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Music Album reviews with Kevin Bryan

Latest releases from Steve Goodman, Thorbjorn Risager & The Black Tornado and Sam Lewis

Steve Goodman
Jessie’s Jig & Other Favourites and Words We Can Dance To
(Cherry Red)
★★★★

CHICAGO-BORN tunesmith Steve Goodman is best remembered these days for his classic train song City of New Orleans.

But this amiable character actually recorded a string of excellent albums for a variety of labels before his untimely death in 1984, when he finally succumbed to the leukaemia which had already been diagnosed when his  career began many years earlier.

It’s a tribute to his tenacity and willpower that Goodman was able to ply his trade with such good humour and charm for so long and his 1975 offering Jessie’s Jig is an understated offering of the highest order, showcasing  touching renditions of a string of timeless gems led by John Prine’s Blue Umbrella and Mike Smith’s Spoon River, with top notch sidemen such as fiddler Vassar Clements and mandolin ace Jethro Burns in particularly fine fettle throughout.

Thorbjorn Risager & The Black Tornado
Come On In
(Ruf Records)
★★★★

DENMARK’S finest musical export in recent years, singer and guitarist Thorbjorn Risager, is rightly acknowledged as one of the hardest working performers on the European blues-rock circuit.

Delivering his grittily memorable musings on the human condition in a deliciously lived-in voice, he has frequently prompted favourable comparisons with luminaries such as Bob Seger, Ray Charles and Joe Cocker.

Elements of funk, gospel, soul and rock combine to create a sound which reflects the talented Dane’s determination to use his music to help listeners to forget about life’s trials and tribulations for awhile.

Risager’s latest collaboration with his finely honed backing band The Black Tornado also maintains the exemplary musical standards which they’ve set during the past decade, with the presence of several melancholy ditties dominated by acoustic guitar lending an added dimension to their already compelling sound.

Sam Lewis
Solo
(Loversity Records)
★★★★

THE LATEST offering from Nashville-based singer-songwriter Sam Lewis was recorded live in front of an invited and highly appreciative audience in the intimate surroundings of Southern Ground Studios in his adopted home city.

It finds this highly regarded performer operating in what must surely be his natural element as he regales his admiring devotees with a finely judged blend of freshly minted songs and choice extracts from his illustrious back catalogue.

Lewis’s previous albums have all been very well received by the critical fraternity, prompting comparisons with roots rock luminaries such as the late great Townes Van Zandt, and it’s also possible to detect ghostly echoes of the similarly deceased Jesse Winchester’s deliciously laid-back approach to music-making in his soulful vocal delivery as he serves up subtly memorable ditties such as Virginia Avenue and 3/4 Time.

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