I don’t feel like I can take credit for this post. I was only notified about the new Charlie Parr record 4 hrs ago by Nine Bullets (in a tweet no less). So all accolades about what a great song this is, and how you can’t believe you’ve never heard of him, had your head under a rock, etc. etc. please direct to Nine Bullets.

Obv. I’m a big Charlie Parr fan and for the last few years I thought it was just me and the rest of upper Minnesota who were his fans. But starting in Sept/Oct Charlie is touring the UK and Australia with Frank Fairfield so I think word is going to get out about him. The new album was just released, it’s called When The Devil Goes Blind. Get it from Charlie here. I’m not going to go into great detail about Charlie’s sound – it is what is – great acoustic blues. “I Dreamed I Saw Jesse James Last Night” is recession-escaping-blues if I’ve heard it. The song is about a guy trying to flee his life, wife, and kids. Any and all Charlie Parr records are highly recommended, this one is no different.

I Dreamed I Saw Jesse James Last Night

Alright just a quickie post about an Austin singer-songwriter named Lincoln Durham. Lincoln’s got a hard-edged country blues sound going on. He just released an EP in advance of his debut record. This song, “Living Hard” will be on the new record and is produced by friend/fan Ray Wylie Hubbard. In fact Ray said it best when he said:

“If you dig Son House and Townes Van Zandt…Lincoln Durham is your man. Don’t come no cooler.”

The EP is available here.

Living This Hard

“Mud Puddles”

I’m a big Pokey LaFarge fan. I declared his last record one of the best of the year, I hosted a house concert for him in Chicago and I have sung his praises as much as possible. He’d kind of be a lovable loser character if it weren’t for the fact that he tours relentlessly (and successfully). His songs often poke fun at himself and the situations he finds himself in. There’s a fair amount of lovers’ angst and just downright bluesy songs. But Pokey’s presentation, both lyrically and musically, usually finds at least a shred of humor and life in even the most difficult situations.

Pokey’s new record is with a group called the South City Three and is titled Riverboat Soul. You’ll be missing out on some of the best mix of roots, bluegrass, folk and old timey music from this (or any) side of the Mississippi if you pass on this one. Buy it here from Amazon or here for a little cheaper from Free Dirt Records.

La La Blues

{Editor’s note: Forgive me for not being on my “A Game”. Usually I’m months ahead of the release schedule, but here’s one from way back in June that I wanted to write about but never did. Hope you enjoy it.)

Kieran Kane releases records that are vaguely americana in nature. He has a tendency to skew a little into the eurotrash swampy blues-folk reverb drenched sound of say Chuck Prophet and/or Jim White. It’s the sound of the thick black sentiment layered on the river bottom meeting the clear water of the river. It’s a sound I quite like.

His new record Somewhere Beyond the Roses came out on July 28 on Compass Records. Buy it here.

Why Can’t You

The last post I did about Charlie Parr started like this:

Shit…no one told me someone re-released Charlie Parr’s 2002 record entitled 1922 last year. Isn’t that why we have all these mp3 blogs? Come on guys, I can’t do it all by myself.

The new post I’m writing about Charlie Parr starts like this:

Shit…no one told me there’s a new (ish) Charlie Parr record out called Roustabout. Seriously why the hell do we have thousands of mp3 blogs and not one post about a new Charlie Parr record. It’s not like the guy isn’t cooler and more outback than Bon Iver. It’s not like he’s not hairier than Band Of Horses. And for God’s sake he’s better looking than Devandra and Bonnie Prince Billy.

The new post about the new (ish) Charlie Parr record that you’ve never heard about because bloggers are worthless PR hoes ends like this: buy the goddamn record and quit being such a little bitch.

(Comments are turned off from now on – I got too annoyed with the amount of spam slipping through – email cbonnell@gmail.com or follow me at twitter.com/songsillinois)

Don’t Send Your Child To War
God Moves On The Water

It’s been a couple of hours since I received an email announcing Tom
Brosseau’s new record Posthumous Success (on Fat Cat) and a link to a song off of it. I held back on posting it despite Tom being one of my favorite singer-songwriters because I figured it’d be all over the blogs by now, but still no sight of it.

There’s talk that this new record will be darker, different, fuller, richer but it sounds to me like classic Tom Brousseau. Crystal clear picked and strummed acoustic guitar accompanied by upper register vocals that make his simple blues songs seem almost otherworldly. “Favorite Color Blue” is so quiet in fact that you can hear the cars streaming by in the instrumental introduction. “Big Time” on the other hand features the bigger, bolder sound that the press release describes but it’s in the seconds before the drums kick in that the song has emotional weight. The drums are merely a distraction from Tom’s voice, guitar, and lyrics.

Tom’s got three shows so far during SXSW. Here are the dates. I’ll be at at least one of them (don’t want to appear to be a stalker!).

20 Mar Creekside 3pm SXSW
20 Mar Hilton Garden 9pm SXSW
21 Mar Longbranch Inn 215pm SXSW

Favorite Color Blue

Bonus track from Posthumous Success:

Big Time

I had a post all lined up for this morning, but then found this new song from the forthcoming Anti- Records release of A Stranger Here by Ramblin Jack Elliott. Here’s a contemporary of Bob Dylan’s who took a different path. Instead of co-opting his music for the marketplace Ramblin’ Jack Elliott remained true to his rural folk blues roots.

On his new record produced by Joe Henry the sound is altered slightly with weird atmospherics and creepy percussion added to the mix. Joe Henry always brings his own lush sound to a recording project and the same is true on A Stranger Here. I’m not sure what Anti- hopes to achieve commercially with their current roster of Betty LaVette, William Elliott Whitmore, and Mavis Staples but I like the direction they’re going in.

Soul Of A Man