Cherry Ghost

You do already know “Mathematics” by Cherry Ghost. It sounded equally at home on Radios 1, 2 and 6 but wherever you heard it was usually better than the records on either side if it. And like nothing else you'd heard that day...

Unless you spend your days listening to melancholic but uplifting Country waltzes, drenched in strings and glockenspiels, sung by a 30s something with his heart in Nashville and his boots in Bolton.

Cherry Ghost is actually the alter ego of Simon Aldred, who after years of playing in bands found that both the times and life experience had caught up with him.

"I guess it depends on what kind of music you do as to when you become good at it. I think probably, if you're doing rock n'roll, it requires a lot of youth and enthusiasm so, probably, your chances are better when you're first starting out in music. I'm a big fan of Johnny Cash; kind of the more weather-worn singer-songwriters so it was just, kind of, learning the art of songwriting basically, and it took a while.”

He worked as a book keeper, sold store cards and was a maths tutor. It's not picking cotton or working on the railroad, but that's the thing with Country Music and it's modern spin off, Americana.

The cliche may be that it's all death, divorce and drinking, but because the lyrics have always been so important to Country as a genre, it does give the smart musician some real room to manoeuvre.

And there is the whole history of Country music to work with, where it became The Establishment but still loved its rebels. And you can do it as you get older, and wear great shirts, cowboy boots, open a theme park like Dolly Parton's Dollywood, have your own fast food spin off (Kenny Rodgers Roasters) or your own designer jeans with a shotgun pocket (King Kenny again).

The question is why would anyone want to play anything else?

Aldred cites Bill Callahan, Sparklehorse and Wilco (Cherry Ghost comes from a lyric in “Theologians”) as influences and there is a Vic Chesnutt wooziness to some of the songs. The closest comparison though is Richard Hawley.

Although he'd played in bands for years, schlepping around in vans, knocking on record company doors, the actual breakthrough gig was a 20 minute solo acoustic set at a Glasgow Mexican restaurant after demos of “Mathematics” started to circulate.

“I played for 20 minutes, just me and a guitar. People started putting offers in the next day.It was a matter of three or four months from writing the tune to being offered five record deals"

He signed to Heavenly, which gives it a stamp of quality, having given board and lodgings, or at least a helping hand to artists as excellent and diverse as Manic Street preachers, St Etienne, The Rockingbirds, Beth Orton and The Magic Numbers.

Mathematics is an extraordinary record, the richness of the strings, the melancholy and slightly pinched sound of Aldred's vocal and the lyrical progression from self-awareness to inevitability, as Aldred sings “It's funny how I always seem to alienate the people that I'm trying to impress/Cold mathematics is making it's move on me now”.

I love its opening line “Meet my on the corner by the fire escape and I'll be waiting”. There are not enough songs about fire escapes. (But while it is important to be able to evacuate a burning building in a timely manner it also needs to be remembered that Scott Walker's Big Louise is the ultimate fire escape song).

Cherry Ghost appeared on Jules Holland Later last year playing a stripped down version of forthcoming single “People Help The People”. Piano powered, with a bottleneck guitar swell and the lovely simplicity of the lyric - “And if you're homesick, give me a hand and I'll hold it”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8bRXxEusTk

It's just gone from his My Space site but “4am” was a corker. With it's picked guitar and brushed drums, it's got the sprightly feel of Kenny Rodgers’ “Ruby Don't take Your Love To Town”. It sounds supple and slyly rude. Possibly like the old silver fox himself.

There have been support slots with Amy Winehouse and The Magic Numbers, and he has been known to play 90's dance anthem “Suddenly” by CeCe Peniston (careful how you pronounce it)