Michael Chapman - 50 (2017)

×

Michael Chapman - 50 (2017)

Close

In the press release that accompanies Michael Chapman's 2017 album 50, the iconic British guitarist refers to it as his "American album." While the material does sound less idiosyncratically British than much of Chapman's body of work, 50 could be more accurately described as his indie rock album. He's best known as a master of the acoustic guitar, but on these sessions, the dominant instrument is the electric guitar of Steve Gunn, who also produced the sessions. Gunn assembled a band of like-minded musicians whose passions encompass indie rock, experimental rock, and the more abstract corner of Americana, and while Chapman's impassioned vocals ride over the top and his acoustic guitar is audible in the mix, the band doesn't bow to Chapman so much as encourage him to keep up with them. It's significant that six of the ten songs on 50 are numbers Chapman has recorded before, and while the new interpretations are bold and often muscular, these new takes recast the music in a more aggressive and less folkie manner than one might expect from him. If the spotlight seems less tightly focused on Chapman on this album, he certainly sounds engaged with the music, and his vocals on numbers like "The Mallard," "Memphis in Winter," and "Money Trouble" are strong and defiant, bringing his stories of lives along the margins to vivid life. And even though Gunn and his cohorts threaten to steal the show with their folkie but clamorous brand of indie rock, the heartfelt racket summoned by Nathan Bowles, James Elkington, and Jimy Seitang fits Chapman's music better than one might expect. (Besides, venerable U.K. folk singer and songwriter Bridget St. John is on hand to keep Chapman company and contribute vocals.) Chapman is an artist who has never had a problem with upending creative expectations, and if 50 isn't the sort of music many of his longtime fans would expect from him, it's also passionate, literate, and the work of an artist who wants to make the most of his late-era career. Not many artists sound this determined and engaged, especially at the age of 75.

Review by Mark Deming, Allmusic.com

50 serves a number of roles in Michael Chapman’s gargantuan catalog, which encompasses nearly that many albums. As the title suggests, it is a commemorative album, in this case marking half a century as a performing artist. In 1966, the young guitar player finagled his way into a show at a Cornwall jazz club, an unknown talent who turned his audition into a residency. Three years later he recorded his debut, Rainmaker (recently reissued on Light in the Attic), and played the same stages as some of the most inventive and influential folk guitarists of the era—although Chapman bristles at the categorization. He may never have achieved the notoriety of Bert Jansch or John Martyn, and his exploits in the rock world (connecting Mick Ronson and David Bowie, nearly joining Elton John’s band) may overshadow his music, but Chapman’s accomplishments aren’t that of a professional hanger-on. His playing was progressive even for the most progressive era of British folk music, showcasing a complex grammar of picking and strumming based on a vocabulary that commingles blues, jazz, country, raga, and rock.

Chapman has described 50 as his “American” album, and it seems remarkable that he has not recorded on this side of the Atlantic before. Throughout his career, he has been enamored with and inspired by American music and mythology, writing songs like landscape paintings of the West. He’s recorded not one but two albums called Americana, but this is the first time he has actually conceived and recorded a full album in the States, which makes 50 sound like the culmination of a lifetime’s fascination with the former colony. The Yanks he recorded with suggest an attempt to secure his legacy, to trace it from one generation to the next: Steve Gunn produces, plays guitar, and leads a band that includes most of the Paradise of Bachelors roster: James Elkington and Nathan Bowles, along with Jimy SeiTang and Jason Meagher.

There’s some intricate give-and-take between Chapman and the band, as the musicians he has influenced take the opportunity to influence him. Because this is Gunn producing, the songs are focused and succinct, with no little jamming or rambling. More than anyone else in this new generation of folk-derived guitarists, Gunn is less concerned with solo artistry and more fascinated by the chemistry between a band of distinctive musicians, and he brings that dynamic to 50, which isn’t too far removed from his last two albums. The riffs sound coiled and compact, as though propelled by some outside source, and the solos rarely announces themselves as such. Somehow the album sounds American, especially on the high-lonesome “That Time of Night” and the haunted “Falling from Grace,” and that suits Chapman’s brusque cadence and seen-it-all voice perfectly.

Even as it draws on new and old songs, 50 presents a startlingly current and nearly apocalyptic vision of America; it’s album full of brimstone and brine, perhaps more perfect for this moment in history than we’d like to admit. “Memphis in Winter,” which he originally recorded for 1999’s The Twisted Road and revisits here, depicts a hellish urban landscape “where the river comes a-rolling/where the levee tends to break/where to walk the streets at night well it’s not a risk that you would take.” Convoluted syntax aside, it’s a dread-filled update on the crossroads mythology, and Chapman’s guitar shudders with either fear or frost. Even direr is “Sometimes You Just Drive,” which sounds like a roadtrip through Dylan’s “A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall.” Chapman’s guitar slices and stabs, unsettling the listener as he ponders a harsh world and wonders if he’s lucky to still be alive: “Sometimes you live, and sometimes you just drive.” Chapman is still doing plenty of both.

Review by Stephen Deusner, Pitchfork.com

×

Michael Chapman - 50 (2017)

Close

×

Michael Chapman - 50 (2017)

Close

×

Michael Chapman - 50 (2017)

Close