Ewan D. Rodgers
Album: Tomorrow Might Be Monday
Label: Folk Police
Tracks: 13
Website: http://www.northwesternrecordings.com

This is the second release in the Northwestern Series put out by the admirable Folk Police Recordings label, and it represents the followup to Ewan's self-released debut (From Hull, Halifax And Hell) that appeared around a couple of years ago. That album was a collection of traditional British folksongs, performed in Ewan's own style, at times slightly diffident but refreshingly "first-take" in approach, and it's the latter aspect that's even more to the fore on Tomorrow Might Be Monday.

It's a determinedly eclectic set (almost wilfully so) that takes us back to the discovery of obscure scratchy old 78s and the Harry Smith Anthology, and in a way pays homage to the freewheeling, all-encompassing spirit of the Famous Jug Band, or at least the very early Incredible String Band (ie. the Clive Palmer era), in which American old-time and delta blues traditions and ragtime unashamedly rubbed shoulders with folksongs and British music-hall. To this almost-all-embracing mix Ewan adds Yiddish and Southern European folksong (Tumbalalaika), café music (Aisoun, Il Valzer Dei Disertori), a smattering of popular Irish (I'll Take You Home Again Kathleen) and a Jake Thackray cover (The Black Swan). But Song For Clive Palmer (an original by Ewan that also namechecks other key inspirations) is probably the key to it all, and sets Ewan's cards firmly on the table.

During the course of the record, Ewan plays guitar, banjo and diatonic accordion, and a handful of guest musicians help out on fiddle, dulcimer and musical saw. Ewan's stark, unadorned yet highly capable treatments of standards such as Come Back Babe and I Don't Love Nobody may not be quite the most distinctive or memorable you'll encounter, but he clearly gets inside the idiom sufficiently to convince, while East Virginia Blues and Country Blues both contain some rather nifty picking and Paper Of Pins features a neat guest duet-vocal. All told, it's a very likeable and pleasing menu, for all it occasionally might need that extra little spark of distinction to make it into something really special.

David Kidman