The Who, Madonna, Talk Talk, Black Sabbath, Bo Diddley, Queen and Big Country all have something in common with some of their music and James Smith can now join that list - I’ll leave the answer to the end, but it’s not too tricky a puzzle to solve. 

James Smith is another artist from the stable who have appeared on a reality talent show. However, it wasn’t the X Factor, he appeared on the 2014 series of Britain’s Got Talent. His initial audition saw him singing the Nina Simone classic, ‘Feeling Good’, so without even hearing the songs from the EP, you know this young man from Essex has excellent taste in music. 

Don’t be confused here, this release is actually four songs, ‘Rely On Me’, ‘Say You’ll Stay’, ‘Hollow’ and ‘Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright.’ Each track is individual and each track is quite beautiful, but for me the one that stands out is ‘Don’t think twice, it’s alright’. This one is delightful in terms of performance, construction and production. It does everything it needs to do without being corny, and stays true to the live performance; to top it off it has a stunning harmonica that gives a bluesy/country vibe to the track. This dynamic is gorgeous. James Smith could be said to have a pop voice, but with a bit more soul, and you don’t expect the combination of harmonica to go with his voice, but it works. When the song first starts it sounds like a classic Bob Dylan track, but the guitars and subtle electric piano take you away from this, as does the chord progressions and vocal melody line. The texture to the music is charming, the vocal sits a bit higher in the mix than many songs, with accompaniment really sitting back, but then building when the lyrics have a break. 

I didn’t know much about James Smith before listening to these four songs, but having listened to them I’ve done an extensive look on his social media and there is some lovely music for people to explore and digest. Of course the link between the artists at the top of the review is that they all name checked themselves in the titles of some of their songs or albums. It’s not a bad list to find yourself in and there are plenty more, and I think James Smith is deserving of being up there with them too.

 Singer-songwriter      Indie 

Author: Phil Arnold

Phil Arnold is a musician, producer and music reviewer from Devon, in the South West of England. Whilst not writing music reviews, Phil also writes and records under the name of Ugbrooke.