Search - Gibb Todd :: Goin Home

The way it should be done

Jerome Clark | Canby, Minnesota | 03/27/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Gibb Todd, Brit turned Australian, looks sort of like Kenny Rogers but sounds sort of like Wilf Carter, the legendary Canadian balladeer who (even when marketed as "Montana Slim" here) never got to be a country star in America. Carter sang in a friendly, intimate voice about the charms of Canada's natural landscape and the not always easy lives of the people who populated it. He framed his songs in mostly simple, spare acoustic settings, made strong records, and in no way deserves neglect and obscurity.Fittingly, Gibb Todd, a Wilf Carter for the Outback, adds Celtic touches to some of the songs. After all, Australian-immigrant music owes much to the Scots and Irish who came, willingly or unwillingly, to the country, and who took old melodies and dropped new stories and exotic-sounding Australian place names inside them. From this disjuncture between the familiar and the, well, odd (at least to the non-Australian) in the bush ballads -- which chronicle the adventures of drovers (cowboys), tramps, rovers, outlaws, soldiers, and tough, unforgettable women -- the listener may experience a delicious sense of psychic dislocation. The effect is like hearing something you know well yet, paradoxically, feeling as if you're hearing it for the first time.Recorded in Nashville with gifted, sympathetic musicians (including the ubiquitous Tim O'Brien and Stuart Duncan, not to mention the always welcome Danny Thompson), Goin' Home is one gorgeous recording from start to conclusion. Todd's splendid originals are indistinguishable from traditionals. His covers -- at least two of the more recent pieces I recognize from various incarnations of the Battlefield Band -- are perfect. He handles the venerable American folk songs "Don't Put Taxes on the Women" and "Come All Ye Fair and Tender Ladies" with aplomb, against all odds making them his own. Even the often-recorded Eric Bogle anti-war anthem "The Band Played Waltzing Matilda" loses none of its power, and seems all too appropriate for this sorry moment in the history of this sorry world. What a delight it is to hear that sturdy old shanty "Cape Cod Girls" -- the one with the "Bound away for Australia" chorus -- again. I last heard it on a mid-1960s Patrick Sky album which, I'm sorry to say, Vanguard has never seen fit to reissue on CD. Todd's own composition "Canada" evokes the heartbreak and the hope of the Scots who came to settle that nation. I cannot imagine there will ever be a better song on that subject.What a treat, what a treasure. Todd does it exactly the way it should be done, and he enriches the life of anyone who hears him."

Comfortable MOR folk/country

J. TIMMERMAN | Lawson, NSW Australia | 09/22/2004

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Gibb Todd is a Scotsman who has been in the folk circuit for many along year and has toured extensively around the world. This however is only his second album, international in many respects, nicely recorded in Nashville USA, comprising a cohesive mix of songs from Australia, UK and North America. Gibb even changes his accent according to the origin of the song. Remarkably, the cover has an unmistakably Australian scene, so Gibb obviously has a strong affinity downunder.



What first impressed me immediately about this recording is the high calibre of studio musicians from around the world. Gibb didn't muck about. Besides his own guitar, his deep mellow baritone voice is accompanied by luminaries like John Doyle on guitar, Stuart Duncan on fiddle, Alison Brown on banjo, Danny Thompson on bass, and Tim O' Brien on vocals. The sound is warm and nicely rounded.



The album opens with two rambling original ballads based on Gibb's Australian experience, "The Belle of Byron Bay" and "Where the Bangelows Are", followed by an attractive rendition of the classic "And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda" by Scots-Australian Eric Bogle. From Scotland there's Davy Steele's "The Last Trip Home", Brian McNeill's "Strong Women Rule Us All" and the ever-popular traditional "Norlin Wind". On the American side there's a mellow self-penned "Canada" about migration there from overseas, and a very plain version of "Fair and Tender Ladies". There's also a comic traditional "Don't Put Taxes on the Women", reminiscent of something Chris Smithers would sing, and a variation on "Bound for South Australia", called "Cape Cod Girls". His own title track "Goin' Home" has a country feel.



Rolling along at a very even keel, this fairly laid-back album is easy to digest but doesn't tingle the spine the way the best albums do."