DEAN OWENS : SOUTHERN WIND

DEAN OWENS : SOUTHERN WIND

The Last Song
Southern Wind
Elvis Was My Brother
When The Whisky's Not Enough
Bad News
No Way Around It
Louisville Lip
Anything Helps
Mother
Famous Last Words
Madeira Street
Love Prevails

Label : Songboy Records

Length : 50:52

Release Date : February 16, 2018

Review (Americana UK) : Dean Owens is a well known artist from Leith, with an established reputation on both sides of the Atlantic and here is a very special album. This review should convince you to take special notice of his work. Recorded and produced in Nashville, with an array of notable musicians in support, you can “feel the wind blowing” through the music. On the title track, and throughout the album, you can hear Will Kimbrough and his all-round musicianship. He is a close associate and friend of Dean’s. Starting, then with ‘Southern Wind’, and remembering Eric Golding’s words in “Lyrics of the Troubadours,” where the lyrics, in such a context, depend for their coherence and effect on the live relation between the singer and his/her audience, this precisely, is where Dean succeeds so strongly in his work generally, and in this album so particularly. In this song, and throughout the album, the lyrics are precise, in short phrases, with a singer in full control and fully supported here by Kimbrough on slide guitar and the voice of Kira Small. Watch out for that voice on the the memorable and uplifting spiritual ‘No Way Around It’ and be amazed by the the full arrangement there. Some of Owen’s songs make moving, fleeting references to family life, with easy, perfect rhymes. ‘Elvis was My Brother’ is a simple but unforgettable, up-tempo tale of growing up, influenced by Elvis’ songs. A hard life, yes, “But somewhere in those old songs/ I found a place where I belonged.” In all of Owen’s work, through his voice and storytelling, he manages to get beneath emotions into deeper understanding. On the same lines are two other songs: ‘Mother’, which he wrote with a little help from Danny (Champ) while he was touring with them in the UK, and ‘Madeira Street’, written in memory of his late sister, a gulpingly tender and remarkable summation of a deep deep feeling. Should the album catch you, and so it should, keep on coming back to a track, like, say, ‘Love Prevails’, and let it work its way around your own feelings. One should come back regularly to this album, any personally particular track, and just wallow in Owens’ work. Here is a singer going places. Also, consider Dean’s background as a boxer, and listen to ‘The Louisville Lip’, noting Danny Mitchell’s haunting trumpet and noting the words: “I sat with my father/Watching the Foreman Fight…/ What’s he playing at?” That important family detail again. An important point, also, in the context of the whole album is the producer, Nelson Hubbard who works in Nashville. Look him up and check over the work he is planning with Dean in the near future. This will confirm how much our man from Leith has yet to offer.

Review (Folk/Tumble) : ‘Southern Wind’ sees Dean Owens widen his musical palette with a more fuller band sound than on his previous albums and for the most part it works. Opener ‘Last Song’ starts the album with a pace and lilt that promises much. Title track ‘Southern Wind’ is another strong addition to Owens’ cannon of haunting and evocative songs. The album is peppered with strong songs that fans of the Scottish singer will no doubt revel in. But there are occasions when the strong romanticism of his earlier work, lapses into sentimentality. Two songs are dedicated to heroes; Elvis and Mohamed Ali. Musically, ‘Elvis Was My Brother’ is fine and cleverly even incorporates a riff from ‘(Marie’s The Name) Of His Latest Flame’. Some of the lyrics I found a bit generic and wondered if we really need another tribute to the be-quiffed one? Elvis was my brother. He was my friend. Elvis was the one who taught me everything. ‘Louisville Lip’ presents a similar issue with a lovely understated melody carried by a plaintive trumpet solo slightly marred by lines such as: I never knew you but feel like I did. Much more to my liking is ‘Mother’, which treads that line between sentimentality and affection and lands firmly on the right side with a tune difficult not to sing along to. Other highlights on a fine album are the jaunty, optimistic ‘Anything Helps’, the swampy ‘No Way Around It’ with superb backing from Kira Small, and the lovely closer ‘Love Prevails’. Dean has surrounded his warm enveloping voice with some top session players in Nashville and the album is produced by Neilson Hubbard of Orphan Brigade and it shows. ‘Southern Wind’ is another worthy addition to his cannon of catchy personal tales that reach out and people will connect with. If, as a songwriter, Dean Owens can do that, he must be doing something right.

Review (Folkradio) : For the follow-up to 2015’s Into The Sea and his debut for At The Helm, Dean Owens took himself off to Nashville to enlist the services of go-to producer Nielson Hubbard. Hubbard also contributes piano, bass, drums and assorted bits and bobs alongside seasoned Nashville musicians such as Dean Marold, Evan Hutchings and Will Kimbrough. Indeed, Kimbrough not only plays on the album, he’s also co-writer on five tracks, the first up being album opener The Last Song. The Last Song was, in fact, the first they wrote together, a bouncy end of the night countrified pub rock number drawing on a mutual love of Ronnie Lane and The Waterboys. The title track follows it (the video for which premiered on FRUK); another co-write and the impetus for the overall album, a slow march, blues and gospel-informed number about the call of home featuring meaty Kimbrough guitar, swirling organ from Dean Mitchell, the Worry Dolls on harmonies and the big voice backing vocals of Kira Small. It’s back to train-rolling uptempo rhythm for Elvis Was My Brother, a song inspired by a letter from a friend who, raised by his mother, frequently uprooted and with little contact with his father, found a friend and brother listening to Elvis on his mother’s cassettes. Marrying his Scottish roots and the Americana influences of Townes Van Zandt, featuring aching resonator guitar When the Whisky’s Not Enough is a slowly gathering sad, broken relationship number steeped in a feeling of hopelessness. Owens and Kimbrough switch acoustic and electric guitar roles for Bad News, another moody, bluesy songs which, underpinned by soulful organ, is, apparently inspired by a movie rather than anything biographical, a song for a woman trapped in an abusive marriage. Small makes a return, gospel wailing through the defiant in the face of the odds lyrics of No Way Around It, opening on slide guitar before picking up a swampy tribal thump rhythm with Kimbrough laying down both the banjo riff and snarling guitar licks. Written back in June 2016 on the night Muhammad Ali died, Louisville Lip is a simple acoustic ode to his childhood hero and his inspiration to become join the Leith Victoria AAC Boxing Club when he was a kid. It’s one of three very personal numbers. Mother, co-written with Kimbrough and with input from Danny Wilson, is, obviously, a love letter and thank you note to his mum, an almost reggae lope rhythm with trumpet and a percolating organ, the line “you can’t break a cracked cup” apparently one of her saying. The other, Madeira Street, is a heart-aching companion piece to Evergreen off the last album, a song written in response to his older sister Julie’s battle with cancer. She sadly lost the fight before that album came out and the new song, an acoustic strum sway featuring the Worry Dolls on harmonies, is titled for the street where they grew up and his memories of their shared childhood. Of the other numbers, set to an acoustic strum and piano, and with again perhaps a touch of Ronnie Lane, the look on the bright side lyrics of Anything Helps was inspired by a sign he saw a homeless man holding near a Tennessee freeway. Famous Last Words is a waltzing, trumpet-coloured musing on vows that, while meant at the time, never seem to last. Meanwhile, written mainly by Kimbrough and based on a true story, featuring mandolin solo by Joshua Britt, Love Prevails is an inspirational country slow waltz about a family devastated by violence and trapped in poverty, but ultimately surviving the wreckage through the love they shared. Southern Wind is an album that fully deserves to take Owens’ career to a higher level.