Stubble

Stubble

• Music

This is the debut release by Blue Blokes 3: old pals Ian Anderson (English Country Blues Band, Hot Vultures, Tiger Moth, etc.) on vocals, guitar & slide guitar, Lu Edmonds (Mekons, Billy Bragg's Blokes, PiL, The Damned, Kirsty MacColl, etc.) on vocals, cumbus, saz, guitar, and Ben Mandelson (Billy Bragg's Blokes, 3 Mustaphas 3, Tiger Moth, Orchestre Jazira, etc.) on vocals, mandolin, baritone bouzouki, banjo, tenor guitar, guitar and more. Past social twanging and banging apart, this crew came together one dark and rainy night in the spring of 2007 to pay tribute to English folk sweetheart Shirley Collins on the occasion of a celebratory evening to mark her receipt of the MBE from another queen. Their wonky take on old time nomadicized English country blues and death folk seemed to appeal and one thing led to another. Within days, Fledg'ling invited them to make an album, and then came offers to appear at other events. Produced by Hijaz Mustapha and Jamie Orchard-Lisle, Stubble is the result. Blues standards go willingly on trips through the Balkans, the Steppes or the South Downs, old English folk songs from the family closet get newly-clothed in subtle tones of vintage Congolese guitar and space saz, and certain participants' greatest hits get revisited with instruments they'd not suspected existed at the time they were originally recorded. The album's title could be a subtle allusion to it having taken little more than a week to effortlessly grow, but actually -- like the trio -- it also just looked good on paper.