Customer Reviews

Roots

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

 

 

Heard Laurie and Cary do most of this one live at the Hi-tone in Memphis in mid=March. Bought it on the spot after one of the best shows I've seen in years (second only to Alvin Youngblood Hart two weeks before BM's set). Cary played like a man possessed. Laurie's vocals were superb. (This was the third time I've seen them live -- and no question, the best.) Something about the Hi-tone and Mempho makes musicians shine. Anyway, this is a great CD and has replaced Homegrown as my favorite Blue Mountain effort.

Blue Mountain's take on American folk music is informed, passionate, and engaging. As any number of mediocre recordings have documented, folk music is a whole lot harder than it looks. To do it justice, to make it real, you have to get inside it and speak from its heart. Roots is music from the heart, and it never misses a beat. I'd heard every song but one (Bill Carlisle's "That Nasty Swing") in its traditional form, and the formidable competition notwithstanding, Blue Mountain has made each its own. It even manages to transform the old parlor ballad "I'm Thinking Tonight of My Blue Eyes" (whose melody graces a number of subsequent country songs, most famously Hank Thompson's "The Wild Side of Life") into a rock-and-roll song, something I would not have imagined possible. The past year has seen two other memorable fusions of American folk and rock, by the Tarheel Ramblers and Dave Alvin. This CD holds its own in that esteemed company.

Most Blue Mountain fans favorite BM cd is Dog Days. However mine was Homegrown- until now. Roots is a finely chosen, well played collection of songs that are primarily now in the public domain. Much like Dave Alvin's latest BM puts a contemporary spin on these tunes. Black is the Color of My True Love's Hair has some nice electric guitar on it. That Nasty Swing is a swinging blues number. There are celtic influences in several of the songs also. I have heard Alvin's latest and in my opinion this totally outshines it and it now is my favorite BM cd.

Blue Mountain doesn't blow you away with technical prowess, but the band's passion and commitment bring these songs to new life, much in the same way that Fairport Convention and Steeleye Span re-invigorated British traditional folk a generation ago. "Roots" doesn't scale the peaks of the best of those bands, but it comes close. I'll return to this one often when I want to hear music that gets right to the point.

The only thing missing in Blue Mountain's electric rendition of traditional folk songs is the giddy delerium one hears in the vocals of old folk records. There's something unsettling about a folk artist yodeling away as if from some other world. The lyrics here beg for such wierdness as whiskey and dead wives are spilled and chilled. This is very competant music bringing to life historic American music through anonymous vocals that may remain restrained out of reverence.