PBNSOTW

Shades of Robin Trower. Marcus King has a slightly different take on the wailing guitar thing—he looks for lines rather than licks. Does that make sense? It’s Too Late is fun with crazy complex time changes on the intro and outro and an unexpected chord structure.

Right Side of History is a terrific recording that builds nicely. It sits squarely in the Woody Guthrie/Pete Seeger line of descent, but is a much happier, more joyous tune than you might expect. And it has a flugelhorn solo. I’m not that familiar with Eric Hutchinson, but this is really good.

Kingmaker is the closest you’ll come to the theme song of a generic Quentin Tarantino western this week. It’s a good lyric: “It’s my blazing light/That made your shadow tall.” Tami Neilson uses the Patsy Cline flavor in her voice to great effect—I’m not a fan of the saturation and distortion they introduce when she really goes for it, but the whole effect is quite evocative.

Do yourself a favor and listen to Racing To A Red Light. It’s truly unique music in a world of imitators. “Postponed or cancelled/Real or rerun/These notions dismantled/A guttural Gatling gun.” Amazingly enough it’s a double bass on the track and not a Fender. Early James’ voice sounds like honey dripping over a lit acetylene torch.