1. Country music began with a sense of alienation — after the Dust Bowl and Great Depression sent farmers packing for the big city, the music of Lefty Frizzell, Woody Guthrie, and Hank Williams summed up the pining for the simpler way of life that they had known. On “A Country Of My Own”, from his latest, To Be Loved, Thad Cockrell carries that sentiment, though he longs for a home that he has never actually seen. C.S. Lewis stated that his dissatisfaction with the world resulted in the revelation that he “was made for another world”, which sums up the message of this beautiful tune.
2. Cockrell rides a familiar train beat, though retooled just enough to make it new. The square-wave keyboard chugging along in the background highlights his longing for a “city where you meet no strangers”. Unlike Merle’s longing for the “Green Green Grass” where he grew up, Thad repeatedly sings that he has no home — though he mollifies that statement by saying he has a destination. The feeling of displacement, mixed with the promise of fulfillment sums up the restlessness that any human has felt.
3. Though you might know Cockrell from his days as a honky tonker or his collaboration with Whiskeytown’s Caitlin Cary, he and producer Jason Lehning redefine his sound on this record. Mixing country structure with airy pop sounds and Cockrell’s signature high tenor, they set out to create a record like Phases and Stages, where (as Lehning put it), “Everything about it is country and nothing about it is country.” Though the tones aren’t traditional country, the song is unmistakably so, and the record is not to be missed.
Thad Cockrell – “A Country Of My Own”
Posted: July 20th, 2010 | 3 Comments »
I had the chance to talk to Will Kimbrough the other day. Singer, guitar slinger, songwriter, co-leader of Daddy, and occasional sideman and producer to Rodney Crowell and Todd Snider, Kimbrough hails from Alabama and consistently finds himself mixed up with terribly exciting music. Five Records is an occasional feature of artists talking about the music that inspires them. Read more of these posts here.
Bruce Springsteen
Born To Run
“I saw Bruce play on May 1, 1976 for my 12th birthday in Mobile, Alabama. The ticket was $4.50, my first guitar was $20 and I never looked back. I played my first show at a skating rink. Anyone who bought the 30th anniversary edition and saw the DVD saw the show the way I saw it – no special effects, nothing that blows up – just a charismatic lesson in what to do, how to be down to earth, how to reach people.”
Rodney Crowell
The Houston Kid
“I admire the way Rodney reinvented himself at age 50 — his songwriting is as good as ever, but his music took a step up. Just being around him, he is uncompromising without being a jerk. You can go to Rodney’s show and he might not play any of the hits from the 80’s that people know him for, but he still blows his audiences away, and that’s hard to do.”
J. J. Cale
Any Way the Wind Blows
“I listened to a lot of J.J. Cale while making this last Daddy record — I love how he is able to take the simplest thing and make it interesting. Tommy and I always start Daddy records by getting together and writing something and building off of that. “Love In a Bottle” was heavily inspired by JJ.”
Hank Williams
Gold
“I wish I had written “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry”. It’s just beautiful – the nature imagery in “The silence of a falling star/ Lights up a purple sky” and the raw way Hank delivers it as only he can make it such a classic. He really wrote poetry for common people by being able to take common things and put them to simple melodies.”
Justin Townes Earle
Midnight at the Movies
“Justin just keeps improving. He was given a great opportunity due to his bloodlines, but he absolutely lives up to it. You can see it in his work ethic, the way he gets after it, and the way he appreciates the music that came before him. Midnight at the Movies was a great step forward from his first record, which was fantastic as well.”
Posted: October 2nd, 2009 | 1 Comment »
1. Let me tell you what I appreciate about James Hand: there is not a single phony thing about him. Not that you needed me to tell you that, with Kristofferson saying that “he believes” James Hand and Willie calling him “the real deal”. Despite such accolades, Hand has flown under the radar for most of his career. Shadow on the Ground is his second record for Rounder, and “Don’t Want Me Too” is a prime example of his no-nonsense way with a song. Hand shows no need to dress up a song with lavish production and extended wordplay, coaxing a whip-smart performance out of his band that crackles with an energy seldom heard today.
2. With his rhythm section accompanied by only a snaky guitar line and breezy steel, Hand lets his stark voice bottle up his feeling of unrequited love, swooping and fluttering with an impressive agility. His almost comically long run-on of an opening line laughs in the face of metaphors, but resonates with the honesty of someone whose pain keeps them from waxing poetic.
“You didn’t want me when you had me or you never would have left/
And I still don’t know why you did”
He recalls Hank Sr. with his drawling “why, why why” before lamenting that he wants someone who “don’t want me too”. Then, as quickly as it began, the track careens to a stop in just over two and a half minutes. His crisp, immediate approach has the freshness of Buddy Holly or Doug Sahm, and carries an energy that absolutely cannot be faked.
3. There is a lot of complicated music being made today that says half of what James Hand and his band get across in “Don’t Want Me Too“. To me, honky tonk or western swing has always been best enjoyed live at a place like the Broken Spoke, but Hand’s performance on this track surpasses that preference, coming off more reminiscent of early rock and roll. I am glad James Hand is giving lessons in how to make exciting music recorded live by real people playing real instruments, and I hope young artists are taking notes.
Posted: September 30th, 2009 | No Comments »
