John Lennon McCullagh - North South Divide

Just 15 and lumbered with a highly unfortunate name, John Lennon McCullagh is, along with Jake Bugg, part of a new generation of British songwriters channelling Woody Guthrie and other pre-rock ‘n’ roll American folk singers.
He has a sandpaper rasp and a swooping delivery, though frequent harmonic solos bring his Dylan-isms rather closer to pastiche than was surely the intent. Opener ‘Blue’ is ragged and impassioned and 99 per cent unoriginal; the title-track addresses the economic disenfranchisement of British youth (“You’ll have a job at 16 / It says so on the news”) and finds McCullagh breaking character to sing in his real Doncaster accent. But the harmonica stages a vengeful return on the sepia-splashed ‘It Never Rains’, and his Beatles impersonation on ‘The Ballad Of Mr Henderson’ is unhelpful, given that his name has already invoked the spirit of John and Paul. Championed by former Creations record boss Alan McGee and signed to his new label, McCullagh has a great voice and a way with melody but shows little interest in outgrowing his influences. Then, when he looks at how far a similar philosophy has taken Jake Bugg, why would he?

Key Track: 'The North South Divide'