In the piece I wrote about Henry Lee that appears in NUVO’s 20th Anniversary issue (read on this blog and online at nuvo.net) Henry Lee Summer was playing at Moon Dog’s in Fishers the night I saw him for the first time in a long time. It certainly seemed like a moment early in his journey back from the bottom. The story I wrote was way too long for print. So I saved it for the web…
When I saw him, he was backed by the Zanna Doo spinoff band 4 on the Floor and they were churning out classic rock, with each bandmember taking a turn singing. Some songs worked better than others. But it was a nice and loud classic rockin’ band, so when Henry Lee Summer ‘s turn came to sing, I smiled. It was no hat-pulled-low, going-through-the-motions performance. He was engaged. The band’s energy forced Henry to bring it.
Though he didn’t do any of his own music when I was there, the fire and the spirit resurfaced in an oddly fitting place. In the midst of an old bubble gum tune from Crazy Elephant called “Gimme Gimme Good Lovin” , Henry Lee reached down into his soul, like the old days, to take the band higher; helped them lock into a rock groove and turn a silly little song into a reason to believe. It made me believe Henry Lee Summer can recapture some of what he lost.
Could it turn out he hasn’t really lost anything – just that his light has been dimmed the better part of 10 years? America loves a reclamation project.
Right now, in Indianapolis, Henry Lee Summer could be that project.
***
Let me tell a story. It was the summer of 1988 in southern Michigan. A thunderstorm was rumbling and light flashed in the distance. I know because you can hear crackling in the tape I have of the radio that night. It was a Sunday night. I was living in an upstairs apartment, in a two-room space . Cardboard boxes were stacked around the living room, because I was going to have to move again the next month. Nobody was living in the apartment below. That proved important, because as a radio jock from 6pm to midnight, I usually stayed up until 3 or 4am, drinking a couple beers and playing more music – kinda loud.
I owned an old jambox stereo, with two big speakers, a radio and cassette player. The radio that night was tuned to Q106 in Jackson, Michigan. Though I’d started chasing the goal of being a radio dude, earning my beer money playing whatever the hell I wanted at the local station each night, I was off work every Sunday. On this particular stormy Sunday, the radio station played the Superstar Concert Series. Henry Lee was recorded live at Manchester College, here in Indiana. What came to me that night was 35 minutes of roaring, joyful, spiritual, loud, crazy, rock and roll. I had heard “Wish I Had a Girl” (how could you miss it?) and knew Henry Lee Summer was a heartland rocker – a John Cougar, Bryan Adams, Bob Seger thing – and it was the type of music I wanted to hear in 1988.
This was all before the internet, back when we depended on radio for our music and band info. And all I knew about Henry Lee Summer was his one hit song and ubiquitous companion video on MTV. I wasn’t yet living in Indiana – that would come ten years later, so I didn’t know the backstory of his time spent paying dues in the Indiana bars. Or his self-released music. Or his show. My education about Henry came through the radio that night.
Hey, I can be jaded. I’ll dismiss a band as wannabe rockers quicker than you can say Daughtry. But if you knew your shit about live music and rock and roll, you couldn’t miss it; this was a guy who had the gift of being able to connect with the audience and have that magic come through the radio speakers too.
Perceptive enough to drop in a gray TDK cassette tape and record the show, I still have the tape and recently converted it to an MP3 – it’s now on my iPod. And it still rocks. There’s still palpable energy and magic with “Hands on the Radio”, “Down on the Farm”, “Hey Baby” and the hit. It sounded perfect to my rock ears, coming through those two speakers.
It would be another year before I would see Henry Lee Summer live for myself, opening for Eddie Money in Louisville. Henry blew him away that night. Charmingly bombastic, full of preacher fire, flying hair and jumping feet, this one guy from Indiana commanded his rock and roll band, and another performer’s crowd, and won the night. Poor Eddie. He had no fuckin’ chance.
And that’s why, or at least one reason, I cheer for Henry Lee Summer to find his peace, his sobriety, and his passion. He’s a guy who had – and may still have – the spark and gift to inspire a concert audience to be a little nicer and each person a little more empathetic as they go about their daily life. That’s what I always felt walking out after one of his shows. There’s still a need for that, right?
“Hey Baby” (LIVE)
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qqSeVipvY8]
artist interviews
Henry Lee Summer: Then and Now
A recent cold winter night, with snow falling, Henry Lee Summer was on stage at a northside bar, there to sing a few songs, play some guitar, have a bit of fun. Continue to get himself into musical fighting shape. Just another gig, and a bit more than that, too.
“What I am trying to do is go back to square one,” Summer says, talking about his career today. “First and foremost, I am taking care of myself and my family. Musically, I am writing and using the past few years’ experiences for material to write about. My goal in one year is to have a full time band that can play my old and new music and sustain my living and support my family.”
When NUVO interviewed Henry Lee Summer 20 years ago, for our debut issue, his story came across as that of a Hoosier homeboy – all blue jeans and cafeteria food (the first interview was at an MCL Cafeteria). The talk at the time was a new album and what he believed bands needed to do to succeed.
“I prefer to hear originals,” he said at the time. “When a band is playing their own stuff, they are much more alive.”
“In Indy there were places to play (back then) if you were a musician of any caliber,” he now remembers. “Starting out, I got to play six nights a week for several hours. There were lots of opportunities back then that aren’t there now. There were battle of bands, Ramada Inn, Holiday Inn, sock hops – it was great.
Has it really been more than 20 years since Henry Lee Summer broke big? “I Wish I Had a Girl,”, “Hands on the Radio” and “Darlin’ Danielle Don’t” come 1-2-3 on the debut record. An anthem, a pop-rocker and a power ballad with some grit. It is late 80’s rock and roll, filtered through Top 40 AM radio and smoky bars. It is the sound of the Midwest.
“‘I Wish I Had a Girl’ was a number one record for a few weeks,” Summer remembers. “I always wanted to have a hit record, so I was lucky and thankful. It was in heavy rotation and saturated MTV and the radio so people remembered it. ‘Hey Baby’ was a big hit, but ‘Wish I Had a Girl’ was everywhere.”
Way Past Midnight (1990) and Slamdunk (1993) were his last two major label releases, as the business was changing and grunge had arrived. With 1999’s Smoke and Mirrors and then a live album, Summer released records to a regional audience. Two of his cover bands, the Alligator Brothers and Candybomber, took much of his time.
Then, a pair of well-documented arrests brought Henry Lee Summer to where is today. First was a 2006 drunk driving charge and then a methamphetamine arrest in 2009. After that, he went into rehab.
If that was the end of the story, then it would be like hundreds of other musicians who burned brightly and then faded away. But there has always been a little more to like with Summer. Legendary show, full of energy and passion; great heartland rock made better live. Seeing him was an event. We loved Henry Lee Summer. And that’s why it’s been has been tough — though more for him than us.
It’s early in this new chapter of his life, but the story seems to be unfolding as a hopeful tale. His support has come from his family, and he says he feels the fans’ influence too.
“Most people have been very forgiving in general. They know that I am working hard to stay on track,” he says. Summer says he’s touched by the support. “Mom and Dad, my wife and immediate family, Mike Denton and Jimmy Ryser at Methodist Hospital in the Substance Abuse Recovery Program. It means a lot that my family has stood by me through all of it.”
His career is again being managed by Blonde Entertainment’s Lisa Sauce, and she says Henry is more engaged in his life and career than he has been in a long time.
“We have had some very real conversations since his sobriety,” Sauce says. “In the past, I felt like he was distant and closed off from me and others. I think that it’s ‘one day at a time’ for him right now. He needs to keep building up his stamina and health. If he continues to do that, then he will do great. I can see him getting a new record done and performing original shows and tapping into his loyal fan base. I do think that his fans are aching for his original music and shows,” Sauce says.
“I feel no pressure with a timeline,” Summer says. “I didn’t write for a while. Everything feels fresh to me again. I have been writing more than I ever have, and I want to put out a record that captures some of the experiences that I have had over the last 10 years. Lately it has been really good to write. It is hard to raise your bar high and write good songs. I am enjoying the process now.
“I am very hopeful. I don’t need a big house on the hill. I want to stay on the recovery side of my addiction,” he says. “There is no room for error with me now.”
Hoosier Americana: Bobbie Lancaster Finds Home
Arriving at a meaningful place in life requires detours and surprises. And then, the destination can still be unexpected. We know this is true, because every damn one of us has been there.
And a pair of new albums last year, and two more on the way, Bobbie Lancaster may have finally found her road home. She has finished recording her first solo album, a second children’s CD, and along the way, developed a gutty yet sweet stage persona.
Her haunting vocals on “I’m on Fire” as part of this summer’s Grimm-organized “Hoosier Springsteen” concerts made the short, brooding song one of the best performances of the show. The Bloomington singer’s bouncing, smiling, in-the-moment stage presence cemented the musical package; the woman can crank it up like Sheryl Crow and Bonnie Riatt, and engage a crowd with her subtle stage charms. Watching Lancaster feels like we’re seeing a woman who knows her strengths and power, but is only beginning to refine and unleash it.
“I was scared to death,” she says of the shows, talking on the phone from her Bloomington home. “We had a rehearsal and I just felt I had to get in there and give everything I had. And at the end of the gig, I felt really good about my performance and overcoming that little confidence hurdle I had before the show.”
With an upcoming solo record, she is putting herself in front of whatever comes with it. In September, she recorded the album at Farm Fresh studios in Bloomington, with a band brewing a stew of rootsy, Americana music.
“I have cried and squealed with joy so many times that I think they (the band) are worried about me. It’s the most incredible thing to hear these songs I wrote on a mandolin be brought to life,” Lancaster says.
This new record will come a little more than a year after she released a catchy preschool-focused children’s album (“Bobbie Lancaster’s Little Folks”) and an Americana/folk record called “On with the Show” with the duo Stella & Jane.
“On with the Show” is an intriguing piece – Jane is Lancaster’s middle name. Using a middle name isn’t the quickest way to wider recognition, right? Maybe Bobbie wasn’t ready to come out from behind the one-name middle-name anonymity? That seems to have changed.
“I am looking forward to focusing on doing more solo stuff. It’s where I feel led to go right now,” she says. “Every CD I have done has been with a group and a compilation of different writers. I have probably 50 or 60 songs that I’ve just been sitting on, plus have written seven new songs since May – I have just had a nice creative spurt lately.”
As happens with most good stories, it hasn’t been a simple process to wind up where talent and opportunity intersect.
Some 25 years ago, Bobbie Jane Lancaster’s mother and father had her take in piano lessons, from kindergarten until fourth grade. She’d always had the gift to be able to sing, and even earned a full ride scholarship in music vocal performance to Indiana University, but blew the opportunity. It became a long road and indirect route that’s brought Bobbie to the point of making her first solo album.
“I was so young when I went (to IU), I wish I had a better grip on myself at the age that I went to college,” she says. “But I didn’t and I gave that up, nor really realizing what a gift it was to get that scholarship.”
She ended up going to Vincennes University, held three jobs while there, and started singing in a coffee shop when she was 19.
“That’s when I first found my own voice,” she remembers.
She has spent the past five years starting a family, and playing music – first with a Bloomington blues band called Code Blue, and more recently, with musical partner Stella Suzette Weakley.
“I was a real estate broker for about seven years, and actually got fired by some guy,” Lancaster admits, recounting how she and Weakley got together. “I had never been fired in my life and was shocked. I called Suzette – I had met her just once before – and went to work a real estate company she owns.”
From that sequence of workforce events, the two started playing music together. Weakley essentially served as Lancaster’s mentor, musical partner and teacher. Bobbie started by singing some background vocals when the two met at Weakley’s house.
“She had a little Contessa mandolin in her basement and said ‘Why don’t you pick this up, I’ll show you a few chords and see what you want to do with it’. When I picked up a mandolin, it just felt like I had been holding it forever,” Lancaster says.
“She taught me three chords, and I went home that night and I played until my fingers couldn’t stand it anymore. Then I iced them and I kept playing.”
On the Stella and Jane (with help from multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Jeff Foster) album , Lancaster’s singing shines on the self-penned CSNY-ish “The Rain”, the bluesy, sassy, Hammond B3-drenched “Fast Car” and especially on “Low Down”, a shorter than three-minute pop-rocker, hinting at a healthy John Hiatt influence.
“I have been really open with everybody in Stella and Jane (about the new solo work). I have their support,” she says. “We just all care about each other an awful lot, and I think by being open and honest makes those conversations easier. I think they both understand I am just coming into my own right now.
“I’ve been thinking about cutting my own album for years, and my friends have asked me to do it for years, and I’m at this beautiful stage in my life where I feel like I’m ready,” she says.
Lancaster says she wants to have the album out before February, when she travels to the Memphis Folk Alliance.
In addition to her new solo record, Lancaster cut a new kids album, recording a recent WFHB live radio broadcast of her show. Children’s music is a burgeoning part of her musical career, and includes weekly musical sessions at four different preschools, and appearances at Central Indiana public libraries, performing for kids and parents.
“I know what I want, I’m happy with what I’m writing, and these amazing people have shown up in my life and wanted to help me do this,” she says, referring to her studio band, led by Scott Kellogg, “I’m feeling the love right now.”
And more than ever before, Bobbie Lancaster is coming out from behind the middle name. She seems willing to show us the soul – nurtured with piano lessons, surviving through the opportunity lost at IU, and allowed to blossom on the bumpy road that has followed – that she knew existed all along.
Seger Back with a New Old Album
Sometimes, the magic can sneak up on you. One of the very best concerts I’ve seen in the past ten years was Bob Seger at Conseco Fieldhouse – no shit – in 2007 . Bought a $60 ticket from a scalper for 15 bucks ten minutes before the show. Went to the back of the arena and found a seat with great sound, straight look at the stage. Upper deck. Seger went old-school, with no video screens; forced the audience to commune with the band and the singer. Who does that anymore? Brilliant move. Great, energetic, connected-to-the moment crowd at the cavernous arena. And he sounded damn good for a man with 40-odd years in the rock show businees, who smokes a little too much. Seger had it that night. Even from the upper deck. That doesn’t happen too often.
Seger’s got a new/old album coming out this week, so I’ve been reading some stuff online, and I’m always surprised when someone writes how they don’t “get” Bob Seger.
He has one of the greatest voices ever in rock and roll, but I get a feeling he’s not really thought of as influential or A-list by some. Yeah, he ‘s in the Rock Hall of Fame. But there’s this nagging reminder that Seger is too, what shall I call it, pedestrian and old-fashioned? Everytime I hear (like twice a year?) a person say Bob Seger ain’t that good, I think “dude, what are you talkin’ about?” I was reading a blog last night about songs that didn’t quite reach the top 40, and how this writer says he can’t listen to Seger. He then goes on to gush over Scritti Politti. So that explains a lot.
For kicks, let’s look at those five 80’s songs that didn’t hit Top 40 for Seger.
“Horizontal Bop” — 1980, #42
“Feel Like a Number” — 1981, #48
“Old Time Rock and Roll” — 1983, #48
“It’s You” — 1986, #52
“Miami” — 1986, #70
The first three are legendary classic rock radio songs, and that’s why we think they were huge songs; because they were. Just not huge on Top 40 stations. “Feel Like a Number” may be one of the ten best rock and roll songs of the decade (though this is the live version), depending on th night, and what youmay be drinking (or smoking). My list changes all the time, but that’s a song can bounce onto my list of all-time faves right now. Underrated. It’s like CCR on steroids – with lyrics of desolation and resignation. Rock lyrics. Sad words hidden by swinging, groovin’, jet-propelled rock music.
“Old Time Rock and Roll” is the re-entry after appearing in the “Risky Business” movie. The last two songs are off the Like a Rock album – and I really like “It’s You” So whatever. You don’t like Seger? Then I don’t like you. Bob was Midwestern rock and roll before Mellencamp. Before REO Speedwagon got big. Before Cheap Trick. Before Springsteen.
Now, he wasn’t a rock star until “Live Bullet” in 1976. (He had released eight albums before hitting with the album recorded at the legendary Cobo Hall). But after that, nobody was bigger than Seger for the next 5 or 6 years.
Seger’s new album, Early Seger Vol. 1, features recently remastered versions of numerous classic Seger songs from the early 1970s and four previously unreleased recordings.
It will be available to Midwestern fans through Meijer in Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Ohio and Kentucky.
Starting the following Monday, November 30th, fans can purchase the CD or a full album download at bobseger.com, where the 10 songs can currently be heard.
In September, Seger headed to Kid Rock’s studio in Detroit to re-record elements of four previously unreleased tracks for the collection: “Gets Ya Pumpin’,” “Star Tonight,” “Wildfire” and “Days When the Rain Would Come. Seger also re-recorded much of “Long Song Comin'” from 1974’s Seven.
Early Seger Vol. 1 includes five remastered tracks – “Someday” and his version of Tim Hardin’s “If I Were A Carpenter” Seger’s cover of the Allman Brothers Band’s “Midnight Rider” and “Get Out Of Denver” and “U.M.C. (Upper Middle Class)” , two best known from the Live Bullet record.
Intriguing little collection; I’ve heard much of it and it benefits greatly from the remastering. And you get what are essentially five new songs.
You don’t like Seger? Highly unlikely. You read this far. Now check out the video below the track listing, for some long-haired Dee-troit rock and roll.
The track listing for Early Seger Vol. 1
1. Midnight Rider (remastered from original Back in ’72 tapes)
2. If I Were A Carpenter (remastered from original Smokin’ O.P’s tapes)
3. Get Out Of Denver (remastered from original Seven tapes)
4. Someday (remastered from original Smokin’ O.P.’s tapes)
5. U.M.C. (Upper Middle Class) (remastered from original Seven tapes)
6. Long Song Comin’ (originally appeared on Seven; extensively re-recorded for Early Seger Vol. 1)
7. Star Tonight (Seger recording previously unreleased; first released as a cover by Don Johnson for his 1986 album, Heartbeat)
8. Gets Ya Pumpin’ (previously unreleased; Seger’s earliest version of this song, written in 1973, was entitled “Pumpin'”)
9. Wildfire (previously unreleased)
10. Days When The Rain Would Come (previously unreleased)
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvbqGubZmgo]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMI98XueaJw]
Youngest Cash Still Playing Shows, Keeping Johnny's Music Alive
Tommy Cash is sitting in his car, on the phone, having just pulled into his Hendersonville, TN driveway. From Indianapolis, I ask if he wants to go inside before we talk. Cash, the youngest brother of Johnny Cash says, “no, this is good.”
Who am I to argue with a Cash?
Tommy has crafted a pretty decent country music career. Yeah, he’s Johnny kid brother, a fact nobody could run away from. (Hell, Johnny may be – sorry Hank, Sr. – the biggest country music icon ever). Not that Tommy has wanted to run from his name. Rather, he’s embraced his heritage without seeming cloying or overly opportunistic.
In the 1960’s and 1970’s, he charted three top 10 singles – the biggest being 1969’s “Six White Horses”, chronicling the deaths of the Kennedy’s and Martin Luther King, Jr.
Now 69 years old, Tommy Cash still hits the road, and was ready to head to Greenwood for a benefit show at Jonathan Byrd’s Ballroom in late October.
Tommy knows he’s not Johnny. He knows his career and influence will forever dwarf the “Man in Black”. But Tommy Cash seems at peace with his place in life.
He’s got a new album (“Fade to Black”, which is a pretty damn good late-career record) that features guitar playing and singing from Marty Stuart and a duet with George Jones. He plays lots of golf in the winter in Florida. He’s raised three successful kids. He’s healthy. And for a little more than three years, has been paying homage to his big brother with his “Johnny Cash Tribute Show”.
“People say ‘oh my goodness, it must be hard standing in Johnny’s shadow’. I don’t look at it that way. I let other people worry about it,” Cash says, as we talk about the obvious. “I am an individual and very active. I do a lot of different things. I know my brother was one of the biggest stars in the history of music. Period. People all over the world loved Johnny Cash and still do. And I realize it, and am very cognizant of that.”
“But I really don’t worry about it,” Cash says “I just go and do my show and do the best I can and am very proud of what I do.”
His biggest successes came from late 1969, through 1973, when the youngest Cash accumulated 12 Top 40 country hits, and built his career no differently than dozens of current country music stars who have mid-chart hits and then jump on a bus to earn their real money, playing gigs.
“I have been to Europe 40 times since 1965 and have a good fan base there. I draw good crowds over there; they love the traditional country music. A year or so ago we did a tour of Scandinavia and Ireland. That was a great tour.”
The upcoming trip to Indianapolis won’t be his first.
“In the mid 1960s, it seemed like I got booked around Indianapolis a lot. I used to play a bar called the Sherman Bar, and there were two or three other places up there I worked. I’ve always enjoyed coming to Indianapolis.
“Back in the 1970s and 80s, when I was having hit records, I toured 250 days a year,” Cash remembers. “Now that I’ve gotten older, I don’t want to do that many dates, and probably couldn’t get booked that many anyway. I work about 75-80 dates a year and that’s really all I want to do. I have been touring for 44 years,”
“And I am not tired of it,” he says. “But don’t want to be gone from home that much even if I could.”
For his show in Greenwood, he’ll bring his longtime backing band “The Cash Crew”, for his “Johnny Cash Tribute Show”.
“We’ve been doing the show for three or four years,” Cash says. “It’s some country songs, some Johnny Cash songs, and stories that only I know about Johnny that I tell between songs. People really appreciate this show. It is my way of showing my love and respect and to honor him and his music. I sing some of my own songs in the show, and we get as close to the Johnny Cash sound as we want; we don’t want to copy or imitate him, but it is close,” Cash says. “People tell me they close their eyes and they can hear him.
“But my voice is a little higher than his.”
Cash sounds sincere when he speaks of his piece of the Cash name. He digests questions, and takes a couple beats before answering. And he occasionally, at the end of a sentence, will pause and start talking again, adding to the story. You can feel him, through the phone, thinking.
We talk about his new album.
“I am very proud of “Fade to Black” – It is my 22nd album. I am proud of the way the album turned out. I asked Marty to do a song on this album, and said ‘You pick it’. He said ‘I have always loved ‘Six White Horses’ and I’d love to have you record that again, and let me play lead guitar and sing on it’. And it turned out really good. George came in and sang on the opening track “Some Kind of a Woman” and my son Mark Cash sang on two songs.”
And isn’t the Cash family country music royalty? – the everyman regime that represents country music roots through sincerity, and sauced with more than a little of tough luck and hard living. Part of that heritage is Tommy Cash.
“As long as I can stay healthy and do a good show, I will continue. When the time comes I can’t do my best on stage, I will quit and do whatever I need to do for the rest of my life,” he says. “Maybe play golf. Maybe see some of the places I have played and not seen. I have been to hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of places. I had very little time for sightseeing, because you do the show, go to the hotel, sleep, get up and go to the next town. As I get older I have a yearning to see some of the great sites of the world.
“I have had a wonderful career, and I am very grateful for the success I have had,” Cash says before ending his driveway phone call and heading inside his house.
“It’s nothing compared to Johnny, but I have really enjoyed my life.”
***
Hear Tommy Cash – “Fade to Black” (2:00)
Hear Tommy Cash – “Best of” (2:00)
Farrar, Son Volt Carry On Alt-Country Legacy
The legacy of the Uncle Tupelo – it’s what will follow Jay Farrar for the rest of his musical career. As he takes his band Son Volt on the road in support of their 6th studio album, American Central Dust, they rolled into Indianapolis for a show at The Vogue.
Farrar continues to play music far closer to the classic sound and feel of his years with Uncle Tupelo than any group today, including former bandmate’s Jeff Tweedy’s Wilco. Not that we’re here to start a tired conversation about who is better, Wilco or Son Volt or Uncle Tupelo, but to remember Farrar is important because of his history and the way Son Volt has carried on that legacy
Farrer, on the phone from St. Louis as the band gears up for a three-day early August Midwest trip, is simultaneously understated and forthcoming. He admits there is a reason the new record sounds like a band playing together.
“We tried to capture the essence of the band with as much live recording as possible, in the same place at same time,” he says. “Analog was preferred method of recording; direct to analog and then switch over to computers to mix. This record reflects to coalescence and chemistry of playing eight months on the road before recording.
During our conversation, Jay stops to ask what venue they are playing when the band comes to Indianapolis. When I tell him, you can hear him take a breath of familiarity.
“Oh, yeah. Good,” he says.
I ask what comes to mind when he thinks of Indianapolis. He tells a story I knew but had forgotten.
“In the early days of Uncle Tupelo touring, our van broke down once in Indianapolis. Brian Henneman (of the Bottle Rockets) was our guitar tech at the time and immortalized that experience in one of his songs, called Indianapolis.”
I found the lyrics on the web. Here are the first four lines of the infectious, mid-tempo country rock tune:
“Got a tow, from a guy named Joe,
Cost sixty dollars, hope I don’t run outta dough.
Told me ’bout a sex offense put him three days in jail,
Stuck in Indianapolis, hope I live to tell the tale.”
Luckily, they all did. Son Volt’s new album came out July 7. The Bottle Rockets have “Lean Forward” out August 11, and Tweedy’s latest incarnation of Wilco released their self-titled new record out this summer.
Son Volt’s first record, “Trace” was one of Rolling Stone’s Top 10 albums of 1995, and the song “Drown” got the band on rock radio.
Some writers have noted that the new Son Volt release echoes the sound of that debut record, even though the band features – other than Farrar, – a completely different lineup. The writing is more accessible than on “Trace” – more populist in a sense – and the feeling may rise from not just the lyrics but the instruments in the mix. In a change from his past efforts, Farrar played acoustic guitar for the recording, instead of strapping on the electric.
“I began to realize the emphasis – the fuel that makes everything go – in a live setting maybe that wasn’t the best approach on the record,” Farrar admits. “I felt like the best way to make this a focused, cohesive record was to play acoustic guitar and that’s the way in ended up transpiring. There are also two soloists – Mark Spencer on pedal steel and Chris Masterson on electric, so that is a different approach for Son Volt, in the dual leads sometimes going on.”
Farrer has a surprising answer to what excites him most about the album – surprising coming from the guy who builds albums on cutting little lines like “love is a fog and you stumble every step you take,” from “Dust of Daylight” on this record.
“Bringing back the emphasis to a more familiar aesthetic, especially with the pedal steel guitar. Having that instrument is where it’s at for me,” he says. “I’m actually trying to learn how to play myself. I have a more of a starter version with two little palm levers, to bend the pitch, so it is actually a lap steel with string benders. Mark was a lap steel player prior to recording this record, so he pretty much woodshedded to bring the pedal steel to the forefront.”
Some inspiration for the music also seeped in from Farrar’s habits. He mentioned that he and the band started listening to Mexican radio, especially when they were touring the Southwest last year.
“It is sort of cleansing and cathartic to hear something different. We were trying to dissect the music and instrumentation and the way these guys were playing – It just kind of blew our mind,” he recounts. “Takes you to a place you haven’t been before. Ultimately, we did incorporate part of that sound on this album.”
For listeners, “American Dust Central” brings to mind Middle America, as Farrar regularly does, and the record’s subject of downtrodden but hopeful people weaves throughout the effort.
“I always try to find words that are recurring in songs that are representative,” he says of the album title. “I pulled three words from three songs. I feel that is always the best way to come up with a title that’s most representative of all the songs, as opposed to last record (2007’s “The Search”) where pulled a song title as the album title.
The music rides along at a pace that goes along with telling stories of heartbreak, but Farrer says it’s not an album filled with pessimism.
“Someone described it as dire optimism,” he says about the record. “In my interpretation, it is optimism more than anything else. It was written in summer of 2008, so it just felt like the country was breathing a little easier and headed in a little different direction; at least that’s the way I was looking at it when these songs were written.”