'Americana' Bands // p 3 of 3

The Wood Brothers

From early in their childhood in Boulder, Colorado, Chris and Oliver were steeped in American roots music. Their father, a molecular biologist, performed classic songs at camp fires and family gatherings, while their mother, a poet, instilled a passion for storytelling and turn of phrase. The brothers bonded over bluesmen such as Jimmy Reed and Lightnin' Hopkins, but their paths, musical and otherwise, would diverge.

Oliver moved to Atlanta, where he played guitar in cover bands before earning a spot in Tinsley Ellis’s touring act. At Ellis’s behest, Oliver began to sing and then founded King Johnson, a hard-touring group that released six albums of blues-inflected R&B, funk and country over the next 12 years. Chris, meanwhile, studied jazz bass at the New England Conservatory of Music, moved to New York City and, in the early 1990s, formed Medeski Martin & Wood (MMW), which over the next two decades would become a cornerstone of contemporary jazz and abstract music.

After pursuing separate musical careers for some 15 years, the brothers performed together at a show in North Carolina: Oliver sat in with MMW following King Johnson’s opening set. "I realized we should be playing music together," Chris recalled.

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Triggers & Slips

Not being down with the Utah scene, I hung out in cyberspace with ‘Triggers and Slips’ a while and first stop was the Small Lake City Concert Series and a version of Alice in Chains’ ‘Rooster’. Mormon descendent Morgan Snow takes a pinch of that grungy flavour and the ‘Slips’ sneeze dirty country vibes all over it, resulting in kind of a cross between Son Volt and Pearl Jam. It’s a virus that one can only imagine is going to spread rapidly as the rest of the album hits our shelves, venues and, yes, online platforms of choice.

To dig further into the ethos of ‘Triggers and Slips’ reveals that in fact the band leadership, songwriting and roots are very much intertwined with John Davies. Davies is vocal wingman, multi-instrumentalist and owner of a delightfully simple name considering his trade. Here is a band that carry themselves like men and play their music with redoubtable authority. Don’t let that fool you that it’s not fun though. Good production can sound very spontaneous when done right. The title track is all the proof you need of that, as a slow distorted intro gives way to honky-tonk piano, Hammond organ and duelling guitars, fading in and out over an outlaw country shuffle while Snow, for all the world a 21st Century Waylon, holds court as master of ceremonies. “We’ve been pushing our luck/We’re bound to fuck up…” his voice is a finely tuned country music weapon in peak condition. There are elements of border country in ‘Natchez Trace’, the dusty desert fandango style strongly vying with the rock n roll of Uncle Sam for prominence. ‘Old Friends’, which first appeared on the band’s 2012 self-titled EP is a bromance reunion epic, replete with spectacular fiddle and toe-tapping piano solo work by the band’s honky tonkin’ electro dj, the ‘Time Chimp’ – Greg Midgley. It’s been dragged from the gutter, polished to a shining star of a song and given centre stage on ‘The Stranger’. The combination of country and slow bluesy Jeff Beck overtones on ‘I’m Not Your Baby’ hints at the broad horizons that ‘Triggers And Slips’ have embraced while Snow clings to his love of grunge with that overhaul of ‘Rooster’.

Morgan Snow was a drug and alcohol therapist when he stumbled on the name for his band, Triggers and Slips was the heading of some notes on a group session one of his co-workers was leading. Much of this album concentrates, in the great traditions, on matters of the heart and of the soul. Described as songs that will “hit you in the gut” the blend of skilful delivery, first-class production and songcraft of the highest standard makes ‘The Stranger’ a game-changer for these men of Utah.

^{Written by Tim Merricks}

^{Source americana-uk.com}

Van Morrison

Sir George Ivan Morrison OBE (born 31 August 1945) is a Northern Irish singer-songwriter, instrumentalist and record producer. His professional career began as a teenager in the late 1950s playing a variety of instruments including guitar, harmonica, keyboards and saxophone for various Irish showbands, covering the popular hits of that time. Van Morrison rose to prominence in the mid-1960s as the lead singer of the Northern Irish R&B band Them, with whom he recorded the garage band classic "Gloria". His solo career began under the pop-hit oriented guidance of Bert Berns with the release of the hit single "Brown Eyed Girl" in 1967. After Berns's death, Warner Bros. Records bought out his contract and allowed him three sessions to record Astral Weeks (1968). Though this album gradually garnered high praise, it was initially a poor seller.

Moondance (1970) established Morrison as a major artist, and he built on his reputation throughout the 1970s with a series of acclaimed albums and live performances. He continues to record and tour, producing albums and live performances that sell well and are generally warmly received, sometimes collaborating with other artists, such as Georgie Fame and The Chieftains.

Much of Morrison's music is structured around the conventions of soul music and R&B, such as the popular singles "Brown Eyed Girl", "Jackie Wilson Said (I'm in Heaven When You Smile)", "Domino" and "Wild Night". An equal part of his catalogue consists of lengthy, loosely connected, spiritually inspired musical journeys that show the influence of Celtic tradition, jazz and stream-of-consciousness narrative, such as the album Astral Weeks and the lesser known Veedon Fleece and Common One. The two strains together are sometimes referred to as "Celtic soul". He has received two Grammy Awards, the 1994 Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music, the 2017 Americana Music Lifetime Achievement Award for Songwriting and has been inducted into both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. In 2016, he was knighted for services to the music industry and to tourism in Northern Ireland. He is known by the nickname Van the Man to his fans.

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