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We kick off with Elizabeth Cotton’s ‘Freight Train’ but this is based on jazzy organ and with
echoing backing vocals, ‘Sail Away Ladies’ comes with the same backing vocals and also Seth
Wakeman’s exquisite country fiddle and ‘Gov Don’t Allow’ is a riff on the old jug band song ‘Mama
Don’t Allow’ and thankfully doesn’t focus too much on Van’s conspiracy theories (but does include
a washboard solo). ‘Come On In’ is a real highlight with Seth Wakeman adding gypsy jazz fiddle
and with Keary on Django-style guitar and we get two Hank Williams songs ‘I’m So Lonesome I
Could Cry’ which reminded me of The Band on “The Basement Tapes” and a strange, jazzy
arrangement of ‘Cold, Cold Heart’ which didn’t really work, despite some nice lap steel guitar.
Van bows out with ‘Green Rocky Road’ a nine-minute soulful take on this old folk song again with
Wakeman on violin.

I’m not the biggest Van fan, I’ve seen him a few times live when his grumpy off-hand manner just
put me off him but there is no denying that over the years he has made some wonderful music,
from his time with Them, to his Woodstock era and then his Celtic soul. And this must go down
as one of his better releases, his love of the music is palpable and both him and the excellent
band are at the top of their game. Although most of the arrangements here are fine I thought
that a few didn’t quite come off – although I salute Van for trying something different rather than
ploughing the same furrow – and although the backing vocals from Crawford Bell, Dana Masters
and Jolene O’Hara were very well executed (like a modern-day Jordanaires) I felt that they were
over-used and didn’t fit on some songs which could have benefited from sparser arrangements.

Graham Harman

Tyler Bryant & the Shakedown—Dirty Work—Rattle Shake
(www.tylerbryantandtheshakedown.com)

This is a six track EP from these three guys out of Nashville,
Tennessee, their second offering on their own label. It’s also
available on shell pink vinyl in honour of Tyler’s trademark gui-
tar, “Pinky”, which is now also the name of a limited edition
Stratocaster range, made in Tyler’s honour.

The opening track, ‘Strike’, was inspired by the late Jeff Beck,
Tyler’s favourite guitarist, who also gets a brief reference on the
following track, ‘Burnin’’, a number about showing resilience and the band has certainly had to
show that. The brooding title track also features Tyler’s wife, Rebecca Lovell of Larkin Poe,
supplying backing vocals and ‘Sho Been Worse’ might have ended up a Larkin Poe track, but
instead Tyler decided to do the track himself; it’s a good ‘un, as the thousands of streams on
Spotify attest. It was also the first single from this release, a blues-rocking Mississippi Hill
country styled stomper.

The appropriately huge-sounding ‘Thunder’ has echoes of Led Zeppelin maybe, and the closing
‘Fire & Brimstone’ is suitably apocalyptic with a menacing slow groove and some ferocious
guitar work, and again with an early 70s inflected blues-rock setting. Pretty much classic
blues-rock all the way, this release.

Norman Darwen