* Guests include international trad fiddle virtuoso Martin Hayes (playing electric!); Ireland’s only Woodstock veteran Henry McCullough, ex-Joe Cocker guitar hero, (playing acoustic!); solo guitar star Colin Reid; and Texan prog-rock maestro Barry Bynum

* Core band includes pianist Brian Connor (Eleanor McEvoy/Van Morrison) and drummer Liam Bradley (Ronan Keating/Van Morrison) plus Irish dobro ace Colin ‘Hillbilly’ Henry 
 
Musicians: Colin Harper. Conor Shields. Colin ‘Hillbilly’ Henry. James Davis. Colin Reid. Ali Mackenzie. Barry Bynum. Brian Connor. Henry McCullogh.Liam Bradley. Martin Hayes. Janet Holmes

THE STORY

Born and raised in Belfast, Janet Holmes first performed aged 14 and has remained fearless onstage ever since.  A teenager in the early ‘80s, she fronted SOS, a heavy-rock gospel group, for over ten years - recording a single, appearing often on Ulster TV, touring Scotland and supporting international gospel rock artists visiting Belfast.  In the early ‘90s she recorded an EP in Bare Bones, an acoustic duo, and was regularly in demand as a backing vocalist on stage and record for many other local artists. 

Determinedly a ‘hobby musician’ during this period, things began to veer towards the pro music world with the formation in 1997 of Bird-Dog, fusing classic bluegrass and Irish trad with Swing-era jazz. The group’s album, Traditional Roots, appeared within six months and it played throughout Northern Ireland, with numerous music bar residencies and Irish festival appearances. After a triumph at the European Bluegrass Festival in Holland (1999) a track from the group’s set featured on the subsequent festival CD.  Broadcasts included sessions and concerts for BBC Radio Ulster, BBC Radio Scotland and Dutch radio. Janet left Bird-Dog in mid-2000 when the imminent arrival of a baby put all her musical options on hold. 

Belfast-based music journalist and biographer, Colin Harper invited Janet to front a track with band ‘project’ The Legends Of Tomorrow for the September 2000 Market Square Records release People On The Highway: A Bert Jansch Encomium. 

Among many others contributing to this hugely popular album was long-retired cult British R&B singer Duffy Power. Power was knocked out by Janet’s voice and, via Harper, initiated a series of ‘virtual duets’, recorded in London and Belfast, for True (his first album in 30 years!) 

Which takes us to this release: The Road To The West - sleeved in the beautiful, dreamlike art of pre-war Belfast art visionary John Luke – encompasses influences that range from the bittersweet country sound of Emmylou Harris to the sweet soul of Paul Carrack, the yearning spirit of Irish traditional music, and the glorious noise of The Who. 

Some tracks emphasise one specific influence or another; opener ‘Be The One’ gets the blend just right.  Colin Harper comments:

“Recordings for this album took place in bursts of activity over a number of months. Along the way we had indications of interest from more than one label, and consequently we were influenced - to an extent - this way or that as to what kind of material we should be recording, what kind of sound we should be aiming for. 

“Even within the group of people actually making the music there was, and is, a vast range of influences and hence a range of opinion. At the end of the day the twelve tracks chosen, between Colin Henry, Janet and myself, for The Road To The West - out of the eighteen or so recorded - represent a pretty fair consensus.

“Market Square mainman Peter Muir pointed out that The Darkness’s album is a lean, mean 39 minutes. Not, he conceded, that that had anything to do with the price of peas. But we took his point and aimed at vinyl LP length and, right enough, it doesn’t seem to outstay its welcome. But then we’re biased…”

Track By Track Guide with Colin Harper

1. Be The One (Harper/Archer/Monro) IMRO

Janet Holmes – vocal, backing vocal Caroline Orr – backing vocal Ellen Weir – backing vocal Colin Harper – acoustic guitar James Davis - electric guitar Colin Henry - dobro Ali MacKenzie – bass Conor Shields – drums

And the last shall be first! This was the last recording we made for the album, recorded virtually live at Novatech Studios a couple of days before Christmas 2003 - the imperative to do so being our drummer Conor’s impending knee operation on Christmas Eve. But to backtrack a little… 

This was, in fact, the first song I ever recorded with Janet. The song was written in 1996 and was originally recorded by a cast of thousands for a cassette only album, Nothing Is Easy, credited to the Legends Of Tomorrows and with Janet on lead vocal. 

This track was done in a happy day and Ali brought his camera along and snapped many of the atmospheric shots that appear on this site and in the album booklet.  

2. If I Had A Boat  (Lyle Lovett) 

Janet Holmes – vocal Colin Henry – guitar, dobro Henry McCullough – mandolin Ali MacKenzie – bass
 
Another staple of the live set, this is a classic slice of poignant whimsy from country music maverick Lyle Lovett. It sounds like a simple little three-chord trick but, as this writer finds to his shame every time we play it, the real trick is remembering when those three blasted chords change! 

The recording was made, as was the core of the album, on one of two days at Enda Walsh’s superb Amerberville Studio in the leafy lanes of County Antrim and was something of a dream come true for Colin Henry, featuring as it does a wonderful back-porch Alabama vibe with legendary guitarist Henry McCullough trading in his customary high-voltage electricity for a mandolin. 
 
3. Dreams (Terry Woods) 

Janet Holmes – vocal Colin Henry – acoustic guitar Colin Reid – lead acoustic guitar Brian Connor – piano Ali MacKenzie - bass Liam Bradley – drums, percussion

A song written by Irish folk-rock legend Terry Woods (Sweeney’s Men, Steeleye Span, The Woods Band, The Pogues). It originally featured on the second and final Sweeney’s Men LP The Tracks Of Sweeney (1969) and was later revamped, featuring vocalist Gay Woods, for the eponymous 1971 LP from The Woods Band. Our version was recorded pretty much live, with Belfast fingerstyle guitar hero Colin Reid and with valuable production ideas from both Ali MacKenzie and the inimitable Brian Connor. 

4. Gone  (Holmes/Henry) IMRO

Janet Holmes – vocal, backing vocal Colin Henry – guitar, dobro Brian Connor – electric piano Ali MacKenzie – bass Colin Harper – chimes

A rare - indeed, thus far unique - co-written composition from Janet and Colin ‘Hillbilly’ Henry and one that we perform now with a more perambulatory bass, brushed drums and a dash of swing. Brian Connor proves the less-is-more aesthetic here with the barest handful of exquisitely placed chords

5. The Fields Of July (Harper) IMRO

Janet Holmes – vocal Conor Shields – backing vocal Barry Bynum – electric guitar Colin Henry – dobro Brian Connor – piano Ali MacKenzie – bass Liam Bradley – drums
 
This was one of three songs written during a wonderful week at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre, an artists’ retreat at Lake Annaghmakerrig in County Monaghan. I was supposed to be working on a biographical project but the lure of a sound-proofed room and a grand piano proved irresistible. 

6. Letting Go (Harper) IMRO

Janet Holmes – vocal Colin Harper – acoustic & electric guitars Martin Hayes – violin Cormac O’Cathain – Korg Trinity Michael Keeney – piano Ali MacKenzie – bass Liam Bradley – drums

Written and originally recorded long before I heard The Corrs (honest!), this is one of three tracks (the others being ‘When You Needed’ and ‘The Wind & The Rain’) on the album to be based on elements recorded during 1996 for the Legends Of Tomorrow project with Clare-born, Seattle-based fiddle genius Martin Hayes. 
 
With Martin’s permission, we’ve built Janet’s version of the song with entirely new electric guitar, piano, bass and drums, retaining the original acoustic guitar and keyboard parts. The acoustic guitar, incidentally, is tuned to English folk legend Martin Carthy’s CGCDGA invention and the whole thing comes about as close as anything to my initial concept for the album - a concept not necessarily shared by Janet, or indeed by anyone else - to sound like ‘wistful hillbilly music played by The Who’. 

 
7. When You Needed (Harper) IMRO

Janet Holmes – vocal Colin Harper – acoustic guitar Cormac O’Cathain – Korg Trinity Ali MacKenzie – bass Liam Bradley – drums

Another of the trio of substantially revamped 1996 recordings referred to above. In this case we kept the guitar part (in CGCDGA) and keyboard strings, but I took the opportunity to rewrite the bulk of the lyric - all bar the first and last few lines. Ali MacKenzie came up with the notion of giving what was previously a rather fragile, Nick Drake-ish arrangement a relentless, Status Quo-ish backbone. 
 
This tectonic plate within the musical elements and the dichotomy between Janet’s poised vocal and the anguish in the lyric make it probably my own favourite of all the recordings we’ve made together. 

8. Love Will Keep Us Alive (Paul Carrack) 

Janet Holmes – vocal, backing vocal Henry McCullough – acoustic guitar Brian Connor – piano, Hammond organ Ali MacKenzie – bass

Just a great song by Paul Carrack, soul-man and sometime member of Ace, Squeeze and Mike & The Mechanic, featuring Brian Connor on piano and the wonderfully left-field guitar of Henry McCullough.

9. The Wind & The Rain(Harper) IMRO

Janet Holmes – vocal Colin Harper – acoustic guitar Cormac O’Cathain – electric piano Ali MacKenzie – bass Liam Bradley – drums, percussion

This was written circa 1989/90 - and, most remarkably, in about as long as it takes to play it. The funny thing is, much as I seemed to spend the late ‘80s and most of the ‘90s in various states of hopelessly unrequited love this isn’t as far as I can recall, about any one situation. 

Janet sings it beautifully and the tension between the spirit of the piece and Liam’s Velvet Underground approach to the rhythm is compelling

10. How Soon Is Now? (Morrissey/Marr) 

Janet Holmes – vocals Colin Harper – acoustic guitars Barry Bynum – electric guitar Colin Henry – banjo Ali MacKenzie – bass Liam Bradley - drums

A classic track from The Smiths - and one that, as far as I was concerned, was simply crying out for something approaching a bluegrass treatment. 

It helped, of course, that guitar hero Barry Bynum, formerly of ‘70s Texas prog-rock-gospel band Liberation Suite, happened to be holidaying in Northern Ireland at the time and made himself available for this track.

11. People On The Highway (Jansch) 
 
Janet Holmes – vocal, backing vocal Colin Harper – acoustic guitar Colin Reid – lead acoustic guitar Colin Henry – banjo Ali MacKenzie – bass Conor Shields – congas, percussion

Notwithstanding the 1996 recording of ‘Be The One’, this was where it all began for us. Somewhere in between the writing and the publication of my Bert Jansch biography Dazzling Stranger: Bert Jansch and the British folk and blues revival (Bloomsbury, 2000), discussions between Market Square supremo Peter Muir and myself led to the notion of organising a tribute album to the man, to feature covers of his songs from his peers and admirers in the music world past and present. 
 
Such was the response that the album, eventually titled People On The Highway: A Bert Jansch Encomium, became a double. One of the perks of compiling such a project, it included a one-off (we thought!) ensemble I’d brought together for the purpose, covering this bittersweet offering from the final Pentangle LP Solomon’s Seal (1972). 

Reviving that Legends Of Tomorrow name, the opportunity brought together various Belfast-based musicians I admired - not least guitarist and gentleman Colin Reid, whose career as a solo touring and recording artist had just recently taken off with terrific publicity and momentum - but who had, in most cases, previously never worked with each other. Together, with Martin Hayes overdubbing his part in Seattle, we created a sincere, joy-to-record doff of the cap to a truly great musician.
         
Also on the tribute album was ‘60s British R&B legend Duffy Power, who immediately recognised Janet’s voice as something special. From that basis, we found ourselves, more or less as the same ensemble but with the addition of pianist Brian Connor, contributing to tracks for a new (and still forthcoming) Duffy Power album. 

And out of that, to cut a long story short, came The Road To The West - the first album, hopefully the first of many, to give Janet Holmes her place in the sun.

12. Thanksgiving Eve (Isaac Guillory) 

Janet Holmes – vocal Colin Henry - dobro

Possibly the only vocal/dobro duet in recorded history to the best of Colin Henry‘s knowledge and a fond farewell to the late guitarist and songwriter Isaac Guillory, who played one of his last gigs at the Ards Guitar Festival. A lovely man, taken too soon.
Label: Market Square MSCD129Available Now

Distributor: RSK Entertainment UK

Web Site: www.janetholmes.com

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