Videos by American Songwriter
Teddy Thompson & Kelly Jones
Little Windows
(Cooking Vinyl)
Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars
Honeyed, charming, delightful, adorable, enchanting … pick your precious adjective for this short but oh so sweet partnership between singer-songwriters Teddy Thompson and Kelly Jones. The twosome sound just fine as they duet on ten originals clearly inspired by the Everly Brothers and Buddy Holly, which means they exude a lovey-dovey country/folk pop appeal that goes down easy, perhaps overly so.
It won’t take long to get into the fresh-faced, party dress groove of this duo singing originals that sound so much like they came out of the late ’50s and early ’60s, they might have been deep album tracks on an obscure Ricky Nelson album. Once the concept is established, it generally repeats itself for the remaining 25 minutes. And while the tunes are melodic enough, they aren’t all that memorable as anything other than a tip of the hat to an earlier, more innocent time.
Clearly Thompson and Jones are enjoying this side trip, likely one-off stroll down memory lane. And while a few tunes jump out — in particular the bluesy strut of “Only Fooling” and the Holly-ish “Words of Love”-inspired “Never Knew You Loved Me Too,” which sounds like something the Searchers would have had fun with — much of this quickly fades into pleasant, innocuous if goodhearted background music. That’s also unexpected due to two of Elvis Costello’s Imposters holding down drums (Pete Thomas) and bass (Danny Faraghar) duties, as you’d think they’d bring more of an edge. Perhaps if a band like the Mavericks got a hold of these songs, they would create more excitement.
Ultimately, it takes a real curmudgeon to dislike this often enchanting, rosy-cheeked, harmony laden alliance, even if you wish it was better. It also does little to display the vocal talents of Kelly Jones who has a handful of terrific albums under her own name but whose own style gets lost here. Hopefully, this higher profile project will attract attention to her solo work that is more energetic and riveting than anything on this pleasant if somewhat bland collaboration.
