A native New Yorker who now divides his time between Tesuque, New Mexico, and Italy, Jono Manson has long been a master of the high art of low-rent songcraft. But never has he cut as close to the bone as on “Under The Stone”, the title track from his latest self-produced CD. As high and lonesome as anything off the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack, it kicks off with a pitch-perfect invocation — “World of trouble/World of worry/Carry on/Carry on” — and proceeds to home in on death with unblinking eyes.
Recounting a hardscrabble life in which “a hundred prayers/A thousand needles/Won’t stop the pain,” Manson returns repeatedly to a mantra that makes the ultimate case for cremation: “The spirit won’t visit the bones/Under the stone.” The song is even more potent in the stripped-down acoustic version included as a bonus track.
Though “Under The Stone” is the album’s crown jewel, it is studded with other gems as well. “Walking Down Your Street” is a back-porch picker that tucks a hard-luck tale inside a happy-go-lucky shuffle. “Gunhill Road” celebrates two late, great bass players: Loup Garou’s Jim Gregory, who co-wrote the shit-kickin’ rocker with Neil Thomas; and Blues Traveler’s Bobby Sheehan, who plays on the track and toured with Manson for many years in High Plains Drifter. Both date back to the old New York bar-band scene, invoked as a raucous last-call anthem in “The Night Before The Morning After”.
