Tag Archives: Country

Marty Stuart and His Fabulous Superlatives: Nashville Volume 1 – Tear the Woodpile Down

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A masterful country album from Marty Stuart

Marty Stuart is a living, breathing link to the heart and soul of country music. His voice is authentic, his songs weave new threads into the existing historical tapestry, and his band is as sharp as the Buckaroos in their prime. This latest album demonstrates how strongly Stuart connects to the headwaters and multiple tributaries that have flowed in and out of country’s main branch, with music that is possessed by Bakersfield sting, Memphis rockabilly, Nashville steel, Bluegrass harmonies and Appalachian strings. It’s a fitting follow-up to 2010’s Ghost Train, and a nice addition to a string of albums, starting with 1999’s thematic The Pilgrim, that’s included country, gospel, bluegrass and honky-tonk.

It’s no accident that Stuart’s pictured playfully taunting a young lion cub on the album cover, as he was that very cub upon arriving in Nashville in 1972. He may have grown into the role of historian and elder statesmen, but his intellectual knowledge of country music never obscures his first-hand experience. The wide-eyed desire he originally brought to Nashville is still evident as the band blazes through the title track. Their frenetic twin guitar lead, twanging steel and faith-tinged backing vocals are as hot as the song’s beat, and they step it up another notch for the Larry Collins-Joe Maphis styled guitar duet “Hollywood Boogie.” Across electric waltzes, steel ballads and country rockers, Stuart sings of the hard climb, heartbreak, failure and fleeting success that greet Nashville transplants.

Stuart threads his theme through both his originals and a couple of covers. The wizened “A Matter of Time” might have originally been about a lost lover, but here it reads about the loss of a muse, and a solo cover of Porter Wagoner & Dolly Parton’s “Holding on to Nothing” suggests a disillusioned singer letting go of his Nashville dream. Stuart characterizes his arrival in Music City as the downbeat of his life’s journey, but that trip hasn’t always been a straight line. Stuart faced down his demons more than a decade ago, but he still carries the pain of wasted years having once turned Nashville into a lonely place. The album closes on a somber note with Stuart and Hank III joining together for Hank Sr.’s “Picture from Life’s Other Side.”

Over the past decade, Stuart’s music has glowed ever brighter with a renewed fealty to country’s roots, the hard-earned perspective of a 40-year career and the gathered knowledge of an historian. He’s surrounded himself with likeminded players who’ve got the background and chops to cut loose without cutting themselves off from tradition. There’s precious little music like this being made anywhere, but particularly little in Nashville’s recording studios. As Stuart writes in his superb liner notes, “Today, the most outlaw thing you can possibly do in Nashville, Tennessee is play country music.” The marketing suits on music row may not care, but playing country music is just what Marty Stuart and His Fabulous Superlatives do, and do very, very well. [©2012 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Tear the Woodpile Down
Marty Stuart’s Home Page

Chelle Rose: Ghost of Browder Holler

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Appalachian rock ‘n’ roll, country, blues and soul

More than a decade after her 2000 debut, Nanahally River, singer-songwriter Chelle Rose delivers a sophomore set of gritty country blues and rock. The raw power of her voice brings to mind the early recordings of Lissie, but with a swampy backwoods feel that brings to mind Lucinda Williams, Bobbie Gentry and Holly Golightly. Rose is a child of Appalachia and the Smoky Mountains, but her music is touched more by blues than bluegrass. Her songs are rooted in the rural experience of mountain men, snakes in the road (both literal and figurative), impending doom and haunting memories of untimely death. She adds husk to the addictive desire of Julie Miller’s “I Need You” and tears her ex- a new one as she reestablishes her music career in “Alimony.” Of the latter she’s said “I tried to quit music, but it just wouldn’t quit me.” The album closes with Elizabeth Cook adding a harmony vocal an acoustic song of a mother’s loss and faith, “Wild Violets Pretty.” The last really shows how deeply Rose is willing (and able) to dig into herself for a lyric. Producer Ray Wylie Hubbard provides support with dripping gothic blues, rowdy country rock, atmospheric folk and Memphis soul, a mélange that Rose calls “Appalachian rock ‘n’ roll.” After hearing her out, you’re not likely to argue. [©2012 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Alimony
Chelle Rose’s Reverb Nation Page

Sheb Wooley: White Lightnin’

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Boogie, swing and honky-tonk from 1945 to 1959

To those weaned on Wooley’s 1958 chart-topping rock ‘n’ roll novelty, “Purple People Eater,” his acting roles in High Noon, Giant and Rio Bravo, or his tenure in a featured slot on television’s Rawhide, the totality of his recording career may come as something of a surprise. Starting in the mid-40s on the Nashville-based Bullet label, moving on to the Fort Worth-based Blue Bonnet, and settling in with the coastal MGM label, Wooley recorded a wealth of country, boogie, swing and honky-tonk sides, both under his own name, and as a parodist, under the name of Ben Colder. He topped the charts a second time – the country chart, this time – with 1962’s “That’s My Pa,” and continued to score with singles throughout the rest of the decade.

Wooley’s acting career sustained him financially, but it was his move to Hollywood – ostensibly to break in to the movies as a singing cowboy – that shaped the sound of his records. Recording in California, he was backed by many of the same West Coast musicians (including Speedy West, Jimmy Bryant and Cliffie Stone) that played on Capitol sessions for Merle Travis, Tex Ritter and Tennessee Ernie Ford. But even before he got to California, Wooley was recording dance tunes like his steel-swing “Oklahoma Honky Tonk Girl” and the fiddle-led “Peepin’ Through the Keyhole (Watching Jole Blon).” He sang his upbeat tunes with a smile, stringing together clever wordplay on “Lazy Mazy” that echoes the hipster jazz sides of the late ‘30s. And even when he wasn’t writing parodies, he often wrote with humor, such as the troubled date of “Wha’ Hoppen to Me, Baby” and doghouse lodgings of “Rover Scoot Over.”

The two 1959 sides that close the set showcase different sides of Wooley. The driller-themed “Roughneck” has a rockabilly beat, while the hit single “That’s My Pa” is a talking blues novelty that anticipates “A Boy Named Sue.” The all-mono audio shows only minimal surface noise on some of the earliest sides, and noise reduction is so discreet as to be inaudible. The digipack is decorated with vibrant graphics, and the 31-page booklet includes photos, poster and label reproductions, a detailed discography (including label, recording dates and personnel) and liner notes by Todd Everett. This is a great look at Wooley’s boogie sides, and compliments Bear Family volumes that focus on western tunes and rockin’ sides, as well as their 4-CD box set. But for an introduction to Wooley’s country and honky-tonk sides, this is a great place to start. [©2012 hyperbolium dot com]

Johnny Cash: Bootleg Vol. IV – The Soul of Truth

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A saved Johnny Cash proclaims faith and salvation

This is the fourth volume in a series of official bootleg releases that document lesser-known material and previously unreleased recordings from the House of Cash studio in Hendersonville, TN. The 51-tracks focuses on Cash’s songs of faith from the 1970s and 80s, and collect the rare 1979 double-LP A Believer Sings the Truth, the withdrawn 1983 album Johnny Cash–Gospel Singer, and an unnamed, previously unreleased gospel album. Additional tracks are culled from 1984’s I Believe and, most important to collectors, is the inclusion of five previously unreleased session outtakes (disc 1, track 25 and disc 2 tracks 23-26). Cash is joined variously by his wife June, sisters-in-law Anita and Helen, daughters Rosanne and Cindy, and son-in-law Rodney Crowell, and the sessions are typically light and upbeat as Cash works through traditional hymns, folk songs and a few contemporary tunes, such as a Dixieland-tinged arrangement of Billy Joe Shaver’s “I’m an Old Chunk of Coal.” Cash sounds at peace with his life in these sessions – a saved man, rather than a sinner wrestling with dark temptations – and the mood is reflected in a clean production sound. If you’re looking for a tormented soul wrestling with his demons, check the back catalog, but if you want to hear a saved man proclaiming the fruits of his faith, this is a fine collection of testimony. [©2012 hyperbolium dot com]

Steep Canyon Rangers: Nobody Knows You

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Bluegrass emboldened with newgrass, country and gospel

Having hooked up with Steve Martin in 2009, this quintet gained mainstream attention that mirrored the renown they’d built in bluegrass circles over the previous decade. After backing Martin for a tour of his 2009 album, The Crow, and collaborating for last year’s Rare Bird Alert, they now return to their own work and original material. The only cover in this lot is Tim Hardin’s “Reputation,” sung at a tempo that inches towards the Association’s 1967 blues-rock cover and with harmonies that expand upon the Byrds’ 1968 version. The original tunes are all rooted in bluegrass instrumentation, but interweave elements of newgrass, country and gospel. The songs include stories of earnest courting, lost souls, tenuous relationships and natural pleasures. The band’s harmonies are strong, perhaps even a tad in your face in spots, and contrast with playing that’s tight and enthusiastic, but relaxed and delicate enough to have soul. The latter is the sort of thing that can escape players with bluegrass-quality chops, and though you get to hear the instrumentalists solo, they do so without having the band drop into the background. The album’s one instrumental, “Knob Creek,” is fittingly, an ensemble piece. The Rangers are a talented band with taste, chops and enough invention to keep their music growing. [©2012 hyperbolium dot com]

Steep Canyon Rangers’ Home Page


Nick Verzosa: She Only Loves Me

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Solid Texas country ala Pat Greene and Cory Morrow

When country fans discuss Texas artists, they often limit themselves to the renegade stars, such as Willie and Waylon, who abandoned Nashville, and the songwriters, Townes van Zandt, Jerry Jeff Walker, Guy Clark, Kris Kristofferson and Billy Joe Shaver who defined Texas country song. But there’ve been a couple more generations of Lone Star singer-songwriters, and as the music’s grown within the state, many artists, including Pat Greene, Cory Morrow, Kevin Fowler and Jack Ingram have initiated, and in several cases sustained, careers within the state’s borders. Texas is a big place, and touring the honky-tonks, clubs, frat houses and bars promoting independently recorded albums can be a full-time job.

The music of these road-warriors is built for dance floors and summer fairs, with two-step rhythms and electric guitars whose twang mate country and rock ‘n’ roll without crossing over to the pop of Nashville, and vocals that invite audiences to share in clever lyrics of familiar situations. Nick Verzosa fits neatly into this tradition, with songs of lost love, broken relationships, new love, summer days and Texas delights. It’s standard fair, but Verzosa’s a convincing singer, and together with producer Walk Wilkins he’s crafted a compelling album whose songs will charm a Saturday-night crowd at Gruene Hall, and whose closing “7th Year Senior” is surely a favorite on Texas’ many frat rows. [©2012 hyperbolium dot com]

Nick Verzosa’s Home Page


Amy Francis: Balladacious

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Ten country classics in classic Nashville style

Numerous country stars, including Mandy Barnett and Sara Evans, have used Patsy Cline as a navigational north star. Newcomer Amy Francis follows the tradition with a full-blown countrypolitan cover of Jeannie Seely’s “Don’t Touch Me.” The music swells, the piano slips, and Francis hangs onto each note as if its end will break her heart into ever smaller pieces. Producer Tommy Delamore echoes the original Nashville sound of “Sweet Dreams” and “Fool Number One” without mimicking the original arrangements, and Francis is stalwart and convincing as she sings George Jones’ “Picture of Me Without You.” The ten selections combine classic ‘60s country tunes with a few contemporary selections, including Vince Gill’s “When I Call Your Name.” Francis is a talented singer with an ear for material that resonates with her voice, and she has a talented producer behind the board. This all makes for entertaining covers, but none stray far enough from the source material to reveal the depth of Francis’ own interpretive style or the unique charms of her voice. [©2012 hyperbolium dot com]

Amy Francis’ Home Page

 

The Hobart Brothers & Lil’ Sis Hobart: At Least We Have Each Other

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A musical family that grew up in separate homes

The Hobart Brothers & Lil’ Sis Hobart bring together three respected soloists from the Americana scene: Jon Dee Graham, Freedy Johnson and Susan Cowsill. The latter had a large helping of mainstream fame in the 1960s with her family’s group, The Cowsills, but since the 1980s she’s made a name for herself a backing vocalist, a charter member of the Continental Drifters and with a low-key solo career over the past decade. Graham’s first notoriety came with the Skunks and the True Believers, and after years collaborating with others (and briefly dropping out of the industry), he began a solo career with 1999’s exceptional Escape from Monster Island. Johnston began his career as a singer-songwriter in the early ‘90s, starting with rootsy sounds that quickly took in more country flavor.

What’s obvious from the album’s very first track, is that the three musicians’ individual paths led them to a place of tight collaboration. Johnston’s indie roots, Graham’s driving rock and bohemian growl, Cowsill’s hook-filled pop, and all three’s immersion in country, blues and folk, come together easily, as if they’d been a group for years. Those fictional years as a family are turned concrete by the shared experiences brought to their songwriting, populating their lyrics with images from blue roads and bluer hearts. Graham’s “All Things Being Equal” reaches outside his personal experience for a harrowing portrait of a failed cotton market, but his “Almost Dinnertime” and Cowsill’s “Sodapoptree” offer gentler notes of warm nostalgia.

The trio’s music is as diverse as their collected experience, including swampy Americana, Mexicali ballads, quirky power-pop and electric folk-rock. The album’s ten tracks are split between seven recorded as a full band (and funded by a Kickstarter campaign) and three demos recorded previously without a drummer; a separate digital download adds nine more demos. You can hear from the demo sessions that the principals’ mutual affinity was immediate, a gathering of like souls who’d been practicing to play together throughout their independent musical lives. [©2012 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Ballad of Sis (Didn’t I Love You)
The Hobart Brothers’ Home Page
The Hobart Corporation’s Home Page (Check out the HL662!)

Jason Serious: Undercover Folk

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Exceptional indie album of folk, country and trad jazz

To say that Jason Serious’ solo debut is accomplished would be to sell it short. Not only is it full of incredibly memorable original songs, but its evocation of American musical vernacular is all the more extraordinary for his ex-pat status and the talented band of Europeans with which he recorded. To write and record something so immersed in American folk, country and early jazz while living in the states would be difficult enough, but to do so in Munich is nearly unimaginable. If this was a homesick love letter trying to bridge the distance, its rootedness would be more easily explained, but these are songs from a rural Marylander whose roots seem unaffected by the change in firmament, and whose sentiments seem to have nourished his talented, widely-listened band mates.

The brassy shuffle “Met Jack Kerouac” and drunken melody of “Buckets of Gin” recall the goodtime music of the Lovin’ Spoonful, and the steel-lined “ESB” mixes hand-clapping upbeat country-folk, colorful imagery and a chorus (“everybody’s somebody’s beautiful”) that would make Mr. Rogers smile. Serious is a surprisingly polished artist, given that much of his woodshedding took place on the couch; it’s only in the past few years that he began sharing his solo work with others, and only in the past year that he began recording. The sessions themselves choreographed a dozen local musicians, adding deft splashes of banjo, violin, mandolin, steel, horns and harmony vocals across the nine tracks. Ausgezeichnet! [©2012 hyperbolium dot com]

Jason Serious’ Home Page