Louis Ledford “Adios King” (Waterbug Records 2007)

The unstoppable power of a simple message

Listening to Adios King is about as close as you can get to listening to someone play guitar and sing on their back porch on a hot summer’s night, without actually being there.

What Louis Ledford has done with Adios King is demonstrate the graphic beauty of simplicity. Put plainly Adios King is an album of dustbowl blues in the great traditions of Woody and co, it’s a plain talking, almost humble kind of a record. But it has a an integrity and depth of feeling that you can almost reach out and touch.

There’s always an implied romance attached to this kind of music, times may have been harder but it’s somehow comforting to think they were better. Viewed through the rose-tinted glasses of hindsight, the music that reminds us of depression-era America and somehow makes us yearn for what we believe was a simpler time. Even the 2007 version comes with its own rosy glow, which is at odds with the harshness of what Louis Ledford is actually saying , in his own sweet way he tells it like it is on Adios King.

Ledford achieves what Woody Guthrie was so good at, making an instant connection with the listener. It’s an intimacy that is hard to pin down, he sings from the heart, plays the guitar beautifully and his songs are those of everyman , a combination that creates magic. But there’s also the sense that what you are listening to is all that Louis Ledford has to give, nothing is held back.

Adios King isn’t about production or performance, it’s about the ability of one man to distil music down to its rawest and most powerful form, creating a feeling within the soul of the listener that they’ll never forget.

Date review added:  Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Reviewer:  Michael Mee
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