Timeless (4*)

Monday, 19 April 2010

The title of Bobby Charles latest, and presumably last, album says it all, really. Most of the material on Timeless would have fitted equally well on 1972s Bobby Charles or any of the handful of albums he released over the intervening twenty-eight years. Since we're only talking a total of eight releases, with a bit of duplication along the way, Charles was never the most prolific of writers, but when you take a glance at the titles in his back catalogue, it's a definite case of quality over quantity.

Ain't Got No HomeBefore I Grow Too Old(I Don't Want To Love You) But I DoI'm (Just) That WayJealous KindSee You Later AlligatorSmall Town TalkTennessee BluesWalking To New Orleans and Why Are People Like That occupy prominent places in Hughesy's music iconography, though that's due to a familiarity with covers by The Band, Doug Sahm, The Black Sorrows, and a handful of others including Clarence "Frogman" Henry, Fats Domino and Bill Haley & The Comets. If you're familiar with them, or if you've already picked up on Bobby Charles, you know what's on offer here, from the down to earth down home feel, to the casual conversational vocal tone and healthy serves of Mac Rebennack (Dr John) and Sonny Landreth in the background. Rebennack's production hits all the right notes, while his keyboards and Landreth's guitar add the punctuation and keep things flowing at the same time.

You're never going to get great philosophical statements in a title like Happy Birthday Fats Domino or the closing Happy Halloween, which uses the same tune. Tunes, of course, aren't exactly what Charles is about, and as the brass and the vocal chorus runs through the bouncy second-line playout to Fats Domino, that New Orleans feel is the essence of the man and his music. That's not to suggest the man won't philosophise at all. There's a bit of it in Where Did All The Love Go, which is a good question, though predictably Charles doesn't come up with anything too deep and meaningful to sit on top of a comfortable groove apart from noticing it’s gone and wondering which way it went. Nickels, Dimes and Dollars works through the monetary units to enumerate the financial implications of the narrator's heartache, a dollar for every time I holler your name would, in other words, make him a rich man indeed. Like all Charles' work it's straightforward stuff but there's a warmth there that few other artists can generate.

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