John Smith – Hummingbird
Commoner Records – 5 October 2018
It was only last year that John Smith’s Headlong album dropped, and now we have Hummingbird, his second Sam Lakeman produced set on the bounce and one very different to Headlong and indeed Great Lakes or anything else he has released. This ten song album contains mainly collected traditional songs that John has either spent time playing or has felt encouraged to sing. We also have one cover version, in Anne Briggs‘s ‘The Time Has Come’, as well as three originals, including live favourite ‘Axe Mountain’ and the brand new title track. Smith, one of this generation’s most important folk singers, is overdue in putting some of these valuable old songs on record and his take on them results in his subtlest album to date; a pure work of skill and appreciation.
‘Hummingbird’ is where the album begins, with an almost coyly finger-picked guitar line; John tells me that this piece came to him completely in about twenty minutes, a fact that will impress and frustrate many of us in equal measure because this is a piece of beautiful writing and playing. One thing that John and Sam decided when making this record was that it would be a restrained affair, with no unnecessary arrangements being left on tape; apparently, John wrote a whole string part to this song that found itself on the cutting room floor. What we have left is far more suitable to a tragic love story; double-tracked acoustic guitars make up pretty much the entire backing, with some woodwind just about audible, hovering way out there. The rhythm line is a perfectly poised and pitched piece of light picking that aptly evokes the feathers, while the more direct notes over the top add flavour without taking anything away from the husky vocals, always good to hear, but particularly suited to this sparse environment. Another original song is ‘Boudica’, a brooding and powerful piece about the Queen of the Celtic Iceni tribe who let loose on the Romans back around 60AD. The low murmured intro to this one along with the subtlest of violin lines does wonders to bring a hushed atmosphere to a tale of war and fear. Smith’s voice takes on even more gravel, and it is a song that sits so well alongside the traditional pieces as one that is timeless in its own way, a quality that all four non-traditional songs perform very well.
Sandwiched between those two pieces is ‘The Lowlands of Holland’, a British ballad that has been heard in numerous forms for many years. As an anti-war song dealing with love, pride and regret, the violin and flute lines running through bring a cleverly ambiguous sense of melancholy mixed with honour to the sound, which stands with the story well. The vocal harmonies used softly on Boudica, are thrown in dramatically here to sing of loss and repentance, bringing a passionate end to a tragic tale. On the lighter end of the scale is ‘Hares on the Mountain’, a Southern English ballad published by Cecil Sharp and one of my absolute favourites as performed by Chris Wood and Andy Cutting. Smith plays and sings the song beautifully, adorning sparingly with strings. It is a pleasure to hear John’s acoustic guitar here, often alone, played with such patience to deliver a perfectly pitched slice of gentle bucolic romance. His versatile voice also softens to remain in keeping with the relaxed and spacious picking; in fact, those lingering pauses, so well timed, add as much balance to the song as the playing and singing.
Elsewhere we have a couple of old songs that, for Smith, doff their caps to John Renbourn in parts. ‘Lord Franklin’ is one that John has been performing live for many years, after hearing Renbourn play it, but one that hasn’t made it to record before now. This is another track that takes its time in playing out, with the guitar line delicately performed and the vocal softly sang, adding poignancy to the lyrics. After the gorgeously sad ‘Master Kilby’, the shortest and sparest piece here, but one with its own beauty, comes ‘The Time Has Come’, a song Smith came to on the classic Bert and John album by Renbournand Bert Jansch. Here the steady guitar refrain is nicely offset by Ben Nicholls’s freer thumping double bass playing. If you listen carefully towards the end of this one, you’ll hear John momentarily let loose on the guitar, no doubt in tribute to the two greats.
Towards the end, we have a real bloodthirsty crowd pleaser in ‘Axe Mountain’, a more upbeat original that has been a mainstay in John’s live set for years. This one plays out a bit like the live version of Ray Lamontagne’s ‘Henry Nearly Killed Me’ when his voice gets low and guttural. It is the longest and toughest song here, but the death-drenched narrative is as folk as you like (as Martin Carthy said, they’re not supposed to be happy songs) and it brings a bit of foot stomping to things while remaining in keeping with the essence of the album. On the flip side is ‘Unquiet Grave’, a truly old song, dating back to the 1400s, that deals less with death itself than with a fraught entry into the afterlife. This one brings in Cara Dillon to duet on a slow-moving piece, with John’s guitar jumping around the speaker, the violins collecting some reverb and Nicholls’s bass adding erratic thunder. It probably has the most players on it, but the space between instruments and voices and the strange sounds created brings appropriate eeriness to a perfect album closer.
The pace of Hummingbird doesn’t try to fluctuate too much (perhaps excepting with the lean mean ‘Axe Mountain’), which adds to an overriding sense of assurance that runs through it. The songs feel organically performed and recorded, with no notes chased or pieces laboured over. The result is a work that is unsurprisingly wonderfully played but also understated in almost every way. Hummingbird is Smith’s most impressive album yet, even if it doesn’t want to shout about it. A work of mature and subtle beauty, celebrating songs that are still being sang and ones that will carry on being sang; this album should be heard by everyone.
European Dates October – December 2018
04 Oct Aberdeen The Lemon Tree
05 Oct Ullapool Guitar Festival
10 Oct Cork IE Coughlan’s
11 Oct Cork IE Coughlan’s
12 Oct Limerick IE Dolan’s
13 Oct Dublin IE Unitarian Church
14 Oct Bangor NI Studio Theatre
17 Oct Chipping Norton The Theatre
20 Oct Whitby Musicport Festival
21 Oct Liverpool St George’s Hall
22 Oct Gateshead Sage Gateshead
24 Oct Leeds The Wardrobe
25 Oct Sheffield Picture House Social
26 Oct Thames Ditton The Ram Club
30 Oct Newbury Arlington Arts Centre
01 Nov Bury The Met Arts Centre
02 Nov Sc*nthorpe Cafe Indiependent
03 Nov Halifax Square Chapel
04 Nov York The Crescent
07 Nov Middlesbrough Town Hall
09 Nov Bristol Rough Trade
10 Nov Plymouth Barbican Theatre
11 Nov Dartmouth The Flavel
12 Nov Exeter Phoenix
14 Nov Southampton The Brook
15 Nov London St Pancras NEW Church (Bloomsbury)
16 Nov Brighton Unitarian Church
17 Nov Guildford St Mary’s Church
20 Nov Paris FR Le Point Ephemere
21 Nov Leuven BE 30CC
22 Nov Waregem BE De Schakel
23 Nov Beveren BE Cultuurcentrum Ter Vesten
24 Nov Evergem BE Cultuurcentrum Evergem
28 Nov Zurich CH Bogen F
29 Nov Leopoldsburg BE Cultuurcentrum Leopoldsburg
02 Dec Berlin DE Kantine am Berghain
03 Dec Munich DE Ampere
PRE-ORDER HUMMINGBIRDhttp://smarturl.it/hummingbird-eu
https://www.johnsmithjohnsmith.com/
Photo Credit: Rose Cousins
john smithJohn Smith Artist of the Month
