Pete Astor the legendary singer and songwriter with The Weather Prophets and the Loft as well as solo and with his band The Holy Road.
You made me is Pete Astor's version of the old chestnut known as the cover's album, along with one original song, this is a collection of songs that have influenced and inspired Pete over the years. His choices veer from the unlikely to the reasonably obvious and include one song that for me is such an ear-worm I only had to read it's title in the running order for it to become lodged back in my head. As with any decent covers album he leads the listener towards a few things they might not already know.
The album opens with one of the more unlikely song choices on this album and a nice laid back version of Generation X's Dancing With Myself not a song I'd have expected Pete Astor to cover, that's all in it, and the albums favor as he takes away the bombast and replaces it with a much more heartfelt take on this huge hit.
His take on Elvis Presley's Black Star is full of poignant emotion and hushed vocals that make it sound like nothing you'd ever expect to hear Elvis sing thus totally making it his own. This is also the song that David Bowie took as inspiration for his Black Star album. This has a cool desert rock feel in places.
Chained To An Idiot is the one original on the album and tells Pete's own story of being a kid getting into music and finding his idols and sounds like it would have fit nicely onto his most recently re-issued album Paradise.
Next up is his take on Cat Power's Manhattan a song I'm not familiar with, but this take on it is all hushed restrained percussion and slight vocals that tell a nice little story.
Nitcomb is a Joe Strummer & The Mescalero's song that I probably ought to own but don't, this has a very stripped back basic keyboard sound and other odd noises as he compares the difficulty of getting rid of Nits with how hard he is to dump as a boyfriend.
We then get one of the more obvious choices with a great version of Richard Thompson's Vincent Black Lightning 1952 a song that has now been covered by loads of other acts and well it is one of Richards finest accessible songs about the joys of riding a classic motor bike down to Box Hill and this isn't that far from the original as the tale of the rider and his fate unfolds.
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We then get a very cool take on John Martyn's Solid Air his song about his good friend Nick Drake and his problems and Pete dedicated it to any friends we have who seem to be disappearing before our eyes, this is a lovely laid back version that has a really nice guitar solo full of what sounds like wah wah as a pulse.
He then goes full on powerpop on The Replacements Can't Hardly Wait and while it might not have the excitement of the original it more than makes up for it in the way the guitars keep moving around the mix to help build the anticipation at the core of the song.
Pete then brings things much more up to date with a cover of The Villagers Courage a song I don't think I've heard before, this is a nice sparse and laid back song about finding the strength and courage that you need to get by, I will have to go and listen to the original at some point.
He then pays tribute to David Berman of The Silver Jews with a cover of his Suffering Jukebox a sad doleful and poignant song to remember an artist who left us too early and a song that just makes me want to sit somewhere with a jukebox with some good odd selections on it including this song.
The album closes with that ear worm known as One Man Guy by Loudon Wainwright III, it's certainly not his best song, but it's certainly one of his songs that get most stuck in my head and I know this version will be stuck in my head for weeks now, Pete's version is a little less plangent than Loudon's original and the addition of some very Spanish sounding guitar is a cool touch, and I'm very happy to have another version of this song to badly sing along too.
Find out more at https://peteastor1.bandcamp.com/releases https://www.facebook.com/pete.astor
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