Monthly archive

April 2017

Uncle John Trio

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Uncle John Trio
Uncle John Trio

Uncle John Trio – For Your Pleasure

Goofin – GRCD6170
Beer Me – Hey Good Lookin’ – Tall Tall Trees – If You Are Lookin’ For Love – Lonesome Tears – All My Ex’s Live In Texas – The Song (I Wish I Never Wrote) – Honky Tonk Man – Guitars, Cadillacs And Hillbilly Music – In The Middle Of The Night – Once Again – Sixpack To Go – Country 24/7 – Blue Blue Day

This is the debut album for this drummerless trio from Finland but playing for 20 years they are far from being beginners..
Eight of the songs are covers and the remaining six are from the pen of singer John Peter Lemstrom (aka Uncle John). His songs are very good and never suffer from the comparison with the covers which is a good point considering that they come from the pen of Hank Williams, George Jones, Johnny Horton, Dwight Yoakam, Johnny Burnette and Don Gibson.
Musically you could compare them to High Noon, especially in the way the instruments are recorded. I suppose that Janne Haavisto who mixed this album and also produced the Texas rockabilly trio is no stranger to that. But Uncle John Trio are more on the Honky Tonk side of things (though there’s a bit of rockabilly here and there too). If another comparison could help you to define the sound, I’d say that they sound in places like a stripped down and acoustic version of Dale Watson.
Good songs, good band, good singer… good buy!

Fred “Virgil” Turgis

Atomic Sunset

Atomic Sunset - Hot Rods & Pin Ups
Atomic Sunset – Hot Rods & Pin Ups

Atomic Sunset – Hot Rods & Pin Ups

Ceklin Music
Hot Rod Cat – Teenage Queen – Proud Hawk – Chatanooga Choo Choo – Lost Generation – Bloodhouse Worms – Behind The 8 Ball Man – Hot Rods & Pin Ups – Shakin All Over – Devil Woman – Atomic Boogie – Honey Hush – Train In Vain – High Octane Gal – Rock That Galaxy
Formed in 2003 by slap bass extraordinaire Djordje Stijepovic (also lead singer), guitarist Drazen Skaric (both from Havana Whisper) and drummer Sinisa Jovic, Atomic Sunset is a wild modern rockabilly band. Let be honest, if you’re stuck in the 50’s this one has every chances to disappoint you, but if you’re open minded you’ll enjoy it a lot. The album kicks off with 2 Setzer/Stray Cats like tunes. “Hot Rod Cat” wouldn’t be out of place on Setzer’s Ignition and Teenage Queen sounds like Buddy Holly once given the Stray Cats treatment (think “Gina”). “Proud Hawk”, with a bowed bass intro, is a solid surf instrumental on which Skaric’s skill shines. Chattanooga Choo Choo, though good, is a little less convincing partly due to Skaric who doesn’t seem totally at ease as a lead singer. With “Lost Generation” they harden their sound with good backing vocals and made me think a bit about The Quakes. I really enjoyed “Bloodhouse Worms”, a threatening song with a jungle beat played on the toms and a jazzy dialog between the bass and the drums in the middle. With a title like “Hot Rod & Pin Ups” you’d expect a neo-rockabilly tune, but this is more a hardcore tune with syncopated drums, effects on the voice and heavy distorted guitar. To my surprise I liked it a lot. “Devil Woman” is a heavy psychobilly song with a Balkan feel. “Atomic Boogie” is Stijepovic “tour de force”. It’s a jazzy instrumental with a fantastic double bass solo in the middle. If you haven’t seen the video, make yourself a favour and go to Youtube. Skaric plays bottleneck guitar on the boogie blues “High Octane Girl”. This fine album ends on “Rock That Galaxy” a more traditional rockabilly. They also play a couple of covers. “Honey Hush” and “Shakin’ All Over” are modernized and customized to their sound while The Clash’s Train In Vain brings a touch of funky glam pop but finally this cover gives the key to this album. If you’d have to compare Atomic Sunset to a band you’d compare them to The Clash. I mean they are to Rockabilly what the Clash are to Punk music. They try to push the boundaries and dont want to limit themselves to just one type of music. A good and refreshing state of mind.

Southerners (the)

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The Southerners – Barstool Rodeo
The Southerners – Barstool Rodeo

The Southerners – Barstool Rodeo

Bandoleros -. Barstool Rodeo -. I Want A Love -. Let The Teardrops Fall -. Reachin For The Bible -. Lonesome Love -. Ripped In Two -. I’m Moving On -. Lovesick Man -. Forget To Remember -. The Dance -. Goodbye ’53 -. Little Devil -. Blues Medley
The Southerners were a young American (California) combo that played authentic and drumless rockabilly.
On the album, female vocalist Celeste Gilstrap is very well supported by the tight rhythm section of Justin Williams (slap bass) and Byron Williams (acoustic guitar) with fine interventions by lead guitarist Hector Mattos. They deliver a good mix of tunes, all originals but two, mostly penned by Byron Williams.,The album opens with the Mexican flavoured instrumental “Bandoleros”. “Barstool Rodeo” is a solid rockabilly where the team rhythm guitar/slap bass is perfect. Miss Gilstrap’s vocal is very personnal and you cant easily compare her to any other female singer but she would sound more like a female Johnny Cash ‘as you can hear on “Ripped In Two”. After a couple of another rockabilly tracks, you find “Lonesome Love” that slows the pace. That does not mean it’s a smooth tune but a very “threatening” rockin’ one with a nice “dirty” guitar. “Lovesick Man” is a “train song” with the adequate rhythm where both Celeste and acoustic guistarist Byron Williams sing. Gilstrap penned two song “Forget To Remember” and the beautiful “The Dance” another slow and haunting tune. “Goodbye 53” shows the acoustic side of the Southerners with just the vocal and a guitar. This good album ends with a rockin medley of “Saint Louis Blues/Basin’ Street” that starts with just the voice, the guitar and a mandolin and then turns into a wild rockin’ tune before slowing a bit for “Basin Street” and then ends even faster.
Fred “Virgil” Turgis

Stumbleweeds (the)

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The Stumbleweeds - Evil On Your Mind
The Stumbleweeds – Evil On Your Mind

The Stumbleweeds – Evil On Your Mind

Spinout Records
Evil On Your Mind – Baby I Still Love You – A Girl Dont Have To Drink – Had Enough – Saving My Love – Only Mama – Hard Times Ahead – Running Out Of Money – Look Out Heart Doggone Thing – My Baby Just Walked Right Out On Me – The Trouble With Girls – I Love You Because – Pennsyltucky – Tearin’ Up The Town

The Stumbleweeds are back with their second release! Good news isn’t it? You bet. I really enjoyed “Pickin’ and Sinnin'” their first album. It was everything one could expect from a band that plays 50’s rockabilly mixed with a good dose of Honky Tonk (or vice versa). And Lynnette’s voice was probably one of the biggest surprise. A real country female singer, influenced by her predecessors (Patsy, Charlene and Wanda) but in no way an imitation. A few years later and after some line up changes (Lynnette is the only member remaining) they issue this 15 songs record on Spinout Records. The sound changed with the line-up and they now tends to play a more 60’s influenced country style of music.

The album opens with a great rendition (man, that slap bass sound !) of “Evil On Your Mind” (Harlan Howard via Jean Shepard). Six songs you’ll find here has been sung one day or another by Wanda Jackson or Jean Shepard. But even the mood of the day is 60’s honky tonk with twangy telecaster, you can’t take the rockabilly out of that girl and their version of Janis Martin’s “Hard Time Ahead” is here to proove it. Guitar player Denis Kelly is probably one of the best kept secret in the country guitar world. He can play straight Honky Tonk riffs, Bakersfield and is not afraid to add a little bit of rock from time to time (“Pennsyltucky”) and some blues for good measure. Lenker’s own “Baby I Still Love You” and “Doggone Thing” could have been written in the 60’s. They both have great music (uptempo beat for “Baby” and classic Honky Tonk for “Doggone…”) and fine lyrics and they stand proudly among their elder. John Fuller (remember “Nashville To Nashua” on their previous effort) contributes 2 songs : the unusual (but great) “Running Out Of Money” and “Tearin’ Up The Town”. Ex-Stumbleweeds Mike Feudale returns to write “Had Enough”. This could be “one-more-country-song” but Lenker’s voice and Kelly’s guitar make all the difference. Another contributor to “Pickin’ and Sinnin'”, Chris De Barge, returns with “Pennsyltucky” another good one with change of pace for the refrain.What you have here is a great modern country album that didn’t sell his soul. Even the covert art is perfect and matchs totally with the music.

Cheaterslicks (the)

The Cheaterslicks - Rev Up, Burn Out
The Cheaterslicks – Rev Up, Burn Out

The Cheaterslicks – Rev Up, Burn Out

Western Star WSRC 046 [2010]
Hotrod King – 20 Days a Drunk – I Just Can’t Win – Rumble Of Thunder – You’re Untrue – Cry & Moan – Gimme Just a Little Bit – You’re Still Torturing Me – Hard Working Man – Can’t Hardly Stand It – Well Of Tears – Nobody’s Guy – Mother Truckers – Big Love Guarantee

This platter is one of the most exciting thing I’ve heard in 2010. You seldom find a debut album as good as this one (but the members of the band are all experienced musicians having played with The Prowlers, Kill Van Helsing and Empress of Fur).
Listening to “Rev Up, Burn Out” the names of Brian Setzer’s 68 Comeback Special, Mike Ness, The Blasters, the Reverend Horton Heat, Ronnie Dawson, The Paladins and the Nervous Fellas came to mind. Yes, it’s that good! The core of their music is made of high octane gritty rockabilly always delivered with the good drive, powered by a fantastic slap bass and appropriately recorded by Alan Wilson.
But they’re not happy to stick to just one style. You’ll also find more traditionnal rockabilly, country oriented songs (“You’re still torturing me” that could easily be on the latest Jack Rabbit Slim) and a couple of rockin’ blues numbers too, like “I Just Can’t Win” that features an harmonica or “Hard Workin’ Man” with its Howlin’ Wolf / Captain Beefheart flair (not only for the title but also for the overall feel). One will also find songs that border on psychobilly.
Another great release from Western Star and a band to follow closely.
Fred “Virgil” Turgis

Lil Esther (Bugaloos, Jess and Jill and the Sinners, Tinstars…)

Lil Esther
Lil Esther

Lil Esther

Another old interview I did a couple of years ago for Jumpin’ from 6 to 6, but there’s too many good informations in that one, and Esther is one of my favorite singer, that I ddn’t want it to be lost. 

What kind of music did you grow up with ?
Lil Esther – I grew up with different kinds of music.. When I was a “Lil” girl my mother always listend to Country music, Rock and Roll but also A lot of Hawaiin music. Later her musical changed. She started listening to a lot of rhythm and blues and some soul music I think as a child you just listen to what your parents plays you know? But I have to say I always liked what I had to listen too! It influencend my musical taste for sure…

Was your family musically inclined?
Lil Esther – Yes indeed there where! My grandfather was a bit of a famous guitarplayer here in Holland in the late 50s till the 80s. He was a brilliant schooled jazzguitarist, who played in all the fancy Theatres jazzclubs and other venues. He also aranged a lot of music for very know BEAT bands as the Golden earing(RADAR LOVE FAME) and indo rock female star Anneke Gronloh. When he became older he started to give guitarlessons. And when i was 17 I took some lessons too… His wife (my grandmother) played the violin in all kind of big orcherstras. My mother played steelguitar in a hawaian band. Her dad taught her to play it. My sister plays piano. And we start singing harmony the moment we could talk!

The Bugaloos with Lil Esther
The Bugaloos

How did you come to discover “roots music”?
Lil Esther – Well, as I said I always liked the music my mother listening to a whole lot when I became older I became more interested and curious about the roots of this music and soon discovered it and decided to dig a litte deeper.

When did you start to sing and when did you consider joining a band?
Lil Esther – I started sing on a very young age.. Me and my sister must have been 6 or 7 years old when joinend a harmony-choir We did this for years! And we even recorded an album with Dutch folk songs on it ! Hahahaha at the age of 19 we considered the option to form a band. So we asked another friend (Marga) to join us. We met the other bandmembers at Local R.a.B clubs. Ed the drummer is married to my sister. We were influencend by 50s harmony vocals girl bands.

Were you in other band before the Bugaloos?
Lil Esther – No.. The Bugaloos was my first band…

Maybe all of our readers don’t know The Bugaloos, can you tell us more about this band?
Lil Esther – The bugaloos was a 6 piece band bass-drums-guitar line up And 3 Girls singing. We did all kinds of styles RAB, jazz, western swing and some Les Paul & Mary Ford stuff. A lot of Miller sister, Davis sisters, Nita rita and Ruby, Everly brothers, Louvin brothers just to name a few…

Jess and jill and the sinners
Lil Esther with Jess and Jill and the Sinners

The next band you’ve played with was “Jess’n’Jill And The Sinners”. A word about that. Did you release anything?
Lil Esther – Aahh.. Jess and jill and the sinners. That was Peter and Tjarco from the Tinstars and Jan from the Chesstnuts(and later the barnstompers). And Marga from the Bugaloos, she was replaced by Diane. It was mostly straight r.a.b Harmony stuff but it was so much fun to do. We did some great gigs but Tjarco and Peter were to busy with the Tinstars at the time so the band just faded away you might say. It was in France I met Don cavalli he was on the same bill.

You also made a short stint with The Ranchgirls & The Ragtime Wranglers…
Lil Esther – Yep! Jelle the Ranchgirl guitarist was in The Bugaloos. They asked me to join them and I did that for a year or so It was great fun! Miss mary ann is a dear friend of me.

In those bands you were singing in harmony or duets, how and when did you think about going as a solo act?
Lil Esther – Well, I did some recordings with Tjarco and some members of The Barnstompers which came out on goofin records (Jelle ragtime wrangler arranged that for me) and we wanted to do something with this band so we practised in the barnstompers studio for a while but once again both bands were busy at the time. One day someone wanted to book me for some shows so I used the Tinstars as backing band! Hahaha it worked out pretty well and they tried to get rid of me after that but as we all know now they didn’t succeed…

On the new album, that should be out real soon, Don Cavalli, Robert Williams/Big Sandy and John Lewis wrote songs for you. Tell us more about this collaboration.
Lil Esther – Fabrice is a very good friend of me, he played with The Tinstars several times. He wrote a whole lot of songs for me. Same with Robert, he wrote me 2 songs a long time ago. We recorded them for Rarity but the Tinstar boys didnt Want to go back to the studio to finish them so the deal went sour. Big Sandy recorded them himself but a bit different. Then Empire stepped in so we started the whole recording process again. Both songs are on this new c.d “Love That Man” and “Confusin love” ( the original demo is fantastic!).
I know John Lewis at least 20 years. The Bugaloos played with the Rimshots A WHOLE LOT! John also wrote the Liner notes he is a very dear friend.

Lil Esther Mary Ann
Lil Esther with Miss mary Ann when she replaced Caroline in the Ranch Girls around 1998-1999

Recently, Carl Sonny Leyland wrote a couple of songs for you too…
Lil Esther – Yes he did! 2 fantastic songs we are going to work on soon for an upcoming project. I am real proud he did, I like carl a whole lot! I like his voice very much. On the demo he plays guitar(lead and rhythm) and every Leyland’s fan would love to have/hear them!!

Do you write songs too?
Lil Esther – Nope! I didnt even tried it..! hahaha

Wasn’t that too hard to bring the Tinstars to the studio, as they’re not really known to be studio freaks?
Lil Esther – Are you kidding me?? You know the TINSTARS right?? I had to beg… Blood sweat and tears it cost me! serious!
But it was worth it. Hahaha I am very pleased with the end result and it seems they liked it as there are plans to go back in January to record the new Tinstar album.

A word about the guest players on the cd…
Lil Esther – Let’s see… Arnold from the Bluegrass Boogiemen is on mandolin. A friend of us Ronald Visser plays piano on some tracks. Fiddle is played by a fellow named Joost Van Es (plays with the Hillbilly Boogiemen sometimes) The harmonica is played by our steelguitarist (who plays a lot of instruments pretty good) and the harmony singer is Tinstar Rick. And I sang some harmony with my sister and myself!!

What kind of stuff are you listenin’ right now? What is the last record you bought?
Lil Esther – I mostly listen to Kay starr at the moment. Various girl stuff. And the Carl Sonny Leyland songs of course! Oh! and the Starday recordings of Roger miller on Bear Family.

A last word…
Lil Esther – I’m very pleased that i could do this interview! And I am exited about my new c.d. And there are some good shows coming up. So things looks good for me.

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