ALEJANDRO ESCOVEDO AND THE SENSITIVE BOYS

plus special guest Amy Speace

Sunday, July 1

There are songwriters who sing their songs, and then there are songs who sing their writers.
Alejandro Escovedo is one with his muse and his music.  Over a lifetime spent traversing the bridge between words and melody, he has ranged over an emotional depth that embraces all forms of genre and presentation, a resolute voice that weathers the emotional terrain of our lives, its celebrations and despairs, landmines and blindsides and upheavals and beckoning distractions, in search for ultimate release and the healing truth of honesty.  Sometimes it takes the form of barely contained rage, the rock of punk amid kneeled feedback; sometimes it caresses and soothes, a whispery harmony riding the air of a nightclub room, removed from amplification, within the audience.

THE MASTERSONS plus guests

Wednesday October 24

Husband and wife, singing and playing together.

And they’re each deft instrumentalists, and they’ve spent years playing in others’ bands before coming together as a unit. They’re bound by music and an uncommon depth of companionship, they’re good enough to make Steve Earle swoon, and all of that sounds quite nice.

“Eleanor on her own has a beautiful voice, far better than mine,” Masterson says. “But when we come together, something bigger happens.”

That “something bigger” is captured in full on Birds Fly South, an album with soul and groove and teeth and not an ounce of schmaltz. Like the Jayhawks or Buddy & Julie Miller, it exists in an expansive territory that encompasses rock, pop, blues and country, but this is not an “If you like x, then you’ll like y” kind of record. It’s an unexpected and frequently astonishing melding of sensibilities, from two unique yet perfectly-matched artists.

Whitmore and Masterson apprenticed for years with other musicians, she with Regina Spektor, Susan Gibson, Kelly Willis, Diana Ross, Will Hoge and others, he in the bands of Jack Ingram, Son Volt, Bobby Bare Jr. and more. They met in 2005 and each released solo debuts (hers was 2008’s Airplanes and his was an EP called The Late Great Chris Masterson), but found themselves compelled to write and sing together.

With the album complete, Whitmore and Masterson headed back to New York, and in May of 2011 they joined Earle’s group, The Dukes and Duchesses. Each night on the world tour, Earle moved aside to let his spotlight shine on The Mastersons, whose efforts were met with reviews like “scintillating” (London’sThe Telegraph). Whitmore and Masterson remain integral players in Earle’s band.

“Playing with Steve has been so great for us,” Masterson says. “We’ve both learned so much from working with other people. We’ve learned to have something succinct to say onstage and learned a whole lot about work ethic. And we’ve learned to handle so many many different scenarios.”

SAM BAKER plus guests

Tuesday 16 October

With his raspy, almost spoken word vocal style and his literate, poignant, and carefully observed songs that grapple with the beauties, complexities, and little tragedies of this world, Sam Baker has much in common with other Texan songwriters like Robert Earl Keen, James McMurtry, Townes Van Zandt, and Guy Clark, although his approach to narrative probably comes closest to an artist like John Prine. Baker grew up in Itasca, TX, a prairie town southwest of Dallas and Fort Worth on Interstate 35. He was exposed to a wide array of music as a child (his mother was a local church organist), not the least of which was his father’s collection of country blues artists. The defining moment in Baker‘s life came in 1986 when he was traveling on a train to visit Machu Picchu in Peru. A terrorist bomb exploded on the train and Baker was gravely injured, losing most of his hearing and suffering serious injuries to his left arm. He had 18 corrective surgeries performed on him over the next decade at hospitals in San Antonio and Houston, and the consequent physical, emotional, and spiritual journey Baker experienced helped him form his quiet and passionate view of the world. Baker had to completely relearn how to play the guitar with his mangled left hand, and singing was extremely difficult for him because of his severe hearing loss, but he overcame these obstacles to develop his uniquely hushed and quietly powerful performance style.

SUNDAY 30 SEPTEMBER

SLIM CHANCE plus guests

THE late, great Ronnie Lane tragically died from multiple sclerosis back in 1997, aged just 51 – but his music will live on forever. Ronnie was the creative Iynchpin of the Faces,one of the all-time great singer-songswriters. Rod Stewart may, have been the on-stage star but Lane’s melodies and musicanship were sublime.

When the Faces broke up, Ronnie went back to his roots playing pubs and toured circus-style with his band Slim Chance, and the spirit ,of those times has been lovingly recreated by a latter-day version.

Charlie Hart, Colin Davey, Steve Bingham, Steve Simpson and Alun Davies are 64 carat gold musicians, with a new retrospective CD, The Show-Goes On. There’s also a new DVD re-telling the Ronnie lane saga with all the 10s legends – catch this band live while you can. One For The Road, Kuschty Rye, Flags and Banners and Ooh La La were gloriously true to the genius of Ronnie Lane.

Thursday, September 20

MALCOLM HOLCOMBE plus guests

Holcombe grew up in western North Carolina, home to some of the planet’s oldest mountains and some of America’s deepest musical traditions. Radio and TV fueled Malcolm’s musical passions as a kid, and music became even more important after he lost both his parents relatively young. He toured with bands and landed in Nashville, where he took up an inconspicuous station at the back of the house – the very back – at Douglas Corner, one of the city’s best singer/songwriter venues. Stories began to circulate about the mysterious dishwasher with the subterranean voice and oracle-like talent. Sadly so did stories of wildly inconsistent behavior – profound sweetness crossed by bouts of stunning abrasiveness. He flirted with an official music career. But his stunning debut album made for Geffen Records was abruptly shelved, producing melodrama that only exacerbated Malcolm’s drinking and depression. A business that once had a place for complicated genius turned its back on him, and he teetered near the edge.

Moving back to the North Carolina hills proved a powerful tonic. Holcombe let in help where before he’d pushed it away. With deep faith in God and a commitment to his art, Holcombe repaired himself and his career. The measure of that fixing today can be found in the story of To Drink The Rain. Jared Tyler, who’s stuck with Holcombe through some trying times over nearly 12 years, was more than a little excited to produce the project. When he called bass player Dave Roe on short notice, the legendary veteran of Johnny Cash’s last band cancelled other sessions to fly to Austin, saying “Malcolm is the only artist that I would fight to be on his recording.” And the partners at Music Road Records, a new but happening Austin label spearheaded by singer/songwriter Jimmy LaFave, recording engineer Fred Remmert, and investor Kelcy Warren, agreed to become Malcolm’s new musical home.

If you’ve not seen him in a live setting, this is what you have to do. His presence is spooky and timeless, as one imagines it was like to see Son House or Leadbelly. No emotional stone is left unturned. While you plan for this important experience, collect Malcolm Holcombe albums, starting with this one. He is cryptic, demanding, polarizing, bold, passionate and free, a combination badly needed in our time of infinite trivia. He’s even more interesting for having made a remarkable journey of recovery and discovery.

We are pleased to announce that the 2012 Season has been christened The Uncut Sessions and is presented in collaboration with the excellent UNCUT magazine. This is UNCUT editor Allan Jones announcing the collaboration:

Regular readers of these missives may recall a couple of years ago I wrote about accepting an invitation to go down to Winchester for the day to see Richmond Fontaine at a funky little venue called The Railway, where promoter Oliver Gray regularly puts on terrific shows. Oliver had booked Richmond Fontaine basically on the strength of the Uncut review of the band’s landmark album, Post To Wire, and they’d been back several times since.

The Saturday I went down to Winchester to see them, they played two sets. The first, in the afternoon, featured Post To Wire in its entirety. The second turned into a four hour epic, during which the band, who’d had a few by then, played virtually every song they knew, and a few they didn’t. They were back at the Railway last September, when Oliver launched the SXSC festival at the venue, supported by Uncut.

Willy Vlautin from Richmond Fontaine will be appearing there again on May 1, with RF guitarist Dan Eccles, playing a special acoustic set as part of a series of shows called the Uncut Sessions, the first of which, featuring the excellent Lucky Strikes, is tomorrow. The Lucky Strikes are followed by Peter Bruntnell (March 7) and Simone Felice and band, with special guest Simi Stone from the Duke & The King (April 6), Chuck Prophet And The Mission Express (who’ll be following Richmond Fontaine’s earlier example and playing two sets, at 3.00pm and 8pm, on April 14) and Alejandro Escovedo And The Sensitive Boys (July 1).

For more details you can go to www.sxsc.org and for general enquiries email info@railwaylive.co.uk. Tickets are also available at the venue or call 01962 867795.

Our dream line-up. Enough said. Tickets from www.railwaylive.co.uk

Please note:

Doors: 7.30

Peter Bruntnell: 8.00

Richard Buckner: 8.40

Richmond Fontaine Duo: 9.45

Finale: 10.45

PUT SEPTEMBER 9 IN YOUR DIARY NOW – IT’S THE DATE OF THE 2012 SxSC FESTIVAL. ACTS ARE ALREADY BEING BOOKED SO STAY TUNED!