In the newest issue of Uncut magazine there is an 'Unsung Hero' type piece on Jim Ford. Around the time this issue came out a friend also emailed me a Jim Ford track called 'Go Through Sunday' and it was this double-pronged attack that got me hooked to the singer-songwriter who Sly Stone called 'The baddest white man I've ever met.'
I thought, if soul's notorious coke-sniffing, girl-baiting, bling-wearing madman is casting such labels upon a curly haired country-soul singer who looks like a Southern John Martyn, then this guy must be a rebel. And he is.
Over time, Ford's unhinged ballads become deeper in emotive context, both political and love-fuelled. His angelic but telling tone rolls between Van Morrison and Gram Parsons, painting images of broken country homes over revolutionary visions. His song's content is formed in such an unmanageable quality and delivered in a completely gut-wrenchingly beautiful manor, that no one but Ford could sing them.
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