Review: Leftover Salmon’s ‘Grass Roots’

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May 292023
 

Leftover Salmon have slowly become a bit of a staple across the US jam band circuit. That circuit punches way above the perceived weight, given the ticket sales such bands can attract. If the Grateful Dead were the template, a fusion of rock with any other genre you might snatch out the air, and a modus operandi for long and complicated instrumental freeform forays, Leftover Salmon have that to a T. Their shtick: a constant whiff of bluegrass seeping into the mix and instrumentation, further even than the Dead ever strayed. Heck, frontman and guitarist Vince Herman even has a vague look of latter-day Jerry Garcia, crossed with a current day Bob Weir, burly of frame and white of beard and locks. They may be under the radar to most, but with their new release Grass Roots, the band step out of the shadows of their scene, not so much into a different light as a light that will bring them more visibility.

Grass Roots (get it?) is their take on the sort of songs that both inspired them and taught them to play, a mix of trad and the expected culprits: the Dead, of course, and Dylan, with David Bromberg and the Seldom Scene also getting a nod. Their own description is their house style is polyethnic Cajun slamgrass, and who can argue with that? Instrumentation ranges from the expected of their rock progeny: guitars, bass, drums, with the bass as equally likely to be stand-up as plugged in and electric, to the the mandolins, banjos, fiddles and dobros of the mountain roots, with new added keyboards for added pizazz. All sing a bit.
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Review: William Elliott Whitmore, ‘Kilonova’

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Sep 072018
 

kilonovaWilliam Elliott Whitmore is 40, but he has always sounded like a much older man, with a deep, soulful voice that gives everything he sings a certain gravitas.  Think Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen, or late Dylan, or most of all, Johnny Cash at his most apocalyptic.  If Whitmore sang “Don’t Worry, Be Happy,” you’d still worry, and probably be unhappy.  I first heard Whitmore in 2006, opening for Lucero, at the Bowery Ballroom in New York, and was immediately transfixed by his timeless voice, dark songs, austere banjo, guitar and foot stomping accompaniment, and intense performance.

Born and raised on a 150-acre farm in southeastern Iowa, which he inherited from his parents and still owns, Whitmore grew up singing and playing guitar and banjo, with musical influences that started with country and moved toward punk as he got older.  At a certain point, though, Whitmore realized that he needed to focus on the folky, rustic, blues music that he grew up on–but with a punk edge.

So when Bloodshot Records released Kilonova, an album of covers of (mostly) lesser known songs from many musical eras, the question was, how would such a distinctive artist put his stamp on this block of diverse songs? “Diverse” barely begins to tell the story–artists range from Dock Boggs, to Johnny Cash,  to the Magnetic Fields to Bad Religion.

In short, the answer is, remarkably well.
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Mexican Band Peregrino Gives Haunting Rock Edge to Bluegrass Classic “O’Death” (Premiere)

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Feb 222017
 
Peregrino

Today, the old bluegrass song “O’Death” is probably best known for the Ralph Stanley a cappella version prominently featured in O Brother, Where Art Thou? (Stanley even sang it at the Oscars that year). But the song goes back a century or more, first recorded by Dock Boggs in 1920. That is where Mexico City rock band Peregrino first heard it, and they include a fantastic cover on their debut EP A Younger Man’s Game.

“That version, for me, is just as haunting as the Ralph Stanley version, if not more so,” singer Jairus McDonald says. “I messed around with it for a while on banjo trying to learn his version, but then I decided to make it a little bit more rock/pop-friendly in terms of structure while still maintaining the folk style. Lyrically there are quite a few verses depending on the version, but I cut it down to a simple back-and-forth with one more line from Death to sort of signify the narrator losing. I left a couple Boggs pronunciations in there as a cheeky little tip of the hat to him.” Continue reading »

Bow Thayer Covers Old-Time Singer Dock Boggs on Bizarre Banjo-Dobro-Guitar Hybrid

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Aug 102016
 
BowThayer

If you haven’t heard of an instrument called the “bojotar,” don’t feel bad. Only one person in the world plays it: Bow Thayer, an Americana musician up in Vermont. It’s a custom-built combination of the banjo, electric guitar, and dobro. He’s trying to spread the word though, and got a tip from banjo master Béla Fleck. “Béla told me the best way to sell people on the thing is to become a master of it myself,” Thayer said, “to find out what it can really do and blow people away.”

He’s done just that, and his latest demonstration of the bojotar’s prowess comes on a new tribute album to two early American musicians: Dock Boggs and Mississippi Fred McDowell, two obscure rural singers brought to wider attention when recorded by field musicologist Alan Lomax in the ’50s. Thayer titled his tribute The Source and the Servant and has posted his cover of the Boggs song “Sugar Baby” (an excellent demonstration of the bojotar in action) and a note: Continue reading »