Chuck Prophet – The Hurting Business

Even though Chuck Prophet has been recording as a solo artist for the better part of this decade, he’s probably still best known in the States as the guitarist in Green On Red. Prophet joined the psychedelic-twang outfit that also featured Dan Stuart and Chris Cacavas on 1985’s Gas Food Lodging, and his crackling six-string work that helped guide the band away from the heavy psychedelia of its earlier days (when they were lumped in with Paisley Underground bands such as the Dream Syndicate, the Bangles and Salvation Army) toward a hearty mesh of boozy Americana and Neil Young-ish twang. Along with No Free Lunch, their slightly more cow-punky EP that came out around the same time, Gas Food Lodging was Green On Red’s coming-of-age moment, and their finest hour.

But there’s little to link the current-day Prophet to the one way back when. In fact, it’s even an iffy proposition to link the current-day Prophet to the man who has forged a rather successful solo career overseas via a quartet of albums (mostly on European labels) that meshed the rock of Dylan, Petty and the Stones with his own gunslingin’ singer-songwriter persona. Now, Prophet2K is a man bitten by the cut-and-paste bug. While his crusty voice is still in fine form, The Hurting Business is otherwise an album seemingly built from the beat up, and topped with an aural splattering found in the work of ’90s-era upstarts such as Beck and Jon Spencer Blues Explosion.

As for that aforementioned crackling guitar work, it’s generally no more important to The Hurting Business than the other instruments on it. The guitars often are more trivial than the loopy rhythms (created by four different session drummers and likely a lot of studio trickery). Such grooves make for an album that bounces like a happy day, and like no other Prophet collection prior.

The Hurting Business is an album that is playfully all over the map while simultaneously oddly uniform. References come a mile a minute, sometimes even colliding with one another most disparately. The album-opening “Rise” is moody like Fuse-era Joe Henry while laced with spaghetti-western backup vocals. The title track features Tex-Mex style Farfisa organ and the scratching of turntablist DJ Rise. The bar-band-styled “Diamond Jim” is all slippery like Southern Culture On The Skids, while “La Paloma” suggests Tom Waits with a pompadour.

Words are no less scattered, nor less colorful — often speckled with pop-culture references. In Prophet’s world, Dick Clark has the tombstone blues, and one female character is chided for not knowing the difference between Elvis and El Vez.

Two of the album’s best songs, however, are seemingly more linear in sentiment. Polar opposites, really, are “God’s Arms” and “Dyin’ All Young.” The former is a warm, buoyant tune that brims with spiritual wonder (“Last night God held me in his arms/And I set off 50 car alarms/The very next morning I thought I could fly/And I fell right through the clear blue sky”). It’s instantly the disc’s most engaging moment.

The latter, meanwhile, is smooth and R&B-like, centered around a chorus sampled from the 1994 song “Born To Live” by hip-hopper O.C. In tough but mournful street-tones, O.C. raps: “Didn’t even get to see the summer setting/Dyin’ all young.” Very moving, and, as a result, “Dyin’ All Young” comes across practically as an anthem on the loss of America’s urban youth. Put this one in the hands of a modern-day hip-hop/soul posse and it very well could be. Amid an album rife with surprise, it’s the most unexpected highlight of all.

Ultimately, those who like the Prophet of yore might quickly return to his earlier works for comfort. Those more amenable to change, on the other hand, might be tantalized by how the artist has reinvented himself with The Hurting Business. It’s like what Joe Henry said upon the release of his 1996 album Trampoline, which redefined Henry from Jayhawks-backed country rocker to groove-laden soul poet. He considered the record his real starting point, and that everything else before it was just part of the search.

One might look at The Hurting Business in the same light. This is Prophet’s personal, artistic unshackling. The limitations of genre have been smashed, and his inner funk soul brutha has been left to run amok in the rubble.