Combining the best of an
free, outdoor, family-friendly street festival and evening club-crawl
showcases, AthFest is one of the finest examples of a community coming together
to support a good cause. In this case, all proceeds go towards AthFestEducates, a non-profit that “advances high-quality music and arts education
for local youth and the Athens community through direct support of school and
community-based programs,” including getting
musical instruments into the hands of school-age children. So you can feel good about yourself while
enjoying the many local and regional bands on the three outdoor stages during the
day and the ten or so indoor venues at night.
Although the outdoor festival is free,
the best way to truly experience the music is armed with a wristband so you can
get into the clubs on Friday and Saturday night. Be warned, the more popular
shows will be crowded and you may not get in, so plan your schedule
accordingly. But even if the show at the 40 Watt that you wanted to see is at
capacity and the line is stretched around the block, I can guarantee you can
walk a block or less and find another band that will excite you and keep you
entertained. In fact, I never come away from AthFest without unexpectedly
finding some new favorite band.
This year’s performers on the outdoor
stages include New Madrid, The Whigs, Sol Driven Train, Of Montreal, Ken Will
Morton, Lona, We Love Tractor, and The Baseball Project. Indoor shows feature
Cracker, The Whiskey Gentry, Contraband,
Roadkill Ghost Choir, Ralph Roddenberry Band (featuring Ike Stubblefield),
Barbara Cue, Five Eight, and Powerkompany. And if you’re into clever band
names, you might want to check out Percy Sledgehammer or the West VirginiaSlims.
AthFest is easily one of my favorite
summer festivals, so mark your calendars, grab the kids, sunscreen, earplugs,
an appetite and a good attitude, and meet me there. As Todd Snider says in Talkin' Seattle
Grunge Rock Blues, “Pack up the van, boys, we’re going back to Athens.”
The dates are misleading. The math may say four days, but
this Nashville extravaganza has spilled out on both sides, bleeding into
pre-festival shows, post-festival concerts and mid-festival lunches and
brunches and who knows what else. Nearly two hundred artists and nine venues
just don’t seem to be enough. This is not, on the whole, a bad thing.
Adam Klein at the Family Wash.
The awards show, held at the Ryman Auditorium, has stepped
it up each year but this time, instead of the red carpet, black tie and
bluegrass, I opted something a little more down home on the other side of the
Cumberland River at The Family Wash. While Jason Isbell was using a broom on
the hallowed planks of the Mother Church to sweep up the three major awards, I
was comfortably ensconced in East Nashville where Tommy Womack, Lisa Oliver-Gray, Adam Klein and several other acts played short sets to an
appreciative, friendly crowd. This is a reminder that there is wonderful
original music everywhere in this town and you don’t have to work hard or go
far to find it.
The nightly showcases are the real attraction during the
Americana Music Festival, of course. Forty-five minutes to do what you do, then
clear the stage. For me, the highlights were the very strong sets in the Mercy
Lounge from Billy Joe Shaver (born 1939) and Parker Millsap (born 1993,
fifty-four years later), Amy Ray, who played tunes from her excellent new
release Goodnight Tender, and the
always amazing Willie Sugarcapps at the Basement, where Grayson Capps surprised
the rest of the band by playing a song they’d never heard before. And speaking
of surprises, on Saturday, Cory Chisel’s Soul Obscura project did it for me. At
the City Winery, armed with a set of semi-obscure soul covers, Chisel’s stage
presence and command of the songs made this my favorite set of the day.
Cory Chisel's Soul Obscura.
As a visitor to Nashville, I really enjoy the daytime shows,
because I can pretend I live here and get to do this stuff all the time. On
Saturday afternoon at Grimey’s Americanarama, Kevin Gordon showed no signs of
slowing down after his previous night’s gig with the Hard Working Americans and
along with the gospel-blues of Mike Farris, they kept the day’s energy
crackling. Over in East Nashville, at the Groove, Cory Branan and Matt the
Electrician played acoustic sets while the Mas Tacos food truck kept folks fed
and, check this, the first tasting of Yazoo Americana Fest Ale, a beer brewed
especially for the fest.
The success of Americana, both as a festival and conference
and as a genre, has been a fascinating, upward-spiraling, wonderful thing to
watch and this year’s edition didn’t disappoint. As the festival continues to
expand each year, one has to wonder what’s next. There are high expectations
for 2015.
Turns out, I’ve been missing Nathan Bell for 15 years and
didn’t even know it. In the 90s, Bell stepped away from music and into a house,
a family, a regular job. Perhaps he needed that time to mature as a person
before he could write the songs on Blood
Like a River. Bell’s twelve tracks are just his vocals and acoustic guitar,
telling stories where he tackles some weighty emotional issues, including gay
marriage and adoption. Blood Like A
River runs somewhere between Springsteen’s stark Nebraska soundscape and
the haunted strains of Townes Van Zandt. Picks: Names, Really Truly.
This is one of those live records that make you want to
jump up and immediately go see the band play.
Blackberry Smoke unabashedly pump out what can only be called southern
rock, a swaggering mix of country, blues and good ol’ rock-n-roll. The band is
smart enough to weave Zep and Allman Brothers teases into their songs, and
talented enough to make music that takes the best of 70s southern rock and
filters it through the Bottle Rockets and Little Feat. Like Ronnie said in Sweet Home Alabama, “Turn it up.” Picks:
One Horse Town, Six Ways to Sunday.
Albert Camus said that “autumn is
a second spring when every leaf is a flower.” It’s also the second festival
season of the year. By now, you've been to the spring festivals, recovered, and
you've mostly taken it easy through the summer, but now you’re feeling like
it’s time to get out and see how much music you can cram into a short period of
time. Here’s a list of just a few of the festivals happening over the next
couple of months.
One of my favorite places to hear live music, this backyard venue
has boasted performances from the likes of Drive-By Truckers current and former
members Patterson Hood, Mike Cooley and Jason Isbell (on separate nights),
Junior Brown, the Alabama Shakes, Lee Bains III & The Glory Fires, Larry
Keel, Hurray for the Riff Raff and Lydia Loveless. This year’s artists include Nikki
Lane, Water Liars and Great Peacock. Emitting a down-home, easy going vibe, the
Waverly Boogie is the place to kick back and enjoy yourself. Kick your shoes
off, sit a spell.
The Americana Music Festival and Conference’s popularity is exploding
exponentially. A ticket to the AMA awards show is becoming a tough commodity
and the nightly showcases are routinely SRO with lines out the door, especially
at more intimate venues like the Station Inn. There are also events at both
Grimey’s and East Nashville’s Groove, Music City Roots, Musician’s Corner in
Centennial Park and this year there’s a Riverside Park concert with the Avett
Brothers. There’s a reason for all the
talk: With 165 artists and nine venues, this is simply the largest, best amalgamation
of American music anywhere east of San Francisco.
Why not venture over to Tallahatchie County to the 4th
edition of this festival, featuring Paul Thorn, Jimbo Mathus and the Tri-State
Coalition, and Garry Burnside for some “food, music and healthy living,” as
their tagline suggests?
This remarkable festival has literally grown from the ground up. The Deadfields, The Bibb
City Ramblers, Wayne Minor Band, Sean Rox Trio, and Rick Edwards head up this kid-friendly, home-grown
rootsy festival, which is completely unique among Columbus events. This year’s
proceeds benefit Columbus Hospice. Come on out and celebrate Organic Southern
Life with folk art, music, local crafts, drum circle, food and more.
The 2nd edition of this festival looks intriguing, with
headliners Drive-By Truckers sharing top billing with Girl Talk, an electronic
music DJ who will be spinning amidst a mostly roots-oriented roster that
includes Lucero, Houndmouth, and Lee Bains III & The Glory Fires. With a wine and beer tasting and a chicken
wing cook-off, this is like a festival I could easily find myself attending.
This year is possibly this festival’s strongest lineup yet and
that’s saying something, given their penchant for bigger and bigger names over
the past few years. Lyle Lovett and his Acoustic Group, Dr. John, The Indigo
Girls, Bela Fleck and Jason Isbell headline a deep roster of artists. Heck, I’d
show up just for the folks in smaller type, like Willie Sugarcapps, The
Wailers, American Aquarium, Tim Reynolds and Honey Island Swamp Band. This will be the tenth anniversary of the
first trip I made to this festival and my campmates haven’t ran me off yet.
This could be the year, though.
Also on the Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park property, the
sophomore offering of Hulaween features three nights of The String Cheese
Incident, and lots of late-night mind-expanding music and art. A recent blogger
listed the Spirit of the Suwannee as one of the six best outdoor places to see
music. I will have to say I haven’t
found many that can compare to the location, vibe or atmosphere at this park
and I expect that this weekend will be an amazing experience.
Hulaween 2013 recap
Well, that should satisfy your musical
cravings for a couple of months, and if you happen to see Camus up on the rail
during a late-night set, don’t treat him like a stranger.
This year’s AthFest compilation slims things down a bit,
with ten tracks clocking in at just under 40 minutes and in a new twist, it’s available
exclusively on vinyl. This is a very
fine collection of songs that doesn’t so much show the breadth of Athens music
as its depth, with tracks by Elf Power, Drive-By Truckers and New Madrid. The sale of this compilation supports AthFest Educates, a non-profit dedicated to local music
& arts education.
Favorites include Faster Circuits with their Beatlesque
pop on Relative Obscurity, and
Family and Friends, whose Rust and Bone
starts out like a delicate Donovan track and ends up as a rollicking
rock-n-roll song. The Drive-By Truckers continue their support of local music
and education with Rock Solid, a
track that was previously only available on their digital-only Dragon Pants EP. New Madrid contributes
Forest Gum, a track from their new
Normaltown Records release Sunswimmer. In 2014, just as it has been for years
and years, the fields of Athens, Georgia are ripe with musical fruit. This
compilation is just a taste.
“I hate Todd Snider and I’m going to tell you why.” No, not me, I kinda like the guy. I enjoy his
songs, his goofy stories, and his general outlook on life. That line came from a review Todd read about
himself and it made its way into his
first book, a collection of remembrances, lyrics and an unflinching look into
the life of a singer-songwriter. That he includes this piece of information in
a chapter in this book is very telling, because he doesn’t go on to talk about
why the reviewer didn’t like him or his music, because that part’s actually irrelevant.
Todd uses this as a teaching moment (yeah, I know…life lessons from this guy,
whose motto is “safety third?”) about fame and why artists sing their songs for
others. Todd says that if you’re doing
it so that people will like you, you’re doing it for the wrong reasons.
Having seen Todd Snider perform several times and
listened to all his records and literally dozens and dozens of live recordings,
I thought I had heard all his stories and this book would be a rehash of things
I already knew. Part of that’s true, of course, there are times when he retells
his stories verbatim, or at least as verbatim as is allowed in his patented stoner-speak,
stumbling cadence, but in every case, he largely takes advantage of the medium
of print to dig deeper into his adventures, like meeting his buddy Moondawg of Moondawg’s Tavern fame. (They threw him out of so many bars/he
finally built one in his own backyard.) Songs and stories that you just
know are made up out of his own head turn out to be actual, factual things that
have happened to Snider. Todd credits Jerry Jeff Walker as his main inspiration
but it seems the chorus of Kristofferson’s The Pilgrim – Chapter 33 when he’s
stoned could easily be Todd’s bio. (He's a poet, he's a picker/He's a prophet, he's a pusher/He's
a pilgrim and a preacher, and a problem when he's stoned/He's a walkin'
contradiction, partly truth and partly fiction,takin' ev'ry wrong direction on
his lonely way back home.)
I Never Met A
Story I Didn’t Like is just shy of three hundred pages, but if you’re like
me and go back to re-read a paragraph or two, just to savor the words and roll them
around in your head, it will take you much longer to read. For someone who appears to be busy most of
the time just passing a bong around, he is surprisingly introspective about his
life, what he does and why. He’s like
the Buddha of East Nashville. He invariably has something nice to say about
everybody – the guy who yells Beer Run
all through the show, the guy who stole his song (but it’s okay, Todd stole one
of his back), groupies, drug dealers, police, you name it. Fans of Todd’s music
won’t need to read this review to know that they’ll want to pick up this book.
Music fans in general will appreciate this look into the life of an artist, but
I think this book will appeal to anyone who enjoys a good story, even if they
are mostly true.
Like many of us from the South, Grant Peeples is a
walking, talking contradiction. The man
loves lunatic poets and fast cars, and he’s an unabashed liberal, but he’s not
coming to take your guns away. He’s got plenty of his own. The one thing that
Grant does that sets him apart from his contemporaries is his honesty. Brutal, direct, rhyming honesty, or as he puts
it on this new release, “mixing trouble with metaphor.”
And he does this right off the bat on the first track, You’re aSlave To Your Imagination, a blues featuring the sassy vocals of
Sarah Mac that takes the classic country duet style from “he said/ she said” to
“left brain/right brain.” “You call it
art but you’re just jerking off,” says one side of his head, to which the other
side replies, “I got my songs and a sense of intervention…I know the score.”
The eleven songs are a poetic mix of styles: rock, folk,
spoken word, acoustic ballads and bluesy guitar tunes, produced once again by
Austin’s Gurf Morlix. Gurf has the knack
for putting just the right touches on the music he produces, although I have to
say that the echoes he placed on the brilliant spoken word piece High Octane Generation are, to me,
superfluous and distract from the performance. This is a small complaint,
though, given his body of work with Grant, Lucinda Williams and so many others.
After hearing the wealth of clever, intricate wordplay on these songs, it comes
as no surprise that Peeples is a Roger Miller fan. You can tell that he rubs
the lyrics of the songs on his sleeve until they gleam in just the right way. After working his way through social issues
like capital punishment, homosexuality, war, equality and revolution, he
finishes up the record with It’s Too Late
to Live in Austin, a “shoulda been here when” tale about the live music
capital of the world. Peeples, a recent transplant from Florida to Austin,
reminds us that songs are still being written and sung in Austin….and even more
than that, that songs happen everywhere.
Grant has been refining his sound over his past five
records and his work here is among his sharpest. At his best, Peeples recalls
Fred Eaglesmith, Butch Hancock and occasionally, every once in a while, Kris
Kristofferson. Because fast cars, big guns and fried chicken and okra are not
the sole province of conservative rednecks and because compassion and empathy
aren’t just for tie-died wearing hippies, we need someone like Grant Peeples.
When we finally rip that last month off from the auto parts
calendar on the wall, its just human nature to look back at the previous year and
reflect on what we saw, heard or felt. That remembrance is always a mixture of
reality and perception, of what we wanted to have happen and what really did.
But that’s life.
John Lennon said “life is what happens while you are busy
making other plans” and Warren Zevon famously quipped in his song that “life’ll
kill ya.” Both are true and unfortunately, on January 18th of 2013,
Craig Lieske was snatched, untimely, from this world. Craig was more than the “merch guy” for the
Drive-By Truckers; he was, to many, the face and soul of the band, the person
fans talked to at every show, who always had a smile and a kind word. Craig
passed away in the night during the band’s three-night homecoming stand at the
40 Watt and if anyone ever doubted the transformative, healing power of music,
well, just talk to anyone who attended those shows.
The 2013 Pick of the Litter is dedicated to Craig Lieske:
music lover, musician, music fan. As
Patterson Hood sings in Grand Canyon,
a goodbye of sorts to Lieske from their upcoming release English Oceans, “I’ll lift my glass and smile.”
Album of the Year
– Jason Isbell - Southeastern –
Isbell’s new record is a finely polished dark gem, gleaming with addiction,
redemption, and gumption. Jason Isbell,
through force of will and lack of alcohol, has forged his most complete set of songs
yet and easily the finest record of the year.
Debut record of the Year
– Willie Sugarcapps - Nurtured in
the fertile soil of the Frog Pond at Blue Moon Farm in Silverhill, Alabama, Willie Sugarcapps is roots music at its
most organic. Five musicians who discovered that they love making music
together and that people love what they do. Will Kimbrough joins with Grayson
Capps, Corky Hughes (Capps’ guitar player), Anthony Crawford and Savana Lee
(Sugarcane Jane) to create a mixture of bayou blues and country-rock with
outstanding harmonies and incredible musicianship.
Song of the Year
– Jason Isbell – Elephant - As a
songwriter, Isbell is operating at a stratospheric, Guy Clark level,
constructing lines like “sharecropper eyes and hair almost all gone.” Inside of
Elephant, Southeastern’s emotional centerpiece, a tale of watching a friend
suffer from cancer, he creates a place all too real.
Billy Bragg at Americanarama.
Live Performance of
the Year – This is probably the hardest one to fill in given the elusive
nature of the category. There are so many variables that don’t exist in the
studio…sound, weather, the attitude of the artist or the audience…and my own
subjective experience. But, I’ll have to give the nod to two of Billy Bragg’s
Americana Festival appearances in Nashville. A radio interview as part of the
conference and a solo performance at Americanarama, a sidebar daytime festival
held in the backyard of Grimey’s New & Preloved Music, were both illuminating. Billy
Bragg proved that punk can grow up, that attitude doesn’t have to disappear at
30, or 40, or even 50, that we can still rail against injustice with grey in
our hair or with no hair at all, and we can do it with style, humor, panache
and intelligence.
Tim O'Brien and Darrell Scott.
Music Festivalof the Year – The Americana Music
Festival and Conference – Nashville has hosted this amazing collection of
showcases, conference panels and an incredibly well-done awards show each year
for the last fourteen years, and each year, it’s grown in popularity. The
awards show at the Ryman sells out and many of the nightly showcases are
standing-room only, but the showcase wristbands are still a good deal and the
quality of music is unparalleled. Highlights of the 2013 festival were St. Paul
and the Broken Bones, Darrell Scott and Tim O’Brien, Scott Miller, and
Houndmouth, but no matter where you end up, you’re bound to find some of the
best and brightest Americana artists playing for a crowd of music lovers.
What else was good last year? Plenty:
My Favorite
Picture of You – Guy Clark
The Marshall
Mathers LP2 – Eminem
Tooth & Nail
– Billy Bragg
Live in San
Francisco – Ry Cooder
This River –
JJ Grey and Mofro
Opening Day -
Peter Cooper
From the Hills below
the City – Houndmouth
Down Fell the
Doves – Amanda Shires
Memories and
Moments - Tim O’Brien and Darrell Scott
My Dearest Darkest
Neighbor – Hurray for the Riff Raff
Looking back, 2013 was truly a fine year of music from
both new and established artists. 2014 is already off to a good start as I type
this, with very strong releases from Rosanne Cash, Tinsley Ellis, Bruce
Springsteen and the Hard Working Americans, a “super-group” with Todd Snider
and Dave Schools (Widespread Panic), which is leading the early pack for album
of the year.
My friend Anthony knew Craig Lieske. My friend Anthony just celebrated his 40th
birthday and his birthday wish for us was for “everyone
to read good literature, listen to good music, and love one another a little
more on our next trip around the sun.” I
concur. I’m pretty damn sure Craig would
too.
The studious eight-year old in a Braves cap on the cover
of this record is indeed Peter Cooper, the guy who thirty-five years later is
writing the liner notes for his third solo album from Australia. The man has clearly come a long way, and it’s
those parts in between Atlanta Fulton County Stadium and a continent a half a
world away that make this record such a delight.
The first of eleven tracks is the autobiographical Much Better Now, where Cooper details
some of his employment history (among others, a waiter in a buffet restaurant
where the people “can’t see their feet.”) The man who gave us the best song ever
about baseball (715 (For Hank Aaron)
from his 2008 debut release Mission Door)
comes back with another excellent one in the title track, where unbridled
optimism at the beginning of the season when “we’re tied for first with the
whole season left to play” gives way to grim reality (“with a couple of breaks
we might take fourth place”) by the end of the first verse.
Cooper’s songwriting has matured tremendously on this
record. Always able to turn a phrase inside out effortlessly, here his
attention to detail in each song complements the clever word-play. As with his always excellent columns in the
Tennessean, he writes with a detective’s eye, picking out details that define
people, moments, situations. He takes a subject, builds on it, expands it,
makes his point and most importantly, since we’re talking about songs, he makes
it rhyme. The mood shifts from light-hearted (the eye-rolling Grandma’s Tattoo, co-written with Tommy
Womack) to serious (Quiet Little War
is about drone warfare and how you can fight a war in Afghanistan from New
Mexico and go home to your wife each night or Jenny Died at 25, the type of death where you go on living.), but
all the tracks are finely honed pieces, illustrated by pedal steel legend Lloyd
Green, Jen Gunderman on keys, bass from Dave Jacques and Dave Roe, vocals from
Eric Brace (with whom he’s recorded two fine albums), guitars from Richard
Bennett (Mark Knopfler Band) and producer Thomm Jutz.
Peter Cooper is a journalist, a college professor and
student of country music, a guest DJ on radio, a baseball fan and luckily for
us, a songwriter and a musician. With Opening Day, Cooper steps up into the
bigs.
On Cover Me Up,
the opening track of Southeastern,
Jason Isbell sings over an acoustic guitar and a moaning slide that “someone
needs medical help or the magnolia’s bloom.”
That the couplet is at once unexpected and perfected crafted is what
makes this record a finely polished dark gem. Fulfilling the promise of the
young twenty-something whose songs and guitar energized the Drive-By Truckers,
fleshed out their southern vision and contributed to what is arguably their two
best records, The Dirty South and Decoration Day (the title cut belongs
to Isbell) and washing away the inconsistencies of his solo and band
recordings, this newfound creativity and sobriety was hinted at on last year’s
release Live from Alabama. On those performances, you could hear a man
and a band that was operating at a higher level and with a resolute purpose and
focus. Jason Isbell had something to
prove.
Whatever wreckage Isbell caused, created or enjoyed while
partying his ass off gave fuel to his creative fires, at least when the smoke
in his head cleared enough to write down what he remembered. Painful and honest in a way that allows no
self-pity, Isbell ponders his new life. On Live
Oak, he realizes “there’s a man who walks beside me it’s who I used to
be/and I wonder if she sees him and confuses him with me” and on Different Days, he sees that “ten years
ago…I might have offered up my help in different ways/ But those were different
days.” The dozen tunes here are mostly
built around acoustic guitars, relying on the strength of the songs and lyrics
rather than raging electric riffs. The exceptions are Flying over Water, which utilizes a quiet/loud dynamic and Super 8, a snarling, undeniably great
rock n roll tune the Faces would be proud of. In a recent interview, Jason said
that he wasn’t going to leave a good song off the record just because it didn’t
fit the mood, but its placement is still
jarring.
As a songwriter, Isbell is operating at a stratospheric,
Guy Clark level, constructing lines like “sharecropper eyes and hair almost all
gone,” from Elephant, the album’s
emotional centerpiece, a tale of watching a friend suffer from cancer or the
chilling, gothic Yvette, a story of
abuse where the narrator, in a flat voice sings about “a bedroom upstairs/it’s
a family affair” and how he’s “cleaning my Weatherby/and sighting my scope.”
Southeastern
is filled with addiction, redemption, and gumption. Isbell, through force of will and lack of
alcohol, has forged his most complete set of songs yet and one of the finest
records of the year.
A comeback
album? Only these guys would slap such an
ironic title on a record. 2011’s I Love: Tom T. Hall's Songs of Fox Hollow was a remake of Hall’s classic children’s
record, nominated for a Grammy, one of my favorite albums that year, and Eric
Brace and Peter Cooper were all over it, organizing, producing, coordinating, singing. Their 2010 duo record, Master Sessions, featured pedal steel king Lloyd Green and
dobro wiz Mike Auldridge (The Seldom Scene). On this, their third record
together, Braceand Cooper complete each other’s lines like a
married couple finishes each other sentences. This familiarity breeds not
contempt but better performances. Brace is the more
emotional songwriter, while Cooper is adept at wry lyrics. Brace is literal,
where Cooper is literate. But instead of each song being a Bracesong or a Cooper
song, this time out they’re Brace and Cooper songs. On Johnson City, Bracetakes the more
direct route, singing about being locked up in the Tennessee town’s pokey (“I know the way to Johnson City/ now I just
gotta find my way out”) while Cooper comes in on the bridge detailing a surreal
jailhouse conversation with God.
The opener Ancient History is one of their tradmark
clever, up-tempo tracks, a meditation on the impermanence of existence using
stage names and nicknames as a metaphor for change in life. (“Richard Nixon was Tricky Dick/Dick trickle
was a race car driver, no really he was a race car driver, a talented popular
race car driver”). Baseball references are scattered throughout (also from Ancient History: “Sid Bream was safe at home…the eighth world wonder was the Astrodome”), although
I wish they had included Cooper’s fine song Opening
Day on this release. Nine of the
twelve tracks were written by Brace and/or Cooper, with one of the covers
coming from the aforementioned Tom T. Hall, Mad,
which features guests Duane Eddy, Mac Wiseman and Marty Stuart (“When she’s mad, that’s a dangerous game/in
the obituary column, they’ve already printed my name.”). Recorded in
Nashville (of course) by Thomm Jutz, the album features a core of stellar
musicians, including Paul Griffith on drums, Dave Jacques on bass, Green on
pedal steel, and Jen Gunderman on keys.
The overall
theme here seems to be one of uncertainty, whether the protagonists in the
songs are in jail looking for bail, a perennial loser buying lottery tickets or
a sailor adrift in the darkness. But that doesn’t mean the album is dark or
completely introspective. Eric Brace and Peter Cooper see to that through their
solid songwriting, singing and impeccable harmonies. The Comeback Album may not be an
over-the-fence, Ruthian home run, but it’s a solid rap into the gap, a triple
and with a combination of determination and talent, Brace and Cooper
score. Just like Sid Bream.
In November of last year, Hundred Word Highlights reviewed Patterson Hood’s record Heat Lightning Rumbles in the Distance
and this month is his partner Mike Cooley’s turn. The Drive-By Truckers’ other half may be less
loquacious and prolific than Mr. Hood, but he is just as talented of a
songwriter and performer. This live
acoustic solo recording showcases finger-picked versions of his rock tunes
along with a full glass of wit served with a side of sly winks and surprisingly
keen insights. Cooley even picks up the banjo for an eerily wicked take on Cottonseed. Picks: Cottonseed, Carl Perkins
Cadillac.
Two of the brightest stars in the Americana firmament
team up for this collection of country, R&B and good-natured rock. Buddy
and Jim are well-respected musicians, with shelves of awards between them, but
more than that, they’re friends and this record has that easy vibe of two
buddies making music together. There’s not a Buddy song or a Jim song, they
both own them, especially when their harmonies remind you of the Everly
Brothers with a twang. The eleven songs won’t break any new ground, but that’s
kinda the point. Picks: Vampire Girl, I Lost My Job of Loving You.
Mary Gauthier’s songs, like the artist herself, require
your attention before their brilliance becomes apparent. This is music that
involves and captivates, not background music that slides underneath whatever
else you have going on. In the same way Bob Dylan’s early lyrics held meaning
and weight, her songs are carefully crafted, whittled and polished until what
remains is gleaming, straight and perfect.
Gauthier, Louisiana-born but now living in Nashville, has a lyrical
preoccupation with outcasts and outsiders and her songs are imbued with a sense
of her real life, a hard life, and so are the three covers she chose for Live at Blue Rock, all from another
fine songwriter, Fred Eaglesmith. A teenaged runaway and recovering addict,
Gauthier sings about what she knows, or as another cinematic songwriter, Guy
Clark, put it in his song Homeless, “the
bums, the whores and the abused.”
The eleven tracks here were recorded in an intimate
setting outside of Austin, Texas, with Mary on vocals and acoustic guitar, Mike
Meadows on percussion and the wonderful Tania Elizabeth on fiddle and vocals.
Tania’s fiddle perfectly accentuates the songs and is an essential element,
while the percussion is solid throughout.
On some tunes, not a syllable is wasted, not a line thrown away and on
others the words tumble out like coins from a Biloxi jackpot, especially on Wheel Inside the Wheel (a track covered
by Jimmy Buffett, she sometimes jokes that his cut of this tune allows her to
drive a nice car). It’s a Mardi Gras tune of a surreal sort (“Sipping wormwood concoctions/drinking absinthe and talking trash/it’s
a red carpet, black tie all night celestial bash.”) that
caps the record, rolling to a driving, joyous conclusion.
Her sixth record overall and her first live recording, Live at Blue Rock may not be an easy
record to like, but it’s an incredibly easy record to love.
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