Author: Paige La Grone Babcock
Not Fade Away - Reissue Review from Issue #47 Sept-Oct 2003
Pearls Before Swine – Jewels Were The Stars
Primarily a vehicle for psych-folk cult hero Tom Rapp, Pearls Before Swine enjoyed moderate counterculture success in the late ’60s and ’70s until Rapp repudiated the music business at decade’s end and began practice as a civil rights attorney. Often cited a primary influence of Galaxie 500 alumni Damon & Naomi and of Japanese acid [...]
Town and Country - Shorter Artist Feature from Issue #42 Nov-Dec 2002
Hackensaw Boys – Simple is as simple does
The Hackensaw Boys have the Blue Ridge Mountains in their DNA. An acoustic aggregation — upright bass, fiddles, banjos, guitars, harmonica, charismo, dobro, mandolin — the Hackensaws make primitive American music, born of specific place. Their songs are steeped in generations of melody and shadings of old-time mountain and string bands, from their original uptempo [...]
Waxed - Record Review from Issue #39 May-June 2002
Rosie Thomas – When We Were Small
It’s the catch in the voice; the catch that’s not quite a hiccup, not a cry, but an achingly lovely double-clutch, a double negative making odd of even, that makes Rosie Thomas’ unguarded vocals so compelling. It is precisely this quality that made the unknown singer stand out on Sub Pop’s 2000 tribute to Bruce [...]
Waxed - Record Review from Issue #38 March-April 2002
Precious Bryant – Fool Me Good
Raised in Georgia’s lower Chattahoochee Valley, Precious Bryant hails from, and is steeped in, similar tradition to blues foremother Gertrude “Ma” Rainey. Akin in both spirit and execution to Jessie Mae Hemphill, Bryant is a genuine article of truthful expression, coupled with artful chops. As with many blues and R&B greats, Bryant’s first performing experience [...]
Waxed - Record Review from Issue #38 March-April 2002
Pine Valley Cosmonauts – The Executioner’s Last Songs
As with their tributes to Bob Wills and Johnny Cash, The Executioner’s Last Songs finds the Pine Valley Cosmonauts banging out some tunes to accompany a rotating stable of indie/alt-country guest vocalists. Rather than paying homage to a single artist this time, Jon Langford and crew take on traditional and newly penned murder ballads and [...]
Waxed - Record Review from Issue #37 Jan-Feb 2002
Michael Kelsh – Well Of Mercy
Nashville based singer-songwriter Michael Kelsh , a founding member of Southern Culture On The Skids, makes gentle folk songs that need to be here now on Well Of Mercy, his third solo release. Kelsh’s songs function as dreamy folkified hymnody in the parlance of common language, uncommonly good guitar work, roughly whispery vocals, and the [...]
The Long Way Around - Feature from Issue #36 Nov-Dec 2001
Beachwood Sparks – Through the trees
Neal Casal is at the wheel of a fifteen-passenger government baby blue van. It is a late grey morning just before autumn’s official reign begins. The dog days of summer appear to have fled early. Gear has just been loaded out of a motel room in Lebanon, Tennessee, and stowed into the attached trailer. The [...]
Town and Country - Shorter Artist Feature from Issue #35 Sept-Oct 2001
Minton Sparks – Speaking in mother tongues
“I’m still waitin’ to figure out what it is I’m gonna be.” Sitting across the table from her at a Sylvan Park neighborhood café in Nashville, performance poet Minton Sparks embodies everything she sounds like on recording and by phone. At once lively and deeply present, her eyes flash, behind which are lightning bugs of [...]
Waxed - Record Review from Issue #33 May-June 2001
John Hermann – Smiling Assassin
For his solo debut, Widespread Panic’s John “JoJo” Hermann hops up a guitar, some “cowboy chords” and a backing band that includes the North Mississippi All Stars’ Dickinson brothers. Less greasy, funky, and lighter (in more ways than just skin color) than most of Oxford, Mississippi’s Fat Possum roster, Hermann’s offering makes sense in much [...]
Waxed - Record Review from Issue #33 May-June 2001
Red House Painters – Old Ramon
Taking its name from a Spanish children’s book, Old Ramon emerges after laying away for nearly four years since San Francisco’s Red House Painters put the ten-song collection to tape. While the late-’90s major-label merger kept Old Ramon tucked away, principal Painter Mark Kozelek remained busy, issuing a pair of solo records (one of which [...]
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