Buckets of love from buckets of blood

Doug MacLeod is a preacher, a self-help therapist. He treats depression with CBT. Specifically his chosen behavioural remedy is the Blues. Not wallowing in it, but singing about it and hopefully therefore finding a way through it. Doug was abused as a young man. The Blues was his redemption it seems. He isn’t saying it’s easy, but when he sings he finds a way to lift himself beyond his problems and, between songs, advises his listeners as to how they might do the same, other than by the therapy of listening to him that is. 

A mature white American originally from St Louis, Doug has been living in Baton Rouge for many years. He has had at least a couple of his songs covered by some bigger names in the blues field and been regularly honoured himself, yet he remains fairly obscure beyond his musical fraternity. Accompanying himself on a Resonator acoustic guitar, he sings with conviction. 

One award winning number, the “Entitled Ones”, told the story of those who feel deserving of a better life than the rest of us, a song spawned by his own disillusion with an able-bodied friend who bought himself a blue disabled badge because he was too lazy to find a less convenient parking spot.

A less “correct” message was “Home Cooking” whose essential idea is that a man well-fed at home doesn’t go sniffing around for dinner elsewhere. Doug introduced it by admitting that this attitude doesn’t necessarily make for a good relationship but it sure as hell works as a blues song. He’s right. 

My particular favourite on the night was “Long Black Train”. He introduced it with a carefully worded homily about our relatively brief duration on this earth. When the ticket collector tells you this is your stop, he warned, it’s no good saying, “Well, I’d like to ride on a little longer.” So before you get to the end of the line, make sure your journey was worthwhile. The song itself was big on atmosphere, subtly working its charm on you. Like many songs he performed on the night I am sure his material repays more listening, which I intend to do via his latest CD, “Live in Europe”.

“The Devil’s Road” was one of several that gave a hint of the trouble he’s known. It told the story of a woman seeking redemption whose search for guidance from a priest takes on a dark turn. It was unclear in his musical telling of this story which of the two people the devil was supposed to be influencing, or whether desperation and unpredictability can take any of us into unwanted places. God and the Devil are always pretty close at hand in the blues world, a close cousin of Gospel in any case. 

Doug MacLeod live at Mrs Yarrington's Music Club - with thanks to the latter's Facebook page

It would be something to see him play this song in some of the “Buckets of Blood” that, as he explained, the hard-core, down-home blues joints are known as in the US. Mrs Yarrington’s Music Club, held monthly at the back of the Senlac Inn in Battle, is no bucket of blood, but, appropriately perhaps, the pub room has doubled as a temporary Methodist Meeting House, and the evening we were there was almost as hot and humid as a Mississippi summer night.

Toward the end of the gig, Doug told us that we may have a hole in our bucket that our experiences growing up have given us, but despite this those who care about us do their best to keep our buckets filled with love. Remember this, he said. Amen to that. 

Yellowmen raise the roof in Crowhurst

‘Raising the Roof’ was a late October musical celebration in a Sussex village in aid of the Yellowmen of Kadongdong. Loosely a folk night, it was a joyous and mostly very entertaining evening. 

The standard of performance was initially quite varied, but the second half was almost faultless, and this in a village hall in the south of England. A world away from the UKIP froth at nearby coastal towns, the cause was to aid local men bringing relief to a part of Kenya where death from diarrhoea is not uncommon. The performers were a mix of folk-based musicians, solo singers, performance poets, an Andrew Sisters-style act, and a relatively youthful rock cabaret act with attitude. Two threads ran through the evening: retired teacher Chris Fisher and members of the family Moses: Brian and his daughter Karen.

Chris, MC and the evening’s co-organiser with Brian, is possessed of an impressive traditional singing voice; Carthy-esque but not derivative. Brian opened proceedings with a spoken tale of winter gloom before Chris joined in, walking from the back of the hall while singing an acapella version of the traditional ‘January Man’.

The next act, Robson, a self-styled exile from Northumbria, sported a white jacket and shades and looked like a cross between Roy Orbison and Los Lobos, but was sadly possessed of the vocal charms of neither. He also fell guilty to the mistake of many an intimate, unplugged type event, whether in village or city centre: too much between song schpiel. When he lifted his singing focus beyond the childlike to a reworking of ‘Raggle Taggle Gypsy’, things improved no end.

Next up was a bit of a surprise. ‘JC and the All-Stars’ were fronted by a young man with real rock star swagger, a Liam Gallagher stance, and Ryan Gosling looks. Unfortunately it soon became rock star stagger as his back pocket quart of Scotch dominated more than his stage act, and a voice relatively well attuned to doing an Oasis cover struggled with (the perhaps inevitable) ‘Whisky in The Jar’. The band, led by Mark Cole, played well enough, with some nice lead guitar touches by ‘JC’ (Joshua Cole). Follow that.

Well, Roger Stevens, doing a comedy set, certainly did. I don’t know if he writes his own jokes, but every one was a winner, and I’d had less than a pint of a very local brew at this point. Most are unrepeatable here, but suffice it to say that gags about onanism are still funny.

Dave Roberts was billed as an ‘Old Hippy Sings Old Hippy Songs’. He did what it said on the tin, and he did it very well. ‘All Along the Watchtower’ was not just a straight cover, and its climax, segueing into the last line of ‘Stairway to Heaven’, was a hilarious exercise in self-deprecation. He was followed by a tasteful and highly accomplished instrumental acoustic guitar set performed by Fionn Johnson, not bad for a 13 year old.

Among the stand-out performances of the second half were Steve Royston, whose ‘Play for England’  juxtaposed British men serving in Afghanistan with millionaire footballers whose patriotic duty and failings usually preoccupies the nation more. Chris Fisher’s take on a Ralph McTell song was performed with a large remembrance candle and poppy as a prop. His performance likewise successfully trod a careful line between necessary scepticism and undue cynicism.  

The Victory Sisters were performing their wartime favourites routine for the first time ever. They have fine voices and definitely looked the part. Their set finished with ‘White Cliffs of Dover’; some of its more idealistic lyrics somehow sounding more ironic than ever amidst the political notes others were striking.

Brian Moses has the style and air of one of the Liverpool Poets. His almost aggressive telling of the kind of name he wished his street was called– Paradise Lane not Meadow Road - was powerful and funny. Roger Stevens then returned with Victory Sister Karen Moses to help him out on vocals. The Crowhurst News gave me the impression that he might be singing with the pulp fiction writer and husband of a Blair babe, Ken Follett, and the black Tory activist and ‘Play Away’ presenter, Floella Benjamin. Now they would make for an interesting duo.

The Collins boys, father and son, did one of the greatest versions of ‘Mr Tambourine Man’ I have ever heard – a very smart accompaniment to the passing round of Al Collins’ Bob Dylan hat to raise extra funds for the Yellowmen. Son Rory was less inspiring on his own as he, by his own admission, went for the lowest common denominator and regaled us, albeit in fine voice, with some sing-along Beatles’ and Kinks’ tunes.

Many of the performers were then brought out for one last time as Chris Fisher led them in finale that featured a funny take on the ol’ Macca standard, ‘Mull of Kintyre’; and, more stirringly, the Shire Horses’ ‘Sit You Down’. A very moving end to an excellent evening.