Random Review – Memphis Flyer

Sturgill Simpson

Shooter Jennings has admitted that Sturgill Simpson is the only country singer who comes close to singing anything like Waylon. On the April 15 release, A Sailor’s Guide to Earth, there is something for country music fans, however, when they sit down for a listen, they will have their boundaries tested as Simpson takes listeners on a tightly orchestrated tour of American music from Motown to grunge and even jazz.

Backed by the Dap-Kings as his horn section, jam music fans may find that the cover of “In Bloom,” or his original, “Keep It Between the Lines,” conjures memories of brass performers such as Galactic or Moon Hootch.

The album starts out with a creeping pulse and ocean sounds, as he begins the soliloquy to his first born son. The effect is a soundscape similar to “The Thin Ice,” which was the second introductory track for Pink Floyd’s The Wall. By the end of the song, energy is high with the horn section in full force playing Motown style.

In “Breaker’s Roar,” session guitarist Dan Dugmore’s steel guitar gives the song a dream-like quality. This track is probably already being vetted for David Lynch’s next film. Sturgill channels Elvis in the 1950’s sound of “Keep It Between the Lines,” Jimmy Buffett in “Sea Stories,” and Z. Z. Top in “Brace for Impact (Have a Little Fun).” To say this is a straight country album like his 2013 debut, High Top Mountain, is laughably dismissive. He continues with the spirit sense of Metamodern Sounds in Country Music, most notably in “All Around You,” which seems to be a slightly more up-tempo continuation of his concept from “Just Let Go” on his 2014 release.

The closing track, “Call to Arms,” starts off with bagpipes evoking the Scottish revolutionary theme of Braveheart. In his most politically charged track to date, he calls out both the political establishment and the rabid media before the album’s abrupt finish.

Musically, the new Sturgill album covers a lot of ground, and I think there is plenty for the outlaw country fans. There is plenty more for the musical omnivores who like to see any genre pushed to the bounds of its limitations. If you want to hear Sturgill Simpson get funky, you should check out A Sailor’s Guide to Earth.

Random Review: A Sailor’s Guide to Earth

Random Review: The Supreme Jubilees

“If God had a disco, the DJ would be playing California gospel-soul group The Supreme Jubilees.” Thus begins the description for The Supreme Jubilees album It’ll All Be Over recently reissued on Light in the Attic, an album lost for neatly three decades before a collector found a copy in Texas and tracked the band down. Even though the talent is obviously there, the Supreme Jubilees are about as obscure as they come. The group was a California church band made up of two families, and It’ll All Be Over is their only record. Collectors stumbling across lost gems like this one is what has made Light in the Attic into the label that it is today, with rediscovered albums ranging from gospel to hard rock getting the deluxe reissue treatment.

Light in the Attic tells us more:

Released in 1980 on the group’s own S&K (Sanders & Kingsby) label, It’ll All Be Over pinpoints a fatalistic mood exemplified by the title. Its lyrics drawn from the Old Testament, its sound from the church by way of the disco, and it’s a feel captured by the album cover–a low, orange sun setting over the Pacific ocean. It is, as Jessica Hundley observes in the brand new liner notes, “both apocalyptic and seductive.”

Making the album was not easy. Sessions began in Trac Record Co, a country and western studio in Fresno, CA, where the engineer was so put out by the group’s requests for heavier bass in the mix, he stopped the session and kicked them out. They left with four songs–one side of the album–and the record was completed at Sierra Recording Studio in Visalia, CA. Leonard Sanders reported having a spiritual encounter in his sleep while in Visalia; the next day he recorded his part of the album’s title track in a single take.

After the LP was pressed, the group took their music on tour, first in California, where they played with acts including the Gospel Keynotes, The Jackson Southernaires, and the Mighty Clouds of Joy., and then an ill-fated trip to Texas. A follow-up album was planned for 1981, but it never materialized; having slept sometimes a dozen to a room in Texas, the men in the band were reluctant to leave jobs, wives, and kids for the hardship of the road. The group simply fizzled out, even if the friendships never did.