{"id":9710,"date":"2018-02-07T20:51:59","date_gmt":"2018-02-07T20:51:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/?p=9710"},"modified":"2018-02-07T20:52:51","modified_gmt":"2018-02-07T20:52:51","slug":"belated-posting-of-my-nodepression-com-poll-choices-for-best-roots-albums-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/?p=9710","title":{"rendered":"Belated posting of my NoDepression.com poll choices for Best Roots Albums 2017"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"\"<\/a>Fort Atkinson (WI) singer-songwriter Bill Camplin (right, or wrong) at the barn where he recorded “Reunion at Ebbott\u2019s Barn.” Photo by Lee Matz, Milwaukee Independent\u00a0http:\/\/www.milwaukeeindependent.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Well, its roots music, so somebody could accuse me of having my head in the ground listening to this stuff, so it took me this long to post this “year end” list. No, I wasn’t down in the ostrich hole being a roots music whisperer (psst: we got kinds and sorts of\u00a0 “whisperers” these days, and some even make money off the claims. not me. keep this to yourself) This list\u00a0was posted in timely fashion in December on the\u00a0No Depression.com<\/em> readers poll (I’m a ND contributor, but also a reader).<\/p>\n

With that very whispery throat-clearing, let me get to it, before you fall asleep on the delete key, or get hypnotized<\/p>\n

Looking over my best roots music of 2017 list, it remains quite evident how the look-to-the-past impulse still drives forward much vital music today, as evidenced most obviously by\u00a0Old Crow Medicine Show<\/strong>‘s reworking of a Dylan masterpiece, \u00a0jazz drummer Adam Nussbaum<\/strong>‘s delightfully quirky, percolating and lilting instrumental extrapolations on crusty old Leadbelly songs, and at least the nominal sentiments of Chuck Prophet<\/strong>‘s title song about Bobby Fuller (if you haven’t seen Prophet live, he’s a high-energy, hilarious gas). And my second-favorite album by Allison Moorer<\/strong> and sister Shelby Lynne<\/strong>, was a surprising collection \u2013 almost all covers of well-aged songs by two talented songwriters, thus acknowledging various favorites that have impacted their sensibilities, as well as the psyche-shaping traumas of early childhood the sisters shared.<\/p>\n

In terms of more urgently contemporary songwriters, Steve Earle<\/strong> has been among the three or four best songwriters we have for a number of years, and his new album shows he’s hardly slowing down. Indeed, he still embracing his youthful outlaw attitude, even though his graying beard may touch his toes any day now.
\nFor 2017, just beneath the Steve Earle singer-songwriting strata were\u00a0Son Volt’s Jay Farrar<\/strong> (who still has the most oddly affecting male voice in roots music), enchanting song whisperer\u00a0Kris Delmhorst<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>(she really is a whisperer, making an art of the low dynamic), and Charlie Parr<\/strong>, who’s best known as a\u00a0gritty country blues interpreter but displays songwriting chops of increasingly powerful emotive impact on Dog<\/em>.\u00a0<\/span>Penny and Sparrow<\/strong> delivers soulful songwriting and warm, softly-prickling vocal harmonizing you can take an aural shower in. <\/span><\/p>\n

But I’ll probably go back to The Tedeschi Trucks Band<\/strong>‘s live set as often as any of these, because I just love their collective power, color, passion, joy and sorrow, all of which can recharge your inner batteries very quickly. How much is that<\/em> ability worth? Little wonder Live from the Fox Oakland<\/em>\u00a0was nominated for a Grammy for Best Contemporary Blues Album. This captured them at their best: flexing and stretching their artistic muscles on a stage with a crowd soaking it all up.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Tedeschi Trucks Band’s Grammy-nominated live album. Courtesy 45worlds.<\/em><\/p>\n

Finally I’d like to give some slightly extended kudos (time to hit the annoying snooze button, or scroll down to the Top Ten list, if you prefer) to a couple of Wisconsin artists who deserve more visibility than they’ve received for their recorded and live efforts this year. One is old (and almost in the way) and always low in the weeds, Mudbutt Bill Camplin<\/strong>. The other is a young artist, Anthony Deutsch (Father Sky)<\/strong> who’s just breaking through the mud like a reedy-spined wild flower that simply won’t be denied all the sunshine and earth soul he can drink in.<\/p>\n

Camplin (pictured at top, in my favorite roots-music artist photo of the year) proves on Reunion at Ebbott’s Barn<\/em><\/strong> he remains among the finest roots music vocal stylists anywhere. And only because he’s stayed put \u2013 running an appealingly fishy music venue, Caf\u00e9 Carpe,\u00a0<\/span>on the Rock River (hope no Asian Carp are flopping out onto the rain garden!)\u00a0<\/span>in a small Wisconsin town (Fort Atkinson)\u00a0\u2013 keeps him from wider recognition.\u00a0<\/span>He still improbably possesses one of the more ardently bracing voices you will hear, with a remarkable dynamic range from mid-high baritone to brilliant falsetto. Or he may simply be possessed, by a devil whupping on an angel.<\/span><\/p>\n

Reunion<\/em>\u00a0is ostensibly a do-we-still-remember-these-songs get-together of the band that recorded Camplin’s tattered album Cardboard Box<\/em> many years ago. It’s among the more distinctive albums in his impressive catalog. By this early point, Camplin’s own songwriting chops had become fully realized and \u201cLong and Desperate Day,” and “Essence of Freedom,\u201d\u00a0 remain in his playbook. Many of his songs stand up to anyone’s in quality, especially as he delivers them.\u00a0 \u201cNorthern Lights\u201d is among the lesser-known Camplin originals here, a large-hearted beauty floating on a rich band pulse and the gleaming pearls of his arching\u00a0falsetto, with a lovely melody the singer squeezes out like a juicy grape bursting from its skin. Another original, the album closer “Inspiration,” has comparable power and beauty. It fairly soars, and might just boot you out of your easy chair to try for something good or great, something waiting patiently to be freed from within, or wherever.<\/p>\n

This band can also rumble and swing, in a bluesy groove, as in Camplin\u2019s \u201cSomebody\u2019s Mood.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Among the notable covers on Reunion<\/em> are two rather mythical story-songs, “This Wheel\u2019s on Fire” by The Band\u2019s Rick Danko and Bob Dylan and Townes Van Zandt\u2019s \u201cPancho and Lefty.\u201d (“I don’t know what it means, but it sure the hell is evocative,” Camplin says of “Pancho.”)<\/p>\n

By contrast, Camplin\u2019s take on Leonard Cohen\u2019s romantic reverie \u201cSuzanne\u201d seems like his own song, he brings out the rapt yearning implicit in Cohen\u2019s poetry. It\u2019s there in his still-radiant voice, subtle dynamics, and deftly open-spaced phrasing, as if he\u2019s carving out his own places in the song\u2019s memory. Here and elsewhere, longtime compatriot Jason Klagstad\u2019s guitar remains a perfect complement, pointillistic and crystalline, with an expressive edge.<\/p>\n

If Eric Burdon\u2019s version of\u00a0\u201cHouse of the Rising Sun.\u201d<\/span>with The Animals remains a modern standard for this ancient classic, Camplin approaches it with a beneath-the-radar restraint but a proper sense of building dynamics, and takes-you-down-there storytelling. \u00a0And he\u2019s capable of the full-throated climax that can take this as high as the rising sun. \u00a0Bob Knetzger\u2019s dobro adds another vivid presence. \u201cMother tell your children, not to do what I have done.\u201d In that moment, Camplin’s woeful narrator feels the pain of his profound mistake from his boots on up, and so do you.<\/span><\/p>\n

Camplin’s covers amount to reinvigorated takes on familiar material that add another resonant layer to each song’s powerful vibrations down through cultural history.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

The other Wisconsin artist who I felt sneaking up with the best was Father Sky,<\/strong> with the group\u2019s eponymous album debut album. It\u2019s the brainchild of young Milwaukee pianist and singer-songwriter Anthony Deutsch<\/strong>, a startling redolent talent. His style is is seemingly neither fish nor fowl, but it fits into roots music because he\u2019s deeply influenced by great blues-gospel-jazz artists, especially Nina Simone. It\u2019s fascinating to hear a white male singer whose primary influence is a black female singer, although Simone\u2019s deep, whiskey-hued voice plausibly fits a male\u2019s vocal range. Another connection I hear in Deutsch\u2019s music is that of wonderful singer-songwriter pianist in the gospel and jazz idiom, Andy Bey.<\/p>\n

(Footnotes beside titles in the list below provide links at the bottom to albums I reviewed for other publications and this blog, with the Steve Earle piece being a concert review.).<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

My Top Ten No Depression.com<\/em> Best Roots Music Albums of 2017<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Steve Earle (right) performing music from his album “So You Wanna Be\u00a0an Outlaw” at the Minneapolis Zoo last summer. Photo by Kevin Lynch <\/em><\/p>\n

1.\u00a0Steve Earle \u2013 So You Wanna Be an Outlaw\u00a0 <\/em>1<\/strong><\/p>\n

2. Allison Moorer & Shelby Lynne – Not Dark Yet\u00a0\u00a0<\/em>2<\/strong><\/p>\n

3. Old Crow Medicine Show \u2013 50 Years of Blonde on Blonde\u00a0\u00a0<\/em>3<\/strong><\/p>\n

4. Charlie Parr \u2013 Dog\u00a0<\/em> 4<\/strong><\/p>\n

5. Tedeschi Trucks Band \u2013 Live from the Fox Oakland<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

6. Chuck Prophet \u2013 Bobby Fuller Died For Your Sins<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

7. Kris Delmhorst \u2013 The Wild<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

8. Son Volt \u2013 Notes of Blue<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

9.\u00a0<\/strong>(Tie)\u00a0\u00a0 Bill Camplin \u2013\u00a0Reunion at Ebbott\u2019s Barn\u00a0<\/em>(see review above), and\u00a0<\/strong>Father Sky \u2013\u00a0Father Sky<\/em>,\u00a05<\/strong><\/p>\n

!0. (Tie) Adam Nussbaum \u2013 The Leadbelly Project<\/em>, and Penny and Sparrow \u2013 Wendigo<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

__________<\/p>\n

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  1. \n

    Steve Earle: The Hard-Core Troubadour Carries Wounds in his Outlaw Heart<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n