There’s been artwork difficulties, problem test pressings, communication breakdown with the pressing plant (causing the majority of the delay), noisy finished copies….and then we started again from scratch!!

But it’s finally here! The first release of 2010 on Diverse Records is the latest album by Chuck Prophet. “Let Freedom Ring” is the ninth solo LP by the former Green On Red guitarist, who it would seem, has built up an incredibly loyal band of followers since going solo in 1990.

Prophet started his wild ride back in 1984, when Green on Red, the seminal purveyors of American Rock-Roots, plucked him out of Berkeley, CA and threw him in the van for an eight-year ride, and the recording of as many albums. Since then Prophet has recorded nine amazing solo albums and toured and recorded with the likes of Lucinda Williams, Aimee Mann, Cake, and Jonathan Richman, not to mention production credits for Warren Zevon, Alejandro Escovedo and Kelly Willis. Ryan Adams, Solomon Burke and Heart have recorded his songs, along with a host of others. Prophet has never been one to rest on his laurels and ride it out. For his ninth solo album “Let Freedom Ring”, Chuck reached out to some musicians and talked them into going down to Mexico City, The Biggest City in the World (pop. 25 million). Recorded at Estudio 19, a state-of-the-art studio (well, circa 1958 state-of-the-art anyway) with Greg Leisz (Beck, Wilco, Emmylou Harris) co-producing. Within three days of arriving swine flu broke out and the indignity of having to wear blue surgical masks just to fit in.

Over the course of the next eight days, the band set about recording ¡Let Freedom Ring!, enduring a poorly timed blackout, shakedowns by the Policia, and a 6.4 earthquake mid-take – Mexico City might only be 4 hours away by plane but it might as well have been on the other side of the moon. But whilst mayhem ensued, the band buckled down to the task in hand, all set up together in a tight little bamboo lined room with the amps cranked. Chuck played his Fender Squire, Kelly Stoltz on backing vocals, Rusty Miller (Jason Lyte’s band) played bass while Drummer Ernest “Boom” Carter turned his sticks into kindling. Carter played on Springsteen’s “Born To Run” – he promptly quit the E Street Band after they spent 6 months recording it. The results can be heard from the Clash inspired opener to the power pop of ‘Let Freedom Ring’ and the Eddie Cochran infused ‘Good Time Crowd’.

“Let Freedom Ring” was mastered at Abbey Road studios from the original 24bit master files. Since this album is a big sounding blues rock album, we opted to use DMM mastering for the first time in the label’s history, resulting in a bright, crisp and more immediate response across all frequencies. The bass is clearly defined and the imaging of Chuck’s Jagger-esque swagger is phenomenal! I know this has been said before, but it’s like he’s in the room, singing slap bang between the speakers.

Chuck Prophet : Let Freedom Ring
After many setbacks with this release, we’re nearly there. test pressings have now been approved and we’re expecting the album in stock within the next fortnight.

Joan Baez : Gone From Danger
Slightly delayed but now not far away. We’ve had a few issues to sort out with artwork but it’s now all finished and we’ll hopefully have the album in stock around the same time as the Chuck Prophet LP.

Simone Felice : Live From A Lonely Place
A bit of a short notice release but all is going to plan and the test pressings sound amazing. Should be ready for Simone’s gig in Cardiff on 19th August.

Eleanor McEvoy : I’d Rather Go Blonde
This has been pencilled in for a while but has now been mastered and cut. We’re working on the artwork and awaiting test pressings. Scheduled for release at the end of September.

Cowboy Junkies : Renmin Park
We’ve just put pen to paper on this one and are very excited. We’re going to get going on this straight away with an eye on a release date around the beginning of October.

This should be enough for you all to be going on with but there are more in the pipeline and I’ve post news items as soon as I have anything to confirm.

Jingjiang is a small town in relative terms. Its official population is 650,000, but its actual population is closer to 1,000,000, a mere speck on the Chinese demographic landscape. We were welcomed with open arms by anyone in the town who could put three English words together. Homes were opened to us, we were feted at every possible occasion and in every possible style, we created friendships that are only possible under such intense and foreign conditions and had adventures that have already become part of our family lore. It was a storybook experience, overwhelming to say the least, perhaps even life altering for my daughters.

Most of the music that I heard in Jingjiang was uninspired Taiwanese pop and Euro-pop, blaring from tinny speakers in every shop and out of every taxicab window. The most interesting music was found in the parks, where the traditional music was played. On most Sundays, I would head down to Renmin Park and sit in a tiny pavilion that was home to a music club performing music from the Beijing opera. Every city, town and village in China has a Renmin Park. Translated, it means People’s Park and it is in the park where the community’s social life is conducted.

Depending on the time of day, different musicians would be gathered with their erhus, pipas, shangxians and various percussion instruments. There was never any shortage of singers. Each would wait their turn and then stand up and belt out a song written long ago about love lost, stolen or betrayed. Most of the players were great, most of the singers were not so great, but they all approached the music with passion. I was always welcomed with much fanfare. No one in the “club” spoke any English and all I could master in mandarin was “happy new year”, so no words were exchanged, but none of that mattered. I recorded dozens of performances.

About half way through our stay I caught a lucky break. I was introduced to young man by the name of Eric Chen. He spoke excellent English (he learned it by watching American movies) and he was a music freak. He was also desperate to talk to someone about music, because, as he told me on our first meeting, he was “not only the only person in Jingjiang who had ever heard the music of Radiohead, but the only person who had ever even heard the name Radiohead.” We quickly became friends and we spent a lot of time together. One day there was a knock on the door and it was Chen carrying an almost portable stereo system and dozens of CDs. My introduction to the Chinese rock scene began in earnest. Chen introduced me to the ground-breaking, emotionally gut wrenching music of He Yong; the dour, introspective sounds of the brilliant Dou Wei; the prog-rock tinged musings of The Tang Dynasty; the melodic Cure-meets-Steve Earle pop of Xu Wei and the inspired innovative sounds of Zuoxiao Zuzhou (ZXZZ). He introduced me to dozens more artists who had sprung up on the Chinese rock scene since the ‘new openness’ of the mid -1980’s. He showed me videos of legendary concerts in which some of these artists had performed and cemented their reputations. It was a great awakening for me. Two of the artists that I really became attached to were Xu Wei (but only his first album, as all of us hipsters know full well) and ZXZZ. There was something about Xu Wei’s guttural voice and simple, haunting melodies that really attracted me and the breadth and unusualness of ZXZZ’s work still fascinates me today (sort of a Leonard Cohen meets Nick Cave by way of Tom Waits). We decided to cover a song by each of these artists on Renmin Park (ZXZZ’s “I Cannot Sit Sadly By Your Side” and Xu Wei’s “My Fall”). Chen translated the lyrics and then I turned those translations into song lyrics. We also asked ZXZZ to contribute an original lyric and vocal performance to “A Walk In The Park,” a track we had recorded.
When we first arrived in China, one of the things that struck me immediately, aside from the poor air quality, were the sounds. Not only was it loud and unrelenting, but there were so many textures to the sounds that were completely foreign to my Western ears. So I wrote back home and asked brother Pete (Timmins) to pick me up a high-end portable digital recorder and carried it along with my camera wherever I went. I’d spend hours in the park walking around and recording music and conversations, exercise classes and badminton games; in the streets I’d record the intense sound of the traffic; at the school I’d wander the halls and sit in on some classes and record the students chanting their lessons or capture them at their morning calisthenics. Even the calls of various hawkers, selling everything from vegetables to propane drifting by our apartment window – I recorded it all.

I knew that I wanted to incorporate these recordings into the album we were creating, but I really wasn’t sure how to go about it. Eventually I bundled them up and sent them to our friend Joby Baker in Victoria, BC, who along with Alan (Anton) proceeded to build musical structures with some of the field recordings as the foundation, after which Pete and I began to work on them in our studio, taking out elements that didn’t work for us and adding our own elements. And then I sat with them and wrote melodies and lyrics. Finally Margo (Timmins) came in and transformed them into Cowboy Junkies songs.

Renmin Park is a reflection of my family’s adventure in China. It’s a fictional love story about two people whose two worlds will forever keep them apart. It’s a thank-you letter to an obscure city and the people who opened up their lives to five very strange strangers. It’s a document about a bewilderingly complex culture that is, once again, experiencing a massive upheaval. It’s another chapter in a band’s ongoing twenty-five year journey.

Michael Timmins (March 2010)

“I’d Rather Go Blonde” is the eighth the eighth album in a twenty year career that has seen McEvoy establish herself as one of Ireland’s most accomplished singer / songwriters. Never one to shy away from the big issues, this album sees McEvoy tackling themes such as alienation, hypocrisy, recent Irish history and romance. The songs are typified by a lyrical élan and often leavened with a touch of humour – “For Avoidance Of Any Doubt” features a plaintive soul using her solicitor to berate an absent lover for not returning calls, and the title track is built around a phrase that just made McEvoy laugh!

As she says herself, “I always try to express myself clearly and honestly. I was the odd one, the tubby girl with glasses who had to go to violin lessons after school. The ray of sunlight was the radio with its music. The escape was learning to sing and play instruments and play with others and write and just get out there. Anyway this album is all me, and I am very proud of it.”

Her music has evolved and developed over her career and this album is a confident statement. Her continuing absorption and influence by other forms of music continues to delight and confound any listener who may attempt to pigeon-hole her simply with reference to the winsome ‘Only A Woman’s Heart’ which appeared on the massively popular album “A Woman’s Heart” back in 1992. That was then, this is now! “I’d Rather Go Blonde” has been mixed by Ruadhri Cushnan’ who did the breakthrough Mumford & Sons record of this year and has a wilfully contemporary relevance.

Throughout her career, McEvoy has earned accolades and picked up various awards – not just for her work but also for the super high-end audio approach she has taken on various albums.

I’D RATHER GO BLONDE

Eleanor McEvoy

Recorded at Westland Studios, the team, of Eleanor McEvoy, Mick O’Gorman, Peter Beckett (co producers of LOVE MUST BE TOUGH) and Ciaran Byrne Engineer, has expanded with the addition Gavin Fox (Ex Idlewild), Ross Turner (Cathy Davey, Jape) and the Mixing skills of Ruadhri Cushnan (Mumford and Sons)

All Arrangements Eleanor McEvoy
Line-Up:
ELEANOR McEVOY – Vocals, Guitars, Violins, Violas, Piano, Hammond Organ, Keyboards
PETER BECKETT – Piano, Keyboards, Harmony Vocals
GAVIN FOX – Bass
ROSS TURNER – Drums, Percussion
Plus
GERRY O’CONNOR – Banjo (Deliver me, Away From You)
PAT BURKE – Gregorian Chant (Deliver Me)
CIARAN BYRNE – Harmony Vocals (Deliver Me)

Produced by Mick O’Gorman, Eleanor McEvoy and Peter Beckett; recorded by Ciaran Byrne; mixed by Ruadhri Cushnan; mastered by Ian Cooper; mastered for vinyl by Miles Showell

And so wrote Mr Simone Felice a month or so ago. We’re just glad he’s still around. Felice is many things, guitarist, drummer, amazingly talented songwriter, author, poet and now it appears, indestructible. At the age of 12 the young Simone suffered a brain aneurysm and was pronounced clinically dead following brain surgery in a local hospital. After recovering he spent several months in intensive care relearning basic motor skills, including reading and writing.

See? The man is unbreakable. His immortality is only part of the story, the rest is as follows. After dying, Simone formed a punk band and by 18 had dropped out of school. He played in another band too but eventually the young rockers went their separate ways and Felice began writing poetry and vignettes, leading to the publication of his first collection of poems, The Picture Show,when he was 20 years old. He began performing these bizarre monologues regularly at the historic Nuyorican Poets Café in New York, garnering the young poet invitations to come read in Los Angeles, Boston, San Francisco, London and Berlin.

In 2004 and then 2005, underground New York publishers printed Simone’s first short works of fiction, Goodbye Amelia, a coming of age story about a small-town girl with secrets to keep and a hunger to see the world, and Hail Mary Full of Holes, about a prostitute struggling to survive during the dawn of the Reagan era.

In the Fall of 2001, just after the attacks on New York City, Simone began writing songs with his brother Ian. Together they retreated to the woods they grew up in,where jobless with a cheap guitar they wrote and made recordings (two recently unearthed archive collections know as The Big Empty and Mexico) with their friend Doc Brown. In this manner the two brothers clocked four years in complete obscurity, sewing the seeds of what would become (with the edition of younger brother James in the Winter of 2006) The Felice Brothers,whose subsequent albums Tonight at the Arizona, The Felice Brothers, and Yonder is the Clock, have gone on to achieve international renown, earning these upstate New York natives an inarguable place in the Great American Songbook.

Over the group’s history Simone has remained one of it’s chief lyricists, co-writing and writing some their most beloved songs, including Frankie’s Gun, Run Chicken Run, Ruby Mae,Whiskey in My Whiskey, Love Me Tenderly,Hey Hey Revolver,Mercy, Your Belly In My Arms, The Devil Is Real, Radio Song and Don’t Wake The Scarecrow to name just a few.

At the surprise request of iconic record producer Rick Rubin, Simone flew to California in the late summer of 2008 to play drums on the Columbia release I and Love and You by The Avett Brothers. Lending his signature dirty Catskill Mountain soul to the Avett’s riveting songwriting and Rubin’s flawless production, Felice appears on some of the albums stand-out numbers, including the title-track and popular single I and Love and You.

In the winter of 2008/2009 personal tragedy reared its head when Simone and his long-time love lost their first child in a late-term still-birth. It was then that he retreated to a cabin in his beloved Catskill’s with his old friend Bobbie Bird and began writing and recording the songs that would (unknown to them at the
time) become The Duke & The King’s debut album. Taking their name from the itinerant Shakespeare theatre grifters in Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn the duo released the gripping Nothing Gold Can Stay in the Summer of 2009 to immediate international critical acclaim, being hailed as one of the most haunting and honest albums of the year.

Felice has just completed his first novel, Black Jesus, the story of a young American war veteran returned to his hometown, the fictional Galilee, New York, after being blinded in Iraq by a homemade bomb, and the
unexpected love he finds with a mysterious dancer who arrives in the town, fleeing darkness and violence
of a different kind.

Simone lives less than a mile from the creek-house he was born in, and travels his own country and abroad performing his songs and stories.

Here’s a clip pf him covering Tom Waits’ Ol’ 55 at Buffalo Bar in Cardiff.

Available to buy

Simone Felice : Live From A Lonely Place

DIV024LP
Album Information
180g Single LP

£19.00Price:
£2.50P&P:

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For those of you that like a back story, Simone was rushed into hospital a couple of months ago, a post appeared on his website saying…

‘We must tell you all, with a heaviness we cannot convey of the news that our dearest brother Simone Felice was rushed late last night to Albany Medical Center. Simone has been scheduled for emergency open-heart surgery as a result of Aortic Stenosis.’

Obviously this was shocking news to his band, to his fans and to me and Paul. Luckily he pulled through and recorded this album during his recovery. It is Simone at his raw and emotional best.

Available to buy

Simone Felice : Live From A Lonely Place

DIV024LP
Album Information
180g Single LP

£19.00Price:
£2.50P&P:

Updating cart...

She learned to draw from those sources who could heighten her artistry, and to introduce her audiences to music and musicians who appealed to her, and whom she felt assured would appeal to those audiences as well. Volumes have been written about how Joan championed a virtually unknown Bob Dylan in 1963 (the year that Joan famously had five albums simultaneously on the Billboard chart) and ’64. Her concert audiences encountered him onstage with her, and her records underscored the fevered rush of songs that were pouring out of him in those years.

Joan used her platform to expose other contemporaries: the songs of Phil Ochs, Richard Fariña, Leonard Cohen and Tim Hardin, informed her repertoire. As she made her way to Nashville later on in the ’60s, she opened up her songbook to the work of Johnny Cash, Mickey Newbury, and Kris Kristofferson. Through Joan, many folk music listeners had their first taste of South American composers Nascimento, Bonfa, and Villa-Lobos. In her first decade as a working singer and musician, Joan had opened the door for some of the most important composers of her generation. Decades later, by virtue of her seniority, Joan – like Duke Ellington, to extend the metaphor – had become the mentor to a new younger generation of singer-songwriters. They are the specially hyphenated breed of folk and country singers and songwriters in the U.S. and abroad for whom Joan is an icon. This is a mantle she wears uncomfortably yet accepts nonetheless, and has even come around to relish since the ’90s, a landmark decade for her

Gone From Danger is a reminder of the complex musical roads that Joan Baez has traveled these past two decades or so, and the marvelously talented artists that she has mentored along the way, who have travelled on her “bus” and then driven off to find their own pathways.

Tickets will be on sale soon. If you’re interested in coming, email matt@diverserecords.com

She learned to draw from those sources who could heighten her artistry, and to introduce her audiences to music and musicians who appealed to her, and whom she felt assured would appeal to those audiences as well. Volumes have been written about how Joan championed a virtually unknown Bob Dylan in 1963 (the year that Joan famously had five albums simultaneously on the Billboard chart) and ’64. Her concert audiences encountered him onstage with her, and her records underscored the fevered rush of songs that were pouring out of him in those years.

Joan used her platform to expose other contemporaries: the songs of Phil Ochs, Richard Fariña, Leonard Cohen and Tim Hardin, informed her repertoire. As she made her way to Nashville later on in the ’60s, she opened up her songbook to the work of Johnny Cash, Mickey Newbury, and Kris Kristofferson. Through Joan, many folk music listeners had their first taste of South American composers Nascimento, Bonfa, and Villa-Lobos. In her first decade as a working singer and musician, Joan had opened the door for some of the most important composers of her generation. Decades later, by virtue of her seniority, Joan – like Duke Ellington, to extend the metaphor – had become the mentor to a new younger generation of singer-songwriters. They are the specially hyphenated breed of folk and country singers and songwriters in the U.S. and abroad for whom Joan is an icon. This is a mantle she wears uncomfortably yet accepts nonetheless, and has even come around to relish since the ’90s, a landmark decade for her

Gone From Danger is a reminder of the complex musical roads that Joan Baez has traveled these past two decades or so, and the marvelously talented artists that she has mentored along the way, who have travelled on her “bus” and then driven off to find their own pathways.

Diverse Records are thrilled to be bringing Chuck Prophet to Wales for the first time in about a billion years. His album ‘Let Freedom Ring’ is being released on vinyl by Diverse in May (hopefully in time for the gig, there’s been a couple of delays), it was described by New York’s Village Voice as “Born in the USA for our times.”. We thought it was only fair that we promoted this show too as he’s as thrilling on stage as he is on record. He’s an amazingly entertaining performer and with his band, The Mission Express, produces bluesy, country, Tom Petty like music with balls. That’s right, balls.

Prophet first attracted attention in March 1983 on joining Los Angeles band Green On Red. His exciting, highly skilled, technique added a new dimension to this already excellent group, although critics initially dubbed his work derivative of Neil Young. Successive releases by the group established Prophet as one of the era’s finest musicians, whose skills were enhanced through jams with the cream of San Francisco’s rock fraternity. In 1990 the artist released Brother Aldo, a largely country rock selection. This superior set featured several vocal duets with Prophet’s partner Stephanie Finch and included support from R&B pianist Spooner Oldham and Durocs’ drummer Scott Matthews. Prophet’s guitar work was, however, also prominent, particularly on “Scarecrow”, the album’s most intense offering. Following Green On Red’s demise in 1992, Prophet was able to concentrate on his solo career, establishing himself as one of the most acclaimed singer-songwriters of the 90s. He has collaborated with several legendary songwriters, including Jim Dickinson, Billy Swan and Bob Neuwirth. In 1997, Prophet delivered Homemade Blood, a live studio set that contains several of his finest songs to date. He made an excellent contribution to Kelly Willis’ 1998 album What I Deserve.

Support on the night comes from Gallowbirds who plough a similar rootsy rock furrow to Chuck. Tickets are £12 and are available from Diverse Music, Spillers and here.