John Jenkins Restless Hearts
Liverpool-based UK singer-songwriter John Jenkins most recent musical tome, Restless Hearts, is an emotionally resonant album that blends folk, Americana, and country and explores themes of love, loss, faith, and the fleeting nature of time.
A gifted song storyteller, Jenkins lyrically strips his songs down to the bare bones, like Ernest Hemmingway’s “less is more” writing style, lulling and luring listeners into vivid human cinematic landscapes that at times permeate the very marrow of bone. Jenkins’ vocals are reminiscent of American country singer Don Williams, Mark Knopfler (of Dire Straits – especially on “Cruel Wind” and “Too Many Roads”) and (dare I say) Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters in their raw starkness and profound provocation.
He sings with an authentic honesty, evocative conversational delivery, and at some points with an eerie haunting, like in “The Sound of Thunder” or “The Disappearance,” a jarring tale of a turbulent relationship, a missing woman, and a possibly untimely escape at Crystal Lake, with Jerkins narrator asking, “Was she pushed or did she jump?” “Did she leave him? Will he ever know?” Where is she?” – questions that hang heavy in the ether long after the song concludes.
Working with a talented array of musicians – Scott Poley (dobro/pedal steel), Chris Howard (piano), Phil Chisnall (resonator guitar), Pippa Murdie (mandolin, cello), Jon Lawton (guitars, bass), and Mikey Kenney (fiddle) – each track is skillfully crafted and spacious, letting the songs breathe and the musicians shine in the textures and elements that augment each song.
Jenkins solo guitar is the central grounding instrument with sparse yet significant accompaniments, while some tracks include a full band treatment when it suits the song, as in the upbeat “I Didn’t Really Want To Change The World” with its intriguing changing time-signature beat, and “The Man Who Breaks Your Heart,” a traditional Country track, which could be played at any dance hall for an intimate two step. Occasional subtle harmony vocals from Pippa Murdie work so wonderfully on wistful songs like “Too Many Roads,” “He Never Needed Much,” and “The Man Who Breaks Your Heart.” She steps into the forefront on one track, trading verses with Jenkins quite effectively on “Colorado in the Spring.”
Natural elements are motifs weaved throughout the lyrical scenes on the album tracks – as in the “autumn breeze” and “falling leaves” in “Brooklyn,” a song seascape that asserts “It’s so easy to be mistaken, when you’re far away in a land across the sea” with lonely Irish overtones in its “Li li li la” refrain. The song resolutely comes to a close with the final realization: “I guess some things were just meant to be.” Other introspective seasonal songs include “The Not Knowing,” (which invites the listener into a gentle character vignette in the misty rain as “Ben sips his coffee” because he somberly has “such a long, long way from where he is going, and where he thinks he’s been”), “He Never Needed Much” (which serves as a requiem for a man with “an air of childish youth” who “never needed much but made the most of his life.”), “Spent the Night in Austin,” a nostalgic reflection of life and what we learn (sometimes the hard way) along our journey that can leave us jaded (as Jenkins admits, “It’s getting too cold to even care”). Jenkins rounds out the collection by letting the listener wander with him longingly through the trees of “Farthings Wood,” a gentle acoustic dirge accented by a lone moving violin.
Hiraeth is a Welsh word that is somewhat difficult to describe in English, since no single English word expresses all that it means. It is an earnest longing or desire, or a sense of regret; a homesickness for a home to which you cannot return, a home which maybe never was; the nostalgia, yearning, or grief for the lost places of your past. This complex concept seems to partly convey the feeling John Jenkins captures so clearly throughout the songs on Restless Hearts, along with the search for meaning, joy, hope, and redemption, an album you can come back to time and time again, with deepening rewards.
More information at: http://www.johnjenkinsmusic.com and here: https://johnjenkins.bandcamp.com/album/restless-hearts