Joe Montana

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Terry Callier Speak Your Peace (Mr Bongo)

Just one look on the TV News or on the headlines of your favourite newspaper makes it clearer than ever how up-to-date Terry Callier's songs are. With wars in the Near East, Afghanistan, civil wars in Africa (which are sadly overlooked by Western media) and violence in your own country (like pupils killing their teachers in school) it's obvious that the world's in serious trouble. But it's good to have artists like Terry Callier singing about the mess of the world.Speak Your Peace comes along as a very political album with songs dealing with war (Running Around: 'I heard the news just the other day/ Bombs are falling in a land so far away/.../How will this all end? What are we thinking of?/ How can peace exist when there's no room for love?) or trouble in Western Africa (Sierra Leone: 'Trouble is brewing in Sierra Leone/ Colonialism cut like a knife/ The search for rescources - the struggle for life/ And now we are reaping the seeds that were sown/ One more bitter harvest for Sierra Leone'). Very disturbing are the lyrics to the, er, dark Darker Than A Shadow ('Raging wind and clouds of steam - it was darker than a shadow/ Most unprepared for scenes like these/ The heavy air and boiling seas - destruction of societies/.../ There came a flaming asteroid/ One-third of this world was destroyed') that would fit perfect as a soundtrack to one of these catastrophic movies.Or listen to Imagine A Nation that descripes Terry's (and I bet nearly everyone's vision) of a peaceful and better world: 'Imagine a nation of people willing to/ Hold down the violence/ And stop the killing/ Imagine a nation where troubles are done/ No need to hustle or cheat/ Or live by the gun/ No selling of drugs/ No selling of people/ We're all human beings/ We are equal'. It might read like a manifastation of the Freedom Movement of the late sixties/early seventies but then ask yourself if so much has really changed since then if you take away the technical improvements.In this context his cover version of the Isley-Jasper-Isley song Caravan Of Love fits perfectly. The question is if the solution, that Terry offers here, is that simple. Certainly love and respect one another is a beginning.But as on previous albums Terry also has some songs about love and relationship on offer, like Just My Imagination ('Each day through my window/ I watch her as she passes by/ I say to myself, I'm such a lucky guy/ To have a girl like her/ Is really a dream come true/ Of all the fellas in the world/ She belongs to you/ It was just my imagination/ Runnin' away with me' or the story of an unfulfilled love to a girl named Chelsea [Chelsea Blue ('She only saw me as a friend/ On the outside looking in/ What a place to be/ The music we could have made together/ Is some forgotten melody')]Musicwise Terry is supported on Speak Your Peace by Marc Mac (of 4 Hero fame) as producer on three songs (Monuments Of Mars, Darker Than A Shadow and Turn This Mutha). The other eleven songs were produced by Jean-Paul 'Bluey' Maunick (of Incognito fame) so it's no surprise that We Are Not Alone with it's brass section and background vocals by Tony and Xavier Momrelle sounds very Ingocnito-like...and it just fits perfectly (but then Terry's voice also was very suitable with some housebeats on the Roy Davis Jr. remix of Love Theme From Spartacus or on Joe Montana Rip-off of Dancing Girl which made clever use of the 'welcome to the twilight-zone' line). On Brother To Brother Terry is joined by Paul Weller on vocals.In my opinion this is the best Terry Callier album since his re-discovery in the Nineties...it really would've been a shame if he still was earning his money on some IT job like he did in-between times. The Timepeace and Lifetime albums were fine but it was usually a little bit difficult to listen to them continuously. With the production work of Marc Mac and Bluey this luckily changed and even though Terry offers more deep thoughts on Speak Your Peace than other artists may do with all their releases it's a real listening pleasure. If you're hungry for some food for thought I guess you know by now what to do...

http://www.djnexus.com/main_view.cfm/l/21946/Discocaine