Reviews

Artist:Robb Johnson
Album: Pennypot Lane
Label: Irregular
Tracks: 8
Website: https://www.robbjohnson.co.uk/

In a world of increasing imponderables and uncertainties, one constant that remains is the ability of Robb Johnson to release albums of the highest quality, something that he has been doing on his own Irregular Records label since 1985.

Widely recognised as one as one of the UK's finest songwriters, he is indeed a national treasure, and can be seen and heard performing in art centres, clubs and pubs, on pavements on pickets and at festivals, not only here in the UK, but also Europe. In addition to hosting regular Railway Roots sessions down in Portslade and live shows at the Albert in Brighton, the occasional Albert Hall gig is not unknown, whilst appearances on BBC Radios 3 and 4, Belgian Radio 1, Channel 4 and, intriguingly, Nicaraguan television, attest to the high regard in which his music is held.

His recorded output, (Discogs currently lists 59 albums, not including compilations), is broad-ranging in the extreme, and whilst for many he is associated with socio-political commentary, as evidenced in releases such as 'Margaret Thatcher: My Part In Her Downfall', 'Tony Blair: My Part In His Downfall' and 'Bodger: My Part In His Downfall', along with his single celebrating the life and work of Dennis Skinner, 'Tony Skinner's Son', which topped the Amazon download charts in 2020 for a week, (outselling Springsteen and Kylie), there is way more to his writing than this.

For example, two extended song suites, 'Gentle Men' a story of his family's history during the Great War told though the lives of his grandfathers, and 'Ordinary Giants', based on his father's life and times, both received the highest critical acclaim, whilst, more recently, the stage performance, and subsequent album release, of his festive whodunnit, 'Murder At The Grange' was a uniquely satisfying experience.

The dark, cold winter month of January 2024 saw Robb itching to record, in an attempt to cheer himself up. With his usual studio not available, he returned to the Room 13 recording studio in Ghent, to renew his acquaintance with its owner Yves Meerscault, whom he'd met prior to Brexit and Covid.

Now, as summer possibly seems to have arrived at last, the fruits of the day's recording on 23rd January are seeing the light of day, and he is releasing 'Pennypot Lane', which comprises brand new versions of eight songs. As Robb explains "The criteria for including songs on this album were various. These are mainly songs that other people have sung or liked, &/or that I now play differently, &/or haven't appeared on vinyl"

Primarily an album featuring just Robb and his 2011 Martin OM21 acoustic guitar, with just one or three guest appearances, the eight songs cover a timespan of around two and a half decades of his 39-year recording career, in terms of original dates of release, with each and every one of these absolute gems being given a refreshing new lease of life.

The title track, originally released on 2010's 'Man Walks Into A Pub', (and which also featured on both the 'A Reasonable History Of Impossible Dreams' compilation and the 35-copy-only limited edition 'Bye Bye Johnny' releases), like another of his songs, 'Boxing Day', is a fox song. Unlike the latter, however, what we are presented with here on 'Pennypot Lane' is a lovely, lilting, gentle evocation of an idyllic, agrarian England which both draws upon and merges Robb's regular family trips as a child leaving Hounslow for days in the countryside, "driving out every Sunday, through the neatly tended suburbs" with his similar experiences as an adult living in Sussex. In true Robb Johnson style, however, this bucolic picture "… and halfway down the lane I met a fox called Autumn and found all the fruits of summer, raspberries and blackberries", is contrasted with the ubiquity of their all-year-round, tasteless, availability courtesy of homogenous supermarkets, and he can't resist drawing the song to a close with "Now I'm walking home past midnight from my last surviving local, where the Best is second best now," before meeting up with the fox once more. The bucolic and agrestic nature of this titular song is also enhanced, visually, by the superb water-colour sleeve, painted by Robb, who was badgered into so-doing by son Arvin.

If one doesn't know the following song, 'Winter Turns to Spring', one might be lulled into thinking that the pastoral vein was being continued. Not a bit of it. A song of dissent, protest and history which references Spring being crushed in 1939 beneath the wheels of Germany, Josef Stalin, the Cold War and the Soviet/Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, it was initially released on Robb's 1992 CD with Pip Collings entitled 'Overnight' and was brought to wider attention by Roy Bailey following its inclusion on his 2006 'Business As Usual' CD. Reportedly Tony Benn's favourite song, it is also a song of hope, for indeed "Many flowers make the Spring", and, as Robb concludes, "From Prague to Santiago, Belfast to Bejing, underground and undefeated, Winter turns, Winter turns, Winter turns, Winter turns to Spring."

'The Blue Sea Says Yes' is, in many ways, virtually unrecognizable from both the 'All That Way For This' version with its drones, violins and full percussion and the very shouty 'Live At The Albert 2022' interpretation, with its coruscating electric guitar. The first of three tracks to feature the piano of Yves Meerschault, this is a song about how the sea welcomes us all, regardless of age, gender, body shape or size. Robb has previously related that the song came from an observation made by his wife at Myrina on the Greek island of Lemos, watching the residents of the town taking to the sea for their swim. Initially using these folk, of all ages, all conditions, he then recast them as protagonists from the Iliad. The melding of the guitar and piano is sublime, and, no matter how much I try, I can't help but recall the magnificent 'Still' by Pete Sinfield.

The last track on side one of the vinyl is the outstanding 'More Than Enough', coincidentally also the last track when originally released on another Robb and Pip CD, this time 1993's 'Heart's Desire'. With lyrics, unfortunately, still as poignantly resonant now as when they were written, there is no reading between the lines or imagery-unfolding needed here, as Robb gets directly to the point, with verses outlining the deliberate political choices made to spend financial resources on, for example, missiles, tanks, tunnels, roads, subsidies, and expenses, rather than health, education and jobs, each one ending with the repugnant indictment of our age "But there's never enough for the poor".

Again, the version presented here contrasts greatly with the original. Gone are both the harmonica and Steáfán Hannigan's pipes, and what we get here are the pure unadulterated voice and acoustic guitar of Robb in their full, magnificent, glory.

There is also a further link here to Roy Bailey, and indeed his son-in-law Martin Simpson, too. Both are responsible, for, in Robb's words, the song having been "kindly rescued from the obscurity of its previous appearance" through their performing and recording of it. Also, most touchingly, as Martin says in a moving video, he was regularly visiting Roy in St. Luke's Hospice in Sheffield during the last month of his life, and singing to him, the latter apparently completely unconscious. During one of the last visits Roy opened his eyes and sang the last verse of this very song. As Martin relates, this was the last time Roy ever sang anything.

Consider the little of life that we know
Bring nothing, take nothing, pass through, and go
We're all of us poor when it comes to the night
In need of the darkness, in need of the light
If we learned to want less and love more
There'd be enough for the poor
Cause there's more than enough, more than enough, more than enough for us all

Opening side two, is the jaunty 'Babbecombe at the Closing of the Day', a true account of a summer holiday day out on the English Riviera in Torquay, which culminated, after the rain obviously, in a visit to Babbecombe model village. In addition to the physical description of examples what can be seen, nudists on the beaches, Albert Square, Wellworths, The Shard, and more hunters and foxes, Robb's skill as a wordsmith weaves in references that allude to the village's original principles of representing an almost idealised, imaginary embodiment of an optimistic post-war Britain at its best, albeit with, dare I suggest, a sardonic eye. Thus we hear that "… you never had it so good, what with holiday camps and hospitals, homes for everyone it looks as if the lower middle class are here to stay", meanwhile "Where are all the working class? On holiday in Spain." Again, in contrast to previous, excellent versions featuring talented Irregulars, what we get presented with here is an elegantly sparse, stripped back rendition. Miss Marple and Manuel may not have been encountered, nevertheless a good time was had by all and Robb's humour shines throughout, listen carefully and, with reference to the song's title, you might just catch the perfect spoken ending "and fade…"

2001 saw the release of one of Robb's most powerful songs, 'At The Siege of Madrid', the final cut on the CD he released with Miranda Sykes and Saskia Tomkins, '21st Century Blues'. Some twenty-three years later, and this anti-fascist masterpiece has lost none of its power and impact. Here his voice and guitar are accompanied by the stunning trumpet playing of regular Irregular, Sian Allen. This latest version thus sits somewhere between the original and the acoustic guitar and vocal-only track on the earlier-mentioned 'Tony Blair…' CD, and is a more than welcome addition. Distinctly, and unsurprisingly, Spanish in sound, there is, I suggest, more than a hint of 'military mariachi' trumpet from Sian which helps build the tension as the song slowly builds to a final, dramatic climax, with memorable lyrics in which Robb alludes to coming home from school with a clay clenched-fist model and showing it to his dad, who smiled, asked him if he knew what it meant, and taught him how to find out for himself. The power and impact of an effective teacher personified.

"This is a story…it starts out like this…" are the self-explanatory lyrics which follow Yves' atmospheric, opening piano notes to the tender and delicate 'A True History Of Couscous', of which Robb notes "a song I like, that is more or a less fictionalized autobiography." Thus we cut from the twenty-year old, lost in Paris with a guitar and a girlfriend, on New Year's Day, with their red wine and couscous, to a scenario years later with this married man, taking his wife to Paris, map in hand, but unable to re-find previous locations, nevertheless appeased, partly, by more couscous, in a song which must have one of the most alluring titles ever written, and which, with fullest respect to previous versions, is now my favourite.

For his final selection Robb returns to another song from his first CD, 'Overnight', and the one that closed that album too, 'You Don't Have to Say Goodbye'. This gentle track, with its waltzy tempo and poignant lyrics, is not only once again graced by the tasteful piano of Yves but also an elegantly understated Spanish guitar contribution from Robb's son, Alvin, and makes for a fitting ending.

He will surely dislike the analogy, however, with 'Pennypot Lane' Robb Johnson not only confirms his place at the high table of contemporary songwriters, but also in a seat well above-the-salt. The album oozes class, and his mastery of the guitar, specifically his intricate fingerstyle playing, is much in evidence here.

Whilst the album will attract the attention of aficionados, who will relish the new interpretations of old favourites, and also newcomers dipping their toes for the first time into his music, it would be good to think that the nay-sayers who would turn a blind ear merely because it is Robb Johnson could see it to give the release a listen and then judge.

Post script

For the purposes of this review I not only had a CD version of the album, which, as you would expect, provided high quality sound, but I was also privileged to have a test pressing of the vinyl, which sounded absolutely superb, in terms of clarity and production values, and can be most highly recommended.

David Pratt

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