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@ the Beresford Arms, Ashbourne 22.9.01 (review © Jon Horne 2001) from Touch Nottingham (internet magazine and What's On guide) 
This was Kevin Montgomery's second show at the Beresford Arms in the space of a few months. The first, a three-hour marathon performance with the Texan singer Trish Murphy, is spoken of in hushed tones amongst the small but fanatical group of roots-music enthusiasts who follow Kev (as they insist on calling him) around these islands every time he tours (I know this because several of their number spoke to me in hushed tones, thinking I was one of them). As a result, the tiny venue was packed to bursting point with people from all over the country, every one of them a devoted fan. The sense of anticipation as 8.30pm drew close was as-near-as-dammit palpable. First though, Dean Owens (on day-release from his group, the Felsons) played a ten-song set that mixed approximately-Texan music with rainy Scottish melancholy. In Owens' world, "clouds are filled with pain" and Carol-Ann just isn't coming back. To counter this, he covered some slightly cheerier Steve Earle and Jimmie Dale Gilmore material, and then parodied his musical tourism with the faux-cowboy ballad I'll Never Go to New Mexico, complete with whistling. For an encore, Owens was joined by Kevin Montgomery's partner on this tour, the dobro player Al Perkins. Over the course of thirty-odd years, Perkins has played slide guitar and pedal steel for the Byrds, Gram Parsons, the Rolling Stones, and anyone else who has needed the authentic sound of white-American soul in their music. Another chunk of Owens' misery, the spectacularly self-pitying Thirty Years of Nothing (to the tune of Bob Dylan's You Ain't Goin' Nowhere), immediately became a great song, just because of the little dobro frills playing away in the background. The transformation was remarkable. Al Perkins really is that good. It has to be said, Dean Owens is pretty good too. He sings very much like Roddy Frame - although he lacks the scope of Frame's songwriting, and the desire to try out different styles which Aztec Camera always had. He stands square in the tradition of America-fixated melodic Scottish artists, alongside Hue and Cry, Texas, Travis, and however many others. What he doesn't have is any of these groups' commercial ambition - or if he does, he's in for a nasty surprise, because he has 'cult favourite' written all over him. He looked very comfortable on a small stage in a packed cellar bar. Kevin Montgomery was born to be a singer. His mother Carol was the lead female voice on Elvis's Suspicious Minds, amongst other things. Before that, his father Bob was Buddy Holly's first collaborator (they were known as 'The Buddy and Bob Show', you'll be pleased to hear), who co-wrote Holly's lovely country teen-ballad Wishing, which Montgomery Jnr continues to sing. If that wasn't enough, he looks like Antonio Banderas, with eyes that make middle-aged women swoon, and he introduces his songs in an accent that is just cornball enough to identify him as the genuine rootsy article, without being so broad as to make him sound like an idiot. If that last bit seems cynical, all it really means is that we have a professional entertainer in the room. Kevin Montgomery is good at what he does - which is writing and singing songs that are either hard country, Americana, or soft rock, depending on how you draw the Venn diagram, and he has been doing it for years. His first records appeared in 1993, with a full (if rather dull) band. Since then, he has written songs for hugely-popular artists that you've probably never heard of; he has formed a band, named Paint, with the Mavericks' rhythm section, and he has become a thoroughly charismatic solo turn on the acoustic circuit. Categorising this sort of music is an unpleasant business. Critics are basically snobs, and we are apt to dismiss a perfectly good performer just because s/he happens to pull an uncool crowd. At the same time we shower praise onto the likes of Bonnie Prince Billy, on the grounds that his songs use country music in clever and post-modern ways - where in truth he is just an overgrown student taking the piss. Kevin Montgomery is not cool. His songs are very emotional, and because of that, they can sometimes sound corny - to these ears, at least. They get covered by Martina McBride and Juice Newton, not the Handsome Family or Whiskeytown. By all accounts, he wouldn't have it any other way. For his pains, he has drawn a Radio-2 type audience - and he speaks to that audience at the most personal level. At half-time, and after the show, he goes to every table, allowing half-sloshed women to throw their arms around him while their husbands take souvenir photos - all the while talking to these people seriously about their lives, and awkwardly brushing off the star treatment which - in this limited circle - he could easily lap up. Beforehand, when he was so wired-up with pre-gig nerves that I thought he might start biting the furniture, he steeled himself enough to give me the interview which you can read at the end of this article. Kevin Montgomery sings like a countrified Tom Petty, in the same rather mannered voice - a sort of generic American gravel, traceable through Petty and Bruce Springsteen to Bob Dylan, back to Woody Guthrie and any blues artist you care to name - signifying a man who drinks nothing but Wild Turkey and breathes Oklahoma dust on a regular basis. It also signifies a writer who is not comfortable with his own lyrics, who mumbles his way through moments of high drama. Oddly, this is Montgomery's strength. Throughout a long set of mostly original songs, open-hearted emotions fight for space with by-the-numbers rootsy stuff about highways and all-nite diners. It's as if he needs to have a few bland images to hang onto, otherwise the passion would just get too much. Let's All Go to California sounds like a bog-standard road song, but is a lament for an old girlfriend who died in transit. Lyrical clichés about how she "didn't make it that far" serve to mask the pain in the story, but the awkward performance makes the pain visible once again. Red-Blooded American Boy is one of Montgomery's signature tunes. Basically a 'why won't you shag me?' song, the irony in the title is too obvious to be funny, and the whole thing is not far removed from John Cougar Mellencamp or even Meatloaf - indeed, the original record (Montgomery's first, made in the early 1990s) is dreadful. Singing the song now though, Montgomery gets rid of the irony, and the narrator straight away becomes a more appealing character: he talks like that because he's dim, not because he's trying to be witty; he's been hurt, and he's sulking about it in the only language he knows. As we will come to in the interview, this tour is a troubled one for Kevin Montgomery and Al Perkins. A couple of weeks since the attack on World Trade Centre, snide voices are beginning to be heard in offices and pubs, and the sick jokes are about to start doing the rounds. For an American who hasn't been home in six weeks, there isn't the luxury of looking at recent events as an outsider. This atmosphere had a marked effect upon proceedings. The previous Beresford Arms show was a drunken hootenanny, running into the small-hours through Montgomery's full repertoire, and climaxing with a campfire rendition of AC/DC's You Shook Me All Night Long. This time, the mood was darker. The set list was similar - AC/DC included - but the atmosphere was serious. Kevin Montgomery is the first American that I've seen since 11th September, and he is a very worried, very angry man. Al Perkins was actually the first to address the issue on-stage. Near the end of the set, he seemed to be tuning his guitar, until a look from Montgomery silenced the chattering audience, and the tuning-up became a funereal God Bless America. This was followed by Bruce Springsteen's No Surrender - a song which Montgomery used to sing in New York. Springsteen's use of gung-ho imagery to celebrate laddish silliness was turned on its head, and became a sad and defiant, frankly patriotic anthem. I know what this sounds like, but it wasn't as simple as that. Montgomery is no redneck. The performance was an expression of a real emotion. In Perkins' hands, God Bless America became a blues lament, as moving as Strange Fruit. All of which paved the way for Fear Nothing - a song of bland platitudes when it was written, but these days a powerful statement of what it is like to be an American who wishes he was at home. If you are one of those people who thinks that most of the music you hear is a bit plastic, then Kevin Montgomery is the sort of artist whom you should go and see. If you're lucky enough to catch him with Al Perkins, then so much the better. After a few more dates in London and the south of England, he is touring for a couple of weeks in Holland. Then he will be back in the country next January. Have a look at his website to find out the dates. The Beresford Arms is a great little venue, despite its unromantic location (underneath a hotel, next to Sainsbury's), and it's worth watching out for the next batch of acoustic Americans appearing in the next few months (Trish Murphy, Dar Williams and Kate Campbell, at least one of whom should have Dean Owens in support). Once again, have a look at their website for details (see the links, after the interview). JH: How's the tour going? KEVIN MONTGOMERY: It's going great. It was a little difficult, the first part of the tour, in Ireland, because of all the stuff that been going on in the States. That was... what, ten days ago now. Yeah. Did you know anyone who was involved? I think we've all been touched by it. I got an e-mail last night from one of my co-writers: one of her college friends was in the building, and perished. Did you know anyone? No, I'm glad to say. Well, that's good. Where did you hook up with Al Perkins? I met him years ago, when I did the first record, Fear Nothing. Every once in a while, he plays live with me. I heard this tour was coming up, so I called him and asked him to play. You met professionally first - is that how it works? It just depends. Someone recommended him for the record. Of course, I was twenty-three years old and didn't really know who I was playing with. He's good. Why the long break between records? Was that your choice, or...? Well, it was the record deal. I don't think the company really knew how to promote it (Fear Nothing), so I just sort of asked out of all my deals, went back to Nashville, and started working regular jobs. I was still writing though, and that got me back into it. The band, Paint: is that an ongoing thing? I think so. We're going to try to finish a record in the next few months, and hopefully keep coming back here on tour. With the band? With Paint, yeah. 'Sincerity' in American music, and in country music especially, can be hard to take sometimes; it can sound a bit Hollywood. Do you ever think about that, or change the way you write? No, it's just the way things are. You try to write from the heart, and sing from the heart. That may be why people respond to it. I can't put anything on. You began by busking... I used to do that in New York City, when I was about nineteen. Was that your songs? A lot of them were my songs. I did No Surrender by Bruce Springsteen, and Hungry Heart as well. There were some covers here and there, but mostly my own stuff. That's really when I decided to start doing this thing, you know, for real. You got a good reaction from people. Yeah, I made 12 dollars an hour. Do you think of yourself as a Texas singer, or as an American singer, or as...? Well, I'm from Nashville. Oh, sorry. ...But my family's from Texas. I spent two months of every summer there, when I was a kid, so I definitely relate to Texas. Do you think it's important, the background a songwriter has? Great songwriters come from every different background. When you write songs, you're taking from your background - so yeah, I think it's important. I read a piece where you said that you liked "confessional, personal" songwriters. Yeah, some of my favourites are Jackson Browne, Jimmy Webb, Aimee Mann. Do you regard a song as a diary entry? As personal as that? You're exactly right. It's sort of like a prayer, or an open letter. Who to? Well, I never tell. 
Links: Kevin Montgomery's own website Fear Nothing Online, the KM fan club Richard the promoter has his own KM site Dean Owens' website The Beresford Arms, on the Ashbourne town website - - - read more rants and raves |