Tag: Mike Wistow

Karen Macleod releases Low Road on March 20th. She describes this first solo album as, “a mix of both old Country Blues, American folk and country songs with some of my own thrown in for good measure.” Amidst a wide-ranging musical history, Macleod is now based in the Midlands, is a former member of the acoustic blues duo The Hogrenderers and has played at the Great British Blues Festival in Colne.

I mention this because the dominant feel of the album is blues and it also gives me chance to mention her dedication to what can generically be called American Roots Music. Macleod has lived in America, steeped herself in the American South and Appalachia – and hobo’d across the USA on freight trains. “This album captures a life-time’s worth of travel and musical adventure” is Macleod’s description of Low Road. I’d suggest that she could write a thesis on hobo folk songs, but she’s already done that as well.

There are sixteen tracks on the album; two are self-penned and the rest mingled from across the last century as well as the different traditions. They are fused into a cohesive album by Macleod’s clear and distinctive picking style and her equally unifying vocal delivery.

To give a sense of how these tracks are both dependent on tradition and unique to Macleod: Roy Acuff’s ‘Streamline Cannonball’ comes across as more bluesy than the country-ish original; ‘Fishin’ Blues’ is much closer to the Taj Mahal bluesy feel (though Macleod plays it on guitar rather than banjo) than the more well-known versions by the Loving Spoonful or the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band – and is so much the better for it; a female vocal and solo picking give a very different  feel to Guy Clarke’s later life song ‘Dublin Blues’; by contrast the playing on Mississippi John Hurt’s ‘Pay Day’ is closer to one of the early versions I’ve just re-listened to.

‘Alberta’ is one of my favourite tracks on the album – gentler than both the Leadbelly and the Snooks Eaglin versions but rather delightful. ‘Hang Me’ is both a splendid version in itself and also a treat that send me back to the music of Dave Van Ronk for the first time in decades.

Elsewhere, there’s more a of a country feel on, say, Ian/Iain Matthews ‘Brand New Tennessee Waltz’ or the lovely version of Willie Nelson’s ‘Rock Me To Sleep’ which closes the album.

Finally, it’s worth highlighting the two tracks which Macleod herself contributes, ‘Low Road’ and ‘March Of The Pop Bottles’, both instrumentals and both thereby showcasing that picking style which is easy, fluent and expressive – in whatever genre she’s playing.

I’ll finish with a link to the traditional gospel of ‘Ain’t No Grave’; have a listen for yourself in the video link below. It’s the opening track on the album and the first single. You can hear why.

Mike Wistow

Artist’s website: https://www.facebook.com/Karenblues7/?locale=en_GB

‘Ain’t No Grave’ – live: