Inspiration: Jess Roden

Some of you may be familiar with one of my other blogs – “Unsung Heroes” -where I occasionally write about what I consider to be criminally underrated vocalists of the last few decades. I’ve featured the likes of Glenn Hughes, Baby Jean Kennedy, Terry Reid, and of course, the wonderful Jess Roden. Something remarkable happened after I featured Jess. people from all over the world rallied around to share in their love for this gem of a British singer, and the article became a stand-alone discussion group. I like to think it created an impetus for a re-evaluation of Jess’s work, which led to the release of a compilation on Cherry Red, and the creation (by Neil Storey) of a fantastic site dedicated to Jess and his career.

It was natural then, that at some point I would perhaps try and record a version of one of his songs as a tribute, and I finally finished the track this afternoon – one of my favourites – from the amazing ‘Butts Band‘ album. I’ve occasionally played this just with an acoustic guitar on one or two solo shows here in Spain, but I really wanted to try and put a version down in the studio. I didn’t listen to the original while I worked on this,  I didn’t want to copy it note for note, rather do my own take on it. I’ve chucked in acoustic and electric guitars, electric piano, hammond, and a few other bits and pieces. All vocals and instrumentation is by yours truly, so therefore all mistakes are also! So here it is, tipping my hat to one of the UK’s greatest ever vocalists……“Sweet Danger”.

Kev Moore

(an edited version of this article appears in Unsung heroes)