Music Spectrum

Like the Canadian roots group the Rankins, U.S. 32 (Michael Francis Kline and Christy Kline) moves at its best when it stays above the minimum speed limit. Bluesy country and twangy rock tunes rattle on down the highway with great originality whereas country ballads sound like, well, country ballads.

Tumblin’ Home opens with “Down in the Field,” which cooks along quite nicely as you descend into the happy valley. “Mabel’s Car” slides along with a soulful John Mellencamp vibe. “Credit Card” comes charged up with a rockabilly blues, while the mandolin-soaked “Chasin’ the Sun” delivers the album’s best driving song.

But then tracks like “Every Other Weekend” and “Water Under the Bridge,” we’re back in rather staid country balladry, disappointments that are significant bumps along this otherwise well-built highway.

That said, when Michael takes lead vocal for the title track, a ballad, there’s a rootsy freshness to the Appalachian tones. U.S. 32’s version of “Jackson” smolders on handclaps without ever igniting—a tremendous tension held beautifully throughout the track right to the abrupt ending.

U.S. 32

From the deepest, darkest blues sometimes comes the truest Gospel. That’s what I heard from Ray Wylie Hubbard as he expounded like a preacher through his country blues at Twangfest at St. Louis’ Blueberry Hill.

I say this despite the fact that Hubbard said that the only prayer he knows is: “God, if you get me out of this, I’ll never do it again.” He also says, “Buddha was not a Christian, but Jesus would’ve made a good Buddha.” He might not believe in his heart (or in his stage persona) that Jesus is Lord and Savior, but his whoop of Gospel on “Whoop and Hollar” carries more hope in Jesus than perhaps he knows.

When I rise up out of my grave and see my savior’s face
I ‘m gonna whoop, I’m gonna holler

It’s a song of complete abandon in face of eternal hope—something we don’t whoop and hollar about enough.

Hearing Hubbard for the first time I now know why I like James McMurtry and Hayes Carll so much. They owe a great debt to Hubbard for their Country-influenced Rock sound. Hubbard is a Charlie Daniels-Bob Dylan, singing folk country that can also scorch the earth. It’s a swamp twang that causes Hubbard to namecheck Muddy Waters, Fats Waller, Sam Hawkins, Sam Cooke, and Wilson Pickett.

Joining Hubbard was his 17-year-old son, Lucas, who plays a mean electric guitar—not only on the album, A. Enlightenment, B. Endarkenment, (Hint: There is No C) but also live. As Hubbard mentions on “Pots and Pans,” Lucas can really bend those strings. Rick Richards adds some great punctuation on the drums, letting the kick really get into those jams. Richards and Lucas Hubbard really showed their stuff on a blues jam midway through the set.

Ray Wylie Hubbard

I can still remember the smell of the vinyl sleeves the library used to protect the LPs. I associate that smell with Blue Rodeo, because after reading some good reviews of 1989’s Diamond Mine, I checked it out from the Hennepin County Library.

I pulled out the vinyl record from its vinyl-encased cardboard sleeve, set it a-spinning, and never got very far past the first twangy guitar strum. Too much country for me back then.

Flash forward more than 20 years, and I’m watching Blue Rodeo take the stage at St. Louis’ Twangfest, anticipating it with excitement. I’ve changed a lot in those intervening years, understanding the place of twang in the world of rock ‘n’ roll. Which means I could hear and enjoy Blue Rodeo’s set, the most straight-forward country sound on the bill of the second night of Twangfest.

While in Canada there would be thousands of people gathered, Blue Rodeo is able to play some intimate settings in the U.S. like St. Louis’ Blueberry Hill. As soon as they took the stage, they were cooking along a train track rhythm with some great jamming keyboards. On “One More Night,” they hit a rocking, grooving country rock with 50’s rock elements even as they twang up Twangfest. It’s tracks like these that helped me crossover to Blue Rodeo’s type of Country-influenced Rock.

When they began “Don’t Let the Darkness Inside Your Head” from their recent release, The Things We Left Behind, you could hear the CSNY influence, although when Anne Lindsay picked up her fiddle, there was a bit of Bob Dylan’s Desire sound, too. Then the more keys jammed, and the more Lindsay got fired up on that fiddle—jumping and diving with the sound, the more that song rocks beyond its CSNY beginnings. It’s a tremendous moment of Gospel, too, the way the song works as a prayer for someone who has really been touched by depression or other overcoming darkness. The song tries to build up someone who is convinced that they haven’t done enough, and the more the song builds, the more there’s hope.

Don’t let the darkness in your head
All the songs you meant to sing, you did
Don’t let the darkness in your head
All the love you meant to share, you shared.

Blue Rodeo
Telesoul Records

Adam Tressler’s electric guitar on Megan Burtt’s It Ain’t Love punctuates, brightens up, and raises up these tunes from what they would otherwise be. The guitar brings out the bluesy passion in Burtt’s singer/songwriter thing. See “Pay It Now”’s staccato strums or how a jazzy blues peaks out from the shadows of “Fix You Need.” Like the Katie Todd Band or Kelly Snyder, it’s a folk sound fleshed out—here with a bluesy country skin. “Habit” with its bluesy line delves into a darker corner to undergird Burtt’s sweetness and draw out that passion.

Megan Burtt

Anything that opens with White Rabbits has to be a good thing. So while I have never watched an episode of Friday Night Lights, I will stand here—I’m standing at my Starbucks table as I type this!—and tell you to go get yourself a copy of the Friday Night Lights Vol. 2 original television soundtrack.

Because of its variety and indie vibe, this soundtrack has the potential to be like Pretty in Pink soundtrack, where the music (more than the movie?) helped shape a generation’s taste in alternative music. While Pretty in Pink trended towards English Rock, Friday Night Lights Vol. 2 leans toward Country-influenced Rock (White Rabbits being an exception).

Friday Night Lights begins with the piano-driven, percussive pulse of White Rabbits’ “Percussion Gun” followed by Middle America introspection songs by the Heartless Bastards and A.A. Bondy. Bondy’s “Killed Myself When I Was Young” haunts that dark Middle American night like a wild tempest of a thunderstorm seen off in the distance. With a bit of twang-and-swagger, Augustana offers up “Fire” while Jakob Dylan sends out “Something Good This Way Comes.” Ex-X AltCountry punker John Doe cranks out an acoustic tune (“The Meanest Man in the World”) to accompany you while you walk down the train tracks.

In case you thought we wouldn’t get to the charged up locker room scene or the cars cruising the street at night, Band of Skulls steps up to the line with “I Know What I Am.”

Finally, spiritually you wake up on Sunday morning after the game and its aftermath and Sufjan Stevens calls you to worship with his passionate banjo rendition of “Come Thou Font of Every Blessing.”

Friday Night Lights Vol. 2
Arrival Records
Scion Music Group