From Our Midsts

There was a point when Sara was doing a session with Jesca Hoop on Marc Riley’s show. Jesca may have been giving some kind of passing mention of the session musicians that were playing behind her or not but Marc interrupted to say “…and of course you’ve got the amazing Sara Lowes on keyboards and backing vocals. Sara’s been in here more times than I can even count, she’s been in here with the Earlies, King Creosote, Micah P.Hinson, I could go on and on, she’s played with everyone…”

Jesca rather unpleasantly interjected to say “Well there’s a special word for girls like that…”

Without missing a beat Marc fired back “Do you mean…Star?” You’ve got to love him for that.

We all thought Sara was a star or that she would be one, it’s why we asked her to be in the Earlies. We knew we’d need someone who could really harmonise and we knew there’d be a ton of keyboard parts that I didn’t have enough hands to play. We knew she’d be an asset to the Earlies project on the whole but it was always obvious it’d scarcely be artistic fulfillment, that she’d need to do something of her own sooner or later. Around the time the Earlies were receiving the first lukewarm overtures of the record industry Sara had even recorded a first album, it was good- well recorded and full of quality songs, but it was a little bit straight. The same kind of geniuses who thought King Creosote could be the new David Gray thought Sara could probably be a little bit like Katie Melua, proper radio 2 tackle for the people who bought their CDs at Tesco. The vultures circled, big numbers got mentioned but nothing quite happened. Maybe it’s a shame and maybe there’s an amazing sliding door career that could’ve happened, full of amazing music coupled with true fame and fortune but Sara ended up being a lot weirder and far more interesting than any of that. In this timeline, we all sit to this day in awe of the string of progressively more rich and elaborate, self funded, self produced releases that she made over the next decade.

We’ll get into them all, we’ll get into everything eventually because we’re here a long time, but I should go back to the first time the Earlies and Sara officially worked together. As time went on the Earlies/Sara Lowes collaborations would really just be Sara writing, arranging and producing stuff that had the Earlies players on but right back at the beginning an opportunity turned up that JM and Giles suggested. Our label 679 put us on to a recent Warners signing called the Webb Brothers, a pair of chaps with a remarkable pedigree as their Dad was Jimmy Webb. I think we gave them short shrift at the time but listening back they don’t sound too bad really.

Warner's were looking for remixes of Webb Brothers tracks and they presented us with track 4 from this album, I've Been Waiting. Either JM or Giles, or JM and Giles between the two of them, came up with the idea that rather than do a remix we should just do an out and out cover of the song and send it back to them, and that it should be sung by Sara. I distinctly remember Giles not having any time for the tune but when I first played it to Sara and asked if she fancied doing a cover of it she straightaway thought it was a gorgeous song. And so we all popped into Airtight to see what we could come up with.

Sara Lowes and the Earlies covering I've Been Waiting sounds remarkably good when I listen back to it. I don't think we had any game plan beforehand, I just clattered through the piano part thinking I was laying down a guide track that wouldn't get used in the end. I played a bit too heavy handed and even remember putting in a few things that I thought would get a chuckle out of everyone in the control room before getting deleted or played over. But no the whole damn thing is there, untouched. Semay added her usual magic, Alex played double bass which he always seems a little reticent to do but is remarkably good at. Sara laid down vocal after vocal and made one of her first ever stacked choirs, mesmerising everybody in the process. JM put a few effects on afterwards, spun some reverbs around and what have you, but it was basically what we did in a few hours that afternoon that we handed in to Warner's. Have a listen won't you…

It sounds pretty great, and everyone knew it but at the time nobody actually wanted it. The Webb Brothers and their label thought it sounded wonderful but they really had wanted a remix, a cover of some girl they didn't know singing their song wasn't particularly useful and didn't really do much to make them look good. The recording was no use to the Earlies or Sara either, none of us felt we had any need to release a Webb Brothers cover on an album or a b-side or anywhere. Nowadays it'd be “content” of some sort I suppose, it'd sneak out on social media and “create buzz.” Back then in 2003 it was simply good but useless.

This lovely recording sat there unwanted and homeless for the best part of two years and nobody could figure out what to do with it. Hapless manager Stu finally found an outlet for it, a small label called Earworm who did one off 7” singles in runs of around 200. We'd need something for the other side of it but it seemed that Sara had a spare song she was willing to throw in that she didn't feel fitted in with the solo stuff she was trying to make it the time. On this one Sara played the piano, Semay did some wonderful cello on it and I covered it in mellotrons, melodicas and synths. It was a sweet lullaby and the only people we knew who had a baby at the time were Giles and Hazel so Sara suggested that it could be a lullaby for the brand new Thomas Danger Hatton, he's now a grown man but he will forever have his own lullaby, on vinyl no less. I think we're all a little jealous of Thomas Danger.

That 7” single was eventually ready to make it out in public and Stu haplessly had one more card up his sleeve, he picked a piece of bizarre artwork to stick on the cover. It featured a bloke “doing something” in the corner of one cardboard box next to an empty chair in another cardboard box. He didn’t know much about art but he knew what he liked.

By 2006 Sara was well underway recording her first mini album at Airtight and a few singles to go along with it. I wasn’t particularly helpful at first, wondering why it needed an extra keyboard player on it and thinking there’d be no place for me, ego turning me into a heel dragging party pooper. I only realised years later when I was attempting to record my own solo stuff how hard it is to get your mates motivated and working on something you’ve made, how awkward it feels at every turn. All she wanted was to make something- to get everyone involved and make it fun. It was too, it was all fun and it was constantly interesting and challenging. It kept us all together, doing little gigs and radio sessions long after the Earlies ceased to be functional or relevant. On her first EP release was a cover of a traditional song Half Cousin had done in his live set, Single Girl. This is one of the first recordings we all made together under Sara’s leadership and she really threw the kitchen sink at it as an arranger. There’s a slight egotistical reason I love listening to this one too, as I did a truly bizarre first take organ solo at the end of it that I to this day find quite baffling but ultimately a joy to listen to.

There were a string of albums, they got better and weirder as they went and you should check them out. Indeed, if you keep coming back here every week, we’ll do it together. We have the time. Maybe one day there’ll be more of them, she might not be done yet, you never know.

In Case You Missed Out…

If that original 7” single with the bloke stood fidgeting in the corner of a cardboard box never made it into your collection and you just can’t handle that, fear not! Those two songs are nestled in with a dazzling array of Earlies rarities on our Yesterday Was Today compilation which is now available on Bandcamp. If you order it today I’ll take it up to Clitheroe post office on Monday, buy an envelope and put your name on it. Probably after I’ve had my dinner. I think we’ll make it digitally available soon too as it’s slowly dawning on us that nobody has a cassette player.

Back To New Orleans

I’ve been back in a New Orleans frame of mind for the last few weeks, if you’re a regular reader you’ll notice it happening two or three times a year. This time was prompted by me running into a vinyl copy of Dr. John Plays Mac Rebennack in a Newcastle record shop. Dr John is of course Mac Rebennack, it’s his alter ego. Like Batman and Bruce Wayne you ask? A little bit like that I suppose, except both guys are just musicians. I’ve loved his piano playing since buying his New Orleans Piano instructional VHS tapes back in 1998 or so. I never learnt to play like this but it nonetheless infected my playing in all sorts of interesting ways.

The album is a lot like that video except with all the bizarre, teeth pulling interview segments removed. As wonderful as that video is Dr. John really didn’t seem like he was having a great day. The album is flawless though, an hour with a hundred years of culture and hard earned knowledge baked into it.

Songbook

This recently released Deluxe Edition of Allen Toussaint’s Songbook is well worth your attention. If you don’t know Toussaint (I know you do though) he’s the producer, writer, arranger and player at the heart of a lot of the greatest music to come out of New Orleans in the last third of the twentieth century and a good chunk of this one. When he was a young man he earned a crust by covering Fats Domino’s studio dates, Fats was too busy touring to be able to actually play piano on all the records that said they had him playing on them, Allen was perfect at mimicking his playing so nobody got hurt and everybody got lied to. I first became aware of him thanks to his stunning brass arrangements on the Band’s Rock of Ages live album. I followed the threads backwards to the many songs he wrote and produced, staggered time and again by his prolific genius. This set of live recordings, largely from a New York pub gig, provide an excellent overview of an amazing career span. His singing isn’t mind blowing but his piano playing and songwriting absolutely are.

James Booker

I think we’ll come back to James Booker because he’s spectacular and I can’t quite cover it all today. I ran into this live cover of Lonely Avenue the other day and loved it. When you get to heaven ask Dr. John or Allen Toussaint where you can watch the best New Orleans piano player and I promise they’ll take you to a James Booker gig.