Black Diamond Heavies

Although they hail from Nashville it is abundantly clear that Black Diamond Heavies come from a very different part of town than that which the country music establishment calls home.

Consisting of only two members -  James Leg (aka John Wesley Myers) on vocals and keys and Van Campbell on drums – Black Diamond Heavies recently toured Australia and played at the Meredith Music Festival but I suspect that many of the festival goers might have missed the point.

The point about this duo is that they are deeply steeped in tradition and for all the suggestions that they are ‘the next big thing” chances are they will appeal a lot more resoundingly to fans of older blues and dirty rock fans.

Artists that are obvious reference points for Black Diamond Heavies include Tom Waits (who is a oft referenced vocal inspiration for Leg), The Doors, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, Green On Red and Leon Russell. Their take on blues is dirty and confrontational but it’s not a case of random violence.

There’s real musicianship at work here and for all the reviews that will lazily call them ‘ass-kickin’ or ‘brutal’ there will be a few fans who realise that there is real method to the madness and the music is calculated to infiltrate your senses rather than just bludgeon you into submission.

Their latest album (only their second) is called A Touch Of Somebody Else’s Class and it opens with a cover of Ike and Tina Turner’s Nutbush City Limits. Don’t judge the album on this as it’s probably the weakest track.

Instead lock into Numbers 22, a Leon Russell styled rave up, Bidin’ My Time (an aching ballad), or Take A Ride (a T-Model Ford cover that could be a companion piece to Roadhouse Blues).

James Leg is a great organ player – he has a tone that wouldn’t go astray in a Southern Baptist church but plays the sort of hypnotic runs that have you on the edge of your seat wondering if he will get back in time to catch the train that Campbell has leaving the station.

In short this is the sort of band that this section was created for!

Joe Henry for Sydney Festival and beyond

Joe Henry, highly esteemed songwriter, producer and teller of tales is visiting Australia in early 2009 as part of the Sydney Festival, where he will perform three concerts, plus two shows in Victoria.. Joe will be joined at each show by the accomplished double bassist David Piltch.

Described by the San Francisco Weekly as a “literate purveyor of a kind of folk-imbued, smokily jazzified, contemporary “adult music” that in a far better world would reside at the top of the pop charts,” Joe Henry is something of a legend among music fanatics.

In a career spanning more than 20 years, Henry has left a unique imprint on American popular music.  As a songwriter and artist, by turns dark, devastating, and hopeful, he draws an author’s eye for the overlooked detail across a broad swath of American musical styles – rock, jazz and blues – rendering genre modifiers useless.

On his own albums, Henry has collaborated with many remarkable American artists, including Don Cherry, T Bone Burnett, Victoria Williams, The Jayhawks’ Gary Louris and Marc Perlman, guitarists Page Hamilton, Bill Frisell and Marc Ribot, Daniel Lanois, Jakob Dylan, and even Ornette Coleman in a rare appearance for the jazz icon.

Allmusic’s Thom Jurek, recently wrote that Henry “has moved into a space that only he and Tom Waits inhabit in that they are songwriters who have created deep archetypal characters that are composites—metaphorical, allegorical, and ‘real’—of the world around them and have created new sonic universes for them to both explore and express themselves in.”

Henry’s most recent album is 2007’s Civilians, his tenth record, which landed on many year-end “best of” lists and has been hailed as one of the artists finest works. Billboard magazine for example said, “Henry’s superb Civilians succeeds not only as a melodic collection of poignant short stories, but also as a potent picture book of America gone wrong.”

But Joe Henry is a man with many talents. As an album producer, Henry’s influence has shaped the sound of iconoclastic artists including Elvis Costello and Allen Toussaint, Ani DiFranco, Bettye LaVette, and Aimee Mann. In 2003, he earned a Grammy Award for his production role on Solomon Burke’s astonishing comeback record Don’t Give Up On Me, and recently worked alongside his hero and good friend Loudon Wainwright III to create the score for the hit film Knocked Up, material which later became Wainwright’s full-length Strange Weirdos.

And what might you need to know about the incomparable David Piltch? As a renowned double bassist, Piltch is the tasteful player of choice and general musical collaborator for the likes of k.d. lang and Holly Cole among others. In the studio, he has consistently brought his deft touch to recordings by artists such as Madeleine Peyroux and Loudon Wainwright III. There are few who can walk the line between jazz, Americana, art pop and friendly experimentalism quite like David Piltch.

Friday Jan 23 – Corner Hotel – Melbourne

Saturday Jan 24 – Meenlyan Town Hall

Tuesday Jan 27 – The Famous Spiegeltent (Sydney Festival)

Wednesday Jan 28 – The Famous Spiegeltent (Sydney Festival)

Thursday Jan 29 – The Famous Spiegeltent (Sydney Festival)