Customer Reviews

Arkansas Traveler

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Back in the early '90's I became a fan of folk-rocker, Michelle Shocked after picking up a copy of the popular "Short, Sharp, Shocked". I loved that album as well as it's horn drenched successor "Captain Swing". But nothing prepared me for the release of her wonderful CD, "Arkanas Traveler". "Arkansas Traveler" is Michelle's homage to the 19th century musical form known as "Minstrel Music". Not many artists would have the guts to take on this music due to the racist manner (blackface makeup, derogatory humor) in which many of these songs were originaly presented over a century ago. But Michelle with both dignity and a really good sense of humor, tackled these classic songs of the American south, producing one of the best albums of her career. She gets plenty of help by being joined by a plethora of roots-music artists including the late Pops Staples, Taj Mahal, Gatemouth Brown, Doc Watson, Allison Krauss, Norman Blake, Hothouse Flowers, Uncle Tupelo ETC. With a group of journeymen such as these how could you go wrong? I love these tuneful classic songs, which can so easily get stuck in your brain. This happens everytime I hear her renditions of "Secret to a Long Life" or "Over the Waterfall". Sometimes I'll find myself singing these tunes for half the day, after hearing them. Other favorites include "Jump Jim Crow" (with it's Zippity Do-Dah ending), "Prodigal Daughter" & "Weaving Way". Finally there is the hilarious, spoken word routines of the song "Arkansas Traveler" ("Hey farmer... where does this road go to? Been livin' here all my life, it ain't gone no where yet!") I played these corny routines for my young nephews and it totally cracked them up into fits of laughter! For the longest time this CD was (criminally) out of print. It has now been re-released with crystal clear remastering and six bonus cuts featuring alternative takes and live renditions. I love this CD and highly recommend it!!

How did a little known young woman who had just turned 30 convince such a varied group of musicians to agree to collaborate with her on a recording project back in 1992? The list reads like a Who's Who of Alternative/Indie music: The Band, Doc Watson, Uncle Tupelo, Taj Mahal, Norman Blake, Gatemouth Brown, Allison Krause, The Hothouse Flowers, Pop Staples, The Red Clay Ramblers, The Messengers, and her own father and brother (Max Johnston of Wilco). Maybe they recognized her as a fellow musical genius. In 1999 Steve Earle recorded The Mountain with Del Coury. The CD was hailed as a great concept album of roots music. But Michelle Shocked was seven years ahead of him!

Like Steve, Michelle has had her share of personal problems. Unfortunately, hers have led to problems with her recording company, the end result being that her work is out of print. That's the main reason that this CD isn't an Amazon Essential Recording. Certainly, in the year that "O Brother Where Art Thou" tops the bestseller list, it's time to take another look at this fine album.

'Captain Swing' showed a more confident, more experimental Michelle Shocked than might have been expected from the breezy official debut, 'Short Sharp Shocked'. However, that confidence all too often expressed itself as swagger. With 'Arkansas Traveler' it has matured to an easy assurance. In this fabulous collection of songs, Shocked seems to have a hundred years of American music at her fingertips, and to be able to combine any ingredients from that century to creat something that is both fresh and familiar. Not since The Band's 'Music From Big Pink' has such a stylistic gumbo been created with such zest and integrity. In her sleeve notes, the artist credits 'Minstrel Music' with being the inspiration - and in so doing does herself a disservice. The album is richer and more layered than the simple term implies, and carries influences from a far wider range of Americana.

This is simply a Masterpiece. And to set the record straight, this was produced by Michelle Shocked herself, contrary to what has been said before, the only song produced by Don Was is Come A Long Way (brilliantly produced by the way). Recorded in interesting places like an antique store, a Riverboat and some living rooms,with some of Michelle's own heroes. A lot of history in this record that tells you that "bluegrass music is not only white poeple's music, but black people's music as well" I have been listening to this record since '92 at least once a week. Can't live without it.

In this repackage Michelle has included about seven bonus tracks notably Come Along Way. When I first heard this song live in hollywood Sept 2004 I thought it was a touching new song relevant to the hustle and bustle in my beloved adopted city Los Angeles. I joined her on her walk to recover her bike from the Repo Man and met the immigrant lady waiting for the bus, the boys gaily standing in windows naked, the bridge we seldom cross in La. You know which one. before she sees the repo man. Afterwords I felt as if I WALKED 500 Miles! I was surprised how good this 1990 release sounds today as if it was recorded and recovered intact from a time capsule. Michelle has one of the strongest clearest ballsiest voices in show business that you may have never heard. If you need to get up to speed with with a talent that rivals KD Lang, Carole King, Paula Cole, Etta James, James Brown, Aretha Franklin, Joe Cocker, Bryan Adams, George Thorogood, Laura Nyro or Susan Cowsill to name a few. Stick out your thumb and Pickup the Arkansas Traveler, remember in her eyes we still have a long way to go and she will return the favor!

Bob Saldana
Songwriter\Producer La to Nashville

Michelle Shocked still seems to be under most people's radar, and I just don't get it when she was turning out stuff this good TEN YEARS AGO. This album was produced by Don Was and features such talent as Allison Kraus and Union Station, Levon Helm and Bela Fleck among many others.

Sounding like something Shocked and some local pals decided to put together on a front porch on an Appalachian mountainside somewhere, this has the unstudied grace that characterizes all her best work.

"Contest Coming (Cripple Creek)" is a superb rendition of mountain music and an approaching fiddle contest that has the "Jones boy across the holler" getting ready to do his stuff and win first prize. Listen for the gorgeous fiddle work towards the end of the song--this is pure joy and exhilaration rendered on a violin.

"Over the Waterfall" has a heady Celtic vibe to it, complete with thumping drums, pennywhistle and silvery, metallic guitar work. The very first line shows Shocked's usual wry humor where love is concerned:

"I thought I knew what I was doing
I was wrong . . ."

On "Jump Jim Crow/Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah" Shocked pays homage to black minstrelsy without ever condescending--even though she acknowledges in the liner notes that she's going to catch hell from the politically correct crowd for even bringing this stuff up. The song has the rough edges of something that might have been recorded in a barn somewhere in Alabama in the 1930s. "Strawberry Jam" is a sneakily funny tribute to lovemaking, while "Prodigal Son" has the vocal purity of an old Emmylou Harris tune.

I don't know why Shocked gives us the lyrics for only three of the songs on the liner notes, but that's a minor quibble with an outstandingly fine piece of work.

OK, so Michelle Shocked has not sustained the interest of much of the music buying and listening public. This album was, however, her peak of polish and perfection. Very-well-produced by Don Was, accompanied by a Who's Who of musicians from a number of persuations (The Band, Doc Watson, Uncle Tupelo, Taj Mahal, Norman Blake, Gatemouth Brown, Allison Krauss, The Hothouse Flowers, and Pop Staples, among others) blending new compositions and classics, Ms. Shocked put forth an album that by all rights SHOULD have catapulted her into the sustained limelight of the music buying and listening public.
If you have not listened to any of Michelle Shocked's albums, this would be a magnificent starting point! (All of her albums are available directly from her Mighty Sound label... details are in her new album, "Deep Natural".)

Actually, I've never gotten around to hearing Kind Hearted Woman, so perhaps I'm not qualified to say this, but I consider Arkansas Traveler to be far and away her best album. In fact, it's so much better than her previous stuff that it--well, it shocked me.

I got into her in the late '80s because I was a big fan of Dylan and other classic folkies and saw the whole Suzanne Vega/Tracy Chapman/Michelle Shocked school as sort of their heirs. But to tell the truth I only found the Texas Campfire Tapes and Short Sharp Shocked about half listenable--songs like "The L&M Don't Stop Here Anymore" showed great promise in her songwriting and delivery, but on songs like "Graffiti Limbo" and "Anchorage" she sounded waaaay too impressed with herself. Her third album was more of that: the highs were higher and the lows were lower.

With this album she got it all sorted out: not a weak track on here, not a smidgen of self-indulgence, fantastic performances by a whole slew of musicians. I'd easily consider this one of the ten best albums of the decade. I just don't think it found its audience. The people who paid attention to her were the coffee-house crowd, the people who would soon put Lilith Fair in business, people who (no offense intended) generally wouldn't know a Sun Record or a Jimmy Rodgers tune if it bit them in the ankle. This album's real peers are things like The Band's second album, or Workingman's Dead, or Dylan's '90s work--her consciousness of American traditional music, her ability to treat it with that magic combination of respect and irreverence, and to pull it off with utter confidence, are that formidable. But unfortunately, I think most fans of that kind of music were never lucky enough to stumble across this album. Their loss.

It's an album with a concept: she takes a bunch of old fiddle tunes with evocative titles and writes lyrics to go with them. Then she records each one in a different place with a different backing band, ranging from the Messengers in Australia to Hothouse Flowers in Ireland to Uncle Tupelo in midAmerica. Despite all this Arkansas travelin', the sound is somehow cohesive, and yet displays an incredible range, from bluegrass to old parlor country to rockabilly-flavored stuff, to blues, to anything and everything American. Her lyrics are more thought-provoking and moving than ever, and much more mature than her previous work.

To top it off, her liner notes, calling attention to the important and complex role of blackface minstrelsy in the development of American popular music, foreshadowed a cultural discussion that has recently resulted in Spike Lee's Bamboozled and Dylan's "Love And Theft."

Not bad credentials. Too bad nobody was listening when it was released.

From the reviews here, it looks as if most Michelle Shocked fans prefer Short Sharp Shocked. That's strange to me, because I think this is a terrific album. The songs are gorgeously written. There are some self-conscious moments (shocked's anti-war song is utterly predictable and unaffecting) but other songs, such as "Blackberry Blossoms" and "Prodigal Daughter", are jewels.

I played this album for my parents, who are generally fans of classical and celtic music. They instantly loved it, recognizing Shocked's songwriting skill and vocal warmth. This is a good album to get people interested in Michelle.

Though I am not a big fan of country music as presented on the radio, I am a connoisseur of quality country music. With the re-issue of Arkansas Traveller, Michelle Shocked has outdone herself with eighty minutes of quality music that will be listened to after all the top-40 schlock is long forgotten.
Now Arkansas Traveller is not the type of formulaic country that the uninitiated might expect. Some might even say its not country. Well, call it bluegrass, folk, Americana or whatever you will. This CD is pure old-time country from the roots up.
One of the things that makes this recording such a delight is that Shocked brings in such a variety of people to accompany her on these songs. There ARE a few that are a little cornball for me (like the title cut and C-H-I-C-K-E-N), but I recognize they were all made in a spirit of fun. I prefer the more serious music. My favorites are both versions of Come A Long Way, Shaking Hands (with Uncle Tupelo), the hilarious Jump Jim Crow (with eclectic bluesman Taj Mahal), Hold Me Back (with another eclectic bluesman Gatemouth Brown), Prodigal Daughter (with bluegrass master Allison Krauss), both versions of Blackberry Blossom, and both versions of Weaving Way.
All of those other musicians are well-known for their ability to blur the distinctions between musical genres and that's part of what makes this CD such a treat. But Shocked shows also that she works well with very traditional country/bluesgrass musicians. Here she brings out the best in them, but they do the same for her.
This is only the second Michelle Shocked recording I have obtained. I just happened to come on to it while browsing the bins at a San Diego music store. It is so different from the other (Captain Swing) that her masterful versatility becomes immediately apparent. Those who like quality music no matter the genre will find a lot to like in the nearly eighty minutes of music presented here. Arkansas Traveller is truly a country delight.