Uncle Tupelo – 89-93: An Anthology

More than a decade, now, since an old friend at Waterloo Records started raving about a new album they’d just gotten at the store. Roscoe was probably the world’s biggest Replacements fan (that was his bootleg cassette they swiped and disseminated as The Shit Hits The Fans), and so it was no surprise that the garage-rock abandon of this young Illinois trio called Uncle Tupelo caught his ear from the git-go.

Me, I dug the Replacements too, along with such long gone heroes as Scruffy The Cat and Doctors’ Mob; but I was just as likely to seek out songwriters such as Peter Case and Butch Hancock when I ventured into Waterloo or out on the town. It didn’t seem such a stretch for those worlds to co-exist, or maybe even occupy the same plane. Enter No Depression.

A little historical evidence, then: “The band balances its garage-rock attack with a handful of tasteful acoustic tunes that broaden the scope of the album….Guitarist Jay Farrar and bassist Jeff Tweedy have perfect voices for the type of music they play, balancing roughness with resonance in much the same way that their music combines melody with power….If they keep making records as good as this one, they won’t be unknown for long.”

That was my take on No Depression in a review for the Austin American-Statesman on July 26, 1990. Looking back at that review now, there are a few phrases that seem slightly awkward or uneven, sentences I might have structured a little differently given a dozen years’ hindsight. But for the most part, it still rings true, and stands the test of time.

Which is a pretty good assessment of Uncle Tupelo’s career as well. Columbia/Legacy’s 89/93: An Anthology bears fair witness to this, its 21 tracks hitting most of the primary points along the path of the band’s rise from underground upstart to influential forebear. The first fruit of a recently settled lawsuit that gave Tweedy and Farrar the rights to their early records, 89/93 is expected to be followed at some point by separate reissues of No Depression, 1991’s Still Feel Gone and March 16-20, 1992. (Their 1993 swan song, Anodyne, remains in print on Warner Bros.)

Tweedy and Farrar have consistently downplayed their significance as trendsetters or innovators, which is understandable. Certainly the line between country and rock, acoustic and electric, rage and despair had been walked by plenty of artists before them. It was, perhaps, more a matter of timing: Uncle Tupelo surfaced right about the time (as Christy McWilson notes elsewhere in this issue) that alternative rock (Nirvana et al.) and contemporary country (Garth et al.) commenced a double-barreled assault on the mainstream, which splayed open a vast underground for less-commercial sounds that slipped somewhere in-between.

The title track to No Depression, which leads off 89/93, was a harbinger of what was developing within that underground, and within the band. Alternative-rock bands in the 1980s held classic-rock nostalgia in contempt and embraced punk rock’s the-future-is-now perspective; but here, amid an album filled largely with punk-inspired sonic frenzy, was a 60-year-old song, rendered acoustically, without a trace of irony. The point being, it was OK to look back, too, even as you were looking forward.

From that first album, 89/93 also gathers Tweedy’s “Screen Door”, an acoustic ditty that’s perhaps overly simple but retains a certain charm precisely for that reason; “Graveyard Shift”, which exemplified the lurching rhythmic intensity that became one of the trio’s trademarks; and “Whiskey Bottle”, which combined the band’s bombast and balladry behind some of Farrar’s finest lyrics (still).

An early demo version of the No Depression track “Outdone” is the lone qualifier for the “89” date in the anthology’s title. Other offshoots tossed into the mix include the 1990 7-inch single “I Got Drunk”; a cover of the Stooges’ “I Wanna Be Your Dog” recorded during the sessions for Still Feel Gone; both sides of a 1992 7-inch featuring the forgettable “Sauget Wind” and an acoustic version of the Still Feel Gone anthem “Looking For A Way Out”; a cover of John Fogerty’s “Effigy”, from the 1993 various artists compilation No Alternative; and a live version of the Anodyne cut “We’ve Been Had” recorded in Chicago in October 1993. None of these assorted oddities adds anything essential or enlightening to the anthology, though it’s admittedly handy to have them gathered in one place.

The story remains best told by the album tracks. Highlights from Still Feel Gone are the essential “Gun”, Tweedy’s zenith as both a songwriter and singer in his Tupelo tenure, and “Still Be Around”, which Farrar has continued to play in his post-UT days. “Watch Me Fall”, however, might best have been passed over in favor of Farrar’s memorably folksy “True To Life” or Tweedy’s achingly beautiful “If That’s Alright”.

The four selections from March 16-20, 1992, on the other hand, are right on target. The dark, moody “Black Eye” revealed Tweedy’s growth as a songwriter and hinted at directions he would later explore with Wilco, while “Grindstone” was one of Farrar’s most instantly catchy tunes. Tweedy’s “Fatal Wound” is often forgotten amid Tupelo’s oeuvre, but it’s clearly one of the best moments on 89/93. And their rendition of the traditional number “Moonshiner” was, Tweedy shared in a 1996 interview, “my favorite thing that Jay ever sang.”

Anodyne seems under-represented here; the anthology’s historical-overview purpose was best served by drawing equally from the band’s four records, but their final album was their strongest from start to finish. (The fact that Anodyne is still in print also means its songs have less immediate market draw than the anthology’s other tracks). “The Long Cut”, “Chickamauga” and “New Madrid” are all worthy inclusions, but it’s impossible to dismiss absent gems such as the title track, “Slate”, “Acuff-Rose”, and the Doug Sahm-spiked “Give Back The Key To My Heart”.

Ultimately, the quality of the songs — both the ones they wrote and those they unearthed from the archives — is what has made Uncle Tupelo’s catalog clearly deserving of an anthology. Just how important or influential they were in development of American country, rock and roots music is a matter that will undoubtedly be revisited and re-evaluated as the decades roll on. All I can say for certain, here and now, is that they left their mark on me.