ASK singer/songwriter Jeff Finlin how he would categorise his music and he says:  "I don't know, it's just music. It's just Jeff Finlin." 

A modest answer from a man who was last seen in the Capital opening for Steve Earle at The Usher Hall and whose track Sugar Blue, was recently chosen by Bruce Springsteen to be included in his "walk in" music selection (played in the auditorium as the audience walk in). 

The song is also being used in the new Cameron Crowe movie Elizabethtown, which is due out late autumn. 

Ask others about Finlin's music, however, and chances are you will hear it described as having "piercing, Dylanesque narratives and melodies". 

Just don't call it country - a label the Nashville-based musician obviously feels very strongly about. 

"I don't think that mainstream country music is at all representative of American music.   All it represents now is corporate marketing.   As long as you wear the right hat and the right smile, it seems you're country now.   We all know different than that", he says. 

"There are two different worlds;  there's the Music Row thing and then there's the really creative world.   People like Lucinda Williams, Matthew Ryan, Kevin Gordon, Swandive and Ryan Adams are doing good stuff, loads of people really, who live in that world and that's always been the world that I've existed in. 

"What used to be called rock and roll is now country, if it has a guitar on it it's country.   Things have changed quite a bit.   I mean if the Rolling Stones came out with Honky Tonk Woman now they'd be called country.   The whole industry is getting turned upside down." 

Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Finlin returns to the Capital on Saturday to play a solo gig at Cabaret Voltaire. 

He says:  "A lot of us are finding a place over here in Europe.   It's kinda like a small British invasion in reverse, because America is just in a quandary.   There's not a whole lot of people out there who you can really sink your teeth into right now - something that you can say is going to be around in 30 years and sound just as good.   A lot of us who do this kind of thing are just looking for an audience." 

The grandson of Irish railroad workers, it was in Nashville that Finlin first courted success when, with long-time collaborator Gwil Owen, he formed the rock band The Thieves back in 1989. 

Going solo he released Lonely Light, a collection of ten of his songs, two years later and has since recorded a further seven albums including last year's Epinonymous, the follow-up to Somewhere South of Wonder, from which the track Sugar Blue was lifted. 

"I like both", he says when asked whether he prefers touring on his own or with his band. 

"I can play a song just by myself and it's bigger than with a band.   I like that. I like being able to take it there just by myself or with just one other guy.   I can make it different every night." 

• Jeff Finlin, Cabaret Voltaire, Blair Street, Saturday, 7pm, £8, 0131-220 3234

Liam Rudden
Edinburgh News
8 September 2005