Is it even Christmas if you don’t hear a Cliff Richard song? Long before Michael Bublé ruled December, Richard was already the unofficial king of the festive chart, with three Christmas number one’s including Mistletoe and Wine to his name.

This is a quandary that the group isomonstrosity (a collaborative project between artists and musicians Ellen Reid, Johan Lenox, and Yuga Cohler) mostly overcome on their ambitious debut album, which seems determined to cement the links between these two very different musical worlds. Though all relied on a blueprint of toe-curling schmaltz and earnest Christian fervour, Richard was a British institution by then anyway. He scored his first hit in 1958 and went on to be the UK’s squeaky-clean answer to Elvis Presley. The fans who first fell for his quiff and wholesome good looks are as devoted as ever to this day, and Richard is still the only artist in the world to score top five albums in eight consecutive decades. At its best, this merging of sounds results in a cinematic atmosphere that sits somewhere between grandiose and rooted in the gutter (see Xzibit’s Paparazzi), but simply throwing together string quartets and 808 drums can also sound trite and sanctimonious if it’s done without meaning and just for the hell of it (yeah, Coolio’s C U When You Get There hasn’t aged too great).

Track List

If that sounds a tad bleak for the run-up to Christmas, it cannot be overstated how much warmth, vitality and, frankly, sexiness there is to Garwood’s uniquely simmering take on the blues idiom. He talks of the process of making Rogues Gospel, mid-pandemic alongside his drummer Paul May, “in a heat-soaked fever dream […] to save ourselves from insanity, to invite the angels in.” At least there’s a large catalog of recorded material to remind us of just how potent a force this band could be. It includes not only a long list of studio and live albums, but a ton of alternate takes, versions, and mixes, as well as demos and rehearsal recordings.

The engineering: pure voices are forward along with LB’s guitar AND drums. Most songs are stripped bare of orchestral overdubs ... and showcase just what a BRILLIANT collection of songs these are.Finally, we may also share your Personal Information to comply with applicable laws and regulations, to respond to a subpoena, search warrant or other lawful request for information we receive, or to otherwise protect our rights. Whether it’s Mike Jones sampling Rossini for a seminal trap song about sex or Nas reinterpreting German composer Carl Orff’s menacing yet triumphant Carmina Burana for a street smash about irritating one’s haters, there’s plenty of examples of hip hop and classical music coming together as one. Who else could deliver traditional and outlaw country tunes like “If You’ve Got the Money Honey I’ve Got the Time,” “Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys,” and “Only Daddy That’ll Walk the Line” and in the same show tap the Great American Songbook for beautifully rendered performances of songs like Hoagy Carmichael and Mitchell Parish’s “Stardust” and Irving Berlin’s “Blue Skies”? There’s only one Willie. Disc Two’s BBC In Concert from June 1971 heralds, as MC John Peel drily observes, the arrival of a new ensemble, fronted by Ronson – soon be renamed The Spiders from Mars for the following year’s Ziggy Stardust album, which, incredibly, was being written concurrently – along with a circus of bohemian hangers-on, one of whom, Dana Gillespie, sings the newly minted Andy Warhol. After a brief period of credibility in the early 2000’s around The White Stripes’ ascent, precious few blues desperados wander the pop landscape these days. On our shores, south London’s Duke Garwood has carved out a singular voice in isolation, his smoky, nocturnal sound and quietly intense purr mesmerizing a cult listenership across six long-players, the last two for hipster label, Heavenly Recordings.