In Conversation With Andy Sharrocks (Part Two)
Words by Glenn Sargeant
Photo Credit: Supplied By Artist
In this part two of In Conversation With Andy Sharrocks we talk about his future live plans, songwriting and more:
Great to chat again Andy and I appreciate your time as always. I wanted to start this part two of the conversation by asking if the album ‘Country, Rock N’ Roll and Durty Blues’ is now available on any other formats in addition to the triple vinyl set?
Yes, after kicking and screaming for a few months I finally accepted that in order to get the music properly heard I had to release it onto streaming platforms, like Spotify and Apple and Amazon, and all the major ones. I realised that the vinyl market and the streaming market are two different mediums and people either don’t own a record player or don’t want to own a record player and would much rather download their music and listen to it that way. So I’d rather they did that, than not hear me at all. Its been done as three separate albums, volume 1, 2 and 3, so you can get them one at a time or all three together. You cannot download individual tracks, just the albums. Of course Deadman Walking is a single available for single download, and Old Leather Coat will be available on a single before long.
Given the amount of material that you have on this record, is it difficult picking a setlist? Do you have a specific selection process?
The set list depends on who is playing with me. I play different gigs with different lineups, sometimes it’s solo, sometimes it’s with Danny Bourassa my guitar player, sometimes with Tim Marris the fiddle player, and sometimes, like the 100 Club gig it’s with the whole band. So if its solo or with Tim I will do mainly acoustic numbers, but I’ll include stuff from my back catalogue like Daveys Blues, Waste Some Time, Dirt, Ballad Of A Dying Man, Road Ahead Miles from the album Dirt, and Salvation In Disguise, Velvet Underground Song, and Messin Me Around from Walking In Familiar Footsteps, which Mick Taylor plays on by the way. And Paul Jones plays some harp too. But I digress, so with Danny it’s easier to play some of the electric stuff even though we do it acoustically, like Little Boogaloo, Crash and Burn, Freeport, Do You Still Think Of Me, as well as the acoustic stuff like Late September Night, Old Leather Coat, Country Rock n Roll n Durty Blues. I generally like the set to open with a bang, stay on that groove for a couple of songs, change direction a little, then bring it down then start to build back up again for the end. I like a good variety, and I have plenty to choose from. The 100 Club is going to go in every direction, hopefully it will punch you in the stomach to start off with, then go a little country, drop down to the sparse acoustic numbers with just me and Danny, then build gradually to a high energy finale.
You are also planning on releasing a new single ‘Old Leather Coat’. What is the inspiration/story behind that?
Old Leather Coat, I just came up with the chorus which I thought was fairly amusing. I realised it was going to be a slow love song, and then I just wove it around my feelings for my old lady, and hers for me. We’ve been together a long time, and the words just fell out once I had the idea. I’m sure a lot of people who have been together a long time could relate to the words, especially lines like “I don’t always understand you, and I know that I drive you mad, but we love each other with every dawning day.” It’s difficult to write a good love song without being corny or sentimental, but I think I achieved it with this one. I think it’s possibly because it is about loving someone, caring for them, not being ‘in love’. Those are two separate things.
In doing some research, I read that you have performed with Mick Taylor. How did that opportunity arise and what was that experience like?
Mick Taylor yes, how lucky am I? Well I recorded the songs which made up the album Walking In Familiar Footsteps with an extremely great musician and producer called Hilly Briggs, who was in the support act on an Errol Brown tour which I tour managed. I was staying in Watford for a while after that tour and he rang me out of the blue, and he lived in Watford so invited me round. He didn’t know I wrote songs, and I didnt know he had a studio in his house, as I had been his tour manager for three months, but we started messing around and decided to record an album. He had just played on and produced Mick Taylor’s, A Stone’s Throw album, and he said why don’t you give Mick a call and ask him to play on your album, to which I said don’t be silly, why would Mick Taylor play on my album. Anyway I plucked up the courage and rang and spoke to his girlfriend who said she would get back to me. Meanwhile Hilly played a little scratch band gig in Harpenden on Sundays when he was available, and Mick wanted to do a low key gig to get back into gigging, so he came to the gig. Paul Green was on guitar, who went on to be in The Smokin’ Jackets and writing with me for the Dirt album. They did a whole gig, then Greenie called me to come up and do a number, and suddenly Mick was stood next to me saying, come on what do you want to do, and I said Can’t Always Get What You Want? And he said let’s do it. Greenie lent me his guitar and we played that number. I was in 7th heaven, there is a video of it on YouTube. We came off the stage and he said “I’ll definitely play on your album.”
He took a shine to me, and we played a lot of gigs together with me as support, he even played in the band twice, once at The Boom Club in Sutton for the album launch, and once at Herelbeke Blues Festival in Belgium. The Blues Band were on the same bill after us, and I asked Paul Jones if he’d get up and play harp on one of the songs, and he did. I Looked round, and I had Mick Taylor on guitar, Paul Jones on harp, Roger Cotton from Peter Green’s Splinter Group and Brothers Grimm on keyboards and Jeff and Tommy Vee, Bobby Vee’s sons on drums and bass respectively. That’ll never happen again.
I know that we briefly touched on the topic of live shows previously but I wanted to ask if you had any gigs lined up for 2024 and if so, where can people get tickets?
Yes Glenn, I mentioned the 100 Club on Oxford Street London before, but didn’t go into detail. I am playing withThe Incurable Romantics – Danny Bourassa, Phil Watts and Phil Cawsey on Feb 14th. It’s going to be a great night. I have Pete Kosanovich opening the show, he’s an Americana singer songwriter, then there will be another band TBC and then us. It will be songs exclusively from Country Rock n Roll n Durty Blues, and it will be a blast. Tickets are available from Eventbrite, just type in Andy Sharrocks and The Incurable Romantics 100 Club. I decided that because it’s the 100 Club and such a legendary venue, that the first 100 tickets will be free. So hurry folks as they going pretty quickly.
I’m hoping to do a Manchester date before long and some festivals in the summer, and maybe some solo record shop appearances, but nothing confirmed as we go to press, just the 100 Club. I play every month at Number Fifteens bar in Lytham St Anne’s a solo half hour set.
I was intrigued to see that on Facebook you have been posting these interesting short videos about the songs on the new album. What was the thought process behind that? I had heard that this is the social media thing to do, and with so many tracks thought it would be a good idea to do them like an advent Calendar, leading up to Christmas and beyond in fact to the twelfth day of Christmas on Jan 6th. They are the stories behind the songs, people like to know where the inspiration came from, I know I do.
What type of music/artists do you enjoy listening to? Do you have any recommendations?
My passion is Americana, alt.country and blues type music, which in my mind encompasses a whole gamut of styles. Traditionally I love Dylan and the 60’s/early 70’s Rolling Stones. I like Springsteen, Tom Waits, Steve Earle, Townes van Zandt, Little Feat, The Band, Ry Cooder, Alison Krauss, Robert Plant now, not then, Warren Zevon, Randy Newman and I love old blues, from Robert Johnson to Muddy Waters and Howlin Wolf. I still love discovering new music. Nothing gives me greater pleasure than finding a new artist. At the moment I’m listening to The Dead South, and Daniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats, the Brothers Osborne, and I just discovered a dude called Howe Gelb, I would recommend that cat.
In my time I have been through the whole gamut of music, from Deep Purple, to Roy Harper, to Captain Beefheart, to Krautrock, Can, Amun Duul 11, Faust, to Patti Smith and the New York punk scene, then the UK punk scene to Leonard Cohen to Hawkwind, to Kevin Coyne, To Lou Reed and The Velvet Underground, to Janis Joplin, to The Jefferson Airplane, to The Doors, to Funkadelic then Prince, and many many more and I have thoroughly loved every phase of my musical education, but I have landed on what suits my ears most, and it is organic Americana type music. But as I’ve always said America was just a melting pot when it started developing in the 1800’s, and people from all over Europe were emigrating there with their own instruments and their own style of music and then throw in the slaves with their instruments and style of music and they all got together and played music together and over the years it became Americana, and that sort of mass emigration had never happened anywhere before or since. It’s called Americana because it developed there but the ingredients are from all over Europe and Africa.
Another song that I wanted to ask you about is ‘Silver Tongued Phantom Lady’ and I love the title. What do you play on this track?
Yeah I like that one too, it’s actually Silver Tongued Phantom Lady, and that comes from the lady in question had a way of talking which would seduce the hardiest of men, and once she had you she would just disappear. She was a real wild spirit, but man she left some broken hearts in her wake, and nearly all young men, whose first real love was her. She was the epitome of the hippie chick, and she just wouldn’t be tied down, she wanted fun all the time. The word ghosted wouldn’t have been used back in the day, but it’s a perfect description of what she did with regularity.
On this track I played the resonator guitar, the harmonica, the Bodhran and the washboard. I love the way the bodhran gives its that sort of chugging railroad feel. Going back to the discussion about roots of Americana, this is a prime example, it’s got a rootsy blues feel, with a rhythm played on a bodhran which is a Celtic percussion instrument and a washboard, which is a Cajun percussion instrument, and the Cajuns are French origin. Its fascinating, I could talk about it all day.
What two things do you hope to have achieved once you have left the stage? I hope to have played well, and I hope to have brought one or two people on board. It’s a bit like spreading the gospel, without the religious element. You hope to appeal to people enough that they will want to come see you again and check out your recorded songs. Every artist goes through this.
Are there any specific themes/topics that you wanted to tackle or highlight on the record? I I wanted to highlight that there isn’t enough peace and love in the world with Where’s All The Love Gone, and I wanted to immortalise a whole bunch of people that I have known or met along the way. I love writing songs about real people. I kinda view myself as part folk singer, because I write and sing about real folk. And some of my songs are folky, like Daveys Blues, and George’s Blues. I use the word Blues instead of story. On this album the following tracks contain stories about real people: George’s Blues, Hard Life, Do You Still Remember Me, Jane’s Blues, Christopher Cullingham, Silver Toothed Phantom Lady Quite a few are autobiographical, like Late September Night, Old Leather Coat, Farmyard Blues, Where You Gonna Run To. It’s almost an Americana Opera lol.
Are there any plans to record any of the live shows for a possible future release? Funny you should ask that question, as I have just asked Gaz Dupes the engineer on the album if he would like to come with us and record the the 100 Club show. I have also asked Huskie Jack my slide guitarist in the Smokin’ Jackets, if he will come and video the show. He has made a few full length movies, so he knows what he is doing. He has also made a few videos for other bands including The Thumping Tommies, whose line up includes the drummer/percussionist from The Smokin’ Jackets, a great UK Americana band. So yeah if we play well and the recording is good, there could be a live album later on in the year.
Which tracks on the album hear you at your a) happiest, b) angriest and c) most reflective?
Well without doubt my happiest would be Old Leather Coat, and This Hearts On Fire Now,
Angriest would be Where’s All The Love Gone, although this is the antithesis of the song, but I do feel angry that people particularly people in power and authority, can’t be more understanding and caring, it doesn’t take much to reach out and help.
Most reflective – I guess would be Late September Night.
Photo Supplied By Artist
Andy Sharrocks and The Incurable Romantics will be performing a headline show with special guests on Wednesday 14th February 2024 at 100 Club, Oxford Street, London, United Kingdom. You can register for free tickets here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/andy-sharrocks-the-incurable-romantics-live-at-the-100-club-oxford-rd-london-tickets-777960810727?aff=ebdshpsearchautocomplete
You can read In Converstion with Andy Sharrocks (Part One) here: https://justlistentothis.co.uk/interviews/in-conversation-with-andy-sharrocks-part-one/
(Distro Kid) Country Rock n Roll n Durty Blues Volume 1: https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/andysharrocks/country-rock-n-roll-n-durty-blues
(Distro Kid) Country Rock n Roll n Durty Blues Volume 2: https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/andysharrocks/country-rock-n-roll-n-durty-blues-volume-2
(Distro Kid) Country Rock n Roll n Durty Blues Volume 3: https://open.spotify.com/album/7sxebhz2Xx6pzKGyJLHkvJ
Andy Sharrocks triple vinyl set ‘Country Rock N’Roll and Durty Blues’ is out now on Roach Records and distributed by Cargo.
To purchase the vinyl record and for more information visit his official website here: www.andysharrocks.net
