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The idea of marketing some music as “Americana” came about to rescue people like Bob Cheevers from falling between the cracks. After many years in music, primarily as a writer for hire, he concluded that he was too country for LA but not country enough for Nashville. The last decade or so has seen him producing a steady stream of albums that fall in his own, idiosyncratic slot between folk and country and that have earned him a steady following, particularly on this side of the Atlantic. Touring regularly, he’s a pretty well known figure to those who follow this scene. Like many writers his songs have a recognisable style to them and, even if they didn’t, it would only take a couple of bars of his singing for you to know who you were hearing. One English dj referred to his voice sounding like he gargled with gravel and honey; chuck in a southern-accented nasal quality to that description, and there you have it. I’m not sure if it’s one of those “Marmite” voices; personally I swither between finding that nasal quality a bit insistent and being well impressed by the warm sincerity on his most personal songs, when you can feel like you’re hearing one of the most truthful voices ever.
Bob uses as a tagline for his songs the following: “I don’t know if these stories are true, but they happened to me”. It’s a nice joke, and of Smoke and Mirrors he says he hopes he’s offering a contrast to the world of shiny objects “made to look pretty by the use of smoke and mirrors”. He’s looking for truth, but he knows that truth is a slippery thing, easily obscured and mostly different for each individual. As ever, his songs mix observations of the world around him with more personal material and there’s a smattering of stories like Days in Death Valley, set during the Californian gold rush, which dip into the collective memory and re-examine old stories. He’s always been keen on characters and there’s a few new ones popping up in this collection, but I’ve always been most fond of his mature love songs. There’s a lovely one here, While The World Falls Away, that’s as good as any song of his I’ve yet heard; a minimal acoustic arrangement oozes tenderness as he contemplates the deep emotional wonder of lying with the one you love. This song comes on the acoustic disc (Mirrors), twelve songs rather more intimate in nature than the fuller band treatment on the eleven songs of Smoke. The two discs are completely separate production jobs, but, for my money, they both do the best job yet of putting Bob Cheevers’ performance in a context that really suits him – you frame something in the right way and it’ll leap out at you, and that’s what has happened here.
The acoustic disc is produced by Jeff Tveraas, a multi-instrumentalist who accompanies Bob on a variety of instruments, each song taking on a different character depending on that accompaniment. Days in Death Valley gets a cowboy harmonica but everything from a string quartet to an accordion gets used across the other eleven songs in a manner that adds rich aural colour to the central performance of Bob Cheevers and his acoustic guitar. The “electric” disc is, in truth, not as much of a contrast as you might expect. Sure, there’s more electric guitar, some Hammond organ and more in the way of a drumbeat pushing things along, but the focus remains on Bob Cheevers’ voice and, mostly, he still sounds like he’s sitting four feet from you, not standing centre stage in an auditorium. That’s fine, though it would be interesting to hear him in front of a really motoring band. He gets that swamp music sound going a bit sometimes – some fine muddy guitar work on Flesh and Blood, for example – and, as with the first disc, it’s the variation in arrangements that serves to make it consistently listenable. There is actually nobody quite like Bob Cheevers, and it’s good to have people like him around, true to their muse and always worth listening to.
John Davy
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
12 Bar Club
London
8:00 PM
(26 Denmark St, Soho, WC2H 8NL) £10
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
The Guitar Bar
Nottingham, England
8:00 PM
£10 (2 Pelham Rd., Carrington)
Friday, November 16, 2012
Queen's Head
BELPER
8:00 PM
(29 Chesterfield Road, Belper, Derbyshire) £5
Saturday, November 17, 2012
Frisby Village Hall
leicestershire, England
7:30 PM
7:30-11 PM (15 Water Lane)
Sunday, November 18, 2012
The Greystones
Sheffield
8:00 PM
(Greystones Rd.)
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
Wangford Community Centre
Suffolk, England
7:30 PM
(Millfields, Wangford, Beckcles) 10.00 and 8.00 for concessions
Thursday, November 22, 2012
Speck House Concert
Hollym
TBA
Hollym, England
Friday, November 23, 2012
The Tap at Grafton
Hull, England
9:00 PM
(114-116 Grafton St)
Saturday, November 24, 2012
Porters Coffeehouse
Tynemouth
8:00 PM
(Tynemouth Station, Tynemouth, Tyne and Wear)
Sunday, November 25, 2012
Queen's Head
ROTHBURY
9:00 PM
Doors open at 7:30, Support 8:30, Bob starts at 9. (High Street, Rothbury, Northumberland)
Thursday, November 29, 2012
The Torphichen Inn
West Lothian
8:00 PM
8 PM (7 The Square Torphichen)
Friday, November 30, 2012
Berits and Brown
, Scotland
8:30 PM
8:30 PM
Saturday, December 01, 2012
Greyfriars
Perth, Scotland
8:00 PM
(15 South St.)
Sunday, December 02, 2012
Murry and Adriana's House Concert
Lanarkshire
TBA
(Scotland)
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