Reviews
Artist:Sam Shackleton Album: Causeway Recordings
Label: Self-Released
Tracks: 13
Website: https://www.samshackleton.com
Born in Stirling, based in Edinburgh, holding a masters degree in Scottish ethnography and sometimes trading under his Gaelic name as Sorley the Bard, this, heavily influenced by the 60s folk revival and the oral tradition, is Shackleton's debut album and, on this evidence, I hope there'll be many more.
Two touchstones that readily present themselves are Guthrie and Cash, the former in the album storytelling opener 'Scottish Cowboy' ("I left my home way back in Glasgow/In the Spring of 1864/I was only the age of 22… Now I'm all on my own/I was halfway through Texarkana/When my wagon wheel it turned no more/I think I hear those bandits coming/They'll hae my heid, fore the morra's oer") that, with guitar, harmonica and whistling, plays like 'I Am A Pilgrim'. The latter can be heard on the 'Boy Named Sue'-styled harp-driven talking blues scuffle of 'Pink Collar Blues' ("Well I went into work and I told my boss/I'd rather live my life on the doss/Than stay here and work another day for you, ya bastard/Well he grabbed me with both hands/Said Sorley boy you don't understand/I said I do, and I knocked him out/O' I found myself in the jail/With nobody there to pay my bail/But I still have my guitar under my fingernails/(And that's all that matters man)").
Among the originals there's three tweaked traditionals, first up being the clawhammer banjo-led bluegrassy take on 'Cuckoo Bird' with lyrical changes such as from "I 've played cards in England" to "I've gambled, in Auld Reekie". The other two, equally restyled, being another banjo number, 'Gambling Davey', a variation on 'Raggle Taggle Gypsy' aka 'Blackjack Davey', and 'The House Carpenter' about a woman seduced away from her husband by a false true love only to end up in hell.
However, unless you know your Roud and Child like the back of our hand, such is his affinity for the material that, other than a liberal use of 'babe', you'd be hard pressed to distinguish the traditional from self-penned gems such as the Guthrie-esque strummed 'Summer Sailor' ("O' they call me the summer sailor/Because I've never sailed upon your shores"), 'Long Golden Chain' ("You promised that you loved me/O' and gave me a golden chain/You said our love my dear our love/Is linked between the stars/And every lock on this long gold chain/Means a hundred more years with you"),which, like the folk blues 'Weary Rambler' ("When I die I hope tha/Up to heaven I am bound/I hope all the angels greet me there"), could easily be a lost Ramblin' Jack Elliot number.
Moving into the second half, 'Ballad Of The Lost Boys' with its litany of misfortunes and lives unfulfilled ("Billy left home at the age of 9/And he spent his days/Watching life pass him/Well Billy died at 21/And he never did the things/He said that he'd have done") is something Dave van Ronk might have written had he come from Scotland, the wistful fingerpicked 'Pale Blue Swallows' is a huskier Ralph McTell and the swayalong strummed, 'Waldey Woo' where the vocals sometimes snarl sounds like it's giving the finger to a childhood bully or night-time bogey man ("I'm a man now buddy, o' yes I am/I'm long and tall and my name is Sam/And I'm not scared of you no more/Wicked, evil, waldey woo") yet also laced with sympathy ("I hope one day, your heart will find a home/As you yap inside the walls of your palace") if not forgiveness. It may, on the other hand, be about depression.
He ends with, first the uptempo lively strum and harmonica chug of 'Lonesome River Song' with its wry pessimism ("Whatever goes right/Sure must go wrong…When I ask you for peaches/And you bring me tea/Saddest man in the world/O' lord I shall be") then, returning to banjo, the lyrically superb 'Song To A Clown' where he conjures a dark Appalachian gothic vision worthy of 'Nightmare Alley' author William Lindsay as he opens with "When the circus comes around/We will dance under the moon/Aged clowns, stumble loosely/Holding on to what they know" and closes with "the circus tent is empty/And the clowns are on their way/It's a dusty road they walk/And a harder price they pay". Stephen Sondheim didn't send these in.
Simply arranged for just guitar, banjo and harmonica, sung with a strong brogue and infused with a raw earthiness, this has to be one of the year's strongest folk debuts and hopefully just the start of a long career.
Mike Davies
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