Reviews

Artist:Peter Baron
Album: Another Life
Label: Heroic
Tracks: 14
Website: https://www.facebook.com/peter.baron.777

A regular on BBC Children's Television in the 70s and 80s before he took up music full time, Baron has had a diverse and interesting career, starting out as a member of Marty Wilde's backing group, going on to join Fatso with bandmate Brian Hodgson and, with the arrival of Gerry Hogan becoming the drummer in Albert Lee's regular support outfit Hogan's Heroes. As an in-demand session musician he's played with the likes of everyone from Leo Sayer and The Nolan Sisters to Cleo Laine and The Bay City Rollers, as well as being part of the Elkie Brooks Band in the late seventies. In 1979 he joined Night alongside Chris Thompson, Robbie McIntosh and the late Nicky Hopkins, scoring Billboard 100 chart success with 'Hot Summer Nights' before joining English Classical Rock legends Renaissance

Flying solo, this is his fifth studio album and among those collaborating are Albert Lee on electric guitar, dobro maestro Jerry Douglas, Gryphon's Andrew Findon on flute, former Landscape bassist Andy Pask and Climax Blues Band's Derek Holt among the backing vocalists, the instrumentation taking in trombone, cello, tenor and alto sax, trumpet, double bass, violin and viola. Opening with the piano-backed 'In Another Life', a near six-minute 70s AOR-flavoured co-write with Heroes colleague Mike Bell describing an evening spent watching a gig by an unidentified songwriter friend, Baron's vocals putting me in mind of Rupert Holmes and Dean Friedman. It's followed by a frisky bouncing along cover of Rodney Crowell's 'Earthbound' before hitting a seventies pop vein again with the organ-backed Baby Come Home written three decades ago by Roger Askew and Steve Gould from Arbre and Rare Bird, respectively. Another old number, dating back a quarter of a century and again a Bell co-write is the strings-flourished 'You Get What You Pay For', another AOR echo but this time conjuring more the West Coast sounds of Andrew Gold.

And, essentially, that's the musical tack followed on the remaining tracks, the slow ballad 'Heaven' another cover, this time a lesser-known Carl Wilson number from 1981 while, turning to a different genre, 'Halfway Down' comes from the pen of Jim Lauderdale, the arrangement here featuring Lee and a horn section. Both 'Merry Go Round' and 'I Don't Understand' are self-penned, the former a keyboards pop ballad, the latter, a response to the sometimes unfathomable nature of the world more of a 'Baker Street' era Gerry Rafferty persuasion.

The other two original numbers are 'Homefire', a mid-tempo ballad with Douglas on dobro written during a slump during his career and thoughts of throwing in the towel, the other being the brass burnished ruminative watching the world pass by album closer 'Take Me Where The River Flows' written in Luxembourg back in the 90s. The remaining tracks are all covers, leading off with Paul Kennerly and Marty Stuart's 'Little Things', followed by the mid-tempo walking rhythm 'Country Club Cousins', written back in 1977 by Paul Travis, a founder member of British rock outfit Liar, who sadly passed in January last year, the slightly funky blues rock organ-backed 'Friends To Burn' is a Jimmy Webb song from the late 90s, here with a rap by Peter's son James, and the dreamy Harry Belafonte meets Roy Orbison 'The Ghost Is Laid' comes from a solo album by the late Chas Hodges, of Chas and Dave fame, and actually features him on piano while Lee sings harmonies.

Engagingly listenable comfort food for fans of late 70s singer-songwriter AOR, it's a very credible addition to an impressively solid career and, now he's dusted down the shelves, hopefully he has sights on putting together an album of all new material from this life too.

Mike Davies

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