New Music: Kathleen Edwards, John Fusco and the X-Road Riders, Mary Chapin Carpenter

The challenges of 2020 have created a perfect climate for talented singer-songwriters to create great music. Look no further than a trio of superlative summertime releases available now...

Artist: Kathleen Edwards
Title: Total Freedom (Dualtone)
You might like if you enjoy: Jenny Lewis, Aimee Mann, Suzanne Vega
Tell me more: A masterwork of palpable power and artful perfection, Kathleen Edwards' eagerly-awaited return Total Freedom is the Canadian songstress' first new album since 2012's Voyageur. Back from her much-publicized six-year hiatus from the music industry (she opened and has been running a successful coffee shop and cafe called Quitters in her hometown of Stittsville, Ottawa), Edwards reflects on the people, places, dreams and challenges of a life renewed in a way that evokes the emotional might of fellow Canadian greats Neil Young and Bruce Cockburn but with a woman's voice. Like those artists' best work, Edwards' songs provide a potent and electrifying experience for discerning listeners. Emotional hurt is at the core of the weighty "Hard On Everyone," the track bolstered by layers of distant backing vocals, a driving rhythm and otherworldly guitar textures. Her renewed approach to creating music and charting her own path is displayed on the tender "Birds on a Feeder," an absorbing acoustic gem where amidst the arrival of spring she mines the album's title during the choruses when she proclaims "I've got total freedom" in recognition of her self-won independence. "Options Open" also tackles her newfound strength and sense of purpose, but from the perspective of turning 39 and knowing 40 looms. The aching "Feelings Fade," sparse "Ashes to Ashes," and swirling "Fools Ride" are emotional master strokes, her beautiful soprano working its magic amidst wondrous arrangements and Grammy Award-winning producer Ian Fitchuk's knockout touch in the studio. The touching "Who Rescued Who" and heart-rending ballad "Take It With You When You Go" close out the outstanding disc. Edwards' sound is a blend of Americana, pop and folk blended into a signature style that is displayed majestically across Total Freedom. Information: KathleenEdwards.com.

Artist: John Fusco and the X-Road Riders
Title: John the Revelator (Checkerboard Lounge Recordings)
You might like if you enjoy: Cody Dickinson, Ben Harper, Otis Taylor
Tell me more: The two-disc album John the Revelator is a wonderful immersion into the authentic blues-draped universe crafted by Vermont artist John Fusco and his terrific band the X-Road Riders. Lovers of traditional blues will want get a listen to the 20 tracks on the Cody Dickinson-produced collection which thrives on great songs and outstanding musicianship along with a heavy dose of mystery that adds to the magic of the set (just listen to the potent title track). A celebration of the enduring genre explodes via the glorious Chicago blues-styled "Bone Deep," a track bolstered by Magic Mark Lavoie's blues harp playing. While blues is definitely the defining impression across the album, there are plenty of rich shades explored across John the Revelator. Indeed, the funky horns-rich "It Takes a Man," the New Orleans R&B offering "Ophelia (Oh, I Feel Ya)" and tender ballad "Applejack Brandy" are welcome inclusions on disc one; the wistful "Song for Peter," dramatic "Language of Angels," lovely "Moonstone Lady," alt country rocker "Motel Laws of Arizona" and rousing "The Sun Also Rises" are among the nuggets that grace disc two. Among the illustrious artists who contribute to the power of the ambitious John the Revelator are the aforementioned Dickinson (the North Mississippi Allstars great plays drums, bass, guitars, electric washboard and more on the album), guitar master Samantha Fish, vocalist Risse Norman, Sarah Morrow (former trombonist for the late Ray Charles and a bandleader for Dr. John), along with many other notables. Information: www.facebook.com/XRoadRiders/.

Artist: Mary Chapin Carpenter
Title: The Dirt And The Stars (Lambent Light Records)
You might like if you enjoy: Mary Chapin Carpenter, Rosanne Cash
Tell me more: There is a warmth and reassurance about listening to acclaimed singer-songwriter Mary Chapin Carpenter's rewarding return The Dirt And The Stars. The 11-song disc is the five-time Grammy winner's 16th studio album and another crucial addition to her celebrated discography. Written before the pandemic gripped the U.S earlier this year, the album's songs resonate as the New Jersey native brings listeners into the intimacies of her life with some songs, and a greater understanding of the world and our place in it elsewhere. "Farther Along and Further In" is the sumptuous opener, her superb soprano voice delivering revealing literate insights about her heart and spirit as the musical soundscape slowly arcs from a single acoustic guitar to an exquisite mix of piano, and full Americana band dynamics. The title of "It's Okay To Be Sad" says plenty, but the song's melancholy is offset by a joyful drive and bright melodic chorus. The nuanced and sparse "Where The Beauty Is" and "Asking for a Friend," wry rocker "American Stooge," buoyant "Secret Keepers" and sweeping title track are among the standouts on the disc. Every song on the album rings true and Carpenter's powerful delivery adds additional eloquence with each note. Information: MaryChapinCarpenter.com.


Robert Kinsler

Media release: Screenwriter/bluesman John Fusco convenes all-star band for new double album

The latest media release to land in my inbox... 

Screenwriter/bluesman John Fusco convenes all-star band for new double album 'John the Revelatory,' due July 31, 2020; American Blues Scene premieres a new track: https://www.americanbluesscene.com/world-premiere-track-john-fusco-the-x-road-riders-bone-deep/

Album cover for ‘John the Revelator’ artwork by Bobby Whitlock.

Vermont bluesman John Fusco and his band the X-Road Riders will follow up their acclaimed 2019 self-titled debut with the 20-song double album John the Revelator, due out July 31, 2020 on Checkerboard Lounge Recordings.

 

More than three decades after a teenaged Fusco ran away from his New England home to Louisiana and the Mississippi Delta — returning with a semi-autobiographical screenplay called Crossroads (and an unlikely discovery as a Hollywood screenwriter) — the writer-musician returned to his old Southern stomping grounds. He was back in the Delta to film his Netflix hit The Highwaymen, but a series of impromptu jam sessions with Cody Dickinson, whose father Jim had been a music advisor on Crossroads, turned into an album of Fusco’s original blues.

 

John Fusco & the X-Road Riders, which American Blues Scene hailed as “a tough-as-nails mix of electric blues, country, gospel, and swamp boogie music” opened up the flood gates of Fusco’s musical creativity. The next time he returned to North Mississippi to jam with Dickinson, he had “a satchel of 20 new songs.”

 

For John the Revelator, Fusco has assembled a cast of modern blues stars: Dickinson (the North Mississippi Allstars), who produced Fusco’s first, appears behind the board again and also contributes background vocals, drums, bass, guitars, dobro, piano, and electric washboard. Vocalist Risse Norman, who has toured and recorded with the North Mississippi Allstars and Samantha Fish, also returns. They are joined by new Fusco collaborator Sarah Morrow, former trombonist for Ray Charles and bandleader for Dr. John.

 

The big-name collaborations also extend to the album’s cover, which features artwork by Bobby Whitlock, best known as a keyboard player for Sam & Dave, Delaney & Bonnie, and Derek & the Dominoes, among others. Fusco also brings back his “northern chapter” of the X-Road Riders from his Vermont home.

 

John the Revelator was recorded at Dickinson’s tiny Checkerboard Lounge home studio outside of Memphis in Southaven, Mississippi, and at the more spacious Meadowlark Studio in Burlington, Vermont, with George Walker Petit (Boz Skaggs, Michael McDonald) producing and adding guitar and bass.

 

The contrast in creative circumstances spills over onto the record itself, which alternates between the raw, gutbucket feel Fusco explored on his first, Dickinson-produced album and the more ruminative, writer-centered approach of his new material.

 

“The first album was a loose, high-octane jam sesh, and Cody hit the record button. This next one digs into some deeper emotional clay as with ‘Language of Angels,’ ‘Applejack Brandy,’ and ‘Ophelia,’” says Fusco of the more subdued, gospel-laced material he cut at Meadowlark on the studio’s grand piano. “Braiding the more emotional ballads in with the raw blues rockers and traditional blues stuff, it makes the album a little more unexpected and mercurial.”

 

Over the decades Fusco let too many songs slip through his fingers, not having had the time to work on them (he has written more than 15 major movies and TV shows since Crossroads). Now he started to set them down, plumbing a lifetime of experiences and memories for a collection as sweeping in scope and heartfelt in detail as any of his screenplays or novels.

 

All the dichotomies at play — between Dickinson and Petit (a noted jazz guitarist and producer), Mississippi and Vermont, Checkerboard and Meadowlark, downhome blues and introspective songwriting — created a dizzyingly eclectic record. Bawdy rockers like “Bone Deep” rub up against tender love songs like “Applejack Brandy.” The gritty stripped-down sound of “Baker Man”, gives way to equally evocative mood pieces such as the title track, a cover of a blues standard made famous by Son House. The Randy Newman-esque satirical jab of “Snake Oil Man” stands in stark contrast to the achingly heartfelt “Language of Angels.”

 

Binding it all together is Fusco’s voice. Not just his distinctive Hammond B3 and piano or his gritty vocals, but his way with words and especially deep drawn, cinematic characters — the too familiar huckster in “Snake Oil Man,” the doomed lovers of “Hottest Part of the Flame” with Morrow’s trombone evoking the femme fatale, and the down-and-out drifters of “Motel Laws of Arizona.”

 

The record was so diverse Fusco and his team originally considered breaking it up into two albums or perhaps a series of EPs. It was Dickinson, exhibiting shades of his late father’s “throw it up on the wall” ethos, who said otherwise.

 

“He said, ‘Man, just pull the trigger. Release them all. This is all part of this one flow that represents your music at this time,’” Fusco recalls. “Early on in my writing career, the industry tried to pigeonhole me as the Western Americana guy. I learned, over time, to never let a story get trapped in a genre box as long as the DNA is rooted in your true voice. That’s how I feel about my music. It all comes out of blues and gospel, but some of the stories and themes find a style that even takes me by surprise; they find a music engine that crosses the borders and breaks out of any box. The story finds the right music to carry it. For me, story is always the compass.”