Put Dan Bern in
the category of singer songwriters for whom maturity has done a world of good.
Bern's music falls into a seam that's somewhere between Woody Guthrie and Bruce
Springsteen by way of Billy Bragg. In the past, his love of irony has crossed
the line that separates humor and egoism, but lately his voice,
instrumentation, and lyrics have dialed back the snark. This has made him more
accessible and his wry commentary more incisive. He is now on tour with a
recent album, Hoody (www.danbern.comwww.danbern.com)
that also features his recent drift toward a more country rock feel. Check out
"Lifeline," a classic piece of honky tonk: "They say I've been
carousing too much/Drinking like a sailor and smoking like a Dutch…."
Bern's current tour only has a few Northeast
stops: Northampton's Parlor Room on October 11, The Winery in New York City on
October 14, and Club Passim in Cambridge, MA on October18.
Eilen Jewell is
also on the road with a recent record, Sundown Over Ghost Town (Signature Sounds). Jewell hails from
Idaho, but she couldn't escape comparisons to Kentuckian Loretta Lynn even if
she didn't do a lot of Lynn covers. You get that same mix of honky tonk,
Western swing, and controlled twang. With Jewell, even her sweet songs are
tinged with a little melancholy. Sundown
Over Ghost Town is classic Jewell with a few small detours like "Rio
Grande," whose Mexicana flair evokes a splash of Linda Ronstadt. One of
the great joys of listening to Jewell is checking out of well she works with
her band. The Lynn comparisons not withstanding, the guitar arrangements make you
wonder if you're listening to country folk or surf music. But, heck, I'd love
this new album even if it were only for a line in "Needle in Thread"
where she describes her Idaho hometown as "one horse shy of a one-horse
town." I grew 2,300 miles
east of her, but I know exactly what
she means.
Justin Townes Earle has a recent record titled Absent
Fathers (Vagrant Records), which is intended as the companion piece to
his 2014 Single Mothers and is available as double album in some formats
(including LP). Earle knows whereof he speaks on both issues. He is the son of
country music bad boy Steve Earle and his third (of seven!) wives, who raised
Justin. Justin has had his own battles with drug addiction but seems to have
gotten his life back on track. For those who don't know his music, his voice is
a smoother counterpart to his old man's girt and gravel and, these days at
least, he's more of an acoustic blues singer than country folk. In fact,
"Farther From Me" is reminiscent of Van Morrison unplugged.
Click here for some Justin Townes Earle track. s
Is there such a category as hard soft rock? If so, let me
nominate The Pollies as an exemplar
of it. They've just (as in days ago) released their second record, Not Here
(Single Lock Records). They hail from Alabama and I've no idea where
the band name comes from, so excuse me if I make an inappropriate Hollies
remark because they do indeed sport some Hollies-like harmonies, though the
band with which they most compare is My Morning Jacket. The album's theme is
loss—usually lost love, though it opens with "Jackson," a paean to
Jimmie Lee Jackson who, in 1965 was the Michael Brown of his day: an unarmed
black man murdered by an Alabama state trooper. (His death sparked the famed
Selma to Montgomery march.) Most of the rest of the CD is softer in content
and, occasionally, in tone and mood. The Pollies are the kind of ensemble that
prefers to knock you off your pins with a soft feather—as they do on quiet
songs such as "Threw It Away" or "My Darling"–but can also
amp up the pace when necessary. Check out "Lost," which
simultaneously swells and rocks but with controlled aggression. Like I said,
hard soft rock.
PS:
On some websites the CD name is listed as Lost,
but methinks that's wrong!
Rob Weir
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