LATEST...

Terry Clarke 'Night Ride to Birmingham' Terrapin TRPCD1506

Terry Clarke
Night Ride To Birmingham
Terrapin TRPCD 1506
*****

Roots 'n'roll at its very best

As wonderful a collection of 1950s-rock'n'rolI-meets-beautiful-if-deranged-country as I've ever heard. The record bears the name of Terry Clarke, one of our most underrated singers and songwriters yet it's actually the colliding of him and Wes McGhee (one of our most underrated, singers, songwriters and guitarists) that makes it so special.

Both are used to recording in Texas, both on their own projects and in the case of McGhee as sideman to the likes of Kimmie Rhodes, but this was Made In England. Clarke is the king of conjuring up images from forgotten times and places and creating songs that are autobiographical in a way that's curiously out of time.

The songs here emanate from the mists of the black and white 1950s, like hazy recollections of an old movie. McGhee's guitar genius, which veers from bass lead thunder to Gene Vincent twang, brings to life an era of change, seen from Clarke's skewed perspective. Things kick of with Me And Johnny Burnette, a song about not having met, but sure they'd have been friends if they had. Clarke's growled, choked, melancholy vocals tell of Sonny Liston, shiny boots and guitars, as McGhee sets the tone for things to come.

An absolute classic is John Lennon And Johnny Cash, about a supposed meeting of the pair, which manages to combine a stuttering rockabilly beat with chiming Beatle guitar hooks. One could go through the songs one by one but you have to pick out Gene Vincent Sings, a low down and dirty homage, the sad colourscape of Degas In New Orleans (written with American songsmith Ronny Elliott), Maria, a pomp-filled, timpani- rumbling tribute to Maria Callas, the dreamy Song For Laura Nyro, and the inspired storytelling of the title track (subtitled Zephyr Xanadu). It all fits perfectly with the cover of Gillian Welch's Elvis Presley Blues. Incredibly for a band album, there's just two of them. Clarke plays 12-string and McGhee masterminds the rest, producing while playing more guitars than Denmark Street, drums, piano, accordion, et al.

A great album that makes you laugh and makes you sad in equal quantity. It almost
assumes the best qualities of a stage musical and should be performed live in its entirety.
Up there with the best work both Clarke and McGhee have ever done-and that's saying
something.

Nick Dalton
Maverick October 2006
www.maverick-country.com

Night Ride to Birmingham - Terry Clarke
by John Conquest 4 star review

Conceding that he’s one of England’s best singer-songwriters, someone once complained to me that Terry Clarke is a terrible namedropper, spending half his gigs talking about Butch, Jesse, Jimmie Dale et al, and, you know how that goes, it wasn’t until much later that I came up with the right answer, which is “You don’t get it, Terry isn’t just a musician, he’s a fan.” This is a much rarer combination than you might think, in fact, with some exceptions, most notably, in my experience, Jimmy LaFave and Susan Gibson, musicians don’t go out to listen to other musicians all that much. On this album, Clarke states upfront that it’s a collection of “homages/character sketches and tributes to people whose music I’ve loved.” So, yes, you’ll hear a few names being dropped, in fact right there on the CD’s cover, it says ‘Starring John Lennon, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Bonnie Owens, Laura Nyro, Johnny Burnette, Edgar Degas, Tampa Red, Gene Vincent, Maria Callas.’ Degas is, of course, the famous French cowbell player. I’m not sure how he snuck in there, but Degas In New Orleans, cowritten with Ronnie Elliott, as was Last Days Of Tampa Red, is one of the standouts. Sticking to such a defined theme, cast in cinematic terms, does make for the occasional strained rhyme, but it also makes this more than just a collection of songs, eleven originals, plus Gillian Welch’s Elvis Presley Blues. One rather amazing thing is that apart from Clarke himself and producer Wes McGhee, no musicians were harmed in the making of this album. McGhee plays drums/ percussion, piano, electric piano, organ, accordion, glockenspiel, strings, bajo sexto, wooden flute, oud, Spanish, slide, 12-string and multiple electric guitars, bass and 6-string bass, which rather puts other ‘value-added’ producers in the shade. Of course, if you remember the multi-instrumental fad of the 70s, which usually translated as ‘I can almost pick out Chopsticks on the sitar,’ you may be dubious rather than impressed by this outrageous list, but McGhee is the most consummate musician I’ve ever encountered and can actually play all these instruments, at least well and often superbly. McGhee’s gorgeous fills and almost subliminal quotes are as good a reason for getting this as Clarke’s songs.

3rd Coast Music, San Antonio Texas September 06
www.countryrootsmusic.com

A FolkWax Reprint, this review originally ran in FolkWax on May 4, 2006

Terry Clarke
Night Ride To Birmingham
FolkWax Rating: 8 out of 10

Lyrics Recall The Virtuous And Obscure

On this twelve-song collection, Terry Clarke's eighth solo release [See Note #1], there's the same number of Clarke originals, a trio of co-writes, and one "thematically appropriate" cover tune. All in all the contents equate to a historical portrait of Clarke's, principally American, twentieth century musical heroes - well, "Degas In New Orleans" apart - although there is particular emphasis on performers who were active during the 1950s and '60s. In that regard the songs attest how Terry Clarke has evolved into the accomplished Roots musician that he is today. A professional picker/songwriter for close to four decades, assisted here by musician/album producer Wes McGhee, Clarke's lyrics recall the debauched and deceased, as well as the virtuous and obscure.

In his hometown of Reading, England, circa 1961-62, a teenaged Clarke witnessed a performance by the late Johnny Burnette [b. 1934 d. 1964] and his four-piece English tour band The Rebounds. With McGhee picking out urgent Rockabilly-styled chords on electric guitar, "Me & Johnny Burnette" recalls that long-ago Monday evening gig at the Majestic Ballroom and imagines a conversation had they chanced to meet. As the lyric unfolds, there's mention of Burnette's musician brother, Dorsey, and of Johnny's 1962 single "Clown Shoes," a number penned by Texan James Marcus Smith. That song reached #35 on the U.K. Pop chart and later that decade Smith found fame in Britain as the performer P. J. Proby. At the outset of the ballad-paced "Margaret & The Wayward Wind," Clarke name-checks "The Wayward Wind," a 1956 Pop chart success for the singing cowboy Tex Ritter, and goes on to reprise a line from the song's chorus. It appears that, circa 1959, Isle of Skye-born Dr. Margaret McKinnon was a big fan of the song. Leaving her island home and moving to London, these days Dr. McKinnon is a renowned teacher of Gaelic language and music, and an occasional musical performer.

Apart from her undoubted skill with word and melody, Rosanne Cash has been known to write the odd narrative. Clarke's "John Lennon & Johnny Cash" was inspired by her essay "John Lennon In The American South," which appeared in the collection Blue Lightning [1998, Slow Dancer Press, London, ISBN: 1-871033-43-8]. While Wes does, at one juncture, pick out the riff to The Beatles' "I Feel Fine," Clarke's melody mainly explores a bass-style Cash backbeat. As for the lyric, it portrays the pair standing outside the Sun Recording Studio on Union Avenue, Memphis, smoking cigarettes. Later, there's mention of a pickin' session "At Luther's house on a big Sunday/Catchin' the heat of the last sunray/When it got dark I bet they played a minor" - Luther being guitar player Luther Monroe Perkins [See Note #2]. If there's one musician featured in this collection who is virtually unknown it's Thomas Wiggins [b. 1849, Columbus, Georgia, d. 1908, Hoboken, New Jersey], the inspiration for "Blind Tom In Hoboken." Only one example of Wiggins' music exists in the public domain and Clarke penned the song after spending time travelling in New Jersey where Blind Tom lived and performed for many years.

Country singer, the recently passed,Bonnie Owens [nee Campbell, b. 1932] was married for a time to the Bakersfield, California-based musician, Buck Owens, and later to that other major Bakersfield recording legend Merle Haggard. Employing a Western Swing-paced tune, in "Sweet Bonnie Owens" Terry recalls how she sang the Country Blues, alludes figuratively to the 1957 Buddy Knox-penned #1 hit single "Party Doll," and mentions toward the close that he (and the late Jesse Taylor) once opened for Merle and his band, including Bonnie, at Gruene Hall in Gruene, Texas. It has been said that "A picture is worth a thousand words" and "Degas In New Orleans," the first of two Terry Clarke/Ronny Elliott co-writes, certainly gives substance to that contention. During the autumn of 1872 French-born painter Edgar Degas visited the States and in particular Louisiana, where many of his relatives were involved in the cotton trade, Degas' mother having been born in New Orleans.

"Gene Vincent Sings" focuses on another 1950s musician [b. 1935 d. 1971], while the musically dramatic "Maria (Callas)" references, the born-to-Greek-parents New Yorker [b. 1923 d. 1977], who became one of the world's greatest, if not the greatest, opera singer. The extent of Callas' fame arose from her career choice to perform a wide variety of operatic roles. "Night Ride To Birmingham (Zephyr Xanadu)" features a Clarke melody set to a lyric by Kathryn Lay, and her words, once more, reference the Man In Black. Circa 1968-69 Clarke saw Cash perform in Birmingham, England, and Kathryn's lyric recalls that teenage adventure. It's hardly unexpected that "Song For Laura Nyro" is underpinned by a dreamy sounding guitar and keyboard backdrop, while the lyric includes mention of "doo wop," "mimosa," and "butterfly," all musical styles/terms that Laura Nyro [b. 1947 d. 1997] doted upon. The penultimate cut and only cover song is Gillian Welch's haunting and even-handed "Elvis Presley Blues." I say even-handed considering that the so-called "King of Rock 'n' Roll" was the architect of his own downfall. Welch included the song on her 2003 album Time (The Revelator), and the same year Joan Baez covered it on Dark Chords On A Big Guitar [2003]. Underpinned by a Caribbean steel drum and set to a quasi-Reggae rhythm, "Last Days Of Tampa Red," the closing cut, is the second Terry Clarke/Ronny Elliott co-write. Therein, the writers recall the Georgia-born Blues musician Hudson Woodbridge aka "Tampa Red" Whittaker [b. 1904 d. 1981] [See Note #3] who spent many years living, performing, and recording in Chicago, eventually dying there, destitute, in a local nursing home.

Notes:
Note #1: The head count does not include the Rhythm Oil album. Recorded by a trio that featured Clarke, guitarists Michael Messer, and the late Jesse Taylor, most of the songs were penned by Clarke. Note #2: As The Tennessee Two, Perkins and bass player Marshall Grant, supported Cash when he launched his recording career at Sun Records. Note #3: Hudson was raised in Tampa, Florida, by his grandparents, the Whittakers.

Arthur Wood is a founding editor of FolkWax

Copyright Visionation, Ltd 2006. All Rights Reserved with limited rights offered to artist and their agents for publicity purposes only with proper citation to FolkWax, FolkWax.com, or www.folkwax.com.

FolkWax is the largest weekly Folk publication in the world. It is delivered via email to more than 50,000 subscribers around the world each week. It is only sent to subscribers and maintains a strict privacy policy and never shares its subscribers' information; just Folk in your box each week. You may subscribe at www.folkwax.com. For further information contact folkwax@visnat.com or call 515.440.0610.

Colin Hanton original drummer with The Quarrymen
speaking on 'Juke Box Jury' BBC Radio Merseyside

"Of the three CDs that you sent me, I would highly recommend this one to anyone to listen to ... this is the one that I played most .... kept it on, played it time after time ...
I think it's an absolutely brilliant CD .... 'Me and Johnny Burnette', John Lennon & Johnny Cash', Blind Tom in Hoboken' .... there's a load on there !!
It's well worth a listen I think you'll like it"

Terry Clarke
Night Ride To Birmingham
Terrapin TRPCD 1506

The Birmingham of the title is apt, because it could be in England- where Terry comes from-or America, where his music has always been rooted. Here he has teamed up with another unsung giant of the British roots scene, Wes McGhee, who has produced this album of songs on the theme of Clarke's heroes.
Titles such as Me and Johnny Burnette, John Lennon & Johnny Cash, Gene Vincent Sings and Elvis Presley Blues signpost an atmospheric romp through rock 'n' roll, country, blues and even calypso in the company of an entertaining lyricist. Order from www.terryclarke.com

Truck and Driver Nov 2006 ****