Lonely Street

LONELY STREET is the latest album from former Energy Orchard frontman Bap Kennedy, quickly following on from his Hank Williams tribute album, Hillbilly Shakespeare, released a few months back.

In many ways it's a truer album, less Earle-influenced and featuring a bunch of fine local players that include ex-pat Ed Deane on a variety of slide, lap steel and electric guitars, and session player Herbie Flowers on double bass as well as tuba.

As the album's dedication clearly explains, "all the songs on this album have been inspired by and are dedicated to Hank Williams and Elvis Presley". They don't particularly sound like either icon; instead this is a more relaxed, looser and rootsier-sounding album that is never quite folk, never quite country, but which encompasses a whole range of influences that roughly come under the Americana heading.

'Elvis, Hank and Me', is from a book about the Louisiana Hayride, but is also about wanting to make it big: a lot of the songs include that sub-text, giving the album an added personal flavour. And a lot of them are very good, from the opening 'Good Times On Franklin Road' through the closing 'Lonesome Lullaby'.

Those who warmed to Domestic Blues will find much to enjoy here. Remember you're never alone with a song.