Trevor Beales – Fireside Stories

873

Yorkshireman Trevor Beales’s life was cut short in 1987 when he was just 33. Although his attempt at a music career didn’t materialise during his lifetime, his home recordings have been recently unearthed on cassette and given the digital treatment, resulting in this posthumous debut album, Fireside Stories, released by Basin Rock and featuring Trevor solo and accompanying his songs with quite complex fingerpicked acoustic guitar in the vein of Davy Graham or Bert Jansch.

An accomplished player, Trevor’s guitar skills occasionally come close to being overly complicated (see the still enjoyable instrumental Dance of the Mermaids, which brings to mind Mark Fosson’s music) but balance beautifully alongside his singing. His voice, soft and clear, has been likened most frequently to Nick Drake, but Townes Van Zandt sprang to mind immediately when listening to the opening song Marion Belle. Charmingly imperfect in places, his vocal style elevates his intimate songs and gives them character and gravitas. Tell me Now brings melancholy to the mix, again evoking the music of Townes, but also Jackson C. Frank. The guitar playing is impeccable here again, but the song itself, a tale of love and death, is also lyrically and melodically strong, placing it into the top draw of folk songs.

This is a very consistent and enjoyable album of very well-written and performed music. The folk scene in the early seventies was alive with clubs and performers looking for a break, and this should have been enough to propel Trevor into an esteemed career. His writing is nuanced and quietly articulate, as demonstrated by songs like the gently sad Old Soldier, which uses an ever so slightly weary melody and vocal to emphasise its subject’s fatigue. Shifting the mood are songs like the brief and quite beautiful Sunlight on the Table, a wistful miniature that lingers like a memory. Further on, the busy instrumental Braziliana highlights Trevor’s jazz influences and gives the album a different character, while the reflective Prisoner brings us back to Old Soldier territory with a halting guitar part and sombre vocals.

Fireside Stories hangs together very well and forms a very pleasing insight into Trevor Beales as a musician. It also shows us enough to wish that this young artist had had a fair crack at gathering traction and enjoying some well-deserved exposure and success.

Order Fireside Stories via Basin Rock | Bandcamp