In need of real roots music? I have the McClure for you.

If any proof were needed that the state of the UK as a songwriting nation is very healthy right now, step forward Paul McClure as exhibit number one. The self-styled ‘Rutland Troubadour’ has been plying his trade up and down Britain for many years now, either as part of Leicester-based The Hi And Lo or, more recently, as a solo artist content to play anywhere from Gateshead’s Sage to house concerts where the word bijou becomes a byword for intimate. His songs stand the test of one man and his guitar well, being mostly composed of open-tuned and open-hearted roots music that swell and retreat beneath a storyteller’s voice, full of dry humour and welcoming bonhomie.

Songs For Anyone is his second solo album on Clubhouse Records (who could do with an update of their artist bios on their website…), a stalwart UK label for Americana flavoured roots. Ably supported by backing vocalist Hannah Elton-Wall and given a suitably rough-edged, sawdust floor production by Joe Bennett, songs like the two-stepping ‘Unremarkable Me’ and mid-tempo opener ‘Gentleman’s Agreement’ are full of delicious hooks. Elsewhere, ‘I Could Be A Happy Man’, complete with off-mic repartee, nods its head to Jackson Browne and the rollicking ‘My Big Head Hat Of Dreams’ pay its dues to Dylan, not least with some lovely harmonica but moreso in the way McClure wraps his lyrics around stories the listener can immediately identify with. ‘My Big Hat..’ will slay live, and proves that careful use of an obscenity can still work.

‘Holding A Ten Ton Load’ is similar in feel and has some nice barroom piano in the background, but McClure can slow it down with some style too. The simple guitar melody of ‘Everyday Is Mine To Spend’ leaves a lasting impression and ‘Yesterday’s Lies’ is a brutally honest lyric roped to a sympathetic ballad. He can do classic Country too; ‘So Long’ waltzes through a lyric George Jones would have been proud of. In general, however, McClure errs towards the sound of the late 60s / early 70s roots bands like The Band and Creedence.  The title track is a manifesto in and of song that neatly ties together the album’s loose theme of love; for music, for family, for the road, for playing and listening, its woozy backbeat and organ giving way to final track (and bit of fun) ‘Lady Flossington’, which sounds like a hybrid Beach Boys/Warren Zevon offcut, strangely not out of place.

McClure suggests tongue-in-cheek that this is his ‘difficult’ second album and that it’s not the album he set out to make. Isn’t that life in a nutshell though; planning to put one foot in front of the other in a specific direction only to find ourselves at a destination we couldn’t have imagined, as if something outside of our control has taken hold of the strings? We might not understand how or why, but we can be grateful for the journey. Songs For Anyone is testament to allowing the muse to pull those strings. Less songs for anyone, more songs for everyone.