Know Howe Music & Bassline Music
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American singer-songwriter Alice Howe caught the attention of veteran Freebo with the five songs from her debut EP ‘You Have Been Away So Long’ (2017).
The bassplayer that is famous for his work with Bonnie Raitt and who transformed into a singer-songwriter, took her under his wing on her debut ‘Visions’ (2019) and the somophore album ‘Circumstance’ (2023): he co-wrote songs, played bass, sang the choirs and produced the albums. They also toured Europe and the US together.
Now a live album of a performance during such an American tour has been released, containing fourteen songs that they recorded during a concert at the Rainshadow Recording Studio in Port Townsend in Washington state.
On it they both played acoustic guitar and bass, with the sound of Freebo’s fretless being unmistakable. They also alternately sing the lead and the choirs with as much enthusiasm as conviction. Therefore the setlist is a combination of songs from Howe’s three albums and from Freebo’s four solo albums since 1999, whereas they also play three songs that make it clear that Freebo’s and Howe’s roots lie in the seventies:
Freebo sings Little Feat’s ‘Sailin’ Shoes’, one of the gems that Lowell George wrote, Howe sings Joni Mitchell’s ‘A Case of You’ and the two do Bonnie Raitt’s ‘Angel from Montgomery’ together.
Howe does not shy away from a comparison with those greats. On this album it shows that her songs fit well into that tradition. Moreover, they hold their own in that relatively bare sound, although she does sometimes sing with a lot of distracting vibrato, a vocal technique that dictates emotion, but does not necessarily evoke it. Her songs, reduced to the essence, are strong however, just like Freebo’s are.
Guitarist Jeff Fielder plays a major role in these versions, both literally and figuratively. He already played on Howe’s solo albums and Freebo’s, but is now even more important to spice up the songs. He lives up to it effortlessly: he gives the songs an extra charge through his solos, alternating prickly playing with lyrical, long lines (‘Travelin’ Soul’). His playing is as inspired as it is subservient to the songs: fierce when possible, restrained when necessary.
That way, the album captures the intense, intimate atmosphere of the performance of these close-knit singer-songwriters for a small audience, although Freebo did not have to invite the audience to clap and sing along in his otherwise catchy ‘She Loves My Dog More Than Me’. Fortunately, Howe and he do that infinitely better.
***1/2
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You’ll find my Dutch reviews of Howe’s albums ‘Visions’and ‘Circumstance’in de category ‘recensies singer-songwriter’. There you will also find my reviews of Freebo’s ‘Dog People’ and ‘Before the Separation’.
Other posts about Howe and Freebo can be found in the categories ‘nieuws’ en ‘concerttips’.