The Rutland Troubadour returns for album number four.
Paul McClure, on his fourth album, decided to go to pastures new and left the rural north and travelled south to East Sussex and the fine Bex-Pop Studios in Bexhill-on-Sea. For this album, Trevor Moss took over the production duties and provided bass, mandolin, banjo, and harmonica, as well as fellow musicians Thure Johansen on electric guitar and resonator guitar, violinist Henry Bristow, and Moss’s wife, Hannah-Lou, on vocals. McClure himself says, “we wanted to capture a moment, prioritising feel over perfection, and the record came together pretty quickly over a few sessions”.
We open with a really strong song, I’m Not Lost, a banjo-focused song looking at how we try and pick up the pieces again after problems and trying to stay positive with some lovely acoustic guitar strumming and some effective backup female vocals from Moss. The Good and The Bad Of It, a slightly blues-tinged gem with some lovely images created by haunting lyrics, “I knew a girl once she was every barfly’s dream, most of the time she’d even buy her own drinks, she found a way to swap living for existing, where’s the sense in life without love?”. It’s a dreamlike tune that’s gorgeous.
Banjo and violin take centre stage on Maybe Now, Maybe Then with Moss’s vocals again adding an ethereal feel to the song. I Am The Man Who Fell In Love With You is a more up-tempo tune about turning what McClure sings about into what he lives, and harmonica, guitar and strong vocals dominate. U Do U is a positive song about needing to be who you are, with just an acoustic guitar to accompany McClure’s vocals, and it’s enhanced by Jesse and Daphne Deeble on backing vocals and daughter Flossie providing much-needed giggles. It was written with McClure’s two daughters in mind and how they’re fast becoming adults with all the modern parenting challenges that brings. Take Me As I Am is a simple but highly effective song that closes the album about true love and the woman he loves who makes him “aware of where I am”.
This is a lovely, engrossing ten-song collection building wonderfully on McClure’s previous work and shows he’s a genuinely talented musician and songwriter, expertly surrounded with the type of fellow musicians to really bring out the best in the music. Lovely stuff.
