Casually country but seriously solo

Richard Julian is a New York singer-songwriter who prefers to play mostly with jazz musicians - and with Norah Jones in the Little Willies.

Yeah, I can see how that might be," says New York-based singer-songwriter Richard Julian when it is put to him his album Slow  New York seems to have more of a beach-based West Coast feel than that of inner-city urbanism on the East Coast.

"There is a breezy feeling to it and that's certainly an influence. But there's also a point where genres connect which can be very confusing. I'm a New York singer-songwriter but I play mostly with jazz musicians. I hire people I see in clubs who have a more free feeling in their music.

"The result is music which is more organic, and that might hark back to 70s LA where the scene was very similar, singer-songwriters who worked in a more jazzy way, musically."

Julian's album - easy on the ears, punctuated with memorable lines and moving from light calypso to styles recalling Paul Simon or James Taylor - sounds like it could have stepped out of an LA studio wearing flares and a slightly jaded, post-hippy vibe.

He has been getting great reviews and praise from the likes of Randy Newman and Bonnie Raitt, and by happy coincidence the album - helmed into being by his longtime friends Norah Jones and her partner Lee Alexander - arrives at the same time as the self-titled album by the Little Willies, a band in which he plays with Jones, Alexander and others.

The Little Willies deliver loose and good-natured country music, and started life as a kind of downtime band playing New York's Living Room.

"It was a chance for all of us to not be a leader of band, just to enjoy the music and not worry about reviewers or critics turning up, or selling tickets. I don't think I ever played a gig sober with that band. I'm professional when it comes to my own band, but with the Little Willies it was always just a chance for us to kick back. A five-margarita band."

When Jones and Alexander were in New York they decided to record a Little Willies album in their home studio. Over two days they recorded the album, which includes covers of songs by Townes Van Zandt, Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson and Hank Williams, plus a couple of originals.

They are now finding the Little Willies have taken on a life of their own and Julian expects they may even undertake a low-level, ego-free tour.

"The music is good, and good music should be heard. But we're aware that serious country-music people might think we are coming and doing their music as interlopers.

"We are not ambassadors for this sound, we're just having fun. These songs have a great tradition and the people in place to carry that on. We're not those people, we just happen to love this music, so why wouldn't we record it?"

Julian and Jones are like musical soulmates: both grew up listening to country music - Jones in Texas, Julian in Delaware where his mother was a huge country fan - yet both were trained in jazz piano.

When they met in the late 80s as Julian was traipsing around the country. He ended up at North Texas State University and was introduced to Jones by a mutual friend Jesse Harris, who wrote five songs (including the hit Don't Know Why) on Jones' debut album.

"I asked her whether she had heard that Bill Evans and Tony Bennett album, thinking I was being a real mentor. And she already knew it, and it's a rare album.

"When she came to New York she was 18 and I guess she thought she might hang out with us, all these cool musicians," he laughs. "And why not? When I was 18 I went to Las Vegas and had a gig playing in a lounge band. But Norah and I can communicate on a musical level without even having to talk about it."

Julian grew up in smalltown Arden, north of Wilmington, Delaware, where his mother played Willie Nelson, Emmylou Harris and Kris Kristofferson. He was also of the first MTV generation so picked up on the Cars and Tom Petty.

Piano lessons from age 6 turned his attention to the jazz of Dave Brubeck and Antonio Carlos Jobim, and even now he professes a great respect for songwriters like Paul Simon.

"A lot of songwriters these days are of the underground bohemian type so prefer more rebellious people like Bob Dylan and Neil Young, and Paul Simon is probably too establishment and his music is maybe too polished for them.

"But he is very high on my list of influences, along with Townes Van Zandt who is probably the greatest who ever lived."

Out of that amalgam of country, jazz and classic songwriters comes Richard Julian, a genuinely nice guy with a quick humour and who is as happy to be singing harmony in the Little Willies as he is out front of his own band.

"And generous enough to deflect attention away from himself and Jones as the hub of the Little Willies.

"I think of it as Jim Campilongo's album. I love being in the band just to hear his guitar playing. It's very much his record, you know."

On CD

* Who: New York singer-songwriter Richard Julian
* What: Member of the Little Willies (with Norah Jones) whose self-titled debut album is out now, at the same time as Julian's solo album Slow New York
* Trivia: Julian has played in a Clash covers band, at a lounge in Las Vegas, and worked a day job in New York for 10 years before breaking through with his self-titled indie solo album in 1997