{"id":1264,"date":"2012-12-17T21:33:45","date_gmt":"2012-12-17T21:33:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/?p=1264"},"modified":"2012-12-18T17:36:16","modified_gmt":"2012-12-18T17:36:16","slug":"my-best-albums-of-2012-in-roots-vernacular-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/?p=1264","title":{"rendered":"My best albums of 2012 in roots vernacular music"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Here\u2019s my list of best albums of 2012 in roots-music vernaculars. This was also posted at NoDepression.com.<\/p>\n

Field Report<\/em> is the debut album of the Milwaukee folk-rock band Field Report (previously incarnated as Conrad Plymouth) which has received plenty of national press raves and provided the group with strong touring.<\/p>\n

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Best albums of 2012<\/p>\n

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  1. Various Artists<\/strong> \u2013 This One\u2019s For Him: A Tribute to Guy Clark<\/em>\u00a0* (2 CD set) When writers as esteemed as John Prine, Steve Earle, Rodney Crowell, Emmylou Harris, Robert Earl Keen, Jerry Jeff Walker, Kris Kristofferson, Darrell Scott and<\/em>\u00a0Ray Wylie Hubbard interpret a man’s songwriting, you know he’s a \u201csongwriter’s songwriter.\u201d But Clark\u2019s no esoteric technician. He carves rough-hewn tales illuminated by glimmers of the heart, traced with bittersweet memory, toughness and love — battered and resilient, as in the insouciant hope-against- fate of the long-distance love ode, \u201cDublin Blues,\u201d a smaller-canvas variation of Dylan\u2019s \u201cBoots of Spanish Leather.\u201d Clark’s jaunty melodies invariably fit the lyric and sentiment like a Randall knife swinging in a perfectly woven sheath.<\/li>\n
  2. Various Artists<\/strong> — We Walk the Line: A Celebration of The Music Of Johnny Cash<\/em> CD\/DVD Note blog on this at http:\/\/www.nodepression.com\/profiles\/blogs\/they-have-the-back-of-the-man-in-black-a-johnny-cash-celebration<\/a>\u00a0\"\"<\/a><\/li>\n
  3. Jamey Johnson<\/strong> — Living For a Song: A Tribute to Hank Cochran.<\/em> Like Guy Clark, Cochrane cut to the heart of the matter with uncanny precision and insight, Clark with perhaps a bit more color. But here\u2019s poetry stripped to its essence (\u201cI Go to Pieces\u201d of course; the terse jukebox ode \u201cA-11\u201d replays insistently like any \u201cour song\u201d) Johnson, a wise young traditionalist, exquisitely complements another heavyweight lineup, including Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, Elvis Costello, Ray Price, Bobby Bare, George Strait, Emmylou Harris, Alison Krauss and Cochran’s own voice, reciting a few lyrics.<\/li>\n
  4. Iris DeMent<\/strong> — I Sing the Delta.<\/em>\u00a0DeMent struggles with writer’s block, I suspect, because her creativity is so entwined with the nagging particulars of living (think of her classic \u201cNo Time to Cry\u201d). Here she plumbs the\u00a0depths of the Delta, allowing its soulfulness and mysteries to seep up through her singing and songs. Her clarion voice, for me, often catches healing sunlight to warm its hardest heartache. Her parallel struggle with faith abides with life as a wordless prayer to traditions that die off and rise again.<\/li>\n
  5. Tedeschi Trucks Band Live<\/strong> — Everybody’s Talkin.\u2019<\/em>\u00a0It’s a tossup between DeMent\u00a0and Susan Tedeschi for my favorite contemporary roots singer, rating DeMent\u2019s disc slightly<\/em>\u00a0higher as a stronger personal statement. But no woman interprets others with more soulful zeal and sensitivity than Tedeschi. A fine guitarist, she has a musician\u2019s mastery of her vocal instrument. Add arguably the greatest living slide guitarist, Derek Trucks and, on this live set, a stone jammin\u2019 horn band, and you’ve got roots music gumbo boiling to the heavens, \u201cBound for Glory.\u201d<\/li>\n
  6. Kathy Mattea<\/strong> — Calling Me Home.<\/em> Mattea\u2019s disarmingly conceptual album calibrates the universal human longing for home as a timeless refuge. The dramatic and poetic friction arises as she deftly frames her Appalachian hills as threatened by the very industry — coal mining — that sustains it; one of contemporary America’s most pressing environmental\/societal conundrums.<\/li>\n
  7. Dr. John<\/strong> \u2013 Locked Down.<\/em>\u00a0Black Key Dan Auerbach\u2019s poised reins facilitated this outrageously shambling parade of lusty self-mythologizing\u00a0swamp-and-gutter groove. Dr. John has lived the quintessential New Orleans street hustler-hipster life. The music\u2019s chug-a-lug roiling and left-handed aphorisms excavate comedy, tragedy and human possibility. His exotic yet sly wit exudes empowerment, as if he\u2019s tossing out fistfuls of mojo like Mardi Gras talismans.<\/li>\n
  8. Fiona Apple<\/strong> \u2013 The Idler Wheel is Wiser Than The Driver of The Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do.<\/em> Yes, she\u2019s a self-conscious artiste,<\/em> yet Apple tells a musical tale as vividly as any vernacular folk artist, and with such idiosyncratic brilliance that it’s too this-that-\u2018n-the-other-way not to feel authentic. That’s how this artist manages the balance between her most arch conceit and the primal cries that sear a streak to the tip of her consciousness.\"\"<\/a>Justin Townes Earle. Photo: blog.washingtonpost.com<\/em><\/li>\n
  9. Justin Townes Earle \u2013<\/strong> Nothing\u2019s Gonna Change the Way You Feel about Me Now.<\/em>\u00a0Earle\u2019s double-dose of nominal paternal legacies (Steve Earle and Townes Van Zandt) may help explain his personal struggles as he tries to be\u00a0his own kind of singer-songwriter. He makes this warts-and-all confession-and-reflection work with slushy stylistic m\u00e9langes and a voice as palatable as tawny port, aged by time\u2019s missteps and lessons. And he\u2019s loosening up his style, which sweeps away any glimmers of preciousness.<\/li>\n
  10. Field Report<\/strong> \u2013 Field Report. <\/em>Few recent songwriters have fingered the crusty surfaces of life\u2019s pains, confusions and compromises with more openness, honesty or deftness. So depth arises, in breaking buds of poetry. Christopher Porterfield\u00a0and band add just enough harmonized refrains and ratty-couched sonics\u00a0to deliver songfulness as quietly wounding experience. He opens up key moments as if experiencing them for the first and fiftieth time.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Re-issue:<\/strong><\/p>\n

    Howlin\u2019 Wolf<\/strong> — Smokestack Lightning: The Complete Chess Masters, 1951-1960<\/em>\u00a0He\u2019s still baaaad!\u00a0And eevilll!<\/p>\n

    * Released in December 2011, the Guy Clark tribute album missed most 2011 \u201cbest of\u201d lists, but won the 2012 Americana Music Association album of the year award.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Here\u2019s my list of best albums of 2012 in roots-music vernaculars. This was also posted at NoDepression.com. Field Report is the debut album of the Milwaukee folk-rock band Field Report (previously incarnated as Conrad Plymouth) which has received plenty of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-www-kevernacular-com"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hJWE-ko","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1264"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1264\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1276,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1264\/revisions\/1276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}