'Not Before Time’ is Foghorn Leghorn’s latest release. Amazingly, for a band I’d never heard of before, they are celebrating a 21st Anniversary!
Foghorn Leghorn is a London-based country bluegrass outfit. The current line-up features Tim Kent on vocals and banjo, Eamonn Flynn on vocals and mandolin, Del Brookes on acoustic guitar, Paul Fay on vocals, fiddle and harmonica, Kevin O’Neill on vocals, dobro and acoustic guitar, and Chris Clarke on vocals, double bass and acoustic guitar.
Before I talk about the music, something has to be said about the CD cover, which features an excellent design by Frank Burgess of a Mardi Gras skull with features made up of instruments that the band play, surrounded by skeletons depicting the titles of some of the tracks. Evocative stuff indeed.
As for the music itself, well, what can I say, it's just brilliant. The band opens with the frantic delivery of ‘Pizza Boy’, a banjo driven country tune that thunders along at a breakneck pace. The lyrics are sung in a spot on hillbilly style and are sure to raise a smile with most listeners: “Smokin’ weed he goes fast and faster, see his eyes light up with joy/ Mixing pleasure with disaster, got a job as a pizza boy/ got a job as a pizza boy/ up on the pavement with the wheel bent, one more job and he's done/ going the wrong way down the one way, hit the road and he's gone.”
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As a starter, this is a brilliant track, although if I delivered pizzas for a living, I might be offended at the suggestion that I throw half the orders in the river and constantly run red lights whilst being blitzed!
It’s not all fun and games though; ‘Smoking Gun’ is a slightly sombre tale of murder and massacre, buoyed along by mandolin and bass. This has to be one of the highlights of the album: -“Cherie May smoked a cigarette/ Light shone down on her high heeled shoes/ On her arm, a diamond bracelet, a gift from a man she couldn’t refuse/She took the phone and started cryin’, and muttered “What have I done?/ Walked away when she heard the siren. In her hand was a smoking gun."
'Not Before Time' is a first class album that is available by contacting Chris@Foghorn Leghorn. This is definitely an album to buy. If you don’t, then you’re missing out.
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