Anna Howie - The Friday Night Club (Album Review)
If anything positive came out of the pandemic for musicians, it could have been that artists had to get inventive if they wanted to be heard. Anna Howie had spent time in Nashville pre-pandemic recording the ‘An Idiots Guide To Love’ EP with producer/guitarist Bob Britt (Leon Russell, Delbert McClinton and Bob Dylan) and attended a songwriting camp with Gretchen Peters. As with so many artists, Nashville had been inspirational, so a return was on the cards until it wasn’t. Undaunted, if a little apprehensive, Anna embraced the world of online streaming to connect with her audience and The Friday Night Club was born. The 28 online sessions would be a great success attracting almost two million views creating an online community almost by accident, offering Anna the freedom to try out new material before an appreciative virtual audience. Those Nashville plans might not have come to fruition, but Anna connected with producer and multi-instrumentalist Lukas Drinkwater (Jacob & Drinkwater, Emily Barker) and slowly but surely, over six months, pieced together ‘The Friday Night Club’ album at his Polyphonic Studio in Stroud, UK.
Anna Howie has that tell-tale catch in her voice that screams classic country. There's more than a hint of country legends such as Dolly Parton in Anna's vocal delivery on the understated opener ‘Acrobat’ and especially the rather lovely ‘Angels Among Us'. 'Angels' is firmly rooted lyrically in the recent pandemic with references to food banks and intensive care wards while ‘A Bird Sings In Nashville’, with its excellent fiddle and organ accompaniment, is another winner.
As it turns out, Anna isn’t one to be pigeonholed, so things take an unexpected turn with bubbling bass, parping horns and a smidge of organ anchoring the surprisingly funky ‘In The Morning' before returning to a more traditional country storytelling approach with the wryly amusing ‘Peas’. “I’ve got peas in the freezer older than you” she sings while warning a potential suitor that she is not his Mrs Robinson and he had better be careful as she knows his mother. ‘Sylvie Got Cash’ takes another left turn as the horns return, complete with a trumpet solo. Lyrically this very British tale regarding Sylvie’s knicker draw and a desire for screwball ice creams (now that brings back memories) is great fun, but a darker message might well be lurking. Listeners from outside the UK will no doubt find this song very confusing.
‘I Could Be Your Friend’ might well be the best song on the album. “My telephone works, I’ve just checked” is quietly heartbreaking, hinting at loneliness and memories/regrets that won’t stay buried. The bluesy ‘In This House’ runs it close thanks to wonderfully emotive fiddle playing, cleverly arranged harmonies and Anna’s knack for phrasing “Walls are creaking, windows shake, nerves rattle”. The piano-led balladry of ‘Getting By On Lonely Tonight” (now that’s a country song title if ever I’ve heard one) is just gorgeous “You’re worried, but there’s no need to be, for the first time I’m making friends with me”. The album concludes with the upbeat ‘Friday Night’ that wouldn’t be out of place on a certain Sheryl Crow record from back in the day.
The Friday Night Club is a terrific record, made even more impressive by its debut status. The combination of Anna Howie and Lukas Drinkwater’s production, which manages to be sympathetic to the material and inventive in equal measure, is a match made in heaven. The Friday Night Club is a lovely record that you should seek out at the earliest opportunity.
The Friday Night Club is released on March 25th, 2022 via Absolute Label Services.
Life is full of surprises. At a time when the majority of people would be content to retire, potter about in the garden, and leave new music to the young folks, erstwhile Heartbreakers drummer Stan Lynch is back with a new band and an impressive new record. The other surprise is that the Italian Frontiers label, usually the home of all things AOR and melodic hard rock, continues a welcome expansion into other musical realms. The Speaker Wars and Frontiers seem like unlikely bedfellows, but the label is to be commended for landing this particular release. More please.