Professor Louie’s Crowmatix Takes on the Band
Grant Britt
Posted On January 12, 2016
The Band lives again. Professor Louie & the Crowmatix echo the sound and the feel that Garth, Levon, Rick, and Richard had in their heyday. All that’s missing is the voice of Levon. But these guys aren’t just replicators. For 15 years, the Woodstock-based Professor Louie Hurwitz and his band backed The Band in the studio, with Hurwitz acting as producer from ’93- 2000.
For this outing, the selections sound like they could have been source material for a Band project, raw material to have tweaked, shaped and molded in their image. But raw is the key word here. Many of the offerings on the disc sound like a demo — basic tracks to be fleshed out at a later date.
The title track retains it’s hardscrabble roots, somewhere between a spiritual and what the liner notes euphemistically refer to as a work song. But judging from the mournful lyrics, it could have been a chain gang chant, a plea for release to a better place here on Earth, before getting worked to death.
Originally titled “My Latest Sun Is Sinking Fast,” “Angel Band” is a gospel chestnut dating back to the 1860s that bluegrassers tossed in the set when it was gospel time on the program. The Stanley Brothers recorded it in ’55, and their version was resurrected in 2000 for the soundtrack of O Brother, Where Art Thou? The Crowmatix version is country gospel, with the Professor’s squeezebox swelling celestially in the background.
Although it’s a recent Louie original that the band calls a blues,“Light in Your Eyes” sounds more like a late-1950s crossover from gospel to rock and roll record, when artists like Sam Cooke and the 5 Royales were giving birth to soul.
Louie’s vocals on the rattly rocker “Ashton” have just enough of a hint of Levon’s country grit to make you wish he was still around to front it. Although its upbeat, that Helm hint at what might have been adds a touch of melancholy to the tune.
Lyrically and melodically, “Crop Dustin’ Blues” is basically a reworking of the Animals ’65 hit “We Gotta Get Outta This Place.”
And, voiced by Crowmatix pianist/vocalist/percussionist Miss Marie, Jimmy Reed’s “You Got Me Dizzy” picks up a secondline strut far livelier than Reed’s original soulful shuffle.
It’s a bit hard to classify this one. But just like The Band, it takes in a lot, then gives it all back … and then some.
