piece of work. In less than five minutes, he constructs a narrative with extraordinary detail….

My mother keep a room beside the wood shed

With coal iron stove and lamps upon the wall

And hand made quilts and pillows one for each bed

And brand new indoor plumbing down the hall

…..dealing with the heartbreak of a young girl who carelessly falls in love with a "Bargeman" waiting out the winter freeze.

They’d often see them out together walking

In the snow of standing on the pier

To my sister the Bargeman was just talking

But her heart felt words and thoughts she didn’t hear

In the spring the barge’s headed up the river

And with them went her handsome winter man

With a smile that left her heart a pile of splinters

For she knew she’d never see him again

This is powerful stuff, all delivered in a big booming voice reminiscent of Stan Rogers himself (whom Clarke met while toiling on the Toronto folk club circuit).

The songs here deal with people on the fringes, discarded by a system that has no need for them anymore. In "A Song For Hastings Williams" he remembers a little boy from Vermont who was scalded to death, remembered now only for the chilling description on his grave marker. In the CD’s tender opening track "Never Heard", he recalls the true story of an amazing bluegrass fiddle player who refused to play for anybody but himself, so Clarke and his friends would hide in the brush to get a listen…

Never heard

Never heard in these parts

The songs that he would play

Played for the mist and the falling dark

Play for the moonlight on the lake

Throughout the CD Clarke is joined by the jazz bassist Tony Marino, along with the incredible Bo Jamison on harmony vocals. Jamison, recently nominated for a Grammy for her songwriting, has been a constant presence in Clarke’s music for over 5 years.

Tom Flannery ( and pictured below with Lorne Clarke)

 

TOM FLANNERY

Song About a Train

( Kiko Music CD 101)

 

I'm proud to be able cover Tom Flannery's disc in this new 'Do-it-yourself' section as it is without doubt one of the best examples of the quality that is possible when people stand on their own two feet ( with a little help from friends) and ignore the machinations of chasing the bigger companies. Tom Flannery was encouraged by brother Pat who's taste in folk and blues and guitar-playing set the younger Tom down a song-writing path from his mid-twenties. In the early nineties he met producer George Graham who also ran a weekly radio show 'Homegrown Music' in north-eastern Pennsylvania – Tom was born in Scranton PA. in 1966 – who further encouraged him with frequent radio spots and introductions to other musicians including Neal Casal, Bob Martin and Lorne Clarke.

In 1998 this all came to fruition in the disc 'Song about a Train' which Graham produced and includes contributions from Neal Casal, John Ginty and percussionist Pat Marcinko. Before this disc Tom had collaborated with George Wesley on a suite of songs about the legacy of coal-mining in Pennsylvania called the 'Anthracite Shuffle' which going by the lyrics is a highly literate and hard-hitting documentation of the mining life in songs like 'The Knox Mine Disaster'. This will hopefully appear on CD one day soon as the tape is now all but unavailable.

Tom has revealed his respect for artists like Richard Thompson, Neal Casal and Bob Martin –literate troubadours one and all and it's no surprise that his own disc shows similar qualities. From opener 'Marie's Song' the songs show a depth of knowledge of the folk/ blues heritage on both sides of the Atlantic. Indeed 'Marie's Song' has as subject exile from Ireland and some uncomfortable truths for us here

"England killed what she could, and the rest she stole"

Tom's gentle voice, the superb uncompressed production ( a mission of George Graham's) and the quality backing all convey the song with ease and I immediately think of the brothers Moore ( Christy and Luka ( Bloom )) and other Irish as opposed to American tune-smiths. Second song 'Blame it on the Death of Charles Kuralt ' with its conga backing also reminds me of Luka at his best. Again the subject is far away from 'Moon and June' – Charles Kuralt being a social commentator/ journalist that is one of Tom's biggest heroes. The 'Anthracite Shuffle' revealed an artist deeply involved with the history and present circumstance of a working-class community and the social and political side of Flannery's work is confirmed with 'Johnson's Station' which reveals the brutal oppression of being on the wrong side of capitalism

" A company comes and breaks down a man

then it takes and takes all it can

and leaves 'em lying like a carcass on the road"

The concern floats mysteriously through the apparently lighter next track 'Cindy's Around' as the 'ghost of coal-miners'. Those blues from brother Pat come to magnificent fruition in next track 'Clarksdale Whistle Blues' based on the life of Muddy Waters. Again the backing is just right as a gentle blues with lovely lyrics – 'Chicago calls like a driving rain' –slip effortlessly by like a northbound train. 'Feel like coming home' is strum and congas with Ginty playing the Hammond B-3 like a saint. Similar in feel to the best of Neal Casal but with some unusual twists in the lyrics e.g.

"Listening to Dylan used to bring me down, now it just reminds me of some little town".

Again a superb track with some great guitar work. Neal Casal actually inspired next song 'I'm gonna fade away' as after a gig they played together Tom almost felt like giving up the ghost – fortunately he didn't and the man himself sings backing vocals here! 'Angeline' begins with Ginty's piano and wouldn't have felt out of place on Elton John's 'Tumbleweed Connection' - great singing . 'Title track 'Song about a Train' comes with the sub-title 'Utah Philips had it right'! '"What I need is a song about a train" and Tom delivers just that. Gentle and smashing harmony from Casal whilst understated organ and guitar hang like distant whistles behind. Smashing stuff. Next up 'Steve Earle Blues' which is another analysis of the singer's lot and for me along with 'Moshing with David Crosby' perhaps weakest tracks on the album purely because they imply a knowledge of the song-writing world –perhaps a little too self-referential? This can't be said of second blues song 'Pettigrew' which again is atmospheric as hell and chronicles a family and place with Springsteen-like expressiveness. –"just ain't no man gonna take my land" – great storytelling. I love 'Rescue Me' - infectious slide rhythm hurtles the song along and I bet it smokes live! Also Tom lets a bit more grit inflect his generally smooth voice. Final track 'When you pass me by' completes the circle back to Ireland for the Irish descended Flannery. It's almost as if he's searching for a connection back through the dirt and tears of his mining background to the beauty and purity of the 'Emerald Isles'. But he's already struck gold on this disc and you should dig it out. Recommended.

Shaun Belcher