John Shain – Fools And Fine Ladies
With his second album, Fools And Fine Ladies, John Shain renews his commitment to the blues, and along the way suggests some interesting new possibilities for the evolution of his trio.
Shain, an accomplished singer-guitarist in the Kaukonen-Hammond mold, and bandmates John Currie on dobro and F.J. Ventre on bass, have established a group identity rooted in the Piedmont blues of North Carolina and jub-band traditions. Shain’s tales of wayward women (“Sherry Ann”) and the late-night laments of the men who left them that way (“Luck Don’t Come Easy”) gain a new-found edge, partly from the live-in-the-studio production and also from a well-integrated guest list of musicians from the N.C. Triangle roots music community.
“Mountain Tune” is perhaps the best recorded example of the trio’s carefully attuned interaction in a straight-up blues vein, and features Currie’s wonderfully angular dobro work. On the paradoxically sunny “Govindas In The Rain”, a bodhran solo is an unexpected touch that serves to open up the tune. The appropriate closing-time-regret-fest that concludes the album, “Laughter Fades Away”, adds the barroom piano of Red Clay Rambler Chris Frank to Shain’s most poignant vocal for a haunting finale.