Timezone [Release date 23.01.26]

‘Miles of Time’ is the second album by Americana style German duo of Carl Carlton and Melanie Wiegmann.

Carlton is an experienced singer-songwriter, guitarist and producer (Robert Palmer, Herman Brood, Udo Lindenberg,The Songdogs, Manfred Mann, Eric Burdon, Joe Cocker, Willy DeVille, Jimmy Barnes, Levon Helm) while Melanie Wiegmann is a singer, actress and TV star.

The 13 track album (including 12 covers) spans 67 years  and celebrates the art of vocal harmonies and interpretive singing, on songs about: “loss, change, and the inexorable passage of time.”

The songs are passionately sung, intuitively played and imaginably arranged, while taking the brave step to cross stylistic borders.

Following 2023’s commercially successful ‘Glory Of Love’, it’s perhaps unsurprising that the musical duo stick mainly with covers.

But as they say themselves:  “We love to preserve lesser-known pieces from different genres and cultures and revive them in a new guise.”

They do so by bringing a new vitality to both the familiar and eclectic through pristine harmonies and Carl’s multi instrumental input.

For example, Leiber & Stoller’s ‘Love Potion No. 9’ which was big for The Clovers in the US and The Searchers in the UK, benefits from a slide-led and percussion heavy Latino groove with horns.

Van Morrison’s oft covered ‘Crazy Love’, is imbued with the spirit of Levon Helm, and evokes The Band’s ‘The Weight’, as the duo alternatively hover their vocals over an attentive piano and a rich toned guitar sound.

Even the seemingly mundane choice of the Luther Dixon penned, Jimmy Reed hit ‘Big Boss Man’, beguiles us with an uplifting jug band version with Melanie’s whispered vocals punctuated by percussion, flighty harp, rolling piano and spiky guitar.

They open with the Keb Mo’s 1996 Grammy award winning album title track ‘Just Like You’, which is arguably the best track on the album.

It’s a beautifully sung meditative love song with a universal message.

Presented as an acoustic-into-electric vocal trio, it’s anchored by subtle percussion, carried by aching slide and topped by inspirational harmonies.

Carlton extends his slide playing on ‘Alive’, a welcome self penned ode to his parents.  The use of a dreamy organ line gives it a rootsy feel not unlike The Band, while the duet is bolstered by some uplifting choral bv’s.

Bobby Charles’ ‘Small Town Talk’, is another song with a Band connection, being co-penned by the late Rick Danko.

It’s given a bouncy arrangement full of wah wah, percussion, horns and cooing ‘oooh and aaah’ style bv’s, almost in sharp contrast to the oppressive meaning of the narrative.

The album really starts to flow on the afore mentioned ‘Crazy Love’, and everything comes together on ‘Sidewalk Conversation’.

An album title track back in 2012 for Carl’s son Max Buskohl, the contrast between Carl’s husk and Melanie’s soprano is the perfect combination for a lugubrious song that befits the use of pedal steel.

They also transform Ray Davies’s melancholic ‘This Time Tomorrow’ into a riff-led, lush sounding track with a palpable West coast sweep, reminiscent of The Mamas & the Papas.

And having confirmed their sparkling interpretive abilities, they take a significant step to connect with Nashville on Will Jennings’s ‘The Green Leaves of Summer’.

Co-written and originally sung by former rocker Peter Wolf (J. Geils Band) – who crossed the troubled divide between rock and country – it’s sung with real gusto by Carlton and Wiegmann on a triumph of harmonies over genre.

They come back to the album’s mission statement on a sparkling version of John Sebastian’s ‘The Stories We Could Tell.’

A 1972 album title track for The Everly Brothers, the song was popularised by Jimmy Buffet in ’74, and later recycled in 1980 by Tom Petty.

The duo approach the song with a squeezebox-led country feel, full of impressive harmonies.

They dive deep into the narrative and are aided by the Sebastian himself on guitar, on a song which amplifies the connection between the duo’s natural vocal exuberance and their reverential approach.

They craft dynamic arrangements while constantly seeking fresh musical inspiration with which to convey their joy of singing the songs.

Melanie certainly brings her own presence to bear on Joni Mitchell’s ‘Both Sides Now’, while Carl brings a jingle-jangle feel to a rock & roll version of John Prine and Pat McLaughlin’s ‘Daddy’s Little Pumpkin’.

The vibrant band arrangement finds Wiegmann double tracking her voice alongside Carlton’s bristling guitar solo, as they rack up the lyrical intensity of a song about mutual dependence.

The album finishes with a banjo-led and pedal steel infused version of Jerry Jeff Walker’s ‘Little Bird’.

The meticulously produced track is beautifully sung like the album as a whole, and captures the refective emotion of the original.

The paean to an early lost love also returns us to the overarching theme of the passing of time, or in this case ‘Miles of Time’

And on the evidence of this album, this is very much Carlton and Wiegmann’s time. ****

Review by Pete Feenstra

 

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THE SKBS The Prying Eye (indie)
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