Album review: Teddy Thompson & Kelly Jones – Little Windows
2 min read
In general, good singer-songwriters’ duet albums tend to be pretty hard to come by. Duet albums are few and far between nowadays anyway, but on the rare chance one is delivered, more often than not they deliver as too long, too boring, or too competitive. But British musician Teddy Thompson and Washington-born Kelly Jones have written and recorded their very first album together called Little Windows. In essence, it is a ten track long record of smooth country ballads tinged with folk and pop, that would not seem out of place amidst the musical archives of the 1950s/60s. And, coming in at less than thirty minutes long means that the record is over long before you get the chance to tire of their perfectly aligned harmonies.
I Thought That We Said Goodbye is the album single, and named by Thompson as “one of my favourites”. Acoustic and sparse in instrumentation, this song, like most others is led by their kindred vocal harmonies and transcending use of lyricism, even down to the songs title. Aside from the cheesy piano section, As We Were is a lovely nostalgic, dreamy track, one which showcases the elaborate vocal range that they both share. The one thing there is perhaps more space for on this album is some fun. You can hear where they have experimented with moods and tempos such as with the faster, more upbeat track Wondering. However vocally, and even lyrically, Little Windows feels too rigidly pigeonholed into being just immobile, face-to-face ballad music .
Given that Jones only sung with Thompson for the first time in 2011 though, the chemistry the two demonstrate on record is truly commendable. Guitar driven songs like You Can’t Call Me Baby demonstrate the folk-rock roots of Thompson, (who is the son of British folk-rock legends, Linda & Richard Thompson), whereas Jones’ country-pop past act as the foundations for songs such as the fluid Make A Wish On Me. But with this album, it seems that regardless of the song and its origins, the pair manage to come together seamlessly each time. Throughout, they both complement and implement each other’s efforts on every melody, and ultimately produced a captivating album.
