KB Bayley - East Side Confessions
Folk-blues singer-songwriter-guitarist KB Bayley has such a storytelling, dusty Americana roads style about him, you would be forgiven for thinking he was born and raised in the American Heartland.
However a north-east of England birth, raised in the south-east of the country and spending a lot of time on the cold east coast means this noted English artist is as influenced by the rainswept blues and folk music of English seaside towns as he is by Laurel Canyon era folk and American blues.
That both-sides-of-the-pond blend was heard to fine effect on "lockdown" debut Little Thunderstorms (2020), Flatlands (2022) and, now, East Side Confessions, which nods to time spent on the English east coast (related, and as KB Bayley says, the songs are, at some subconscious level, "about the influence of place and memory on who we are").
The album retains the intimate setting and song arrangements of KB Bayley's previous albums, but then if it ain’t broke, why restring his trusted Tom Buchanan Weissenborn and dobro Squareneck lap steel, which take centre stage here along with Bayley’s narrative, soft folk styled voice and deft fingerstyling.
(Previous album contributors Claudia Stark (harmony vocals), Gavin Thomas (harmonica) and Charlie Jonas Walter (pedal steel) return to add additional textures, along with a handful of other guest musicians).
The title track sets the East Side scene, and sound, of the album.
A delicate finger-picking, confessional lament ("come inside and shut the door, tell me what you’re looking for; let me tell you stories of the hundred million things that I got wrong), the song features some lovely, dovetailing harmony parts from KB Bayley and Claudia Stark.
Acoustic-electric folk-blues number 'The Light Through The Trees' is even more delicate, accentuated by subtle atmospheres and tasteful guitar remarks from guest player Alfie Reeves.
As with Flatlands, East Side Confessions includes four covers, the first of which is an intimate, sparse and haunting arrangement of The Korgis 1980 soft synth-pop hit 'Everybody’s Got To Learn Sometime,' here with plaintive backing vocals from Sarah Carter and electric guitar textures from Jonny Martin.
The up-tempo, Americana folk-blues of 'Don’t Let The Rain Fall On My Face' tells the tale of a condemned man seeking redemption in his final hours, while the reflective and moving 'Until Today' tells not just of a love lost but a life passed ("A silver grey December, first or second I think; got the phone call in the evening, poured myself a drink"). The latter, like the opening title track, features only KB Bayley, his Weissenborn and Claudia Stark. The beautifully forlorn results musically speak for themselves.
'Somewhere East Of Moscow,' somewhat title ironically, then steps up as the most country-blues & western song on the album ("set my dreams, a western course, for the gulf of Mexico; they’re somewhere east of Moscow, with nowhere left to go"). Gavin Thomas' forlorn harmonica, and the sympathetic pedal steel backing from Charlie Jonas Walter, are inspired touches.
Gavin Thomas and his harmonica also plays their part on 'The Flowers Outside the Church,' which, like 'Until Today,' is a reflective lament to both the past ("the flowers outside the church have seen it all…") and those passed ("I remember things you said, we’ll buy a boat and paint it red; now the crows shout at the rain, every day feels just the same").
The album closes out on three covers, all of which are favourites of, or important to, KB Bayley.
'Love & Texaco' by Gretchen Peters, here shaped as an atmospheric folk-blues, has become a KB Bayley live favourite, while traditional American folk song 'White House Blues' takes its lead from the John Renbourn version, featuring Charlie Jonas Walter on a 1920s fretless banjo (nodding to the song’s earliest known era).
Patty Griffin’s 'That Kind Of Lonely,' performed solo by KB Bayley, makes for the perfect, and poignant, closing statement to an album that showcases the intimate, confessional storytelling of a true, blues-folk talent.
Ross Muir
FabricationsHQ
However a north-east of England birth, raised in the south-east of the country and spending a lot of time on the cold east coast means this noted English artist is as influenced by the rainswept blues and folk music of English seaside towns as he is by Laurel Canyon era folk and American blues.
That both-sides-of-the-pond blend was heard to fine effect on "lockdown" debut Little Thunderstorms (2020), Flatlands (2022) and, now, East Side Confessions, which nods to time spent on the English east coast (related, and as KB Bayley says, the songs are, at some subconscious level, "about the influence of place and memory on who we are").
The album retains the intimate setting and song arrangements of KB Bayley's previous albums, but then if it ain’t broke, why restring his trusted Tom Buchanan Weissenborn and dobro Squareneck lap steel, which take centre stage here along with Bayley’s narrative, soft folk styled voice and deft fingerstyling.
(Previous album contributors Claudia Stark (harmony vocals), Gavin Thomas (harmonica) and Charlie Jonas Walter (pedal steel) return to add additional textures, along with a handful of other guest musicians).
The title track sets the East Side scene, and sound, of the album.
A delicate finger-picking, confessional lament ("come inside and shut the door, tell me what you’re looking for; let me tell you stories of the hundred million things that I got wrong), the song features some lovely, dovetailing harmony parts from KB Bayley and Claudia Stark.
Acoustic-electric folk-blues number 'The Light Through The Trees' is even more delicate, accentuated by subtle atmospheres and tasteful guitar remarks from guest player Alfie Reeves.
As with Flatlands, East Side Confessions includes four covers, the first of which is an intimate, sparse and haunting arrangement of The Korgis 1980 soft synth-pop hit 'Everybody’s Got To Learn Sometime,' here with plaintive backing vocals from Sarah Carter and electric guitar textures from Jonny Martin.
The up-tempo, Americana folk-blues of 'Don’t Let The Rain Fall On My Face' tells the tale of a condemned man seeking redemption in his final hours, while the reflective and moving 'Until Today' tells not just of a love lost but a life passed ("A silver grey December, first or second I think; got the phone call in the evening, poured myself a drink"). The latter, like the opening title track, features only KB Bayley, his Weissenborn and Claudia Stark. The beautifully forlorn results musically speak for themselves.
'Somewhere East Of Moscow,' somewhat title ironically, then steps up as the most country-blues & western song on the album ("set my dreams, a western course, for the gulf of Mexico; they’re somewhere east of Moscow, with nowhere left to go"). Gavin Thomas' forlorn harmonica, and the sympathetic pedal steel backing from Charlie Jonas Walter, are inspired touches.
Gavin Thomas and his harmonica also plays their part on 'The Flowers Outside the Church,' which, like 'Until Today,' is a reflective lament to both the past ("the flowers outside the church have seen it all…") and those passed ("I remember things you said, we’ll buy a boat and paint it red; now the crows shout at the rain, every day feels just the same").
The album closes out on three covers, all of which are favourites of, or important to, KB Bayley.
'Love & Texaco' by Gretchen Peters, here shaped as an atmospheric folk-blues, has become a KB Bayley live favourite, while traditional American folk song 'White House Blues' takes its lead from the John Renbourn version, featuring Charlie Jonas Walter on a 1920s fretless banjo (nodding to the song’s earliest known era).
Patty Griffin’s 'That Kind Of Lonely,' performed solo by KB Bayley, makes for the perfect, and poignant, closing statement to an album that showcases the intimate, confessional storytelling of a true, blues-folk talent.
Ross Muir
FabricationsHQ