Customer Reviews

Hotwalker: Charles Bukowski & A Ballad for Gone

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1 star:		(5)

 

 

Tom Russell is one of the great, quintessential American voices - among the greatest of our living song writers and story tellers. Hotwalker, his latest effort, is not, however, a collection of his songs. It is rather a historical document - spoken word narration backed with music, tying together a collection of vignettes of an outsider America of bar-fly poets, circus freak philosophers, honky tonkin' cowboys, beats, bohemians, and folk singers, that for an amazing moment in time seemed to be almost ascendant. Russell witnessed this outsider America - was shaped by it, and he lovingly recreates it here.
Russell put together quite a cast of luminaries for this project, including recordings of Charles Bukowski, Jack Kerouac, Lenny Bruce, Harry Partch, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, and Edward Abbey. Little Jack Horton, a side show midget who had been a drinking buddy of Bukowski's, co-narrates with Russell, and his amazing funhouse voice and outsider philosophizing are uniquely suited to the material. And while Hotwalker is not an album of songs, there is a plethora of music, both as mood setting for the spoken word, and an occasional, expertly placed song that speaks volumes. The song Woodrow, about Woody Guthrie, that Russell includes here is as powerful as anything that he has ever written, and is almost worth the price of the CD by itself.
This CD will not appeal to everyone, not even all of those who are fans of Russell. But if you empathize with the great independent, iconoclastic outsiders who once peppered the American landscape; if you are sick of conservatives who spin hypocritical family values and rah-rah patriotism, sick of liberals who spin saccharine and silly political correctness, sick of a culture that only values what it can put a price tag on and sell you, that homogenizes everything, and whose grandest ideal is the shopping mall, then Hotwalker is a necessary addition to your collection. Listen to it - really hear it, and you may find yourself saying along with Little Jack Horton, "it's ours! it's our g-d damn country, from sea to g-d damn shining sea!"

Theo Logos

I have never heard a CD quite like this . . .in some ways it calls to mind the best of Alan Lomax's field recordings starting with Blues in the Mississippie Night, but there's more to it than that, If Lomax's recordings were a small window to a time removed from our own by far more than the passing of years, this effort, deserving of the word 'masterpiece' is a kalidascope on okie shine spinning the listener into the core of it all . . .

And I should have seen it coming . . . for over ten yrs all of Tom Russell's recordings have been penetrating and revealing studies of place, period, or personality - often all three in the same song. The man has been gifted, or maybe at times cursed, with a voice and writing style that without the distraction of calling attention to itself brings the trust of his songs into stark focus. The man can write, plain and simple.

Until now he's focused by and large on songs, marrying instrumentation and melody to the words, on this CD he works more in voice over, music free to epotmizes a time or a place, free to call to mind an image b/c it isn't anchored to his words by melody or strutural contraints. . .instead it is like the dirt in the bullring or the broken pavement of a border road beneath a banger Ford. The words are spoken, but that can't be the term, 'speaking' doesn't convey the power or force, stripped of melody there is no room for the wrong word or a weak turn of a phrase. The approach demands the most perfectly written CD he has ever record, and that is what this is.

Think of how speaking rather than singing added gravity to "That's What Love Is" from the Borderland CD. Amplify that a dozen times. This is a recording you participate in. It is not however a CD you're apt to play several times a day - although you will want to play it daily - even before its played through you'll be digging through your CD collection for the music it references, or your shelves for books to bring it closer.

Normally when I write a CD review I do it while playing the CD in question . . . not this time. Wynn Stewart is on the deck and a pair of Edward Abbey paperbacks, worn and stained the day I plucked them from a used bookstore in Benson, AZ are on the desk beside me. It's like any journey . . . leaves me wanting to go further.

I have underrated Tom Russell in the past. This is serious, sad, mind-expanding -- a glimpse into the literary sources and true hard-drink inspiration of Russell's lyrics and philosophy. Not for honkies or sissies. This is the real stuff. Don't expect anything like Russell has ever done before. I have to rank this higher than 5 stars. An important album that will lose him as many fans as Tim Buckley lost with Starsailor. But the musical settings are beautiful. Right up there in Dylan territory. Take this advice from a beatnik, you Rollos, and face the music, whoever gave this one star. You lost what was said. It could still change you life if you just listen with fresh ears, not expectations. Lenny Bruce, Charles Bukowski, Edward Abbey, Harry Partch, Dave Van Ronk,and much and many more. And real memorories of an LA adolescence in a vanished culture. ****** STARS. Just beautiful. I almost wept. Hell, I admit this provoked a tear.

Grammy? Fuhgettabowdit---we're talking Pulitzer here. Tom Russell has expanded his vistas and dusty western highways and byways into deeper, broader and far more meaningful ways than he previously had accomplished--and we're talking about one of our most gifted and thoughtful artists. An evolution from and sequel to Russell's previous concept album, THE MAN FROM GOD KNOWS WHERE, and its birth seeds evident in his moving Charles Bukowski elegy entitled CRUCIFIX IN A DEATH HAND from MODERN ART, Russell does a panoramic overview, uniquely his own, over the last half of the last century and the "true" nature of American art and experience. Like Woody Guthrie's panoramic vistas of redwood forests to New York Island, Russell does his own artistic/sociological/philosophical review from Dave Van Ronk through Merle Haggard to Bukowski alcohol-fueled Los Angeles nightscape. The players--Guthrie, Van Ronk, Abbey, Kerouac, Lenny Bruce--all gone now but leaving Russell to be the Boswell of their music and poetry that reflects all that we are and all that we could be as a culture and civilization. Bravo, Thomas George Russell!

Not so much an album of songs, not even a concept album, even though "Woodrow" is a beautiful song (though I'm a sucker for all things Guthrie- the man should be sainted, as far as I'm concerned). A straight verbal history from the inside of beat America, from one that lived it, with the voices of others that lived it. It's not background, as others have said. "Listen to this god damn thing, you people! God damn it, listen!" It's a reminder of what so many of us see as the truest representation of American ideals: Edward Abbey and the pope of Greenwich Village, the rejection of the artistic stagnation that is prevelant in every society, and how it ties into the poetry inherent of circus folk and outlaw country. It's an example of the truest patriotism existant in this Fox News, moral values country of ours. Thomas George Russell sees the beauty of America for what was, not what should have been. God bless the man.

Tom Russell does his best to show those who don't believe that there is any "there" there where to look. Los Angeles is one complicated city - a series of suburbs where every einwohner opeates out of a different commercial center. It and Paris are the most likely models for life in the world of the Web (Paris being the more organized).

These days, it is the responsiblity of the art historian to cross over into the roll of a carnival barker if the message is to get out. This is apparently Tom Russell's effort to share his personal coming of age through real life idols -- and what idols.

Given the other reviews, you know this is important work. You'll either love it or not get it. To me, this is a precurser to cubism in folk music. Russell completes the recording with a lovely version of "America the Beautiful." Many, I am sure, will not find Russell's observation of that beauty worth celebrating. But for me, thanks for sharing, Tom.

"Hotwalker" is not a CD that one puts on for background music at the office. In fact, because it includes some rather salty language, you may not want to play it around your kids.

But you'll want to play it. Again. And again. Preferably with a pair of headphones, a cushy couch and a glass of Cabernet. And not the cheap stuff, either. This CD begs for an exquisite Napa Valley Cab, even if its characters prefer rock gut.

"Hotwalker" requires listening... active listening... and the attentive listener will be rewarded with an amazing amalgam of genre-busting music, period musings and in-your-face poetry.

It's a CD you'll want to share with friends because, quite simply, there isn't anything else like it. The Beatles had "Sgt. Pepper." The Who had "Quadrophenia" (with apologies to fans of "Tommy"). And now Tom Russell has "Hotwalker."

Listen to it, and prepare to be taken to another time that, for many of us, wasn't all that long ago.

-- Bob Johnson

My best friend introduced me to this extraordinary CD about two years ago while driving up California Highway 101 at 4 in the morning. And for a solid hour I was captivated and enraptured by the story-telling of Tom Russell and Little Jack Horton. Backed by some amazing music, we hear the story of "old, outside America," when the likes of Bukowski, Guthrie, and Kerouc dominated the iconoclastic, "Beat" scene. This is a CD to own if you have even an ounce of appreciation for the aforementioned artists, not to mention the sonorous voice of Tom Russell. I must be honest; I faithfully listen to this CD at least once a month while driving to work early in the morning. It is so enjoyable to hear that it has become a regular part of my life. It's that good.

It's "Carny" time folks. Tom Russell explores another music style blending story telling, talking blues and biographies in this album. "Van Ronk" tells the behind the scenes story of hanging out with Dave Van Ronk, talking music, political and drinking white wine. The West Coast and the beat generation is introduced as well as the hard times in Bakersfield on "Grapevine" The stories are spell-binding. It's an album that you need to sit down and listen to...there's just so much that if you drive and listen you'll miss out.

tom russel has outdone himself,planting a flag on a high peak.hotwalker, his latest exploration of americana resonates with joy sorrow and longing for the gone world of beat america.for those of us of a certain age and attitude he evokes and celebates our icons and heroes;bukowski,kerouac,guthrie and ed abbey and recreates them for a young audience in need of old wisdom.buy this unique and beautiful disc