| by Dave Parr |
Date Added: Monday 13 April, 2009 |
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This is a review of the 1989 cassette titled - Ken Nicol.
Track Listing
01 - Down On The Island (4:04)
02 - Gypsy Hill (4:31)
03 - Hold On To Love (4:41)
04 - Hard Case (3:40)
05 - She Still Finds Me (3:49)
06 - Just Like Never Before (4:25)
07 - Sneakin' (4:10)
08 - Last Night In Paris (4:33)
I bought this cassette from Ken in 1989/1990 at the Unicorn pub Preston. I used to work behind the bar and Ken was a regular performer. At the time I knew I was lucky to be there and remember the pub always being packed when Ken played.
I was genuinely stunned at Ken's clean guitar sound, his control over his picking style and on top of that great vocals and beautiful melodies. He seemed to produce a sound of more than a single performed with a guitar, but I suppose his guitar style accounts for that picking out both bas and melody.
Nor could I believe he didn't have a recording contract, then heard he'd recently returned from America and his parent lived in Preston so assumed he was between contracts or something. I expected him to be leaving for London any day, but he was around for a couple of years and over that time I saw him on about 20 occasions and his songs grew on me more and more. Then he began to sell this cassette - I think it was £2 or maybe £3.
Review.
Anyway onto the actual songs. Over all the songs flow well perhaps with the exception of 'Just Like Never Before' which sounds like a full band demo (including electric guitar) and is a little distorted - great song never-the-less. I don't think this was performed live when I saw him solo acoustic set, but I could be wrong and I assume it will have been remastered on the CD release (1998). Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself.
The cassette starts off with 'Down On The Island', a beautifully crafted song about island life which I assume was written in America before his return to rainy England.
Gypsy Hill by contrast actually sounds like it was written about a character / place in grey old London town. I could be wrong but these are the emotions it evokes in me. The tone and key is melancholy. Great memories hearing this album again 20 years later and it still sounds as fresh as it did back then and non of the edge has worn off for me. Nor does the album actually sound dated as it isn't of a time - not even Folky which is how a singer-songwriter may get categorized. I guess this is what is meant by 'timeless'. I've often tried to compare him to other artists when I tell people about Ken, and usually I mention James Taylor, and Adrien Legge but that's not quite correct as Ken is just as unique as those 2 artists are.
Hold On To Love is another band demo and suffers from a little distortion - a good soft rock song, but the production needs polish. I'm not sure if this has been reworked for a CD release as I don't have all Ken's CDs.
Side 1 ends with one of my favourite early songs of Ken's - Hard Case. It has both subtle cynical humour and a strong sense of purpose in it's delivery. Starting off gently and gradually becoming increasingly nervously delivered both musically and lyrically: "She even made it with my best friend" being a particularly hard lyric to hear.
Side 2 (this is an audio cassette remember)
This side kicks off with 'She Still Finds Me', a beautiful ballad in Ken's unique finger-picking clean style with his strong distinctive voice and story-telling sense seemingly about trying to escape from someone or something (as a few of Ken's songs are). Not sure if this is a metaphor or if he can't settle down. A sentiment echoed in following the song 'Sneakin'. As mentioned above, the second song on this side is the band demo 'Just Like Never Before'.
The cassettes ends with a strong and simple strumming catchy tune 'Last Night In Paris'. The visuals Ken conjures up with his lyrics are matched by his ability to create a perfect atmosphere and in a live situation the audience can be singing along with by the second chorus and be humming it on the way home. I know I was.
Rating:  [5 of 5 Stars!] |
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