Ready or Not

Description

Ready or Not is an album by the British singer, songwriter, and blues guitarist Bryn Haworth, independently released on his own label Bella Music in September 2021. The album was recorded and mixed by Neil Costello with Bryn Haworth producing, assisted by Costello. All songs written by Bryn Haworth except the Wilbert Harrison classic “Let’s Work Together”. Also featuring a re-recording of “All I Need Is A Home”, a song originally recorded by Bryn Haworth on his solo debut album, Let the Days Go By, released in 1974.

Featuring Bryn Haworth on lead vocals, guitars, and mandolin, backed by a session band consisting of Chris Stainton and Mark Edwards on keyboards, co-producer Neil Costello on guitar, Dave Bronze and Matt Weeks on bass, as well as Paul Beavis, Terl Bryant, and Henry Spinetti on drums, with Karlos Edwards providing percussion. Backing vocals by Mal Pope and Haworth.

To consider the remarkable 50-year career of guitarist, songwriter and lauded session musician, Bryn Haworth, is to walk through rock music’s Hall of Fame. For starters, Bryn’s early days were spent as a key member of the late 1960’s London-based Atlantic Records house band, The Fleur de Lys, working with such soul greats as Isaac Hayes, and Dave Porter who wrote many of the Sam & Dave hits for Stax.

And then there was the famous night in 1968 at the music industry premier hangout, The Speakeasy, when Jimi Hendrix, an enthusiastic admirer of Bryn’s guitar playing joined Bryn and The Fleurs’ for an ad hoc performance as they played «Purple Haze» and «Red House» together.

Bryn eventually decamped to the U.S.A. to join a new band, Wolfgang, managed by legendary promoter, Bill Graham, appearing on bills with Led Zeppelin, Jefferson Airplane and The Grateful Dead.

Come 1973 Bryn was back in the UK, signed to Island Records, recording the first of his two albums for them, ’Let The Days Go By’. A move to A&M followed later, with another brace of albums, including the Nashville recorded, ‘Grand Arrival’.

During this period, touring with the likes of Fairport Convention and Traffic, and appearing on John Peel’s Radio 1 Sessions and BBC 2’s showcase, The Old Grey Whistle Test, Bryn began to establish his reputation as a go-to session player with his revered slide guitar deemed an essential for many artists. As Richard Williams, the person who signed Bryn to Island Records stated, he is ‘a musician’s musician’.

The late Gerry Rafferty, who died in 2011, recognised that. His and Bryn’s relationship spanned several of Gerry’s albums, even up to the present day, with Gerry’s daughter, Martha calling on Bryn’s musical friendship with her father, and his expertise in piecing together some previously unheard material, with Bryn contributing to five tracks on the critically acclaimed September 2021 release, ‘Rest In Blue’…

…And so to Bryn’s new album Ready Or Not, which distils and amplifies just some of the remarkable pedigree, and pilgrimage, outlined before. The eleven tracks illuminate the concerns and reflections on ‘the midnight cry’, as in the masterful, ‘Great Story’, opening title track. Over the past months, Bryn has been listening in the uneasy silence to the babel tumult, to produce an album of wise warnings and enfolding solace. Blues, country, gospel and rock and roll respectively take their turns on the floor with the latter of those musical styles to the fore in «Boom Baby Boom», the witty lyrics enhanced by an impeccable arrangement.

«We Never Thought This Could Happen», is a most moving country contemplation on the events we’ve collectively experienced of late. Then, track four brings a subtle and effortless gear change with the smooth and sassy, «Walk Away», a driving home in the early hours instrumental.

The longing for belonging permeates «All I Need Is A Home» with Bryn’s wistful vocal emphasizing the lyric’s universal pining for settlement and security. Environmental concerns drive «Enough Is Enough», a stewardship song arising out of the My Tree Matters campaign, which protested against the proposed felling of historic woodland … ’listen to the birds crying ‘mercy please’…

…This artfully segues into the timely «Let’s Work Together». Originally penned by Wilbert Harrison it became a 1970 major chart hit for Canned Heat. Bryn goes to the blues-to-the-very-boots of the song to fashion a chugging, corking 12-bar.

In recent years Bryn has released three albums for prison inmates arising out of his ongoing faith-commitment to those in prison. The country ballad, «I Had A Dream», is inspired by Jesus’s words in the New Testament, Matthew: Ch. 7, ‘build on the Rock and not on sand’. With all due respect, Johnny Cash, a fellow prison visitor, could not have empathised better.

The final three tracks, continue in a similar stirring spirit with «Call On Me», a Latin rhythm co-write with Eric Clapton keyboard player, Chris Stainton. This leads into the transcendent toe-tapper that is «Holy Spirit Of God», suitably preparing us for the final, sublime instrumental, «Doxology», a beatific guitar riff on a C16 melody which can be traced back to the Genevan Psalter hymnal.

For a far-sighted summing up of this outstanding and commanding album, I’ll leave that to the person who knows Bryn best, soul-mate Sally Haworth. When her husband signed that two album deal with Island Records back in the 1970’s, Bryn said he was happy to record just one album. As Sally discerningly and paradoxically observed, “Ready Or Not…is that album!”… And so it has gloriously and authoritatively come to pass. [Stewart Henderson, Poet, lyrist and broadcaster, 2021]

This is Haworth touching all bases: in order, he covers slide blues, rock and roll, country, instrumental, two ballads, twelve bar blues, then back to country… you get the idea. In doing so, different tracks will appeal to different people. The danger is that by the same logic, other tracks might alienate some. For me the instrumental tracks are the best, making the most of the atmospheric and classic sound of his playing, but the country ones left me cold, watering down the album’s appeal.

As soon as Haworth begins this album, you can tell who it is. No one has the same guitar sound as him, and at times it can save a song.

The emergency surgery appears in «Boom», a track that celebrates vivacity in old-timers. The piece starts off like any twelve-a-penny rock and roll – albeit one with some tremendous energy – but then Haworth sets off on a slide solo. It’s a rare feature in the genre and while he’s playing it, the song is transformed.

The title track is another with real vitality, reprising the themes of Haworth’s «Grand Arrival» and «Judgement Blues», comparing the inevitability of Jesus’ return with the sun rising. It urges listeners to be ready for Jesus coming back – and has a particularly appropriate ending.

«Enough is Enough» is a slightly tweaked version of a single he released a few years ago in protest at some local trees being cut down. Several layers of guitar and mandolin also make a cushion for his slide work.

«I had a Dream» is a country shuffle with plenty of mandolin, one that came to him in a dream (as happened with a couple of tracks here). A song of hope, it urges the listener to build their life “on the Rock and not on sand.” It’s another where an otherwise middle-of-the-road song is taken up a notch by his unique playing style.

«Holy Spirit of God» is the sort of simply-played acoustic worship song that could have come from his Wings of the Morning collection.

«Call on Me» is a lovely song of God calling out to people to find him. When it starts with a prominent, chilled bass line, you might think it will be a re-recording of the instrumental «Anywhere You Want To Be» from his now-deleted 1973 début album Let the Days Go By. There’s almost something mildly Cuban about the shuffling rhythms here, but when the chords descend quickly in this minor key track, it puts a smile right on my face.

Talking of Let the Days Go By – the mellow «All I Need is a Home» is a short re-recording of one of its most enduring tracks, but with less mandolin and with strings effects added. It’s not the only re-work on this selection. Haworth is no stranger to re-imagining songs – the title track of his five-star, must-hear, career-best album Sunny Side of the Street is one example. Here he tackles «Let’s Work Together», the Wilbert Harrison track made famous by Canned Heat. It suits him well: a twelve bar piece that is ready for his slide embellishment, and with a positive message about community.

«We Never Thought This Could Happen» is about facing something terrible; about life being disrupted in unimaginable ways. So lines could apply, for example, to Covid (“Empty beds and photographs/ Memories are all we have”) or Brexit (“Though we got what we wanted/ we lost what we had… How could we believe a lie?”). Even writing this while Ukraine is being invaded in a cloud of disinformation, the words “This land of ours was free/ But now be careful what you say” fit the bill. But while the lyrics have depth, musically it feels like a bonus track.

The highlights for me are two instrumental pieces. The first is a simple solo acoustic account of the Old Hundredth hymn tune often used for «All People That on Earth Do Dwell». It’s gorgeous and so distinct in its style. The second, «Walk Away» again takes me back to his Island label début: chilled guitar, but this time with electric piano and some picked guitar soloing over the top. I could listen to these all day long and would still love him to expand on his instrumental versions of carols for a laid-back and surely wide-appealing instrumental Christmas album.

If you are familiar with Haworth, you’ll know he uses top rate musicians because he is one, and has been in demand for his own session talents. So again he is working with people who hold to his standards. Three of the players here – Chris Stainton, Henry Spinetti and Dave Bronze – were on the Royal Albert Hall stage at the George Harrison tribute Concert for George, alongside Clapton, McCartney, Jeff Lynne, Billy Preston et al.

So while two or three tracks feel a bit like fillers, there is some very fine stuff here, and Haworth’s unique sound brings them all together. [Derek Walker, The Phantom Tollbooth, March 21, 2022]

> Apple Music (https://music.apple.com/us/album/ready-or-not/1586205297)

CD tracklist:

01. Ready Or Not – 3:12
02. Boom Baby Boom – 3:25
03. We Never Thought This Could Happen – 3:41
04. Walk Away – 4:17
05. All I Need Is A Home – 3:32
06. Enough Is Enough – 3:43
07. Let’s Work Together – 3:35
08. I Had A Dream – 4:08
09. Call On Me – 4:06
10. Holy Spirit Of God – 3:32
11. Doxology – 4:08

Note: Available at Bandcamp: https://brynhaworth.bandcamp.com/album/ready-or-not

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Cindy‘s Sofa with Bryn Haworth.