Journeyman musician DES HORSFALL has been around the block many times without ever bothering Rock’n’Roll’s chart scorers. Having slogged it out as part of Hard Rock outfits like Raw Deal and Turbo over the last few decades to little avail, he eventually retreated back to his native Yorkshire convinced he’d never hit the big time.
If we’re to believe the romance of what happened next, chance encounters with gypsies and tea leaves then befell Des and – with a lot of help from his inherent love of late Small Face Ronnie Lane’ back catalogue – it offered him an unlikely direction. And a tangible future to boot.
Well,if I’m expected to believe Rock’n’Roll began when Robert Johnson offered his soul to Old Nick for some cool chord shapes down at the crossroads, then I’m prepared to indulge Mr. Horsfall and his heart-warming tales of gypsies, Romany caravans and stumbling on the key to life itself. Certainly when the results are as amiable and enjoyable as those to be heard on ‘The Good Gentleman’s Tonic’.
Gypsies and the mysteries of life aside, the rather more prosaic reality is that ‘The Good Gentlemen’s Tonic’ is a ‘tribute’ of sorts to the rustically-inclined Roots-Rock pioneered by the former Face and his ad hoc band Slim Chance after his roving days with Messrs. Stewart, Wood and Marriott had finally passed into legend. While Des has his own band, Kuschty Rye, Ronnie’s old Slim Chance hombres Steve Simpson, Charlie Hart and Benny Gallagher drop by to add weight to the project’s credibility and the album’s opening track ‘Careless Love’ is a remarkably authentic take on the song that also featured on Slim Chance’s debut album ‘Anymore for Anymore.’
Crucially, though, while the rest of ‘The Good Gentleman’s Tonic’ has a similar vibe to the Folk and Roots-tinged sound the Slim Chance revue brought to a big top near you during the 70s, the majority of these songs are penned by Horsfall himself. More importantly, they’re of high quality, ranging from pacy anthemic fare like ‘Something’s Wrong’ and ‘Little Girl’ through to careworn, Celtic-tinged yearners (‘Long, Long Time’) and the spirited Cajun swing of ‘Nothing New.’
Musically, the band are proficient, going on virtuosic, but never flashy, as this soulful music dictates. Mandolin, accordions and fiddles add colour to the guitar-based anthems, while a distinct note of Paul Rodgers-style blues is evident in Des’ voice on the slower acoustic confessionals like ‘Hard Woman’ and ‘Random Acts of Kindness’. Des has probably long since given up on being an NME-selected ‘ace Face’ himself, but as the luddite peacenik anthem ‘No-One Talks Anymore’ so bluntly suggests (“to send a quick memo will never replace a real conversation/ you know that’s what your gob is for”), this is a record which rates old-fashioned values like fairness and humanity first and foremost.
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Widening his ‘tribute’ net a little, Des brings in Professor John Unwin to add some of the lexicon-twisting narration his father (the great Stanley Unwin) brought to the second side of The Small Faces’ ‘Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake’ LP. It’s great fun although several of the new album’s songs are reprised – a little unnecessarily in my view – to punctuate John’s reading. There’s no denying the feeling with which Horsfall then covers Lane’s song ‘The Poacher’ to bring things to a conclusion, however.
Packaged in a beautiful, book-bound sleeve with full lyrics and a free pick-me-up (Yorkshire tea, not acid in case you were wondering), ‘The Good Gentleman’s Tonic’ is skilfully-executed, melodious and wise. It’s apparently the first in a trio of similar Ronnie Lane ‘tributes’ from Des Horsfall, but if the others are even half as good I’ll happily pull up a chair and have a mug of that special golden brown elixir with him.
Des Horsfall on MySpace
Des Horsfall and Kuschty Rye online
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