Texas – Southside (1989)

I don’t know much about this band, except of course the brilliant Scottish singer Charlene Spiteri.  It is apparently a small three piece formed in 1986; Charlene was a hairdresser at the time.  But although they made albums mostly in the Nineties there sound was timeless, these songs could have been written and recorded anytime from the Seventies onwards; they are a gentle blend of Americana and timeless rock and soul – the production leaves plenty of room for Charlene’s sumptuous vocals.  This album was a big hit upon release but the next two didn’t fare so well.  Their fourth ‘White on Blonde’ had been their most successful along with it’s follow-up ‘Hush’.  They have been pretty inactive this Century – a malaise that seems to have infected many Artists, with longer and longer gaps between albums and tours.  May be the rampant music industry deperate to feed so many hungry music fans of the Sixties and Seventies demanding at least one album a year wasn’t so terrible after all; all this studio time and little pressure may not be so good really.