Conquest Records

****

Mickey Jupp, renowned Godfather of pub-rock, has earned a cult global following for blending r&b, rockabilly, country and pop stylings with a poet’s sensibility. Though he’s recorded for several major labels during a career that stretches back to the mid-1960s, commercial fame always eluded him. He’s enjoyed more success as a songwriter for such diverse performers as the Judds, Chris Farlowe, Dr Feelgood, Elkie Brooks, Ricky Nelson, Delbert McClinton, Dave Edmunds, Gary Brooker and Nick Lowe. Originally a stalwart of the thriving 1970s Southend music scene, for decades he’s lived in the hamlet of Boot, in the Lake District. There he has a home studio, and for the past three years he’s been working on home recordings of his vast back catalogue of songs. Any artist with an ample store of talent and a proven track record, who has the luxury of settling down at home to make private music that’s not necessarily intended for fans, is indeed fortunate. However, few artists handle that privilege with as much grace and panache as Mickey Jupp demonstrates on TIMES LIKE THESE, the third volume in his Boot Legacy series of those recordings. Much of the material consists of intimate versions of previously unheard songs, exploring facets of Mickey’s musicality that does not always emerge on his commercial recordings. Often edging into twangy, Americana territory, nonetheless Mickey wears his rebel rocker heart on his musical sleeve.

Equal parts pub rocker, poet, and blue-collar barfly, Mickey Jupp’s stories are as bizarre and universal and honest and pure as the people who have followed his career over the decades. His songs reach out and grab people, shake them by the collars, make them feel totally involved. Anchored by his richly textured voice and dexterous guitar playing, the songs seem to flow from some great repository of emotion and insight … a song-maker known for transporting listeners back to a simpler, sepia-toned time, appears to be amid a cosmic shift forward in his 80s. The feisty wordsmith comes armed with trenchant new songs from the splendid Honky Tonic, a powerful blend of punk rock attitude and country singer sensibility, brought to life with a bar band musical aesthetic. You Wouldn’t Know A True Love provides the hardest tug toward country courtesy of a gently loping rhythm with nostalgic echoes of those classic Ricky Nelson and Johnny Burnette hits of the late 1950s and early 1960s.

A forceful, confident singer with plenty of grit and swagger in his delivery, Doctored, a nod to Dr. Feelgood, a band he surely influenced, is a big, bruising rowdy of a song, much too tough for sentiment. The Impression is slightly soulful, with a hint of a drumbeat, acoustic guitar that manages to sound electric, and a slithering vocal hook, in addition to a whisper of electric organ that could be on the track but could also be superimposed by your mind’s expectations. Over a mix of classic r&b (Function To Function), plaintive reflection (Times Like These), and surging country-rock (You Bring Out The Blue In Me), Mickey chronicles his life experiences and friends with humour, empathy, and grace. 

It’s clearer than ever that Mickey Jupp is one of the most resilient, creative forces in the UK music scene. Still triumphing against the odds, still surprising even himself at times, you must have all those sounds in your back pocket and still give a bit of your soul; if nothing else. TIMES LIKE THESE passes all the tests with flying colours.

www.conquestmusic.co.uk

December 2024