Let’s Unpack The Haul… Again…

Like the echo of some influential Influencer we return again to that favourite of YouTube video channels – the shopping unpacking.  Look at all the goodies I bought when I spent money, hey, would you like to spend money as well?  Here’s links to my sponsors’ great products…

…only that’s not the way we do it here at Americana UK.  Nope, no way – you get a bit of chat, a tune and if you’re lucky some kind of picture.  That’s the way we like it, and that’s the way we do it.  So, dear reader, if you haven’t been put off by that anti-sales pitch then picture if you will a rainy Sunday afternoon in September, there are cries of “storm’s a-comin’” and we all know what’s like to follow in that wake come October…so to fortify us against the oncomin’ darkness the only sensible plan was to hot-foot it to the local friendly(-ish) record store to dig through their second hand bargain section (which, you’ll recall, is £3 a pop, and 5 – not 4, but 5 – for £10!).  And here’s how it went down.

Robbie Robertson – ‘Robbie Robertson‘ – 1987

Considering what a (albeit not uncritical) fan of The Band I have been over the years it’s slightly odd that I don’t have an awful lot of the solo work from the various members.  This was Robbie’s first solo album on Geffen, and although it comes with the positives of two of The Band also playing on it – Rick Danko and Garth Hudson – I’d always shied away from it somewhat because of the Daniel Lanois connection. Lanois produced the album, he was also shaping the sound of U2 and helping Peter Gabriel (both of whom also appear on the album) move off in directions that I wasn’t able to follow.   Elvis Costello’s description of Robertson seemingly having decided to “make a Peter Gabriel album” pretty much sums it up.

Jackson Browne – ‘For Everyman‘ – 1973

I’ve just never really made time for Jackson Browne – maybe it was just stubbornness in rejecting being told what a genius he is, maybe it was because he was by far the prettiest of all the early ’70s singer-songwriters.  Just plain old jealousy at work.  But here’s an album which has Sneaky Pete, Jim Keltner, Spooner Oldham and David Crosby on it (amongst others) so you know, maybe, just maybe I should punt £2 on it.  How bad could it be?  It’s really good, god damn it, do I really have room in my life for another sensitive singer songwriter with a vast back catalogue?  Time will tell – at least I have this handy buyer’s guide….

Juan Martin ‘ El Alquimista‘ – 1999

A great find in the folk section and there was really no doubt that I’d be buying this for the reasons spelt out here.  If you claim to enjoy guitar music and you don’t like Juan Martin, then the truth is you only like some guitar music.   The man is a musical genius.  These are my reasons.

Nigel Shaw – ‘The Lone Tree‘ – 1994

A bit of an odd choice, and one I fully admit was made simply through nostalgia for the Rhythms Of The World festival that used to run annually in that second WOMAD known as Hitchin.  Originally a town based festival, with stages set up in the streets it moved for a few years to an enclosed ground nearby and then…it stopped.   Amongst the more obvious attractions of The Whybirds, C.W. Stoneking, Sarah Savoy and the Francadians, and an early appearance by Sam Lee (which sadly I didn’t catch as far as I can recall) there would be an annual appearance by Dartmoor dwellers Nigel Shaw and Carolyn Hillyer for 40 minutes or so of what we might call chilled out ambient folk.  New Age Hippy stuff?  Well…maybe…just a bit.

And I guess nostalgia played a part in this last choice – needed, you’ll recall, to turn the pile from 4 CDs for £12 into 5 CDs for £10.  In these times of austerity…

Billy Joel – ‘The Stranger’ – 1977

So, a long time ago, a friend had a record collection that was almost totally Billy Joel.  Well, it happens.  He wasn’t much of a fan of punk, or Jean-Michel Jarre, or The Byrds.  So this was part of the soundtrack of my teens and I’m not going to defend it.  There are a couple of pretty reasonable songs on this album, not Joel’s best release (that’d probably be something like ‘Songs in the Attic‘ where a road tested band kicked some life into his better studio songs) but not his worst (too many to list).  Anyway – ‘workin’ too hard can give you a heart atac-ac-ac-ac-ack‘ so let’s draw this round up to a close before such a disaster hits this worker.