Matt Joe Gow and Kerryn Fields are Country Americana with a lot o’ Soul. Both are New Zealanders who have flourished in Australia over the last ten years, garnering awards and accolades.
Recently one from home country came their way. Matt Joe Gow won the MLT Song Writing Award 2023 for Whirlwind, for the best unreleased song in Australasia.
They play it last, and Gow introduces it as a song about breaking generational violence. Ringing guitars become a drone, there is the start of a Springsteen bellow in there.
Change/ It was coming for the drink, the drugs and the violence. Downbeat and weary.
Off their current album I Remember You, released six weeks ago. This is the last stop of their nationwide tour to promote it.
They kick off with Prairie Song, written by Kerryn Fields. Lovin’ you is like holdin’ back wild horses. A signature deep vocal tone, with the faintest of an American twang.
Close to the tone of Sara Carter (Original Carter Family) and especially on their prized Border Radio recordings.
They both wrote Heart of Gold which is a radio song and borrows a little from the Warren Zevon classic Play It All Night Long in spirit.
Sweet Collapse is Gow’s song which contains the politically problematic line, from the river to the sea. That reflects these charged times, where the line it is drawn/ the curse it is cast.
It is one of Gow’s fine Van Morrison-styled songs, coming from the period when the Irish Soul singer was getting stoned to his soul, just like Jelly Roll.
Both Dylan and Morrison got caught in politics, and both got burnt and paid heavy prices. Dylan was booed by seemingly turning his back on the Folk Protest movement.
Morrison’s transgression is from current times, when he called out the viral madness for what it is. Old and bad-tempered enough not to give a damn about personal disapprobation.
Both Gow and Fields take time to relate tales of their odyssey across the country. An old and unreliable van (sort of appropriate), and since both wear hats on stage…wherever I lay my hat, that’s my home.
Carry On and Gow sings solo with a slow baritone. Fields warbles on harmonica. I made the note Waylon on the night. That may be accurate.
Atlantis you could regard as a tour-de-force for Fields. She does have that distinctive low register, but her voice has a versatile high range. Again, with little affectation (there is some vibrato), and she is comparable to another Carter Family alumni, Anita.
Check out the first recorded version of Ring of Fire, written by June Carter and Merle Kilgore.
Fields can nail the high lonesome sound and pure tones of the Appalachians or the Blue Ridge Mountains, although she does not consider herself a Bluegrass singer.
Dead Flowers and Stale Wine has lead vocal from Fields and harmony from Gow. But he gets to do his Blues-with-Country guitar solo. Some of the Rolling Stones Angie arises.
Out on the Porch is Field’s song, which comes close to the Country Rockabilly of White Lightnin’. Both play acoustic guitars tonight. They make enough of a racket here to match a bigger band.
Love Ya Like I Can is similarly raucous. They have woo-hoo’s borrowed from early Surf classic Woo Hoo by the Rock-A-Teens.
They close the evening with their version of Sir Dave Uncle Dobby Dobbyn’s It Dawned On Me. Peaceful Country Soul and a benediction.
They bring it all back home. The echoes of Springsteen, Van, Celtic Soul. Kerryn Fields and Matt Joe Gow elevate their take on Americana music in partnership.
Rev. Orange Peel