James Apollo
The songs and musings of Roy Orbison are nuggets of a lost, bygone age, and one rarely referenced by artists of this generation. A shame and a gross disservice, but Orbison is a songwriter whose influence can still instil intrigue, where the likes of Dylan, Waits, Cash and Young have tragically become a badge for the everyday troubadour.
Humble American, James Apollo is one such artist who evokes the classic otherworldy timelessness of a young Orbison. A lofty suggestion, but a telling one if told in the right context. Apollo's music certainly evokes the atmosphere of a smoky, musty speakeasy, plentiful fingers of whisky, and a croon pitched to the heart.
"As a kid, my folks would take me up to a little town of Branson Missouri on Saturday nights where there'd be a band playing. It was sort of like a poor man's Las Vegas, which is saying a lot. I couldn't stand the corny country songs they'd play, but I think a few of those rhinestones must have gotten caught in my eye."
To submerse oneself in Apollo's back catalogue is a fascinating experience. Akin to the storytelling of Richard Hawley, but with a distinctively American flavour, Apollo is all about setting the wrong tone and his songwriting oft finds itself reverberating around the oblique,
"Find a note nailed to the door that says she's not coming back. Walk out to look for her and get chased by a dog. Jump in front of a moving truck, and lay real flat on the pavement. Listen to the grease, the wheels and the wind. My process is to never try and write songs. That's how bad songs are written."
A pessimist frequently writes the memorable songs. Apollo has every reason to be pessimistic as vivid snapshots that carve a fall guy mentality shapes his very output. Breaking both legs in a motorcycle crash to living out of a boat when the money and land ran dry, it's these very experiences that are the catalyst for his sombre creations.
And it's the imagery of New York that sets the scene throughout the songs plotting his immediate history. Observations, moods, and weathered documents of a city in the bleak smoke regularly engulf Apollo's soulful compositions, and are all details that demand reference,
"I used to think Coney Island was an amusement park that closed down in the 50s. Thing is, it never did close down, it just looks that way. It's like a little Reno, waiting a short hop from the big dreams of The City." Apollo reflects.
A shuffle through Apollo's two long players and assorted EPs provides a gloriously unhinged listen. The likes of 'Call Off The Violins', 'Better To Be Born Lucky', and 'I've Got It Easy' could and should be from another era. Classic songs with classic imagery making the anticipation of his third album in the Spring, his British debut, all the more palpable. Written under a tree in the Utah Canyons in the shadows of Butch Cassidy's hideout expect further expansive documentation of moments we all should cherish, all with Orbison's ghost looking down on him.
"I tend to wait till the world wells up around me, and in me, and there's no place else for it to go."
Desolation never sounded so appealing.
'How Hard A Heart Of Gold Can Be' EP is out now. James Apollo's third album is due out in Spring 2010. www.myspace.com/jamesapollo
by Jon Lawrence
photography by Darin Back
