Such Times

Steve Tilston made his first album, An Acoustic Confusion, in 1971, gaining a place in a cohort of exceptional guitar-playing songwriters including Bert Jansch, Ralph McTell and Wizz Jones. Half a century of playing, singing and writing has, Such Times testifies, resolved any confusion. His world view is clear – times such as these are distressing and those in power are venal. Tilston's guitar playing is superb, his technical accomplishment and verve tempered by sensitivity. Two instrumental tracks – the bluesy ‘12/8 Pull Off’ and ‘Four Corners’, a western road movie for guitar – swing. His best melodies, such as ‘A Million Away’ and ‘Where Your Mark Remains’, are unusual and entrancing.

But Tilston's mature and righteous disenchantment with the times causes him occasionally to stumble. He laments homelessness in ‘It's a Crying Shame’. Who could disagree? If your face doesn't fit, he sings, you're doomed – and the authorities don't care. A song, though, must move beyond statement, and any statement must be true. There is a refrain ‘No fixed abode means you ain't got no vote' but, in the UK, you don't need a permanent address to register to vote. Far better is ‘There's a Man’. From snippets of overheard conversations Tilston evokes vivid characters such as the shepherd with such an affinity for his charges he hears their calls across impossible distances. There is a fine account of the Brazilian Antônio Carlos Jobim's ‘Waters of March’. ‘My Mystery Train’ combines his obsessions with trains and guitars in an homage to Scotty Moore. There's something of the country singer in Tilston and with ‘Dust from My Heels’ he joyously embraces that identity.