Songs from the East Coast.
“East Side Confessions” is KB Bayley’s third album, and it has a delightful melancholy feel to it. It feels sparse yet layered, mostly thanks to his excellent lap steel guitar playing, which is quite stunning and is accompanied delightfully by several guests who lift his playing even further. It mixes six original songs with four interpretations, the most unusual one of which is his version of the Korgis hit ‘Everybody’s Got to Learn Sometime’. He has completely changed the feeling of what was a pretty ordinary ’70s song into something quite enigmatic and far more appealing.
‘Don’t Let the Rain Fall on My Face’ has an intense Southern swamp feel to it. It relates to the last words and reflections of a dying man, someone being hanged, “They are putting up a scaffold… some come here to string me up, some come here to tear me down”, “When the priest picks up the bible, and you are all in lace, don’t let the rain fall on my face”.
Some may feel the songs are a little one-paced; however, the texture and structure more than make up for that. The plaintive harmonica playing, especially on ‘Somewhere East Of Moscow‘, is very welcome indeed, as are the delicate harmonies of Claudia Stark, which blend beautifully on a number of tracks.
The final song is an excellent cover of Patty Griffin’s ‘That Kind Of Lonely’, which he declares “This song epitomises the power of simple chords and vulnerable truth; and it contains one of my favourite ever lyrics: your eyes were following the dancer falling down a flight of stairs” (maybe not the most profound but each to their own). Performed on an acoustic guitar, it feels like all the guests have now left, leaving him alone with his thoughts as the candle flickers and burns down.
The richness of his playing and the quality of his voice make this a very listenable album. Bayley has found a spot in between folk music and Louisiana Blues, which is very noteworthy indeed. The complexity and versatility of his steel guitar are quite profound and definitely lift the album onto a different plane.
