Americana and Roots Music - No Depression » Jim Musser

Scotland Barr & The Slow Drags – All The Great Aviators Agree

Jim Musser — Thu, 01 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000

You would think, judging by the luckless, 100-proof subjects on this album, that Scotland Barr has seen the underside of the bar and the soul-crushing side of relationships far too often to have retained a sense of humor, let alone to have enough unpickled brain cells to recall more than a blurry kaleidoscope of disjointed disasters. Yet All The Great Aviators Agree, this Portland, Oregon, sextet’s second disc, is chock-full of near-cinematic, often hilarious details served up with self-deprecating charm via Barr’s rugged, Tom Russell-esque rasp.

There are countless memorable couplets citing wife-stealing, flat-chested women and naked waltzes, plus wry descriptions, from the Vatican (”It’s a lot like they say — it’s big”) to some of the most lovable, laughable losers in recent memory.

Barr’s stories, tunes and vocals would be more than enough to sustain a crackerjack solo act, but it’s all backed up by a fluid, fluent combo boasting ace chops and well-placed harmony vocals. The Slow Drags’s sound — highlighted by Chris Hubbard’s rippling-water piano flights and the deft guitar interplay between Zach Hinkelman’s electric and Bryan Daste’s pedal steel — seems weighted toward country-rock, but the overall flexibility and collective catholic tastes recall the heyday of British pub rock.

Nyles Lannon – Pressure

Jim Musser — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Sez here singer-guitarist Nyles Lannon keeps several irons in the fire, serving as wing-man in Krayg Burton’s shadowy slowcore combo Film School as well as gleeping and beeping with techno vendors Technicolor. But never is he so much himself as when he works under his own given moniker. Lannon’s 2004 disc Chemical Friends offered up yet another (if fine and viable) entry in the nervously-crowded nick Drake / Elliott Smith pale white-boy sensitive folk-popper sweepstakes, and there’s some of that here too (in the best ways). While Pressure delivers a solid supply of dreamy melodic exercises and gossamer-layered vocals, there’s also a strong undercurrent of rhythmic muscle and rock-ety spunk that suggests he’s not wan, disgruntled ex-dodgeball fodder after all; rather, he’s a feisty cat with big ideas that may happen to be purty, but can also bust some windows, too.

Dead Rock West – Honey and Salt

Jim Musser — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Boasting a top rhythm section, a do-it-all keyboardist, a charismatic female/male fronting duo — powerhouse belter Cindy Wasserman and guitarist/vocalist/harmonicat Frank Lee Drennen — this well-met group of savvy road vets gelled into a remarkably distinct, cohesive unit right out of the gate. Honey And Salt is ‘Big Sky’ western rock with an inside-country draw where cactus trumps corn. They kick the snot out of X’s “Burning House Of Love” (the lone cover), and another half-dozen or so of Drennen’s originals traverse the hallowed, sexy-smart turf worked by X and/or their underrated Georgia doppelgangers, the Swimming Pool Qs. There’s character, chops and substance here.

Lucy Kaplansky – Over The Hills

Jim Musser — Tue, 01 May 2007 00:00:00 +0000

There is a serenity, a stillness, in Lucy Kaplansky’s work that almost deflects attention; it’s a quality that may have contributed to her being overlooked in the AOR/post-folk world of Mary Chapin Carpenter, Shawn Colvin, et al. On her sixth solo outing since 1994, Kaplansky is joined by a core group of string wizards (Larry Campbell, Duke Levine and Stephan Crump) with guest harmonies from pals Richard Shindell, Buddy Miller, Jonatha Brooke and Eliza Gilkyson. The disc’s ten midtempo cuts are equally divided between originals and covers, the latter highlighted by luminous readings of Roxy Music’s “More Than This” and Ian Tyson’s classic “Someday Soon” plus an interesting overhaul of “Ring Of Fire”. Kaplansky’s supple vocals are intimate and engaged, and if nothing here would wake the baby, well, you didn’t wanna do that anyway, did ya?

Scott Miller & The Commonwealth – Reconstruction

Jim Musser — Tue, 01 May 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Probably too smart by half for his own damn good, William & Mary alum Scott Miller has straddled the cerebral and the visceral since at least his days with the Knoxville-based V-Roys. But while there doubtless are some “early-stuff-is-best” doorknobs who’ll steadfastly insist he cut his peak work with that fine alt-pop outfit, the Virginia native since has taken his game to a punchier, more original and honest level with his rotating posse of rockin’ rogues, the Commonwealth.

Recorded live over three nights in December 2006 at the Down Home in Johnson City, Tennessee, Reconstruction collects seventeen Miller-penned tunes plus heady covers of Tom Petty’s “Spike” and Neil Young’s “Hawks & Doves”. The scatter-pattern of the originals demonstrates a healthy vitality to Miller’s songwriting output — there’s the V-Roys’ gorgeous “Arianne”, four each from the Commonwealth’s 2001 and 2003 albums, a half-dozen from last year’s sublime Citation, and three new gems (”Eight Miles Per Gallon”, “Still People Are Moving” and “Drunk All Around This Town”).

Miller’s rugged everyman voice is just the ticket for these inspired romps, and R.S. Field’s production fairly crackles with raw immediacy. (It speaks volumes of Miller’s rockyroll cred/instincts that his records have been produced by a veritable Eccentric Rock Varmint Hall of Fame, including Field, Steve Earle and Jim Dickinson.)

Altogether, this is exemplary (and rare) populist rock: smart, funny, and nearly devoid of mythic pretense.

Fernando – Enter To Exit

Jim Musser — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Born in Argentina and raised in the SoCal Mexican barrio of Pacoima, Fernando Viciconte fronted hard-rockers Monkey Paw before relocating to Portland, Oregon, in 1994. His sixth disc (and first in five years) finds the singer-songwriter backed by an accomplished outfit including Chet Lyster and Derek Brown of the Eels and Paul Brainard of Richmond Fontaine. Enter To Exit leaps out of the gate with “Howard Hughes”, a propulsive rocker that inhabits Dwight Twilley turf, but for the bulk of the record, Fernando’s “default” voice traces John Lennon’s with such unaffected naturalness that the substantial emotional freight invested in these largely Beatlesque pop nuggets (from jaunty to lush to achingly spare) resounds with stunning immediacy. Utterly beautiful and convincing.

Dan Reeder – Sweetheart

Jim Musser — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 00:00:00 +0000

As with his brilliant, eponymous 2003 debut, Sweetheart is all Dan Reeder. The American expat provides all the vocals, writes everything (except the minimalist reading of Procol Harum’s “Whiter Shade Of Pale” that closes the set), and plays all the instruments (which he either designed and built himself or rescued from the trash heap). He recorded the album in his homemade, Rube Goldberg-esque studio in Germany, where he has lived and worked as a visual artist since the 1980s.

With his dusty, intimate tenor, Reeder spools out a continuous string of dizzying tales and head-scratching ruminations. There’s the cautionary “You’ll Never Surf Again”; “Bach Is Dead And Gone”, a rustic, languid blues in which he bemoans “I said let’s write some motets, but he was already done”; a baffling collision of suds, baseball chatter and Jesus on “I Drink Beer”; and a masterful spy-thriller/noir/doo-wop delight titled “You Should Have Wrote A Book”.

Throughout, Reeder’s synapses spark and leap with dependable daffiness, often with an earthiness that’s far more “naughty” than salacious. This is a one-of-a-kind artist with (now) two-of-a-kind treasures that are guaranteed to rearrange and refresh your brain pan.

Mary Karlzen – The Wanderlust Diaries

Jim Musser — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Despite her deceptively girlish delivery, Mary Karlzen brings a mature approach to this diverse collection. Karlzen took a well-received walk-in-the-park with the majors on 1995’s Yelling At Mary (Atlantic), but her hard-to-pigeonhole approach lacked radio traction, and she slipped out of the mix. Now a wife and mother of two, she returns with a stylish set that offers the emotional transparency of Joan Armatrading, the feistiness of Cindy Bullens, and the innate pop of John Hiatt. Backed by a solid crew including bassist Garry Tallent, drummer Ken Coomer and keyboardist John Deaderick, Karlzen rocks and/or rolls through ten engaging originals plus a pair of inspired covers — a crisp ’n’ breezy reading of the Replacements’ “Skyway”, and a savvy duet with Matthew Ryan on Tom Waits’ “Heart Of Saturday Night”.

Sixtyeight Twentyeight

Jim Musser — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 00:00:00 +0000

There’s no telling how the promising musical career of Vince Bell might have played out had he avoided that near-fatal auto accident in late 1982. It is difficult to imagine it would have been as interesting, provocative or inspirational as the one that emerged — slowly but triumphantly — from the wreckage of that December Texas night.

A friend and fellow traveler of Lone Star troubadours Townes Van Zandt, Steve Fromholz, Guy Clark, Lyle Lovett, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Willis Alan Ramsey, etc., Bell had been laying down album tracks at Austin’s Riverside Recording with Eric Johnson and Stevie Ray Vaughan before calling it a day and heading home just after midnight.

On the way home, Bell and his then-wife Melody were broadsided by a drunk driver traveling in excess of 65 mph. Melody’s feet were pinned by the engine, but Vince was thrown 50 feet from the vehicle and was found lying in a pool of gasoline with closed-head and spinal injuries, a mangled forearm, collapsed lungs, scarred eyeballs and his liver squeezed out of his body onto the pavement.

Despite making the obit section of the Austin American Statesman’s daybreak edition, Bell survived, emerging from a month-long coma to undergo countless surgeries, numerous setbacks, and more than a decade of physical and mental therapy while re-learning to walk, talk, sing and play guitar.

Bell recounted his harrowing journey from barely alive to his long-delayed, aptly-named 1994 debut disc Phoenix with humility, awe, humor and insight in his 1998 memoir, One Man’s Music.

With Sixtyeight Twentyeight (subtitled The life and times of a Texas writer and a flat top box guitar), Bell delivers a breezy, peripatetic collection of memories, essays and letters drawn from his remarkable sojourns. His well-worn 1968 Martin D-28 dreadnought serves as something of a mute-yet-musical Harpo sidekick to Vince’s slightly-daffy, buoyant Groucho.

Far too little is known about ‘closed-head’ brain injuries, but often they don’t completely “heal” so much as the subject learns to adapt to the periodic disconnects. It also helped Vince to have understanding friends and a soulmate (Sarah Wrightson) to ease through the rough spots.

The book’s entries are brief (generally one to three pages) and roughly chronological, although — like Vonnegut’s ‘unstuck-in-time’ Billy Pilgrim — Bell does not seem to have quite the same relationship to past and present as those whose lives have unspooled more or less unencumbered.

The tales ring true, imbued with a sense of wonder and a palpable joie de vivre. Often reading like riveting song-sketches, Bell’s vignettes include distilled accounts of far-flung road-gig mishaps and breakthroughs, salutes to steadfast friendships and safe harbors, exasperating glimpses of ‘Townes unbridled,’ lost weekends, wrong turns, and rewarding musical reunions. Interspersed are comments on his more recent albums Texas Plates and Live In Texas, plus technical and spiritual revelations that led to Bell’s idiosyncratic mastery of song.

Happily, that beleaguered ol’ D-28 finds its rewarding second act (in a fairy-tale, ‘new lamps for old’ trade-off) — not unlike its unsinkable, charmed and charming companion.

Bo Ramsey – Stranger Blues

Jim Musser — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 00:00:00 +0000

A steady, grounding, and somewhat ghostly presence on the midwestern blues-rock-folk scene for more than three decades, guitarist Bo Ramsey has etched an enigmatic career arc. He broke out as a frontman with a play-all-night outfit in the ’70s, then meshed heady singer-songwriter aspirations with elastic guitar moves (1991’s Down To Bastrop is an enduring treasure), by which time he’d become so valuable and in-demand as a sideman and producer (with Greg Brown, Lucinda Williams and many others) that his solo presence all but evaporated.

For years, Ramsey’s plan to make a record of covers of his most beloved blues mentors kept getting pushed aside by outside projects. Stranger Blues finally makes it happen, and its subdued presentation — with Ramsey’s dry, Dylanesque vocal delivery and deftly understated, sneaky-cool six-string shadings — underscore why he’s been cited as the “Daniel Lanois of the Plains.”

Fleshed out by the cream of eastern Iowa’s fertile roots mavens (including Greg and Pieta Brown, Joe Price and David Zollo), Stranger Blues eschews high-octane, closing-time bar blues for a languid approach to Elmore James, Little Walter, Jessie Mae Hemphill, Willie Dixon, Muddy Waters, Jimmy Reed, Howlin’ Wolf, Sonny Boy Williamson and Elizabeth Cotten that conjures after-hours, between-the-sheets alchemy.