I'll never get used to those mp3 things. Where's the tactile pleasure of picking up an album and doing the whole "judging a book by its cover" thing? Anyway, this album from Rachel Dawick gets off to a good start with eye-catching sleeve art and, just to make sure that you have to play it, right there on the back cover can be found the words "…about the man she left dying in her bed". There's going to be broken hearts and regrets here.
Rachel Dawick recorded this album in Glasgow but there isn't anything really Scottish about it. On the contrary, it's a bit bluesy, a bit western swing and it's a bit Marlene Dietrich. Or, to put it another way, it's a whole lot classy. There's that world weary feeing to the songs like they had been recorded in black & white and that's a large part of its appeal as this album is a collection of stories of misadventure as love goes wrong and you just know that flowers and candy won't be fixing it either - a point made most clear in the eloquent melancholy of "Follow Me Down This Road".
"Ed's Bar and Grill" is album I'm pleased to have made the acquaintance of and I can see a lot of people feeling the same about it.