STEVIE AGNEW – WRECKIN’ YARD
2013 – Skimmin’
Stone Records
Coming from a musical family, his father is bassist Pete Agnew of legendary Scottish rockers ‘Nazareth,’ it is easy to tell that Stevie Agnew was playing music from an early age thanks to his natural unforced yet varied roots music playing style. He is a terrific guitarist and possessor of raw but incredibly melodic and expressive vocals who is able to bring that little extra nuance to his emotive storytelling.
This is Stevie’s debut solo album and there can have been few better debuts by any singer songwriter. It is a beautifully balanced album of great songs, excellent playing and vocals that are so compelling, every song is an album highlight thanks to the extraordinary lyrical and melodic grasp by Stevie and his co musicians. These include Chris Smith, who played drums, piano, percussion and wrote most of the lyrics as well as producing the album, whilst Stevie wrote the music and takes all lead vocals, although there is a three way split of the writing credit on All That I Can See with Kirsten Adamson who takes the female lead on this duet. Her beautiful harmonies, along with Beth Malcolm, Linda Wilson and Elaine Shorthouse also give a little variety of texture to many of these tremendous songs. Even dad Pete chips in with backing vocals.
Fairly obviously these songs have been tried and tested on numerous occasions and in a live setting by this talented and incredibly busy musician. The quality of every element and little nuance is such that it is virtually impossible to find fault in anything on this recording of such excellence that I just can’t stop playing the thing!
The second album is always the one that is referred to as ‘difficult,’ in many cases because the artist has tried too hard to be all things to all people on their first, rather than keeping to what they are comfortable with. This is a trap that Stevie will certainly not fall into, simply because there appears to be no contrived effort to slot into a neat little category, but to just play naturally the music he has a feel for, giving this extraordinarily accomplished set of songs a believability that few can match. A case in point is the incredible Winter Rain, the most heartrendingly sad song that I can ever remember hearing. I must confess that at the moment I find it tremendously difficult to listen to, simply because it is such an intensely moving and personal tale in it’s lyrical intensity, with beautiful harmonies on the chorus, weeping steel guitar and occasional harmonica. If it is written from first hand knowledge it is an incredibly brave song, if not, what an imagination the man has. The album is book ended by two versions of the title song Wreckin’ Yard, the opener an abridged version of an incredibly sad dramatic tale of someone whose dignity as well as his wife are stolen by cruel wealth. The closer is an elongated and consequently stronger version of the same tremendous story. Pretend You Love Me Tonight is a gorgeous song with lovely acoustic and steel guitar plus harmonica and beautiful female harmonies, telling the sad story of a man trying to recapture the feeling of being loved by paying for the pleasure. It is a dark, in many ways seedy, story that has an atmosphere that draws the listener into his hopeless situation but with a gorgeous acoustic and electric guitar sound supplemented with a sad harmonica there is an excellent balance. On All That I Can See we are treated to the gorgeous vocal of Kirsten Adamson, with some excellent banjo and occasional dobro making this a tremendous listen, but then when Stevie’s storytelling and his raw emotive vocal is added the song is lifted into the sublime musical world that very few have any chance of matching, on the story of someone who missed a long gone opportunity in love and is still regretting it years later. Another tale of regret is The Pugilist (The ballad of Maxie Mann) with it’s lovely fiddle adding atmosphere to the unredemptive story of a fighter who never recovers from killing a man, with nice banjo and fiddle in the background adding to the evocative feel of a song that engenders huge sympathy for the subject. Final mention goes to The Mighty Bones with lovely fiddle, dobro and banjo propelling a song that is equally country and blues with a strong dash of folk. It is a tremendous and dramatic tale of a fisherman, that uses Heminways ‘The old man and the sea’ as it’s inspiration. A great song on an album of great songs.
It’s difficult to give a final summing up of a recording of this supreme quality but suffice to say that whatever your taste in the rootsier side of music, if you purchase a copy of this tremendous album, even after one play you will be thanking me !
http://stevie-agnew.com/
Coming from a musical family, his father is bassist Pete Agnew of legendary Scottish rockers ‘Nazareth,’ it is easy to tell that Stevie Agnew was playing music from an early age thanks to his natural unforced yet varied roots music playing style. He is a terrific guitarist and possessor of raw but incredibly melodic and expressive vocals who is able to bring that little extra nuance to his emotive storytelling.
This is Stevie’s debut solo album and there can have been few better debuts by any singer songwriter. It is a beautifully balanced album of great songs, excellent playing and vocals that are so compelling, every song is an album highlight thanks to the extraordinary lyrical and melodic grasp by Stevie and his co musicians. These include Chris Smith, who played drums, piano, percussion and wrote most of the lyrics as well as producing the album, whilst Stevie wrote the music and takes all lead vocals, although there is a three way split of the writing credit on All That I Can See with Kirsten Adamson who takes the female lead on this duet. Her beautiful harmonies, along with Beth Malcolm, Linda Wilson and Elaine Shorthouse also give a little variety of texture to many of these tremendous songs. Even dad Pete chips in with backing vocals.
Fairly obviously these songs have been tried and tested on numerous occasions and in a live setting by this talented and incredibly busy musician. The quality of every element and little nuance is such that it is virtually impossible to find fault in anything on this recording of such excellence that I just can’t stop playing the thing!
The second album is always the one that is referred to as ‘difficult,’ in many cases because the artist has tried too hard to be all things to all people on their first, rather than keeping to what they are comfortable with. This is a trap that Stevie will certainly not fall into, simply because there appears to be no contrived effort to slot into a neat little category, but to just play naturally the music he has a feel for, giving this extraordinarily accomplished set of songs a believability that few can match. A case in point is the incredible Winter Rain, the most heartrendingly sad song that I can ever remember hearing. I must confess that at the moment I find it tremendously difficult to listen to, simply because it is such an intensely moving and personal tale in it’s lyrical intensity, with beautiful harmonies on the chorus, weeping steel guitar and occasional harmonica. If it is written from first hand knowledge it is an incredibly brave song, if not, what an imagination the man has. The album is book ended by two versions of the title song Wreckin’ Yard, the opener an abridged version of an incredibly sad dramatic tale of someone whose dignity as well as his wife are stolen by cruel wealth. The closer is an elongated and consequently stronger version of the same tremendous story. Pretend You Love Me Tonight is a gorgeous song with lovely acoustic and steel guitar plus harmonica and beautiful female harmonies, telling the sad story of a man trying to recapture the feeling of being loved by paying for the pleasure. It is a dark, in many ways seedy, story that has an atmosphere that draws the listener into his hopeless situation but with a gorgeous acoustic and electric guitar sound supplemented with a sad harmonica there is an excellent balance. On All That I Can See we are treated to the gorgeous vocal of Kirsten Adamson, with some excellent banjo and occasional dobro making this a tremendous listen, but then when Stevie’s storytelling and his raw emotive vocal is added the song is lifted into the sublime musical world that very few have any chance of matching, on the story of someone who missed a long gone opportunity in love and is still regretting it years later. Another tale of regret is The Pugilist (The ballad of Maxie Mann) with it’s lovely fiddle adding atmosphere to the unredemptive story of a fighter who never recovers from killing a man, with nice banjo and fiddle in the background adding to the evocative feel of a song that engenders huge sympathy for the subject. Final mention goes to The Mighty Bones with lovely fiddle, dobro and banjo propelling a song that is equally country and blues with a strong dash of folk. It is a tremendous and dramatic tale of a fisherman, that uses Heminways ‘The old man and the sea’ as it’s inspiration. A great song on an album of great songs.
It’s difficult to give a final summing up of a recording of this supreme quality but suffice to say that whatever your taste in the rootsier side of music, if you purchase a copy of this tremendous album, even after one play you will be thanking me !
http://stevie-agnew.com/