Heath Common
Album: The Dream Of Miss Dee
Label: Hi4Head
Tracks: 19
Website: http://www.heathcommon.com/

"The Dream Of Miss Dee" is one of those albums that trying to pin down will be as difficult as nailing blancmange to a ceiling. I choose the word blancmange rather than jelly, because the album isn't as transparent as that and any way blancmange summons up an image of eccentricity that jelly simply can't manage.

I first came across Heath Common as part of a trio with The Thin Man and The Bee and latter as a duo minus the Bee and actually "The Dream Of Miss Dee" reprises tracks from both of those releases, but a series of interludes, 7 in total under the Dream Bite moniker give this album a feel that is as intense as Heath's stare on the back cover.

The thing about Heath Common is that he kicked around with the likes of Robert Lockwood and Johnny Shines and when it comes to Heath's obituary song, "The Death Of Honeyboy Edwards" there is an element of personal perspective.

Similarly it's a personal perspective that drives many of the songs located in North West, particularly Greater Manchester and its environs, an area many will find strange to hear being described in beat poetry, yet somehow it seems right for it to be so.

Heath writes or at least co-writes all of the songs on the album, with the Dream Bite interludes being all his own work, even if some of them are delivered by Georgia Harrington in her role of Miss Dee of the title.

"The Dream Of Miss Dee" is a strange album, one of those when the mood takes you jobs, but one that is definitely worth exploring, just remember to nail your nonconformist colours to the mast before you do so.

Neil King