Listening to the sound of country soul is an aesthetically
pleasing experience and the current vogue for this style of Americana music is
generating some extremely strong albums. On the back of excellent releases by
the UK’s Danny and the Champions of the World and the US’s Shinyribs, The
Delines have come up trumps with one of the year’s most atmospheric and
mesmeric albums in COLFAX. It’s a double UK delight that the band, founded by
Richmond Fontaine’s Willy Vlautin, are currently visiting this country to
promote the launch of this debut record.
Midlands promoters Cosmic American had little reluctance to
book the band and were rewarded with a near sell-out crowd in the Hare and
Hounds’ smaller music room. To the great pleasure of the many knowledgeable
music fans attending the show, COLFAX was played in its entirety and the band perfectly
balanced the set by interspersing several contrasting tunes from outside the
album thus keeping the overall performance fresh. The pin drop silence of
respect to the vocals of Amy Boone and the buzz at the end of the show suggested
an overwhelming approval to a project which hopefully may not be confined to a
solitary release.
The story behind COLFAX indicates that the highly literate
Vlautin had a plan to write a number of songs that suited the flawless vocals
of Amy who for over a decade has been a leading light in the Austin music scene
as the voice behind Damnation Tx. With a background steeped in the culture of
alt-country, Vlautin had no hesitation in bringing in the horns, keys and pedal
steel to give the sound a steer in a soulful direction. The ease of the transportation
of the vibes of COLFAX from studio to the stage is a credit to the road band
put together which included bassist Freddie Trujilo, Cory Gray on keys and
trumpet and Vlautin’s fellow Richmond Fontaine percussionist Sean Oldham.
Prior to Willy, Amy and the boys filling the room with an hour
and half of Americana bliss, Irish duo The Lost Brothers opened up with a set
of two part harmony inspired folk songs backed by the fine pedal steel guitar
talents of Dave Murphy. The guys had become acquainted with Willy while based
in his home city of Portland, Oregon and proved to be the ideal warm up act. So
impressed with the steel contribution of Murphy, he became the honorary missing
piece of The Delines jigsaw for the evening when joining the band for the final
third of the set. This segment included a couple of fantastic tracks not on
COLFAX led by the limited release song ‘Slim
and Margy’ (available only on a Record Store Day 45) and a cover of the Webb
Pierce classic ‘There Stands the Glass’.
Also outside of COLFAX, Willy and Amy excelled as a vocal
duo on the Dolorean number ‘What One
Bottle Can Do’, while a new song during the encore, ‘Golden State’, indicated that there may be more to come from The
Delines. Amy showed why she is such a respected artist in Austin, Texas with
one of her songs ‘Heart, Trust and Pride’,
while even Freddie stepped forward to sing a number from his solo work ‘Freddy Fender’.
However this night was all about COLFAX and right from the
start, the hypnotic tones of ‘Calling In’,
‘Colfax Avenue’ and ‘The Oil Rigs at Night’ filled every
crevice of the tightly packed room. The latter is the finest track on the
record but after listening to the album live it was strongly rivalled by ‘Stateline’. The encore saw Amy stroll
back on stage solo to deliver the Randy Newman song ‘Sandman’s Coming’ from the keyboard and as per the record, the
closing moments belonged to ‘82nd
Street’.
It is my prediction that COLFAX will grow and grow as an
album and it was a privilege to be in a position to listen to an intimate
performance of it. Willy Vlautin deserves every ounce of praise heading in his direction
for inspiring The Delines project and Amy Boone is welcome back in Birmingham
anytime to grace us with her vocals.
