1. I started thinking about Rodney Crowell when writing about his recent collaboration with Bruce Robison. Crowell has had a storied career, running with Guy Clark and Townes Van Zandt in Nashville before heading to L.A. to play in Emmylou Harris’ Hot Band, then finding mainstream country success in the 80’s and reinventing himself in this past decade. Though his style has varied over the years, he has a deep catalog of songs that run the gamut from political rants to unabashed love songs. “Bluebird Wine” came early in his career, and was brought more success when Emmylou covered it on her landmark Pieces of the Sky record, though Rodney’s live take from Heartworn Highways better shows the guts of the song.
2. Riding some surprisingly ace finger picking, he tells a story of a new friend who straightened his life out…so that he could better enjoy his precious Bluebird Wine. The irony is not lost here, as Crowell comes in off the highway, puts his money in the bank, and gets rid of worry so that he can cut loose. When he hits the chorus, the song “hits its stride” just like he sings, with an exuberant swagger that mirrors the effects of the precious drink. Crowell returns to the irony by relating that his new friend has taught him the joys of staying in at night and listening to the radio, while “drinking all the Bluebird we can hold”. This slight twist on the idea of turning over a new leaf gives the song an indelible splash of character.
3. Crowell has turned out some great work in recent years, records which his guitarist Will Kimbrough calls “his best“. Though much of his more recent work deals with his disgust with politics, poverty, and other heavy subjects, he has always maintained the ability to write uptempo songs about letting go and having a great time. Great songs are expected from someone with his songwriting pedigree. With “Bluebird Wine”, Crowell shows that he was cranking classic songs out from the beginning, and that these later years are just the icing on the cake.
Rodney Crowell – Bluebird Wine
Posted: October 29th, 2009 | No Comments »
1. Neko Case, who swooped down out of Canada in 1997 with The Virginian, turned up the twang with her 2000 release Furnace Room Lullaby. “Guided By Wires”, the second track from this record, calls everyone who claims to be vintage country into question. With the combination of her arcing voice, a simple backing band, and lyrics that pledge allegiance to her heroes on the radio, Case put a dent in the side of the catchphrase “insurgent country”, approaching her work with an authentic sound that didn’t sound like a revival at all.
2. Paying tribute to the “voices that did comfort her”, Case relays a few life lessons she learned, noting that “even in my darkest recollection/ there was someone singing my life back to me”. Riding a loping beat that suggests the white lines of a highway flying by, Case speaks of her life being “made of short stories”, a concept she would explore further on Fox Confessor Brings the Flood. The refrain finds her admitting that she “owes much to the nameless and all the surrogates/ for those who were singing my life back to me.” Not only does Neko’s voice rattle around in a vintage echo chamber, the guitars chatter with a sound free of modern effects, and the whole track resonates with the sound of people playing music live in a room. The sound is possibly best described as not “vintage”, but “real”. With a stripped down sound that leaves her nothing to hide behind, Case’s lyrics are refreshingly simple and straightforward.
3. So much of our musical history is made up of the music we hear before we are old enough to put the record on ourselves. Rhett Miller spoke of his parents playing the Kingston Trio, and Danny Balis talked about his father playing Merle Haggard’s live records. Neko doesn’t get specific, but she doesn’t need to: the ghosts of Patsy Cline, Tammy Wynette, and Dusty Springfield live in her music. Though she would follow her muse further away from this sound with later records like Middle Cyclone, Case pays tribute to her heroes and writes herself into the history of country music with “Guided By Wires”, which may one day rush out of someone’s stereo and re-create the experience she describes.
Neko Case – Guided By Wires
Posted: October 22nd, 2009 | 4 Comments »
1. John Prine is a master of making small slices of life profound. His music is relatively simple, but his approach to storytelling finds a way to extract great amounts of empathy for his characters. “Paradise”, from his debut self titled album is a classic example of how his endearing style has made him a legend. One of the first three songs he ever played (along with “Illegal Smile” and “Sam Stone”), this ode to a phantom town is seen through the eyes of a child, which makes it both a lament about the effects of progress and the loss of innocence.
2. He starts (and stays) bright and cheery, reminiscing about traveling to Western Kentucky, pointing to the way that children excitedly turn memories over and over in their mind like a rock tumbler until the “memories are worn”. When his narrator asks his dad to take him back to “Muhlenberg County, down by the Green River where Paradise lay”, his father replies that his son is “too late in asking”, saying that the town is gone due to the coal miners hauling it off. Prine shows a bit of childlike ignorance in the next verse, going back to a memory of shooting pop bottles in this place, where the “air smelled like snakes”. Shortly after, he recounts the coal company stripping the land of its resources, and marking it up as the “progress of man”. In this, Prine steps out from behind his child narrator to question the modern idea of progress, asking the question of whether losing these sorts of memories is truly a step forward. He asks that when he dies, his ashes and soul be transported back to that place, the closest he felt to heaven on earth.
3. Though Prine is better known for “Angel From Montgomery”, “Paradise” shows off what he does best, in a simple, homegrown style that maintains cheeriness despite its heavy subject matter. He lets the song musically take on the blissful ignorance of a child, while at the same time lyrically bearing the burden of the advent of industry. Hayes Carll recently expressed joy at being asked to sing this song with Prine at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, showing the effect the song still carries today (as well as the enduring stature of the songwriter). In a world of increasing complexity, Prine’s ability to provide social commentary in a simple, entertaining form has secured his lasting impact on a generation of songwriters.
John Prine – Paradise
Posted: October 15th, 2009 | 1 Comment »
