Townes Van Zandt / Dale Watson / Neko Case / Kelly Hogan / Tift Merritt And The Carbines
Grant Alden
Posted On July 1, 1999
A decade ago the major labels decreed the death of vinyl, somehow setting off a flood of 7-inch singles that, at one point, arrived at the rate of 200 a month. It’s a slow trickle now, but there’s still reason to move the fax machine off the turntable and pay attention.
“Riding The Range”/”Dirty Old Town”is presumably the final release over which TOWNES VAN ZANDT had artistic control. Tenderly backed by bluegrassers Jim & Royann Calvin, Van Zandt’s vocals sounds earnest and frail, and even his yelps belong to and old, limping coyote. Old beyond his years.
DALE WATSON is a young dog, still full of bite, though he too rarely bares his teeth. “Good Luck ‘N’ Good Truckin’ Tonite”/”Yankee Doodle Jean” marks the return of Diesel Only to the fray after a long hiatus. Both tracks are spares from The Truckin’ Sessions — one alternate, one unreleased — that will at least get you to the next exit. The B-side gets close enough to Bakersfield to suggest it might do for the long haul. Diesel Only also has some SWAG upcoming; the “Sweet Lucinda” single marks the first recordings of a Cheap Trick side project that also includes former Maverick Jerry Dale McFadden.
Northwesterner NEKO CASE (backed by the Sadies) has already managed her second helping of retro vinyl, this time splitting a provocatively themed single titled The Shortening Sessions: A Tribute To Loretta Lynn. “Rated X” finds Case doing little to suggest she might have held her own in her native Virginia in the early ’60s. On the flipside is KELLY HOGAN (& the Mellowcremes) doing “Hanky Panky Woman”; Hogan has a less robust, sweeter voice not quite suited to the broken blues her song hints at.
“Jukejoint Girl”/”Cowboy” proves an introduction to the well-regarded vocals of Tift Merritt and THE CARBINES. And on “Jukejoint Girl” it proves to be a remarkable, flexible, sassy voice at that, offset by the Carbines’ carefully unretro (but still respectful) accompaniment. Margaret White’s fiddle strikes exactly the right balance. “Cowboy” is a promising weeper somehow rendered murky by the recording process.
