Welsh Troubadour - Hot Press meets Judith Owen

California-based, Welsh-born chanteuse Judith Owen grew up listening to classic Laurel Canyon-era singer-songwriter albums such as Carole King’s Tapestry, James Taylor’s Mud Slide Slim and Joni Mitchell’s Blue. Six albums into her recording career, which began in the mid-1990s (and has included several collaborations with Richard Thompson), she looks back to the music of her youth for inspiration.

“Those albums had such a huge effect on me when I was young,” she explains. “My mum and dad had all those records; we used to go on these long Sunday family drives and we’d be all singing along in the back of the car.”
It was the death of her father, who passed away recently from cancer, that was the catalyst for Owen to delve into her earliest musical memories.
“Those songs spoke to me. It’s just that perfect combination of beautiful, exquisite melodies and emotionally intelligent lyrics. I think it was the sound of those records that I loved the most.”
That “sound” was created in large part by a collective of LA session musicians known as The Section and nicknamed “The Mellow Mafia”.
They included drummer Russell Kunkel, bassist Leland Sklar and guitarist Waddy Wachtel, whose credits appear on dozens of the best-selling albums of the ’70s and, in the process, defined a quintessential West Coast sound.
“I so wanted to do something that was a throwback to the things I enjoyed and remembered growing up as a kid,” she explains. “I decided that rather than spend the rest of my career trying to find musicians that emulated the guys who played on those records, why not go directly to the source? I knew Lee Sklar through my husband [Harry Shearer of Spinal Tap fame] and he made the connection with Russ and Waddy: that’s how it all came about. I asked them if they’d help me make this record. They said ‘yes’.”
The album captures the spirit and atmosphere of the ’70s and features several poignant songs, including ‘I Would Give Anything’ and ‘You’re Not Here Anymore’. It also includes her own take on James Taylor’s classic ‘Hey Mister That’s Me Up On The Jukebox’, the original version of which featured members of her current band.
Did she feel in any way intimidated working with musicians who’d played on such seminal albums?
“Oh my God ‘intimidated’ is exactly how I’d describe it,” she laughs. “While I knew they’d played on Tapestry and with James Taylor, Linda Ronstadt and Jackson Browne, what I didn’t know about were the literally hundreds of other great albums they’d appeared on.
“When I got into the room at first I was very nervous. They could have been the kind of guys who have the attitude of, ‘do you know who we are?’ It was everything that I hoped it would be and much more. What I found remarkable about these players is they see their job as making the songs shine, not to make them more complicated or show off with endless solos. They do as much, or as little, as the material demands.”
They’ve already been in this neck of the woods, appearing on The Late Late Show and recording an RTÉ Radio 1 special. They return for a Dublin date at the end of November.
“It just gets better and better all the time,” she beams. It’s almost like, ‘be careful what you wish for’?. I wanted to make a record with these guys and I did. And then they said they were happy to go out on the road with me. Russell and Lee are touring animals anyway. They love being out on the road. They’re so much fun and they make me laugh all the time. I came up with a new name for the band, which is ‘Nanny Owens & The Delinquent Uncles’. I’m always the best behaved on tour.”

Judith Owen and her band perform at the Sugar Club, Dublin on November 21.