BILLY'S BLUES LYRICS
 
 
 
 
 

TRADITIONAL MUSIC MAKER January 2001 Billy Jenkins with the Blues Collective sadtimes.co.uk (VOTP VOCD002) £12 Here's a turn up for the book, Billy Jenkins, formerly of Burlesque as well as Trimmer and Jenkins, where he carved an idiosyncratic music mostly made of yelps, growls, rambles, minor chords, a gritty bluesish base and ninety per cent lunacy. Good to see little has changed then - except I suppose you could say this is deeply into blues. There's some extraordinary lead guitar from Jenkins, the kind of diamond geezer who's played a million pub gigs since his days with Arista Records learning the art of self reliance at every one. Some appropriately drunken loose limbed fiddle from Dylan Bates, whose morose style adds atmospheric slides and runs to Jenkins' fractured tales. Always an extrovert , Jenkins ensures his efforts all have a well worn, lived in feel, his love of vintage blues and jazz shining through the barrel house approach. "Give me some of that stuff," he murmurs on The Duke & Me, whilst Like John Lee Said, is a rhino charge of rock and Lee Hooker dialogue with Jenkins gruffing a rap that sounds as if he's been gargling gravel. Assuredly individual, which how can you resist an album which states on its sleeve, "Billy Jenkins sang like he felt." Indeed. Simon Jones © 2000 Simon Jones/TMM

BIRMINGHAM Post November 2000 Billy Jenkins with the Blues Collective BLUES CD OF THE WEEK sadtimes.co.uk (VOTP VOCD002) £12 Thad Kelly crops up again here, this time in the nuevo-blues band of Bromley's most eccentric product, along with regular cohorts like Django Bates' brother Dylan, and crazy organist Dave Ramm on two tracks. Jenkins is one of those strange people, like Elvis Costello, who produces spectacularly original and accomplished records that are raved over by critics but, I suspect, rarely listened too in their entirety. There's certainly too much to take here at one go. Jenkins' singing has settled down and is best suited to the blues, especially on the wry Cliff Richard Spoke To Me ("Hi" is what he said, in case you're interested). And his manic guitar playing is better than ever. Rating *** Peter Bacon © 2000 Birmingham Post

BLUEPRINT The magazine of the British Blues Connection November 2000 Billy Jenkins with the Blues Collective sadtimes.co.uk (VOTP VOCD002) £12 This, one would have to acknowledge, is not a blues album that any Blueprint fundamentalist would recognise as such. Good God, the man doesn't even sing in an American accent. And yet, although Jenkins is more often written about in avant-garde and jazz magazines, the London guitarist-singer unmistakably uses some of the musical vocabulary and structure of the blues and he surely captures the spirit of the music more profoundly than any rock musician plodding through "Sweet Home Chicago". Too often Jenkins is described as "quirky" or "madcap" or somesuch but such descriptions tend to obscure the fact that ultimately he is utterly serious. Although undoubtedly a mischief-maker par excellence, his artistic vision is actually a shockingly dark one. "Badlands", for example, is a bleak, appalled depiction of modern Britain, with Jenkins' violent, fractured guitar expressing his anger and despair as articulately as the lyrics do. On "I'm Happy", Jenkins sounds like a man at the end of his tether, while the humour of the title track ("Trouble like you've never seen/Building up inside of me like a tine of old baked beans", for example) surely fulfills the same function as whistling does for someone alone and terrified in the dark. Richard Bolton (rhythm guitar), Thad Kelly (electric and double bass), and Mike Pickering (drums) accompany imaginatively and intelligently throughout and Dylan Bates' mournful electric violin playing is perfectly matched to the material. Jenkins probably owes more to Dada than to B.B. but adventurous listeners will relish his highly personalised, passionately felt reconstruction of blues for twenty-first century Britain. Rating: 8   Trevor Hodgett © 2000 Blueprint

CITY LIFE (Everything that's Manchester) November 2000 Billy Jenkins with the Blues Collective sadtimes.co.uk (VOTP VOCD002) £12 Returning to his pet theme of suburban alienation, Billy Jenkins has appropriated the most natural form to express disaffection: da blooze. Naturally, his interpretation is highly singular. Licks are splintered and dissonant, and far too inventive to cram into the 12-bar strait jacket. Jenkins comes over as a modern version of those old-time cracked blues transients: the kind who may have a track on Anthology of Folk Music by way of memorial. Except that his sensibilities are strictly 21st century, and his target is the sterile, tasteless tedium of modern life (as embodied by the subject of 'Cliff Richard Spoke To Me'). 'Badlands' rages against social decay and urban squalor, and 'sadtimes.co.uk (the title track, dummy) chronicles the artist's growing physical aches. The line about "doo dah ron ron on your shoe" is the real giveaway. The mingled pain and consolation of middle age form Jenkins' true subject matter. He shows a grown-up appreciation of small pleasures, like playing Duke Ellington records with a bottle of Sainsbury's recommended wine ("The Duke And Me"), or serenading his wife (the uxorious 'I Love Your Smell' also contains the most way-out guitar solo on the disc). And lines like "I'm so happy I ain't got MTV" suggest a man who knows the savour of small victories. A good way to go. ****  Mike Butler © 2000 Diverse Media Limited

YORKSHIRE EVENING PRESS November 2000 Billy Jenkins with the Blues Collective sadtimes.co.uk ****   £12 There is only one Billy Jenkins, which is just as well - the world might not be up to two. The long-time individualist has always done his own thing, and his take on the blues, while musically robust, is a long way from B.B.King. First up is Badlands, a wonderful, striding urban hymn, with blistering yet contained guitar playing from Jenkins. That is followed by Cliff Richard Spoke To Me, with its playful pay-off line, "...and he said 'Hi!'". The tracks flow by - Resting On My Bed Of Blues, I'm Happy and the quirky I Love Your Smell - only to run up against Like John Lee Said, a cacophonous burst of noise. Jenkins shows off his guitar prowess throughout, proving that he really is a top player, if sometimes eccentric. The sleeve photographs have been taken by Simon Thackray of The Shed at Brawby, where Jenkins is a regular visitor. This CD is not available in the shops but can be bought directly for £12.99 inclusive from The Shed credit card hotline on 01653 668494. Julian Cole © Yorkshire Evening Press see also EVENING STANDARD LIVE REVIEW see also GUARDIAN UNLIMITED LIVE REVIEW (Blue Elephant)

THE MERCURY (SE London) November 2000 MUSIC THAT JUST WON'T GO UNDER sadtimes.co.uk (VOTP VOCD002) £12 Don't know what I like best about Billy Jenkins's blues - the implicit refusal to go under, the sweet melancholia, the droll despair. It's all there in perfect proportions on his latest, impeccably-titled CD, sadtimes.co.uk. "Badlands" ("just down the road from you") kicks it off, not from the wild and moody west but from the nearest shopping mall, where a "facial is a broken nose". Jenkins plays the guitar like Kafka would have done in one of his nightmares but, unlike the latter, Billy's salvation is in his humour, which surfaces wickedly on "Cliff Richard Spoke To Me". "Cliff Richard spoke to me, CLIFF spoke to me, that Harry Webb, he spoke to me, Cliff spoke to me and he said.......hi!". Delicious. Jenkins is full of "fear and doubt" on "Bed of Blues", and when he says he's "Happy" you don't entirely believe him. The title track, which includes great blues violin from Dylan Bates, includes the line: "A-OK is living hell to me", while "The Duke and Me" is brave enough to wonder: "Will we still be together when the kids are gone or will we die alone"? The important thing, as Billy knows, is that the music won't die. © 2000 South London Press & Mercury Group see also EVENING STANDARD LIVE REVIEW see also GUARDIAN UNLIMITED LIVE REVIEW (Blue Elephant)

HUDDERSFIELD DAILY EXAMINER October 2000 ONE MORE FOR THE COLLECTION sadtimes.co.uk (VOTP VOCD002) £12 Is Marsden ready for singer and guitarist extraordinaire Billy Jenkins again? I guess so after last year's appearance with his Big Fight music contest. This time he is premiering this brand new album at the Jazz Festival tomorrow (2pm) at the Mechanics Hall. It should prove to be another success for the maverick musician, who with wit and wonder has come up with another winner. Very bluesy this time, very guitary from the opening Badlands onwards and also great fun. Who could come up with, for instance, a song entitled Cliff Richard Spoke To Me as a wild blues belter - only he could. The Duke and Me on the other hand pays homage to two of his heroes Duke Ellington and Harry Carney. As for the band they are a perfect pitch in harmony all the way. Another gem then from our hero to file alongside your JJ Cale, Keb Mo and Tom Waites favourites for easy reference. Laurie Stead see also EVENING STANDARD LIVE REVIEW see also GUARDIAN UNLIMITED LIVE REVIEW (Blue Elephant)

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BILLY'S BLUES LYRICS