Tag Archives: Folk

Leslie and the Badgers: Roomful of Smoke

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LeslieAndTheBadgers_RoomfulOfSmokeVersatile mix of folk, country, country-rock, soul and hot-jazz

It’s hard to pinpoint this Los Angeles quintet, as they range through acoustic folk, country, horn-tinged soul, and hot jazz. If you had to pick one to represent the bulk of the group’s second album, it’d be country (or country-rock or Americana), but there are whole tracks that take you somewhere else before returning you to two-steps, waltzes, twanging guitars, bass and drums. Leslie Stevens’ singing brings to mind the high voices of folksinger Joan Baez, Americana vocalist Julie Miller and country star Deana Carter. But Stevens sings with more of a lilt than Baez, less girlishness than Miller, and when the group ventures to country-rock, it’s without Carter’s southern ‘70s overtones.

The finger-picked guitar and songbird vocal that open “Los Angeles” spell stool-perched, singer-songwriter folk, but harmonium and choral harmonies thicken the song into a hymnal. Stevens’ high notes fit equally well into Lucinda Williams-styled Americana, cutting through the twangy low strings and baritone guitar, and pushed along by driving bass and drums. The Badgers’ range is impressive, tumbling along to a “Gentle on My Mind” shuffle, hotting things up with tight jazz licks, adding soul with Stax-styled horns, and laying down waltzing fiddle ballads, country-rock and the spooky “If I Was Linen.” The latter’s off-kilter piano and musical saw spookily echo the main theme of The Elephant Man.

Stevens’ sings country songs spanning the relationship lifecycle of blossom, maturity, lethargy and dissolution. The first is powerfully drawn by the budding relationship of “Old Timers,” rooted in tangible images of childhood’s emotional urgency. The latter provides a grey coat to the loneliness of Ben Reddell’s “Winter Fugue.” In between are irresistible romantic smoothies, longed-for and abandoned lovers, and finally realized kiss-offs. The full cycle comes together in the physical and mental escape of “Salvation,” with Stevens realizing “when I pull off the road / to get a better view / now I can see the start of us / and the end to me and you.”

The classically-tinged “What Fall Promised” sounds like a good outtake from Sam Phillip’s Martinis and Bikinis, and the closing “It’s Okay to Trip” provides sing-along old-timey country-blues. One might complain that the Badgers can’t quite decide what kind of music they want to play, as they’re capable of a range of sounds rooted in country, rock and folk without staying shackled to any one. The variety’s laudable, but it leaves it to Stevens’ conviction and vulnerable warble to provide an emotional through-line to the album. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Los Angeles
Leslie and the Badgers MySpace Page

Owen Temple: Dollars and Dimes

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OwenTemple_DollarsAndDimesSoulful country-folk-rock travelogue of today’s North America

Austinite Owen Temple takes inspiration for his fifth album from his extensive travels as a touring musician, and from Joel Garreau’s book The Nine Nations of North America. Garraeu argues that national and state borders are mere geographical lines that fail to surround populations of like interests and lives. He proposes nine regions, such as Ecotopia (the northwest coast), Breadbasket (the midwest US and Canada), and Foundry (the industrial northeast) that are held together by shared economic interests and cultural beliefs. He asserts that what people do (or, in the current recession, don’t do) defines their common character more clearly than borders drawn from rivers or arbitrary surveyor’s marks.

Temple explores this idea in a set of songs drawn from impressions or observations of these regions, from the rusting industrial dreams of “Broken Heart Land,” through the vast emptiness of “Black Diamond” and the title track’s study of the migrations that built and sustain America. He examines the social mobility that’s led many to wander rootlessly from metropolis to metropolis, often draining into the artificial oasis of Southern California (“Los Angeles is the city of the future, and it’s coming to get you”). He draws sharp portraits of working people whose labors are for “making a life, not just a living,” as well as those sick of their daily grind. It’s not as dark as Slaid Cleaves’ Everything You Love Will Be Taken Away, but stands on the same observational singer-songwriter ground.

There’s a very American streak of nostalgia in many of these songs, including the fictional transplants who find adopted homes not what they expected, and Temple’s own memories of his early days in Austin and later years in the frigid north turn his pen inward. This is a more studied album than 2008’s Two Thousand Miles, though it retains the same soulful folk-country sound. Temple’s stock taking creates a more personal, more interior, less archetypal version of the Americana travelogues Johnny Cash wrote in the 1960s. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Broken Heart Land
Owen Temple’s Home Page
Owen Temple’s MySpace Page

Dave Alvin and the Guilty Women: Dave Alvin and the Guilty Women

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davealvin_guiltywomenAlvin kicks up new sparks with guilty women

Having debuted this all-female backing lineup at San Francisco’s Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival in 2008, Dave Alvin and his estrogen-packing band have waxed a gem. Christy McWilson and Amy Farris’ harmonies and duets prove compelling partners to Alvin’s baritone on an album of blues, rock, folk and a few surprises. Chief among the surprises is the Cajun fiddle and pedal steel arrangement of Alvin’s “Marie Marie,” rendered so convincingly that it will take you a second to remember the Blasters signature original. From there the group comes out blasting with the galloping electric folk-blues “California’s Burning,” an allegorical tale that provides a requiem for the Golden State’s cash-strapped coffers. Alvin and McWilson duet like Richard and Mimi Fariña here, and Cindy Cashdollar adds some fiery slide playing.

The passing of friend and bandmate Chris Gaffney was one of Alvin’s motivations for forming this alternative to his Guilty Men, and he’s obviously in a reflective, memorial mood. “Downey Girl” remembers fellow Downey high school student Karen Carpenter and in his middle age Alvin finds a sympathetic appraisal of her fame. Nostalgia for young-pup years has always threaded through Alvin’s work, and with “Boss of the Blues” he ties together a nostalgic memory of Joe Turner with Turner’s own nostalgic memories of the golden years of the blues. One of the album’s happiest and transformative memories, of being dropped off at a Jimi Hendrix concert, opens with the “Folsom Prison” rewrite, “My mother told me, be a good boy, and don’t do nothing wrong.”

Christy McWilson (Dynette Set, Pickets) sings lead on a pair of her own originals, “Weight of the World” and “Potter’s Field,” continuing the mood of struggle that pervaded her two Alvin-produced solo albums. A real standout is her up-tempo duet with Alvin on a cover of Tim Hardin’s oft-covered “Don’t Make Promises.” Alvin and McWilson have paired for ’60s covers before, notably Moby Grape’s “805” on 2002’s Bed of Roses, but this one’s extended acoustic guitar jam really hits the mark. The closing cover of “Que Sera, Sera” suggests Alvin may be ready to move past his grief, but the song’s fatalism is strangely at odds with the rocking country blues arrangement.

When he’s not fondly remembering happier times, Alvin sings low through much of the album, reaching a level of quiet introspection on “These Times We’re Living In” that brings to mind Leonard Cohen. The loss of Chris Gaffney has left a mark on Alvin, and for now at least, his music. His backing band is not just a terrifically talented quintet deeply steeped in the roots of their shared music, but a place for Alvin to rest his soul and rethink his relationship to the Guilty Men minus one. This is more than a temporary respite; it’s a revitalizing step towards artistic and personal rediscovery. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Nana and Jimi
Dave Alvin Home Page #1
Dave Alvin Home Page #2

Michelle Shocked: Soul of My Soul

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michelleshocked_soulofmysoulFocused and accessible album of love and anger

After the artistic bonanza of 2005’s CD triple-shot (the eclectic Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, the Disney covers Got No Strings and the Latin-influenced Mexican Standoff), Michelle Shocked returns with a passionate album of rock, folk and a touch of soul. Aside from her theme albums, the mood here is among the most focused of her catalog, nicely summed by the quote in her album’s press: “I think the meditation these past several years, ever since I stopped drinking, really, has been to jettison rage without losing the ability to feel strong feelings.” Her lyrics are deeply emotional, bitter and angry at the lasting effects of the Bush administration, and tender and loving towards the “official love of her life,” artist David Willardson.

Luckily, it’s not all sappy love songs and angry denunciations, as Shocked mixes folk, soul and punkishly loud rock amidst her twin topical inspirations. Her sunny relationship gets the larger share, including the meta-love lead-off that offers the well-worn just-in-love realization that love songs aren’t necessarily for everyone else. The more intimate “Heart to Heart” and “True Story” may be overly sincere for some listeners; the well-worn “two hearts beating as one,” for example, doesn’t live up to Shocked’s typical craft. More original is the salacious “Paperboy,” sung from the perspective of a newspaper’s lusty recipient, and a trio of songs that eye American society.

First among the jeremiads is “Ballad of the Battle of the Ballot and the Bullet,” which excoriates Americans for hiding in denials and asking “are we reaping a harvest of grief?” Shocked’s obviously not ready to move past the misdeeds of the Bush administration and finds the national character in need of repair. She pictures herself as David taking shots at political and corporate Goliaths on the punk-rock “Giant Killer,” and likens the eruption of Vesuvius to the destruction spewed by corporate America on “Pompeii.” The social critiques are sharp, but the love songs keep the album from turning into one long diatribe. Shocked’s fans will enjoy the passion and musical focus; those drawn in by Kaiser Permanente’s commercials will find this a good entry point to her catalog. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Love’s Song
Michelle Shocked’s Home Page
Michelle Shocked’s MySpace Page

Samantha Crain & The Midnight Shivers: Songs in the Night

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samanthacrain_songsinthenightFirst full-length from riveting Oklahoma Americana folk singer

Samantha Crain is a Choctaw folk singer from rural Oklahoma whose vocal warble creates a sense of old-timey jazz. Her 2007 debut EP, The Confiscation, captured the feeling of an eerie walk along the canopied banks of a Southern Gothic river, and though this full-length isn’t as starkly foreboding, its imagery and lyrical meters remain striking and original. Crain’s gravitated from storytelling to poetic allusion, often leaving the tone and dynamics of her singing to communicate the pain, fear, confusion, despair and dislocation not transparently revealed in her words. The album is perhaps even more effective if you don’t resort to the lyric sheet. Crain continues to stretch her lyrics over the words’ rhythms, often repeating phrases in a trailing fog of lost thoughts or exclamation of suddenly realized memory. The Shivers’ Americana basics (guitar, bass, harmonica and drums) are augmented with touches of mandolin, trombone and mini-moog, remaining rustic and restrained; the slow-to-mid tempos are broken only once for the post-punk rockabilly shuffle and twang of “Bullfight (Change Your Mind).” Crain’s voice remains mystically compelling, and though her new songs haven’t the thick atmosphere of The Confiscation‘s, they’re still full of memorable images and riveting twists. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

Samantha Crain’s Home Page
Samantha Crain’s MySpace Page

King Wilkie: King Wilkie Presents- The Wilkie Family Singers

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kingwilkie_singersAudacious pop concept by former bluegrass wunderkind

If you caught King Wilkie’s bluegrass debut Broke, and somehow managed to miss their break with orthodoxy on 2007’s Low Country Suite, you’re in for a really big surprise. With the original group disbanded, and founding member Reid Burgess relocated to New York City, the band’s name has been redeployed as the front for this stylistically zig-zagging concept album. The Wilkie Family Singers are an imagined co-habitating, musically-inclined family fathered by shipping magnate Jude Russell Wilkie, and filled out by a wife, six children, a cousin, two friends and two pets.

In reality the assembled group includes Burgess, longtime collaborator John McDonald, multi-instrumentalist Steve Lewis, and guest appearances by Peter Rowan, David Bromberg, John McEuen, Robyn Hitchcock, Abigail Washburn and Sam Parton. And rather than constructing a storyline or song-cycle, Burgess wrote songs that give expression to the family’s life and backstory. As he explains, “Jude Russell Wilkie, Sr. had success with a Great Lakes shipping business, and becomes the father to a great family, whose normal familial roles aren’t neatly defined as they grow older. Their insular lifestyle and wealth has them in a sort of time warp. They’re wedged in limbo between past and future. Too big to hold mom’s hand or ride on dad’s shoulders, but still somehow too small to leave their childhood house.”

Much as the Beatles used Sgt. Pepper as a backdrop to inform the mood of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Burgess works from his sketch to conjure a family photo album rather than a written history. There are snapshots of togetherness, isolation, and stolen moments of solitary time, there’s lovesick pining, unrequited longing for the larger world, lives stunted in adolescence, violent dreams and medicinal coping. The band ranges over an impressive variety of styles that include acoustic country, blues and folk, rustic Americana, Dixieland jazz, ’50s-tinged throwbacks and ’70s-styled production pop. There’s even some back-porch picking here, but this edition of King Wilkie has much grander ambitions than to embroider the bluegrass handed down by Bill Monroe. The festival circuit’s loss is pop music’s gain.

Burgess paints the family as lyrical motifs and musical colors rather than descriptive profiles. The latter might have been more immediately satisfying but would have quickly turned stagey. Instead, the family’s dynamic is spelled out in small pieces, fitting the broad range of musical styles to create an album that plays beautifully from beginning to end. The songs stand on their own, but the family’s presence is felt in the flow of the album’s tracks. Casa Nueva hits a homerun with their maiden release, and King Wilkie proves itself a daring band whose next step should be highly anticipated. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Hey Old Man
King Wilkie’s Home Page
King Wilkie’s MySpace Page

Eilen Jewell: Sea of Tears

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eilenjewell_seaoftearsBlue country cool meets hot rock twang

Jewell’s third album retains the 30s jazz phrasings of her vocals, but the folk and country sounds of 2007’s Letters From Sinners & Saints give way to electric guitars that twang like slow-motion rockabilly. No fiddle or harmonica this time, and only a few vocal harmonies supplement the basic guitar, drums, and bass. Dark strums of sustain contrast interestingly with Jewell’s reflective vocals, turning Johnny Kidd & the Pirate’s “Shakin’ All Over” into a contest between cool reserve and hot guitar licks. Imagine the calm and collected Julie London backed by the Blue Caps’ galloping Cliff Gallup. The British Invasion also provides Them’s “I’m Gonna Dress in Black,” rousing Jewell to angry self-pity.

The three covers (which also include Loretta Lynn’s “The Darkest Day”) have been reworked to downbeat- and mid-tempos that dovetail seamlessly with the blue twang of the nine originals. The opening “Rain Rolls In” contrasts chiming 12-string and a languid vocal with a lyric whose resignation extends to the grave. A similar pairing is heard in the mid-tempo title track, a jaunty vocal mouthing words of romantic misery. The aftermath of rejection threads through many of these tunes, alternating between quests of forgiveness and solitary rejections of the outside world; even the blue-jazz pep-talk “Final Hour” is more an escape from lethargy than a trek towards self-empowerment.

The closing “Codeine Arms” bookends the opener’s sense of doom with a consumptive plea that’s closer to the ignominy of McCabe & Mrs. Miller‘s opium den than the desperation of Buffy St. Marie’s “Cod’ine.” Yesteryear jazz and blues vocalists, most obviously Billie Holiday, cast a spell over Jewell’s vocals, but the rootsy support of her band tends more to Christy McWilson territory than Madeline Peyroux. The absence of direct folk and country influences gives this disc a distinct roots-rock sound that’s more singularly focused than her previous releases. Jewell’s a talented songwriter and compelling vocalist, but guitarist Jerry Miller may be the real hidden treasure here. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Sea of Tears
Eilen Jewell’s Home Page
Eilen Jewell’s MySpace Page

Slaid Cleaves: Everything You Love Will Be Taken Away

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slaidcleaves_everythingyouloveDevastating album of anguished folk, rock and country

Austin singer-songwriter Slaid Cleaves returns with an album of Americana whose quiet beauty belies lyrics of deep resignation. Just as Springsteen’s anthems can obscure his bite, Cleaves presents his songs with an offhandedness that, on the surface, offsets the despondency of his words. The angst of love’s vulnerability, the political, social and economic polarization of a new gilded age, and the human misery of war are just a few topics that lead Cleaves to close with the fatalistic proscription “live well and learn to die, soon in the dust you’ll lie, with everything you know / Cruel death will not spare, the wise the young or fair, let’s drain this cup of woe.” The album is titled Everything You Love Will Be Taken Away, after all.

Cleaves sings with a warmth that infuses an element of hope in the crushing blows he delivers. Is there hard-won pain or only a clever couplet in singing “Every man is a myth, every woman a dream / Watch your little heart get crushed when the truth gets in between”? Is there bitterness or repudiation in “Here comes another blown up kid from over there / Making the whole world safe for the millionaires”? Probably a bit of each. The deftness with which he explicates characters in a perfectly framed, heartbreaking moment is breathtaking; he highlights the comfort and torment memories create in a war widow with the lyric, “I lose a little bit of myself with each tear I wipe away,” and captures the humanity of hookers in their attempt to keep warm on a Christmas Eve stroll.

Even when singing in the first person, Cleaves is more of an observer than a participant, and when he reports, it’s with a keen eye. His story of an old-time hanging, “Twistin’,” is an uncomfortably business-as-usual outing that connects to a devastatingly modern indictment. His quiet vocal lets the horrors speak for themselves, with corporal drum and moaning fiddle standing as characters. His cover of Ray Bonneville’s “Run Jolee Run” cycles from hunted to hunter and back to hunted, and the romantic of “Dreams” wonders “where do all your dreams go to, when it all starts to turn untrue / what is all your wishing for, when you don’t believe in dreams anymore?”

The album winds down with a bitter critique of politicians, global industrialists and sleepwalking media, somehow managing to retain a belief in the goodness of man. The closer, “Temporary,” resigns itself to existential impermanence. The magic of this album is how appealing Cleaves and his producer, Gurf Morlix, make such downbeat material. The arrangements are spare and quiet, the tempos deliberate, and though Cleaves is in his mid-forties, his voice retains a youthful tone that’s slightly scratched at the top end of his range. This is the most absorbing album Cleaves has recorded so far, and a strong contender for album-of-the-year honors. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Cry
Slaid Cleaves’ Home Page
Slaid Cleaves’ MySpace Page

On Tour: Blind Pilot

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Portland duo Blind Pilot heads out on the road as a 6-piece band with the addition of bass, banjo/dulcimer, vibraphone and keyboard/trumpet players. They’re supporting the CD release 3 Rounds and a Sound, headlining in March and April and opening for the Decemberists May through July (the irony!).

MP3 | The Story I Heard

March 24 Nashville, TN The Mercy Lounge
March 26 Greensboro, NC Studio B
March 27 Arlington, VA IOTA
March 28 Philadelphia, PA Theater of Living Arts
March 30 Cambridge, MA Middle East
March 31 New York, NY Mercury Lounge
April 1 Pittsburgh, PA Club Cafe
April 2 Cleveland, OH Beachland Ballroom
April 4 Minneapolis, MN 400 Bar
April 6 Norman, OK Opolis
April 7 Austin, TX Mohawk
April 9 Tucson, AZ Plush
April 10 San Diego, CA Casbah
April 11 Los Angeles, CA Spaceland
April 13 San Francisco, CA Cafe Du Nord
May 24 Missoula, MT Wilma Theater*
May 26 Denver, CO Fillmore Auditorium*
May 27 Kansas City, KS Uptown Theater*
May 29 Milwaukee, WI Riverside Theater*
May 31 St Louis, MO Pageant*
June 1 Columbus, OH Lifestyle Communities Pavillion*
June 3 Atlanta, GA Tabernacle*
June 4 Raleigh, NC Memorial Auditorium*
June 5 Richmond, VA The National*
July 18 Troutdale, OR Edgefield Amphitheater*
July 19 Troutdale, OR Edgefield Amphitheater*

* With the Decemberists

Press Release
Blind Pilot’s Blog
Blind Pilot’s MySpace Page

Chip Taylor and Carrie Rodriguez: Red Dog Tracks

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chiptaylor_reddogtracksTwangy, relaxed, confessional country duets

Hit songwriter Chip Taylor’s performing career is having quite a second act. Or third, or maybe fourth. After his initial foray as a singles artist netted little success in the early ‘60s, Taylor penned a string of hit titles for others (including “I Can’t Let Go,” “Wild Thing,” “Country Girl, City Man,” and “Angel of the Morning”). In the 1970s he embarked on a moderately successful second pass at recording with a string of solo works. His songwriting continued to make more headway than his performing, and at decade’s end, he retired from the music business (apparently to become a professional gambler). He resurfaced in 1996 with Hit Man, an album of newly recorded versions of songs others had made hits, and the following year returned as a contemporary songwriter with The Living Room Tapes.

What was clear from his new songs, which continued across a trio of albums on his own Train Wreck label, was that Taylor had returned to performing and writing with more rustic country intentions than with which he’d left at the end of the 1970s. The roots movement had opened up space for country-oriented singer-songwriters to lay down their wares without the interferance of anything Nashville, and that space could just as well benefit old masters as young guns. What sent Taylor’s performing career to the next level, however, was his meeting of fiddler Carrie Rodriguez. Taking her on tour as an instrumentalist and backing singer, he gradually drew her out as a duet singing partner for 2002’s Let’s Leave This Town.

This 2005 release is their third, and the chemistry that was immediate on the debut has greatly deepened. The growing confidence in their vocal interplay allows them to sing more leisurely and provides more breathing space for their music. Acoustic bassist Jim Whitney keys the band’s relaxed pace, and Bill Frisell’s guitar winds all around the vocals. Rodriguez’s fiddle is heard more as accompaniment than solo, the focus staying with the vocals and occasional instrumental flourishes. Taylor wrote most of the songs, co-writing one with Rodriguez, pulling two from Hank Williams (“My Bucket’s Got a Hole in It” and “I Can’t Help It If I’m Still in Love With You”) and one from the public domain (“Elzick’s Farewell”).

Taylor’s songs retain the folkiness of his earlier days, particularly as rendered with relaxed tempos and quiet instrumental passages that provide reflective moments between verses. The contrast of his rougher vocal tone to Rodriguez’s plaintive style works especially well as they converse in melody, employing long drawn notes and an intimate, confessional tone. The ease with which they sing together demonstrates the pairing that began as a serendipitous meeting at SXSW has blossomed into a complete partnership. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

Chip Taylor’s MySpace Page
Carrie Rodriguez’s MySpace Page
Train Wreck Records