Customer Reviews

Of Great and Mortal Men: 43 Songs for 43 U.S. Presidencies

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This collection deserves four hours and a 300 mile drive on the interstate; a place where you can fully take in the music and the lyrics. The songs are about the presidents as real people; they are beautiful, tragic, honest, sad, and inspiring.

*this review featured in the Fall 2008 issue of Shuffle Magazine--shufflezine.tv*

By now, or soon enough, our 2008 presidential fate will be sealed; one popular reading is that we'll be led either by a visionary in the mold of Abraham Lincoln, FDR or JFK, or the buffoonish equivalent of Millard Fillmore, Herbert Hoover or The Shrub. Either characterization is oversimplified by the larger-than-life job, and further distorted today by the glare of 24-hour media. Demythologizing those views was a driving force behind this ambitious three-disc, 43-song set co-written by songwriters J. Matthew Gerken, Christian Keiffer and Jefferson Pitcher. All three have loads of outstanding moments ranging from experimental folk and sonic-feedback dissonance to bare-boned twang and textured chamber rock. But just as the music eschews easy hooks or era-specificity, the narratives illuminate character through telling personality traits and ethical/spiritual interior-monologues as often as historical highlights: Monroe's doctrine, Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, and FDR's New Deal share stage-time with Chester Arthur's delusions of grandeur, Andrew Jackson's self-righteousness, and W's crass shallowness. Over 75 musicians contribute, many providing highlights like the cathartic guitar freak-out by Charalambides' Tom Carter as Richard Nixon's resignation speech spools out, to name just one of dozens. But it's the guest vocal slots that add critical breadth - the only quibble with this set is that the array of presidential personalities benefits so much from different voices, you wish there were even more like Bill Callahan's rugged interpretation of John Tyler, the sonic reverie-haze Califone and Tim Rutili bring to Ronald Reagan, Greg Vanderpool and the Monahans' luminous depiction of James K. Polk, and Alan Sparhawk imbuing Dwight Eisenhower's story with Low's Great Plains melancholy. This takes nothing away from the brain trust; packaged handsomely with 43 artists' renditions, lyrics, and an introductory essay from an ex-CIA analyst and historian, Of Great and Mortal Men is an epic slice of Walt Whitman-esque Americana, and more worthy than some of the office.
JOHN SCHACHT

4.5/5

*this review featured in the Fall 2008 issue of Shuffle Magazine--shufflezine.tv*

On September 9, 2008, Standard Recording Company released the release of a triple CD Of Great and Mortal Men: 43 Songs for 43 U.S. Presidencies, a collection penned by songwriters J. Matthew Gerken (of Nice Monster), Christian Kiefer, and Jefferson Pitcher (formerly of Above the Orange Trees). The set features a slew of special studio guests including Califone, Rosie Thomas, Bill Callahan (Smog), Alan Sparhawk (Low), Mark Kozelek (Red House Painters, Sun Kil Moon), Marla Hansen (Sufjan Stevens), Steve Dawson (Dolly Varden), Vince DiFiore (Cake), Monahans, James Jackson Toth (Wooden Wand), and Tom Carter (Charalambides).

This project initially came about as part of "February Album Writing Month," a website (www.fawm.org) that challenges songwriters to write 14 songs in 28 days. The three songwriters wrote and recorded rough demos of the first 42 songs in February 2006 (leaving only George W. Bush for later). "It was an amazing challenge to get that many songs written, even split three ways," notes Kiefer. "Blasting the first four or five is easy and then you've used up all the ideas that have been floating around and have to come up with new ones. And you have to come up with those new ideas right now."

It was decided soon after that the project was too interesting to leave in the demo stage and so the recording process began anew with guests coming into the fray as time and schedules allowed. The project is now in its final phases. "It's a walk through American history and an inquiry into what makes us Americans as filtered through the lens of our highest public office. There's heartbreak and beauty and criticism and revelation. We're trying to make it work like a big beautiful historical novel."

The released project includes a 100+ page book featuring individual images of the Presidents by 43 different artists, all hand-selected by art curator Pitcher to be included in the project. To quote from Kiefer's song about President Tyler: "Oh! Hell yes!"

Kiefer's album Dogs & Donkeys (Undertow) appeared to favorable reviews last year and featured guests Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker (Low), Nels Cline (Wilco, The Geraldine Fibbers, etc.), and Garth Hudson (The Band). Kiefer and Jefferson Pitcher also saw the release of their collaboration To All Dead Sailors via Australia's Camera Obscura earlier this year, a project recorded in the midst of the Presidential madness. Pitcher's recent concept album I am not in Spain was also released this year on Mudita Records. Gerken's acoustic indie-math rock quartet Nice Monster is also in the studio recording a follow-up EP to their full-length Good Times + Sharp Knives (Grayscale).

Click through to www.43presidencies.com for updates, curricla, and more information.

I got very excited when I saw this CD--you can imagine that from a history buff. This was just as interesting to listen to as it sounds. For the most part, the songs focus on one aspect of each presidency, always positive, and express it well. Considering that it came out of a writing challenge, the artists did a very nice job putting this all together.

The only reason I give this four stars, and not five, is the musical stylistic similarities among some of the songs--it makes some songs more memorable than others, and after a little while, might make you want to skip a track or too.

The best music I have bought in many years. I won't summarize the album or categorize the music because you can sample the songs, but there are many songs I can listen to over and over again. A few of my favorites: Washington, Jackson, Tyler, Taylor, Truman, Nixon, Reagan, GHW Bush and W Bush. The Eisenhower song is sublime. Sublime. I wish the guitar jam on the Clinton song went another five or six bars, but I have very few complaints about this amazing album. I mean, someone wrote a kick ass rock/prog/folk/americana song about Chester A. Arthur. What more could you want? Buy this.

I remember walking through a record shop in DC several months ago and looking at the wall of new releases when the packaging for this release really caught my eye. When I picked it up and saw what it was...the concept and the musicians involved, a huge smile appeared on my face and I remember thinking "why hadn't someone thought of this already?" I also thought that even if the music was sub-par, this was still something worth having since I'm as much of a nerd about politics as I am about music.

Luckily the music as every bit as good as the packaging. A fair amount of the music falls into the indie folk/americana category, but the collection as a whole is remarkably varied. Two of the stronger songs (Hoover and Carter) have a heavy jazz influence, and there are also shades of post rock as well (Polk and Nixon). If you're a fan of artists like Sufjan Stevens, Songs: Ohia, or Will Oldham, chances are you'll enjoy this collection since that's the strongest influence. The three main songwriters behind the project wisely chose to invite a slew of guest contributors and the guest appearances by members of Low, Red House Painters, Smog, and Califone (just to name a few) keep things interesting.

As much as I love the music in this collection and the project that inspired it, there's still something that kind of bugs me. On the third disk when the collection moves into the modern presidency, most of the songs about Democrats are generally positive, while the songs about Republicans are generally negative. I'm willing to bet that the majority of the people who buy this collection either won't notice (or won't have a problem with this), but I can't help but compare this project to the 50 records for 50 states that Sufjan Stevens is attempting, and notice that Stevens isn't politicizing (thus cheapening) the project. It would have been easy for Stevens to do this, but I think refraining from partisanship gave him the ability to take a great idea and make music for everyone. None of this makes the music any less enjoyable...my three favorite songs all came from the last disc (Hoover, Clinton, and Bush 43). Most people I show this collection to have never heard of it, but are immediately sold once they look through the book and hear a few songs.

These songs reflect our own time and political mood more than they do the lives of the presidents. Once the novelty of hearing a song about someone like Millard Fillmore wears off, the sketchy nature of the historical understanding annoys. Tippecanoe was in Indiana, not Ohio, dude. And James Polk fretting at being pushed around? He was one president who had a clear agenda on which he campaigned, and who also made good on all of his campaign promises.

But the album is worthwhile if you are interested exploring an inherent conflict in our presidency -- the conflict between "great" and "mortal." The presidential pedestal is so high, and yet the individuals that we place there are, after all, only human. Perhaps to the non-technical historian, this work will bring into focus the men behind the roll of names.

If you want clever summaries about presidential careers, I recommend the presidential haiku site -- "His clothes stolen while/swimming in the Potomac/signalled a rough term" says so much beyond those 17 syllables about John Quincy Adams.