MusicReviews

There is no better writer of story-songs in America than Tom Russell.

A closely kept secret among the Americana illuminati, Mr. Russell has spent decades
writing songs that turn real life into myth, grit into romance. His Man From God Knows Where
may be the best folk music album ever made. Lyrical and beautiful, Russell's songs tell
tales of lives in the shadows, some of the lives familiar and others very strange indeed.

The Wounded Heart of America explores Tom's uniquely dark vision through interpretations
by a who's who of other artists, from Johnny Cash through Doug Sahm to an unlikely but
astonishing rendition of "Stealing Electricity" by Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

10,000 volts and now he’s gone
He’s hanging on a cross-tire above Babylon
Hey baby ain’t that just like you and me
Love is like stealing electricity

Another standout is Laurie Lewis' "Manzanar," achingly eloquent.
After Iris Dement, Joe Ely, Dave Van Ronk, and others, we get four songs by Tom himself,
including a fine version of "Who's Gonna Build Your Wall?" and a powerful new song
about the death of a bluegrass outlaw, "The Death of Jimmy Martin."

There's a hound dog running all alone through the piney woods
The howlin' tears the soul out of me
There's a jay bird calling up a funeral dirge
In ragtime harmony.
Barb'ry Allen rolled over in her grave all morning
There were roses growing out of her head
Hey, God's gonna burn down Nashville tonight
Jimmy Martin's dead
Ah, the great Jimmy Martin's gone dead

Tom Russell is eloquent, literate, and darkly romantic. If you don't know his songs, this is a
very fine place to start. If you do know them, you probably already own this CD.

Offical Tom Russell Home Page (requires Flash)

YouTube Video of "Who's Gonna Build Your Wall?"

Josh Ritter's fifth CD, The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter, is one more step to the man's
inevitable ascendance in the Tower of Song. Ritter is one of the best young songwriters to
come down the lonesome pike in many years. Comparisons abound -- Dylan, Leonard
Cohen, even the Boss himself, but Ritter is his own man, drunken on imagery but never
blindly so.

On this record, he has deliberately refocused his creative vision on the music, writing songs
first and then fitting lyrics to them. The result is not quite as verbally astonishing as his last
record, The Animal Years, which justly made many critics best-of-year-list, but may have
more staying power.

Like his last three records, this one reveals more depth with every listening, and thematic
links emerge as impressions before they harden into little diamonds of meaning. The
opening track, "To the Dogs or Whoever," is a delirious love song to a diverse feminine
spirit, Florence Nightingale, Calamity Jane, and Joan of Arc, an ideal of love and devotion
that echoes through the rest of the songs, lyrically and musically.

My favorite track at the moment (and it will change) is "The Temptation of Adam," a story of
two lovers hiding in a missile silo, playing with multilayered metaphors for love and war,
orgasm and extinction:

We could hold each other close and stay up every night
Looking up into the dark like it's the night sky
And pretend this giant missile is an old oak tree instead
And carve our name in hearts into the warhead

Oh Marie there's something tells me things just wonąt work out above
That our love would live a half-life on the surface
So at night while you are sleeping I hold you closer just because
As our time grows short I get a little nervous

I think about the Big One, W.W.ai ai ai
Would we ever really care the world had ended
You could hold me here forever like you're holding me tonight
I look at that great big red button and I'm tempted

Ritter plays and sings with incredible heart, making even difficult things seem simple. Not
only a poet, but also a dedicated musician and an exciting performer, Josh Ritter someday
may well have his own entire floor in the Tower of Song.

Official Josh Ritter Home Page