Ratso - Stubborn Heart (2019)

Five years ago, co-hosting an Internet radio show, one of the guests, who wrote a book about Gram Parsons, brought in some friends from The Mendoza Line to sing some of Gram’s songs. They got to talking and ended up writing some songs together, prompting Sloman to revisit his old lyrics and get some friends to sing them on a self-tribute album.

The first to be recorded was Our Lady of Light, a slow waltz about a melancholic femme fatale on which he duets with Nick Cave while producer Vincent Cacchione from Brooklyn outfit Caged Animals plays most of the instruments. Huskily voiced, Sloman ‘sings’ in the same way that Leonard Cohen ‘sang’, indeed Cohen, who was one of his friends, is an obvious reference point, both vocally, musically and lyrically, most evidently so on the album opener I Want Everything, narcotically spoken over a hypnotic percussion track and background drone, and the similarly styled, Dying On The Vine which, if you didn’t know co-writer John Cale had recorded it on Artificial Intelligence, you might think it was one of Cohen’s own. Ironically, of course, it was Cale who, much indebted to Sloman, first popularised Hallaleujah with his hybrid lyric recording on the 1990 tribute album I’m Your Fan.

Another Cale co-write, this time the title track from his 1984 album, featuring harmonium, xylophone, sax, bongos, marimba and laughter, the sultry Caribbean Sunset, has a noir novella air about it, a duet with songster/violinist Imani Coppola who later returns for Listen Little Man, a sort of call to arms, with its plangent piano notes, orchestral bells and guitar solo from Darwin Deez.

A third collaboration with Cale, although hitherto only available on a live bootleg, Living In Moonlight opens with a sample of Bela Lugosi’s classic ‘children of the night’ line from Dracula before unfolding into a laid back tropical sway, this time Sloman’s vocals channelling the mellow side of Dylan. And, speaking of whom, the final number has him in the same mode for a near twelve-minute slow amble through Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands that features vocals from Eddi Front, Magali Charron, Yasmine Handman, Ruby Friedman and the rather less obscure Sharon Robinson, Cohen’s longtime backing singer and co-writer, while Bad Seed Warren Ellis is on hand for flute and fiddle.

The catchiest and most immediate number stems from the sessions with Tim Bracy and Elizabeth Nelson from The Mendoza Line, Matching Scars being a classic bruised relationship mid-tempo country ballad that ripples out on pedal steel wings, which leaves the organ-backed slow early hours sway title track, another Cohen-styled spoken number again featuring orchestral bells and Paul Shapiro on bluesy saxophone solo.

Writing in the sleeve notes, famed magician Penn Jillette remarks how Sloman was always a ‘ghost musician’, an inspiration behind the scenes. Now, embarking on a new career at 69, jokingly suggesting he could be the Jewish Susan Boyle, he’s front and centre in the flesh. It’s well deserved.