Mercy Brothers – Strange Adventure
The Mercy Brothers can be seen as phase three in Barrence Whitfield’s career. He started as a gutbuckets-of-sweat R&B belter with his band the Savages in the ’80s. In the early ’90s, he teamed up with Tom Russell for a pair of entertaining albums that surveyed over 60 years of roots music, courtesy of covers of everybody from Jimmie Rodgers and Tampa Red to Van Morrison, Peter Case and Steve Earle. (In that same period, he contributed a fine reading of “Irma Jackson” to the Merle Haggard tribute Tulare Dust.)
These days, Whitfield is singing and recording with guitarist Michael Dinallo, former leader of Boston’s Radio Kings, and they’ve come up with their own winning formula that claims the middle ground between country blues and R&B’s soulful wing. There’s a sense of something primal and, despite the mostly acoustic accompaniment, barely leashed about Strange Adventure. Whitfield is a study in restraint as he keeps his mammoth voice under control, allowing its natural, rugged charisma to carry the show and only occasionally letting the banshees out of the bag (most notably at the end of the gospelish “Down That Road”).
It’s a credit to Whitfield’s vocal performance and the playing, arranging and songwriting of Dinallo that the seven originals blend seamlessly with three vintage covers. (Guest musicians add drums, acoustic bass, electric guitar, dobro and harmonica on various tracks.) The high point finds a gently swinging version of “Night Train To Memphis” giving way to the chugging Dinallo composition “Misery Train”, a song that wouldn’t sound out of place on an album from Russell or Dave Alvin. This ride is anything but miserable.