From Doc Watson to a Sun Records Tribute: Ten Notable Roots Music Releases

There are few places in the history of music as hallowed as Sun Records, where country, R&B, gospel, rockabilly, and blues artists were welcomed with open arms and the knowing ear of Sam Phillips. One could easily make the argument that Americana was born and nutured in Memphis. So, it is about time there was a fitting tribute. 

With Tamara Saviano and Luther Dickinson at the helm, there was little chance that Red Hot would fatally fall into the trap of being reverential and overly nostalgia, or, worse, reimagined for a “modern” audience. While there were certainly going to be guest artists, the first stroke of genius was to secure a crack house band. They did that and more. Dickinson, who also plays, enlisted his brother Cody, Rick Steff, and two simpatico Memphis natives, Amy LaVere and John Paul Keith. This is one kick-ass band that knows the Sun sound by heart and soul that pays tribute not just to the music, but the place and time from which it rose.

Their second stroke of genius was not to cover the well-known or the easily recognizable hits. With a couple of holy grail exceptions, the songs are ones that you feel were so much the standard set by Phillips that they seem ingrained in the walls of those studios.  This group of stellar musicians, including Valerie June, Bobby Rush, Alvin Youngblood Heart, and cast members of CMT’s surprisingly good TV series Sun Records, led by Chuck Mead (doing a rambunctious “Red Hot”), retrieved them from the crevices of those walls and brought them back to life again.

Those exceptions noted above are Heart doing a darker, harder edged “Folsom Prison Blues” than you’ve ever heard before. And “Moanin’ at Midnight,” which only the ultra secure, or the ultra foolish, would attempt. But two Mississippians, Dickinson and guest Lightnin’ Malcolm, they dig into Wolf’s tune so deep and adventurous that they had to cut it into two parts, over 13 minutes of pure ecstasy.

In short, it is a rare thing indeed to hear a group of like-minded folks, Saviano included, come together, sharing and trusting one another so completely to create something greater than the sum of its parts. And while those parts are, individually, beyond compare, it is when the album finally ends (all too soon) that you realize you have witnessed something extremely special. 

Recorded at Sun Studios and the Phillips Recording studios, the album’s proceeds benefit St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Go here for significantly more insight into the album, Sun and the folks who made this great record.

Amanda Anne Platt & The Honeycutters – (Self-titled) (June 9)

Malcolm Holcombe – Pretty Litte Troubles (out now)

Holcombe is, not unlike Roscoe (but with an extra “e”), an unmistakable original. He’s from North Carolina, but you could swear his Appalachian noir-ish tales were born somewhere at the head of a coal mining hollow of eastern Kentucky. In fact, the second song, “Good Old Days,” from the new album is an ode to his wife’s grandfather, who immigrated from Russia only to wind up a coal miner in West Virginia. Of, course, those “good old days” were full of strife, toil, and backbreaking labor. Sample lyrics: 

Fifty cents a bloody day
No child labor laws
Most them lil’ babies died
Disease and alcohol

Another track, “Rocky Ground,” has a Guy Clark feel to it, and sounds as if he could have written it, but Holcombe’s gravely, unwashed vocal makes it more gut wrenching. I thought that even before hearing a later track, “Bury, England,” full of end-of-the-world touring images, where he mentions Clark by name, and singing with “JT.” I took that to reference Townes’ son, who, despite primarily being a professional fishing guide these days, can write and play a mean song of his own. 

Produced by Darrell Scott, Holcombe’s 14th album reflects Scott’s astute musicianship. Complete with pedal steel, harp, mandolin, and more, it provides the most “polished” of backgrounds. In other hands, it could have resulted in a catastrophe, and while it certainly makes Holcombe’s darkness more accessible, it underscores just how much in control Holcombe is. And how much he understands his music and its message. It is essential listening.

Anna Coogan –The Lonely Cry of Space & Time (out now)

During an intermission of the Met’s last opera of the season, Der Rosenkavalier, I thought of Coogan’s latest album, The Lonely Cry of Space and Time. Though the operatically trained Coogan is more Klaus Nomi than Renée Fleming, at their respective cores both are concerned with the passage of time, and the spaces and people in between. Despite the trappings, they can be lonely adventures.

Coogan’s singular guitar (which can also be heard on Johnny Dowd’s recordings) is often, like the Marschallin’s soliloquy in Act 1, reflective yet wandering, restrained yet expansive, holding on yet letting go … or, how far the journey from here to a star? Lyrically, Coogan shows no fear in exposing her vulnerable side, not necessarily a hopeless romantic, but a romantic nonetheless. Even in an apocalyptic time, and perhaps for a child, in “Burn for You:”

You whose company I seek
Wide-eyed and waiting in the wings
Oh but too beautiful
To see the world burning down
Oh let the oceans rise
To the shining skies
I will burn for you.

The songs, some written with her drummer and singular bandmate Willie B, sometimes ride the waves of an extreme force, sometimes juxtaposing words and music, sometimes a parallel course, and never less than intriguing using that trained voice to great effect. For another take on this absolutely lovely record that, like Iris Murdoch once said, invigorates without consoling, see Lyndon Bolton’s ND interview.

Allison Pierce –Year of the Rabbit (out now)

Following two decades with her sister in the Pierces, the Alabama-born songwriter teams up with producer legendary Ethan Johns (Ryan Adams, Ray LaMontagne, Paul McCartney) for her first solo album. Far different than her duo work, this debut leaves behind what made her a well-known name in the “pop” world and embraces a stripped-down approach that’s primarily just her and Johns, with Gabe Witcher on fiddle for two tracks, and Greg Leisz on pedal steel on another. 

The album was no spur-of-the-moment decision to become more of an Americana artist, but rather I understand she wrote these songs over a period of years knowing they did not fit the Pierces’ sound or persona. Coming across like a reticent Jenny Lewis, with a touch of the best of Linda Ronstandt, Pierce more deeply explores many of the of emotional worlds that were merely hinted at, or glossed over, during her previous 20 years of making music.

A standout track is “Sea of Love,” with its deceptive plaintive lyrics that pack a lovely punch extolling the virtues, with an undercurrent of uncertainty, of human relationships all to decidedly country beat.