.jpg)
Chris Chubb is a bit of an anachronism. A kind of folk-singer from a bygone age who wants to ply his trade in a binary world of uploads and downloads. Thank Heavens that people like him refuse to comply with trends and soldier solidly on down their own chosen route. It would be a dangerously bland world without the peculiarly and quintessentially English individuals that number Chris Chubb amongst them.
However, Chris knows how to write a tune, a damn good tune, and there aren’t many who can make a genuine claim in that regard. His voice is double tracked throughout most of his recordings but it works. Some of the high notes clearly tickle his tonsils a tad but then again Chris Chubb does not profess to be a singer per se but a guitarist first and foremost, so multi-recording serves the songs well in this instance. Although ‘Lockout’ is a delightful instrumental that particularly displays his playing style.
There are protest song perceptions in evidence. If Chris wears a cap one could imagine him doffing it to icons that have travelled this well-worn path before him – Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, Tom Paxton – you get the drift. Yet whilst he may have sat and listened to their work his own doesn’t have the same hard edge. Indeed, his little home-spun philosophies are not particularly radical but they are endearing.
Whimsical and slightly hippie sensibilities are discernable, for example in a track like ‘Off the ground’, but it’s all done with such innocent enthusiasm that there is nothing cloying or trite about it. Anyone who can recall Harry Nilsson will be familiar with his classic tear-jerker, “Without you”. He also produced a quirky album in 1971 called The Point – a great record essentially ignored at the time and completely forgotten by posterity. “Off the ground” is so reminiscent of such fanciful indulgence.
His songs have country inflexions and certainly it’s the kind of stuff that lends itself to performance by others. One could even imagine say The Everley brothers cover ‘dreaming’, a kind of paean to the accruement of personal wisdom through experience. ‘When the dream is gone’ is a variation on a theme, while ‘Livin’ too fast’ is an ecological discourse on the pace of life – a big topic so sweetly expressed.
There is humility about Chris Chubb that could lead him to being trampled underfoot in a pub while punters are spilling beer and football pundits are dissecting games like the barstool experts they are. But they should stop and listen. This is essentially gentle music, but not anodyne. A great quip appeared on Facebook not that long ago which said ‘Just because people don’t understand you doesn’t mean you’re an artist’! The reverse logic can be applied. Just because it’s accessible and easy listening doesn’t mean it’s not worth listening to.
The overall effect is charming, and everyone loves a charmer. I don’t think Chris would be upset if his audience wasn’t full of grunge-drunk kids and Goths. I somehow suspect he would be too polite to ask them to leave but it wouldn’t go amiss for them to put down their absinthe for a while and listen to the likes of Chris Chubb. Given the chance, his somewhat contained vision could broaden their somewhat limited horizons.
Review by Peter Heydon
Check out Chris Chubb!
No comments:
Post a Comment