Loading

Nels Andrews + The Good Intentions

Venue: Grateful Freds
Town: Formby
Date: 1st May
Website: http://nelsandrews.com/

Where better to celebrate the ancient Spring festival of May Day than at Grateful Fred's, surely one of the most eclectic music venues anywhere. Where else could you see the world premier of a Ukulele Orchestra ; a band who have won a Best Americana Act of The Year Award and one of America's finest singer-songwriters all on the same bill?

Tonight marked the world debut of the Grateful Fred's Ukulele Orchestra [ GFUO]. Led by the irrepressible Peter McPartland of The Big I Am, the GFUO features no fewer than six ukuleles and acoustic bass. Their debut consisted of three songs - Bob Marley's "I Shot The Sheriff"; Black's "Wonderful Life" [with lead vocals by Maurice Watson of The Dharma Bums, who recently played at Grateful Fred's] and Mumford and Sons' "The Cave". A fine debut performance which proved popular with the large crowd.

Next up was the Grateful Fred's House Band, tonight a four- piece, who performed with their usual zest. This evening we had "Cheap Bottle Of Wine" ; "I've Just Seen A Face" ; the lovely "Out Of The Woods" and "Will The Circle Be Unbroken" as performed by the Carter Family.

The Carter Family theme was continued by Liverpool's own The Good Intentions, who continue to go from strength to strength. Formed in 2003, the trio won Best Americana Act of The Year at the 2011 British Country Music Awards and have just released their third album, the superb Rick Shea-produced "Travelling Companion "on Drumfire Records [also home to another Grateful Fred's favourite My Darling Clementine].

Tonight was the first time that the Intentions [as I shall refer to them] have played live since the release of the album. Although the main launch for the album is taking place in London next week, this was, in effect, the North West launch.

The Intentions' set began, as does the album, with A.P.Carter's "Gold Watch And Chain", which is the only non-original song on the album, all the rest were written by singer/guitarist Peter Davies.

What is particularly striking about the Intentions is their harmony singing, which reaches back to the classic Country music harmony groups such as the Louvin Brothers, the Delmore Brothers and the Stanley Brothers through to the Everly Brothers and beyond. The other main element of the Intentions' music is, of course, Peter's songwriting. He has the ability to write songs that sound as though they could have been written in the 1950's. Take, for example, the next song "Everybody Loves A Drinking Man".

One of Peter's main influences is, naturally, Hank Williams and Peter has written an excellent song about Hank's last night on earth, New Year's Eve 1952, called "Hank's Last Ride", which is a fitting tribute to his ill-starred hero.

More songs from the new album followed : "Home Town Girl"[with some lovely harmonies] and "I Dreamed About You"

[which was inspired by a dream that the band's singer/accordionist/autoharpist Gabrielle Monk had about her grandmother]. One of my favourite songs on the album [and from previous live performances by the band] is "Colfax Town" which Peter wrote after arriving in a Goldrush town in California shortly after the shooting dead of a bankrobber.

At this point, I should mention the third member of the band, Francesco Roskell, who plays guitar and sings harmony vocals.

The Intentions finished their set with a tribute to another great Country singer, George Jones, who had recently passed away. The song they chose to sing was " I'll Take You My World", which was a fitting way to end an excellent set by The Good Intentions.

After a short interval, headliner Nels Andrews took to the stage. Last year, I had the great pleasure of reviewing Nels' latest album "Scrimshaw"in these pages [see album reviews for April 2012]. It really is a superb album and one that benefits from repeated listening due to the depth and quality of Nels' songwriting. For me, it was certainly one of the best albums of last year, so I was looking forward to seeing Nels live with great anticipation. I was not disappointed.

Nels casually told us that he had, today, driven from Ullapool in the Scottish Highlands to be here in Liverpool [by my calculation about 430 miles!]. If he was tired from such a long drive, it certainly didn't show in his performance which was magnificent. As expected, he performed several of the wonderful songs from "Scrimshaw"- namely, the imagery-rich "Tridents" [written for his five-year old son, who is back home in Santa Cruz, California] ;the mysterious "Houdini"[on which Nels played shruti box at the same time as his guitar, which involved some contortions that Harry Houdini himself would have been proud of] and Bar Room Bards [which refers to how you may meet people when you are drunk "who don't shine so bright when you get them home" ie. the old beer goggles syndrome !].

Nels explained the background to his song "Small Victories", which I was grateful for, as I hadn't previously understood what it was about. It relates to artistic people who had occupied beautiful apartments above Carnegie Hall for many years but were forced to leave when they were being relet. Thanks Nels, that explains it all.

The only non-original lyrics on "Scrimshaw" are those of W.B.Yeats on "Three Hermits". Nels discovered the words in a book which he found in a "street library" in New York [ where people simply put their unwanted books in the street for others to enjoy].

On the album version of "Flotsam" there is a chorus of singers and Nels got the audience to replicate this musical moment by joining in, which he succeeded in doing admirably.

As on "Scrimshaw", Nels finished his set with the lovely "Wisteria", in which the flower is a metaphor for love. On the album, this beautiful song features AJ Roach and Nuala Kennedy, who recently performed at Grateful Fred's as a duo.

For a much deserved encore, Nels sang "White Shoes" by his mentor, the late Jack Hardy, to whom "Scrimshaw" is dedicated. However, the audience demanded another song and Nels walked right up to the audience to perform one last song acoustically.

Thus ended another truly memorable night of great music at Grateful Fred's.

Peter Cowley