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Ferraby Lionheart – Catch the Brass Ring

I first saw Ferraby Lionheart play a supporting slot last year at the Troubadour. I walked into the sparsely populated main room as he began his set, and was immediately struck by his presence on the historic stage. He was only a man with a guitar, but it was the first and only time I had watched an artist at the Troubadour who could have easily been transported 40 years back and still fit right in. This wasn’t because he was dressed in some hippie-farmer outfit or was long-haired and bearded, but rather his soft sung and strummed songs contained raw and humble qualities befitting canyon bards of days-gone-by.

Fast-forward to summer of ’07 and Ferraby is signed to Nettwork Records and has just released his first full-length album, Catch the Brass Ring.

According to his bio Ferraby is often mistaken as hailing from Nashville, and an honest mistake it is as he grew up there and “his music sounds a little country sometimes,” it goes on to say, however he was in fact born in Los Angeles and now again resides here. To me Catch the Brass Ring absolutely resonates as a L.A. record, not in terms of the glamorized or exploitive elements that so often are associated with this city, but rather the honest, intellectual and dare I say it, sweet, sides of Los Angeles that do exist. His songs are particularly reminiscent of an earlier city-of-angels singer-songwriter Harry Nilsson. More than just a similar song-style, both artists convey a kind of carefree feeling in their songs, regardless of subject matter the approach is laissez-faire. For instance Ferraby’s song “Vermont Avenue,” named I assume for the eastside thoroughfare, with its meandering glide and penniless optimism captures the essence of the lingering bohemian (faux or authentic) contingent found in certain neighborhoods of the city.

And then there’s his wittiness…

At times on the verge of silliness, Ferraby’s lyrics create a fantastic world somewhere between reality and cartoonish reality, and with self-proclaimed aspirations to be like Gene Wilder, one isn’t surprised. “My love was swallowed by a whale… We danced a waltz inside his tale,” he sings on “A Bell and Tumble,” a brilliant shuffling jazz-inflected song (Chet Baker is credited as an inspiration for his start in music). There is however, a deeper layer to the jollity, as in “The Octopus and the Ambulance” when he croons “Give yourself a break and laugh a while…” in a voice that seems on the brink of tears, revealing the edge that really defines this album.

At its heart what Catch the Brass Ring really exemplifies, is the closeness and even commingling of the two most basic expressions of human emotion: crying and laughing. Dependant on your mood when listening to it, you may find yourself doing either or both.

MP3: Ferraby Lionheart – Vermont Avenue