BILL CADDICK - Winter With Flowers (Fledgling FLED3004)
This album has an earnest, wholesome feel to it. I have not had the pleasure of meeting Caddick, but listen to his songs here and you feel you know the man - could quite happily sit in the local boozer with him downing a few jugs of ale and setting the world to rights.
Honest perhaps, but that's not to say this album is in any way predictable - far from it.
The instrumentation is amazing, sliding between Trad jazz (the album feature saxophone, trombone and sousaphone), sparse Northumbrian pipes and rousing melodeon playing - and that's before you throw in Caddick's up-front guitar playing into the pot.
The opener 'Home' is an instant success, which I guarantee you'll be humming for weeks after first hearing it.
'Jesus on a Window Ledge' is an urban classic, while 'Songs of Praise' has a hymn-like anthemic quality.
'King Beer' rolls along at a capricious pace and even mentions the famed 'Coalbrookdale Inn' (A temple I confess to having worshipped at.
'Constant' is a tribute to Caddick's beloved Shropshire, which evolves into a stirring rendition of the Morris tune 'Constant Billy'.
The Album closes the wonderful 'Home Again', with lyrics that go 'Tum Tum Ti Tum Tum ...etc'.
Caddick's voice has a rich lived-in quality but his lyrics often have a cutting edge - 'The rabbit goes where the ragged crows pick out the hedgehog's eye and swifts mad for Africa scream down the burning sky'.
David Suff seems to hit the mark with everything he does. His Fledgling label is fast growing into a majestic eagle.
This album gets better every time I play it.
(Andy Hemsley)