With echoes of Springsteen, Dylan and Ryan Adams, Frankie Lee is no avant-garde trailblazer. The Mississippian eulogises being “born in a summer storm” and even “a little house we call home”. After picking up songwriting tips from Merle Haggard and Roky Erikson on his travels, the diagnosed narcoleptic’s wonderfully laconic delivery brims with simple wisdom: “All the time we take / We never take our time”; “I’ve got to learn to let this go / ’Cos it’s your time before you know”. But beneath the familiar glow of his beautifully burnished Americana lurks a restless, angry soul. High and Dry urges folk to start growing their own food for when capitalism fails them. The outstanding East Side Blues and Where Do We Belong lay into developers who have destroyed US towns and address the casualties of the so-called American dream. It’s a traditional-sounding debut, but wild and radical at heart, and should take him a long way.
