Kyle Craft - Dolls Of Highland (2016)
Kyle Craft & Showboat Honey (2019)
Think it’s fair to say that Kyle hasn’t heard of you either… These are the 1st and 3rd albums from the 31 year old native of Vidalia; Louisiana (somewhere up the Mississippi, opposite bank to Natchez), where growing up there were no passing touring bands. In-between wrestling alligators & rattlesnakes or playing football, when the music spark was ignited by a Bowie compilation found at the local K-Mart, Craft honed his guitar chops in an out-of-commission meat-freezer and launched himself on the world at the age of 15.
Penetcost - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBJf35zE7wQ
The first album, mostly self-played, has a sound and feel that owes as much to pre-Ziggy Bowie as it does to Crafts other main influence Bob Dylan yet manages not to fall into the trap of copying either. Vocally, he’s as much on his own as the two legends but there’s also that raucous & abrasive power of Steve Marriott. Most of the songs were initially written while Craft had re-located to Portland; Oregon and at a time when everything he took for granted in his life was falling apart, so making a central theme. Then he recorded the songs while on a return to Shreveport; LA. A return back to Portland saw the rough tapes refined and mixed to be a more realised performance without losing sight of the feral power. However, this is an album not for wallowing in self-pity but for picking up and moving on…
Jumping forward two years and leap-frogging a middle album, Showboat Honey not only shows a progression in Kyle’s music, but also a consolidation in a backing band, Showboat Honey; Haven Mutlz give the drums a 60s/70s fast molasses groove, blending with Billy Slater’s rolling bass; Kevin Clark bounces between piano and mellotron while Ben Steinmetz gives the songs depth with organ parts; all this is sewn together with guitar electricity from Jeremy Kale. Not that Craft isn’t beyond doing his own thing on several songs, giving the album a slight schizoid feel, which is also due to the album being condensed from 2 albums worth of material that just didn’t hang on their own.
This is a much more mature album than Dolls, but not a million miles away; contemplative yet still restless. At times, the soundscape owes more to Leon Russell & Patty Smith (if ever such a union took place…?). Meanwhile, at the heart remains the tongue-in-cheek phantasmagoria created by Craft’s lyrics.
Deathwish Blue - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6kmc2q8_PI
When life gives you lemons; don't make lemonade.
Give back the lemons. Why were the lemons free? What's wrong with the lemons?
Do Not trust the lemons...