Serious Sam Barrett – Where the White Roses Grow
Ya Dig? Records – 1 February 2019
I am always amazed at the number of artists that have been doggedly making records and writing songs for years yet never seem to make it beyond a small output with regards to sales and a not much larger audience. This tells me a couple of things. One is that the sales may not be the most important thing. After all, you would think that after a couple of albums with no real progress in the recognition stakes you would be forgiven for giving up. But perhaps it is not the sales but the creation that is important, the need to write and the need to perform. You have to do it.
The second thing this situation tells me is that I still don’t listen to enough, that I should not shun the name I don’t recognise, not to ignore an artist because the notes say that this is their third album and I wonder why I have not heard of their first two.
A suitable case in point for me is Serious Sam Barrett who is now onto his ninth album. His last one Sometimes You’ve Got to Lose (2016) has some great guitar work and sets a standard that he has to live up to. One of the things he is clearly doing when you listen back through those nine albums is that he’s trying things out, he’s exploring. He’s not trying things out in a ‘let’s see if this works’ way but he is exploring different aspects of his art, the sounds, the instrumentation, and with the latest album, Where the White Roses Grow, we hear a combination if not a summation of these explorations to date.
With very few exceptions, the songs are related to Sam’s native Yorkshire, whether it be memories of his childhood in the title track, Where the White Roses Grow, or celebrating how good life is now in I Don’t Need to Wait for Heaven. In most cases, these songs have that mix of Americana banjo-inflected rhythms and a more English-orientated tradition, something that says a lot about his exploration. This is even more apparent in how he uses his voice. In the two unaccompanied tracks, Holmfirth Anthem (learnt from a recording by The Watersons) and his own Darling Where You Are he is definitely a Yorkshire singer. In the other songs, there are clear indications of the American style, not so much with any twang but just in a way that sharply contrasts with these two a cappella numbers.
Irrespective of the vocal style, the songs paint a picture of Yorkshire life: the hardened drinkers in the pubs and the bars that have at times been the sole audience that struggling musicians have played to; the workers sacrificed in the building of a railway tunnel, commemorated in the Bramhope Tunnel Monument; and the growing band of Robin Hood followers reclaiming the man in green for South Yorkshire in Robin Hood and the 15 Foresters. (I recall spending a night in a private hotel just north of Sheffield where all the rooms were named after characters from the legends life – we stayed in ‘Maid Marian’ – make of that what you will).
And then the three love songs. The love of being at one, the aforementioned I Don’t Need To Wait For Heaven, the love that does not have to be tied to a place in Darling Where You Are, and love for the people of this world who struggle with feeling down or much, much more. In this time of increased awareness of the issues and the unseen nature of mental health, Everybody Needs A Helping Hand says it simply and effectively.
I will end where I began. Serious Sam Barrett is a name that I had not come across despite his nine albums. Sam has spent the last eight years touring across the US but in this album he has returned to his native Yorkshire and mixes the two together in a way that is special, bringing out the similarities as well as the differences of traditional music from both sides of the Atlantic. Having listened to Where The White Roses Grow, I have gone back to discover his past work and shall wait eagerly to see where his musical – and geographical – explorations take him next.
Pre-Order Where the White Roses Grow here https://serioussambarrett.bandcamp.com/album/where-the-white-roses-grow
Photo Credit: Ricky Adam