Peter Viney's Blog

Chuck Prophet & Stephanie Finch

Twyford Parish Hall, near Winchester, Hampshire
Saturday 9th September 2018

Supports:

John Murry
Lucas & King

I’ll put all the evening in one review here

This is the opening gig on Chuck Prophet & Stephanie Finch’s 2018 UK “duo” acoustic tour, and was also a birthday celebration for the promoter, who has done so much in bringing great Americana artists to my attention over the years in Winchester. The emphasis was “This is a concert, not a party”.

Twyford is a village just the opposite side of the M3 motorway to Winchester. The Parish Hall boasts a 1934 sign over the door. With its high stage (but without much width) it looked like the venues I first experienced live music in during the 1960s … church halls, British Legion halls, political club halls. This one had particularly good acoustics too-the curved wooden ceiling helped. Chuck Prophet pointed this out, looking around. He said this must be like the venues where Buddy Holly and Big Bopper originally played. So true. I saw local teenage bands in Bournemouth and rural Dorset that contained Zoot Money, Andy Somers, Robert Fripp, Greg Lake, John Wetton, Richard Palmer-James, Lee Kerslake, Al Stewart, Gordon Haskell in venues just like this. It brought a wave of nostalgia, though none had crisp clean backdrop curtains, LED lighting, good toilets and the fine acoustic of this hall.

I’ll take the evening in chronological order … scroll down if you want to get immediately to the main act.

Lucas & King

Bo Lucas- lead vocal, acoustic guitar
Hayleigh King – electric guitar, backing vocal

SET LIST (guesstimate):
?
Why My Does Pain So Sound So Sweet (?)
Maybe I Do (?)
Shop Girl
Bang Bang (Sonny Bono)
Truly Not Yours

Not surprisingly, this duo won Fender’s “Undiscovered Artist of The Year 2018 Award.” They combine rich, sultry torch singer lead vocals with stunning electric guitar work. Usually unaccompanied electric guitar sounds harsh and odd even when it’s a stellar player. Hayleigh King finger picks, pulling a gentle thumbed bass line on the two bass strings, accompanied by a classic “Fender sound”, twangy and plangent and melodic with the other fingers. She doesn’t just strum chords, which is where an electric guitar ends up sounding odd unaccompanied to me. Comments on the guitar sound from a classy ice-blue Fender, which fitted the ambience of the hall perfectly for me. I always liked ice-blue Fenders.

‘I would say a cross between late 60’s Californian Surf/Garage rock folk mixed with country vocals of a sultry lounge kitten.’ -Music Muso

Distant, reverb-laden twangsome guitar lends a David Lynch noir atmosphere, they paint miniature cinematic soundscapes with the barest of resources.’ –Plunger Music

On about half the numbers Bo Lucas added acoustic rhythm guitar. She sings eyes half-closed. As ever it’s an issue noting unfamiliar material in a set list. They opened with a bluesy torch song.  They did 60s pop. They finished with pure country and western on Truly Not Yours. They’re eclectic. Where they were so wise was to include just the one well-known cover version (all new groups should do this), in this case Cher’s Bang Bang written by Sony Bono. Their online video references Nancy Sinatra, but that was a cover of Cher’s original, though the Nancy Sinatra version was on the Kill Bill OST and features the tremelo guitar, so that was probably their inspiration.

The Lucas & King EP: available on line

Having seen Ward-Thomas this summer, this duo will be at least as big. My prediction.

The Sent

Before John Murry came on, we had a beautiful acapella song from The Sent (Beautiful Man?) followed by The Hollies’ Just One Look where John Murry added acoustic guitar backing. Two of the high spots of a very enjoyable evening.

John Murry

SET LIST (GUESSTIMATE) – Please comment if you know and I’ll correct.

1  Wrong Man
2 (wedding start)
3 (I refuse to believe)
4 Come Five & Twenty
5 Song about dumb dirt farmers
6 The Ballad of The Pajama Kid
7 Southern Sky
8 Medley
9 One Day You’ll Die
9 Downbound Train (Bruce Springsteen)

American Gothic … John Murry is like Elvis, from Tupelo, Mississippi. He’s related to William Faulkner’s family too. He came to prominence with The Graceless Age, one of Uncut’s Ten Best Records of 2012. Mojo were a tad slower but it made their Top Ten of 2013, as well as American Songwriter‘s Top 5 of 2013. He’s just released A Short History of Decay. He’s someone who’s been on my “I must investigate” list for years, but I didn’t, so I am into guessing the set list with a little help from iTunes and Google. He often plays with a band, so the interest was solo.

He’s a one-off that’s for sure. You could compare other one-offs with American Gothic lyrics … Tom Waits, Simone Felice, Neil Young at times. You can’t really compare one-offs with each other!

He’s also a fascinating raconteur with chat between songs. He had some kind of open tuning and when he changed it pointed out that Joni Mitchell never had to do it on stage. He should have used the Judy Collins comment when she does the same … she points out that Crosby, Stills, Nash, Young, (or rather “David, Stephen, Graham & Neil … to her) plus Joni Mitchell and Joan Baez all have guitar techs to do the job offstage with spare guitars. Judy Collins just says ‘And I can’t afford that, so you’ll have to wait.’

Near the end he asked how long he had left, and was signalled two songs. He said he had some long ones and started a medley that ran through Do You Wanna Dance, Blue Moon, Ice Baby, Summer Baby, The Same Old Song before going into One Day You’ll Die. 

Downbound Train was an audience request as it’s one he’s done before, and he got a Bruce Springsteen vocal tone to match it.

Chuck Prophet & Stephanie Finch

Chuck Prophet – vocal, acoustic guitar
Stephanie Finch – vocal,  keyboards (piano setting), acoustic guitar

SET LIST

Stephanie Finch piano:
1  Play That Song Again  
2  Wish Me luck
3  If I Was A Baby (Ezra Furman)
4  The Left Hand & The Right Hand

Two guitars:
5 Abandoned love (Bob Dylan cover)
6  I Guess I Wasn’t So Smart – Stephanie Finch, lead vocal
7  Sorrow (Feldan, Goldstein, Gottehrer)
8  I Felt Like Jesus
9  Goodbye, Tina – Stephanie Finch, lead vocal

Stephanie Finch piano:
10  Love Is The Only Thing
11  A Bad Year For Rock & Roll
12  New Year’s Day
13  You Did (Bomp Shooby Dooby Bomp)

encore

14  Summertime Thing

They’re a husband and wife duo from San Francisco, and she also plays in their full band, Chuck Prophet and Mission Express. He explained that the acoustic duo tours gave them a chance to explore different songs from their extensive backlist. Chuck Prophet (and his original band, Green on Red) had  largely passed me by till I read a review of Bobby Fuller Died For Your Sins. The Bobby Fuller Four had a major 1966 hit with I Fought The Law, a tougher remake of a 1959 song by Sonny Curtis of The Crickets. In 1979 The Clash covered it, as did San Francisco band The Dead Kennedys, who Chuck Prophet quoted elsewhere in the evening. I was immediately fascinated by Chuck Prophet’s storyline, starting with a cop shooting a kid (thus referencing Bobby Fuller’s I fought the law, and the law won …).  Add to it that Bobby Fuller was found dead in a car, asphyxiated. The LAPD declared it suicide. Many thought it was murder. I was so fascinated once I heard Bobby Fuller Died For Your Sins, that I bought the album and I’ve played it a lot. it lead me to explore further.

My biggest surprise was that they only did one song from that recent Bobby Fuller Died For Your Sins, and that wasn’t even the title track, but A Bad Year For Rock & Roll. I’d expected the title track, and Jesus Was A Social Drinker at least, but on reflection, the former is flat out rock and roll, and the latter really sits on the percussion track. Instead there were three from Night Surfer and two from Temple Beautiful.

As with John Murry, I very much enjoyed the introductions between songs, the jokes, the San Francisco stories behind songs. I’ll try hard not to quote any, as it’s the added joy of seeing a live performance.

They opened with an apposite Play That Song Again then into Wish Me Luck which has such a feel / good quality and at the end we were asked to do it … Good luck! It’s a very good anthemic song.

I Wish I Was A Baby was one to listen for the lyrics … the lyrics were clear all evening, which is rare. I’d heard it on Night Surfer but hadn’t even noticed it was a cover, and only noticed doing this. It’s from an album called Inside The Human Body by Ezra Furman & The Harpoons (2008). I’d never heard of Ezra, but he’s been on the Jools Holland Show, so I display my ignorance.

There was a long San Francisco tale to open The Left Hand & The Right Hand which will always enhance the song in future.

Abandoned Love

The “two guitars” sub set focussed on the harmonies of the duo, starting with Abandoned Love. They credited Bob Dylan, but their version owes way more to the Everly Brothers’ cover version from 1985’s Born Yesterday. Though Dylan had written it in 1975, it wasn’t released until Biograph, which I reckon means The Everly Brothers were in first. That really struck me because there have been a couple of significant “male / female” duo full album versions of The Everly Brothers songs. There was What The Brothers Sang by Dawn McCarthy and Bonnie Prince Billy, plus Foreverly by Billie Joe Armstrong and Norah Jones, and then John Prine and Connie Smith did So Sad., This was right up with them, and Chuck Prophet’s powerful rhythm guitar immediately made me think of The Everlys.

I Guess I Wasn’t So Smart was Stephanie Finch on vocals. They took this into Sorrow, a UK hit for The Merseys, and everyone knows the tune. It was originally done by The McCoys in the USA and in my 1960s search for American original, I even bought the Immediate 45. I remember listening to my original copy and realizing that The Merseys had done it far better, as they did here. As A Bad Year For Rock & Roll starts out with a line about the “white duke” David Bowie, I’d guess that his great cover version would have been the inspiration.

I Felt Like Jesus (from Temple Beautiful)was up next. Not for the first or last time, something about Chuck Prophet brings Randy Newman to my mind. It’s not so much musical connection, as irony, apt choice of words (as in his other Jesus-quoting song title Jesus Was A Social Drinker.) Mind you, my favourite Jesus title is Hays Carll’s She Left Me For Jesus. In this one it’s:

You got a rag tied around your head, saying meat is murder …

There are always little quotes … here a rag tied around your head is Fats Domino’s Sick ‘n’ Tired (as improved by Ronnie Hawkins & The Hawks).

Tina Goodbye is Stephanie Finch on lead vocal on the opening track of her Cry Tomorrow album. She returned to piano for the rest of the set (or rather a Roland on piano setting). Love Is The Only Thing led into A Bad Year For Rock ‘n’ Roll. I was increasingly fascinated by his guitar playing on acoustic, at times pulling out bass melodies like Duane Eddy in his heyday. New Year’s Day was an old one (1997) that I’d never heard.

Everybody got on their feet for the audience participation of You Did (Bomp Shooby Dooby Bomp) gleefully pointing and shouting out the “You did!” chorus. There a great atmosphere, enhanced by the encore on the earlier hit Summertime Thing.

The tour has just started. Definitely one to catch. This was the opposite of Hyde Park a few weeks back, but this sort of intimate concert is a lot more fun.