Jakob Dylan – “Everybody’s Hurting”

With a set of music that T-Bone Burnett calls “the best batch of songs he’s ever brought to me”, Jakob Dylan takes a more intimate turn from the roots rock of the Wallflowers into a sound that evokes the mystery and mythology of the most rural parts of America. One of three songs from the Women and Country EP, which previews the full length of the same name, “Everybody’s Hurting” takes a common feeling of America and sets it in the musical context of its past.

Opening with an ominous rumble, followed by Dennis Crouch’s upright bass and rolling drums, a woozy fiddle introduces Dylan’s familiar rasp. He admits to worriedly pacing, asking God where he has gone, or “have we just left you bored?”. He continues the biblical imagery, referencing the “milk and honey” that he and his companions lack. Neko Case and Kelly Hogan join him for the chorus, which give a sonic lift to counter the lyrics of despair.

Dylan’s America is similar to the country that his father and The Band mined on The Basement Tapes, as well as the people that inhabited O Brother, Where Art Thou, another T-Bone Burnett vehicle — a land unforgiving (“the evenings are cold enough to pluck your feathers out”) and barren (“we’ve hunted these hills dry/we’ve long outlasted the winter and our last wood pile”). This image of “country” isn’t the commonly heard caricature of rural people, but a realistic portrayal of the hard times that Stephen Foster famously recalled. The parallel to our current recession culture is apparent, as Dylan remarks that “we’d sell this valley if we could”. His outlook isn’t without hope, as he understands that faith asks him to believe what he cannot see, but the reality of his surroundings makes that difficult.

Musically, Burnett envelops Dylan’s voice with his now-trademark sound, using his same band from both the Crazy Heart soundtrack and Robert Plant and Alison Krauss’ Raising Sand. The layers of acoustic, organic sound and perfectly placed harmonies make the song as musically compelling as the subject matter.

Jakob Dylan deserves to be judged on his own merit, ignoring the large shoes he has been expected to fill since birth. With “Everybody’s Hurting” (and the rest of this fantastic EP), he furthers his already-proven ability to make compelling music that stands on its own.

Jakob Dylan – Everybody’s Hurting

Posted: March 31st, 2010 | 1 Comment »

Throwback Thursday – Neko Case – “Guided By Wires”

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 »