Archive Review: The Nighthawks’ 444 (2013)

Veteran roots ‘n’ blues legends the Nighthawks follow up their 2012 release Damn Good Time with another strong entry in a catalog that’s been 40 years in the making and littered with dozens of great albums. As shown by opening track “Walk That Walk,” the recipe the band used in baking up 444 doesn’t vary much from previous albums – a dash of rockabilly, a teaspoon of twang, and ounces and ounces of pure blues flavoring. The song swings lively, with plenty o’ founding frontman Mark Wenner’s playful harp notes, a dancing groove courtesy of rhythm section Johnny Castle (bass) and Mark Stutso (drums) and scraps of Paul Bell’s electric fretwork.

There’s more to like on 444 than the infectious opening track, though. “Livin’ the Blues,” for instance, displays a brash Chicago style, the arrangement held down by a bold walking rhythm and Wenner’s icy, Little Walter influenced harpwork. The ostensible title track, “444 A.M.,” offers up a cool cats 1950s greaser vibe with Bell’s James Burton-styled chicken-pickin’ and Wenner’s sizzling harp. “Honky Tonk Queen” is the sort of engaging twangfest one used to hear in Nashville’s Printer’s Alley back in the 1960s while “Nothin’ But the Blues” is a smoldering juke-joint romp with Wenner’s gritty vocals, blasts of mournful harp, and subtle guitarplay. 

The band goes deep into the Delta with its cover of Muddy Waters’ “Louisiana Blues,” Wenner growling out the vocals above a lusty harp line, the band’s low-key accompaniment covering the song like kudzu. Like much of the Nighthawks’ underrated back catalog, 444 is authentic American music writ large, delivered the real goods with plenty of heart and soul. Grade: B+ (EllerSoul Records, released June 17th, 2014)

Archive Review: Pendragon’s The History: 1984-2000 (2006)

For over twenty years, British neo-prog stalwarts Pendragon have bucked commercial trends in favor of exploring the classically-minded, folk-influenced style originally forged by bands like Genesis, Strawbs, and Renaissance. Unlike contemporaries Marillion, Pendragon has never achieved a great amount of chart success in the U.K. but rather are revered by loyal audiences in countries like France and Poland. 

Neither band ever made much of a splash with American prog-rock aficionados, but in Pendragon’s defense, there hasn’t been a lot of their music made available to audiences on this side of the pond. Originally released exclusively in Poland and enjoying a brief U.S. release back in 2001, The History: 1984-2000 has been compiled from a half-dozen Pendragon albums and should whet the appetite of stateside proggers to seek out the band’s other excellent work as import discs.

Pendragon’s The History: 1984-2000

The History: 1984-2000 is a fine showcase of Pendragon’s chosen milieu. Although guitarist/frontman Nick Barrett and keyboard wizard Clive Nolan, along with bassist Peter Gee and drummer Fudge Smith, are all superb musicians, it is the band’s enormous musical chemistry that drives these songs. Although some jaded U.S. prog fans may find Pendragon’s unique sound to be less aggressive than they like, with less emphasis on technical virtuosity and more importance placed on the song, these four gifted artists are incredible musicians nonetheless. 

Pendragon reminds me a lot of early ‘70s Pink Floyd, with each song’s lyrics, structure and underlying soundtrack considered above mere instrumental interplay. As such, mesmerizing tunes like “Total Recall” or the eerie medieval “The Black Knight” represent a finely crafted combination of intelligent, imaginative lyrics and unpredictable musical composition.

Pendragon’s The History: 1984-2000 includes two haunting acoustic performances of songs from early albums, “The King of the Castle” and “Paintbox,” that were recorded exclusively for this volume. Stripped of electricity, the songs are redefined as soaring folk ballads with a pastoral edge. The album also includes an ultra-cool performance video of “The Last Waltz” culled from the band’s 1997 album and DVD Live At Last! that you can watch on the old computer. The History: 1984-2000 is an excellent introduction to the many charms of Pendragon, and hopefully the band will receive its overdue welcome from American audiences so that we can see more of their work reissued stateside. (Metal Mind/MVD Audio, released 2006) 

Archive Review: Well-Matched – The Best of Merl Saunders & Jerry Garcia (2006)

Lost amidst the mythos that continues to build around the Grateful Dead is a simple, undeniable fact – Jerry Garcia was a hell of a guitarist. Prone towards leading the Dead into extended onstage instrumental free-for-alls that would often redefine the sound of the song being played, Garcia is best remembered as the grandfather of the mid-‘90s “jam band” movement. However, Garcia was also a curious and intelligent guitarist, with an insatiable thirst for knowledge and the ability to assimilate and master any musical style thrown his way, from rock and blues to bluegrass and jazz.

Well-Matched – The Best of Merl Saunders & Jerry Garcia

Nowhere are Garcia’s talents as a musician and his drive to play on greater display than with Well-Matched - The Best of Merl Saunders & Jerry Garcia. When not on the road with his day job – pushing the Grateful Dead towards rock mythology with constant touring and live performances so damn enchanting that fans still talk about them today – for several years, Garcia would climb onstage with a smoking club band led by jazz pianist Merl Saunders. Saunders was a veteran of the West Coast jazz and blues circuit, playing with cats like Lionel Hampton, Miles Davis and Taj Mahal. Now you would think that after playing for months at a time on the road with the Dead that Jerry would want to kick back at home and forget the guitar for a while. But Garcia seemed to cherish working in a live environment with challenging musicians, and thus a friendship was forged with the equally talented Saunders.

Well-Matched draws its performances from the lone live album the unnamed Saunders/Garcia band released along with a number of Saunders’ studio albums where he and Garcia and a hand-picked coterie of musicians would recreate the chemistry of those live jams. Constant throughout these sessions were little-known but talented bassist John Kahn and drummer Bill Vitt, along with folks like David Grisman, Vassar Clements, Tom Fogerty, and even the Tower of Power horns. Make no mistake, though, ‘cause this is definitely the Merl and Jerry show, the two powerful musicians riffing off one another, creating an exciting fusion of jazz, blues, rock, and R&B that is breath-taking in its ambition and amazing in its execution.

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

Saunders, Garcia and pals were playing for the fun of it, and it shows in the loose, energetic performances provided tunes like the Doc Pomus chestnut “Lonely Avenue” or on their imaginative reading of Dylan’s “Positively 4th Street.” The Saunders’ original, “Merl’s Tune,” is an impressive instrumental work-out that showcases the player’s abilities while the Motown classic “I Second That Emotion” enjoys a loping groove and Garcia’s lofty vocals. A fine rendition of J.J. Cale’s “After Midnight” with guitarist Tom Fogerty of CCR is matched by an inspired, soulful cover of Jimmy Cliff’s reggae classic “The Harder They Come.” Well-Matched - The Best of Merl Saunders & Jerry Garcia shows the skills of both of these wonderful musicians in a different light, and should be a “must have” disc for any Grateful Dead fan, if only so they can fully appreciate Jerry Garcia’s range and incredible diversity. (Fantasy Records, released May 23rd, 2006)

Archive Review: Dave Cousins’ The Boy In The Sailor Suit (2007)

It’s been 35 years since Dave Cousins, singer and primary songwriter for British folk-rock legends the Strawbs, recorded a solo album. It’s not that he lacked anything to say – his band has released a dozen albums during that time. No, The Boy In the Sailor Suit is the father Cousins never knew, smiling down at him from a photograph, the album itself a reflection on the past and the fleeting nature of relationships. 

“The Smile You Left Behind” is a memoir of his parent’s courtship, a gentle musical background framing Cousins’ creaky vocals. “Skip To My Lou,” based on the familiar childhood song, is a tale of love lost, haunted by Ian Cutler’s enchanted fiddling and guitarist Miller Anderson’s imaginative leads. Cousins’ intricate wordplay is on display throughout, the album offering a balance of acoustic folk and electric rock, an appropriate soundtrack for this lyrical celebration of life and love. (Witchwood Records UK, released 2007)

Review originally published by Harp magazine...

Archive Review: Billy Joe Shaver’s Greatest Hits (2007)

Many of country music’s greatest talents have considered him their favorite tunesmith, and his songs have been recorded by everybody from Bobby Bare and Kris Kristofferson to Elvis Presley. Chance are that you’re probably familiar with Billy Joe Shaver’s songs, even if you have no idea of who the man is himself. Suffice it to say that what makes Shaver a great songwriter is that, for good or for bad, he puts a large part of himself into each of his autobiographical songs. As such, listening to Billy Joe Shaver’s Greatest Hits is like opening a book and looking at a cracked and faded old portrait of the artist.

Shaver is a Texas storyteller in the vein of Guy Clark or Townes Van Zandt. He’s grizzled and gruff, humbled by too many miles and sobered by too much alcohol, and he pours his life into every song. Greatest Hits includes some of Shaver’s best known material, like “Georgia On A Fast Train” and “Old Chunk of Coal,” as well as some of his best songs in “Old Five and Dimers” and “I Couldn’t Be Me Without You.” 

The album also offers up two previously-unreleased songs, but it’s the recent remake of the high-flying “Live Forever,” recorded with Big & Rich, that best showcases Shaver’s warm voice above his songwriting skills. Billy Joe Shaver’s Greatest Hits offers up old-school honky-tonk country with a bit of Lone Star spirit for both new and old listeners alike. (Compadre Records, released April 3rd, 2007)

Review originally published by Country Standard Time...

Archive Review: Billy Joe Shaver’s Everybody’s Brother (2007)

There’s often a fine line between sin and salvation and, like most outlaws, Billy Joe Shaver has one foot in the honky-tonk and one in the church pew. Shaver has long expressed the desire to record a “gospel” album and it’s fitting…the same weathered voice that speaks convincingly of barrooms and broken hearts is also perfectly suited for singing the praises of Jesus. And it’s not like religion is a little-traveled path for Shaver; he has typically included a spiritual song on each album through the years.

With Everybody’s Brother, however, Shaver focuses more on salvation, bringing friends like Kris Kristofferson, John Anderson, Marty Stuart, Bill Miller, and Tanya Tucker along for the joyous ride. Listeners expecting a collection of staid church hymns will be disappointed; although Everybody’s Brother has its loftier moments, much of the material approaches God from the sinner’s side of the fence, and songs like the rollicking duet with Stuart, “Winning Again,” wouldn’t feel out of place in a beer-soaked honky-tonk. 

Shaver’s performances, captured by producer John Carter Cash, are heartfelt and passionate while the album’s closer, a late ‘70s duet with Johnny Cash and a 15-year-old Eddy Shaver burning up the guitar, will put a smile on the face of any listener. (Compadre Records, released 2007)

Review originally published by Country Standard Time...

Archive Review: The Drive-By Truckers’ A Blessing and A Curse (2006)

With A Blessing and A Curse, America’s favorite cult band takes a shot at the mainstream with a musically and lyrically expansive effort. Working again with producer David Barbe (Sugar, Son Volt), who further sharpens the band’s sonic edge, tunes such as “Feb. 14” and “Aftermath USA” are replete with Barbe’s trademark soundwork of snaggletooth guitar and dense instrumentation. In terms of pure wordplay, the Truckers eschew the conceptual Southern provincialism of their previous work, pursuing a universal vibe that encompasses classic romanticism and working class blues. The songs are like eleven short stories rather than chapters in a single lengthy novel. 

Old-line fans need not fear, however, ‘cause Patterson Hood, Mike Cooley and Jason Isbell are triple-threat songwriters and songs like “A World of Hurt” prove that there’s more than enough twang and tears here to satisfy even the most diehard listener. With an embarrassing wealth of talent and musical chemistry, the Drive-By Truckers roll out a bigger, broader sound without sacrificing their endearing charm. A Blessing and A Curse is more of a lateral move than a great leap forward, the band satisfying its core audience even while trying to elevate its vision to the next level.  (New West Records, released April 18th, 2006)

Review originally published by Country Standard Time...

CD Review: Warner E. Hodges’ Absolutely (2026)

Warner E. Hodges will forever be known as the flamethrowing guitarist for Jason & the Nashville Scorchers, the rowdiest bunch o’ rockers to make a run out of the Music City. But since the Scorchers called it quits after 2010’s criminally-overlooked Halcyon Times, Hodges has applied his talents to a number of outfits, including veritable Nashville pick-up band the Disciples of Loud, his own Warner E. Hodges Band, the Bluefields, and solo albums he’s released under his own name. At this point in his career, Hodges has released more albums apart from the Scorchers than with that legendary band, but none of them have reached the peaks of Absolutely, the latest entry in the Hodges’ musical canon. 

Warner E. Hodges’ Absolutely

Absolutely was recorded with the crème de la crème of alternative Americana, roots-rock, or whatever you want to call it this week – longtime Hodges’ friends Joe Blanton (Royal Court of China, The Bluefields) and Dan Baird (The Georgia Satellites, The Bluefields), bassist Keith Voegele (The Bottle Rockets), pianist Pete “Wetdawg” Gordon (Mojo Nixon & the Toad Liquors), and drummer Mauro Magellan (The Georgia Satellites, Dan Baird & Homemade Sin). The excellent results speak for themselves. The album’s title track is a swaggering rocker co-written by the street-smart and savvy artistic conglomeration of Baird, Eddie Spaghetti and ‘Metal’ Marty Chandler of the Supersuckers, album producer Blanton and, of course, Mr. Hodges himself. Although I generally frown or dismiss committee-written songs as they, well, as a rule suck, but this is one tasty lil’ sucker that, given the rock ‘n’ roll pedigree of all involved, is guaranteed to raise the roof wherever played. 

Warner E. Hodges

The rock keeps on rolling with the Baird/Blanton/Hodges tune “Get Outta Town,” which features some stellar, razor-sharp Hodges’ fretwork and propulsive rhythms courtesy of Magellan and Voegele. The performance downright threatens to jump out of the grooves to grab you by the throat with just the right amount of musical menace. The rockabilly-tinged “Here Comes My Baby” swings like tire hanging from an oak tree, with Warner’s trembling, Duane Eddy-styled guitar licks juiced up by a jaunty backbeat and walking bass line while “When My Baby’s Blue,” a sort of sequel that amps up the guitar, pumps up the percussion, takes on a lightning bolt of confidence and draws from the energy of the jump blues to deliver a stunning tour de force. Warner’s vocals here really adapt to the song’s needs, which is a sort of metallic cross between hard rock and harder rhythm and blues, with plenty of blazing guitars and cacophonic instrumentation to launch the song into the stratosphere.

The twangin’ ‘n’ bangin’ “Good Company” is hard-edged Americana with just a hint of Scorchers sitting on the fringe, the loping rhythms complimented by a delightfully melodic chorus, harmony vocals hiding in the mix and, naturally, Warner’s incendiary guitarplay, which echoes ‘70s styled Southern rock while incorporating flashes of country stringplay. The album slows down for the first time with the mid-tempo stomp ‘n’ stammer of “North Star,” a bluesy ‘70s-styled hard rocker reminiscent of Texas rocker John Nitzinger, if only for the song’s six-string pyrotechnics, with the fluid solo around four minutes into “North Star” a thing of innate beauty. The serpentine “Carried Away” could have easily slotted into the mid-to-late ‘80s L.A. “hair metal” scene, something that Royal Court of China made a run at, with Warner’s growled, somber vocals thrown up against a semi-metallic soundtrack of dueling, swashbuckling guitars, explosive percussion, and an overall musical chaos grounded and saved from veering towards absurdity by Warner’s occasional twangy vocal lapses. 

Hottest Thing In Town

Warner E. Hodges, guitarslinger

“Individually” brings the band back to Nashville with a country-flavored rocker that choogles along like a cross between Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Scorchers with a touch of booger-rock rhythms, but an effective chorus and Warner stretching out his vocals with a challenging lyrical arrangement. By contrast, the punch-drunk “Happy Wife, Happy Life (Nothin’ Rhymes With Husband),” written by Blanton, but sounding like something Shel Silverstein or John Prine would have penned, is knocked out of the park with Warner’s tongue-in-cheek vocal delivery, which imparts timeless wisdom above rollicking throwback country instrumentation like Gordon’s piano (and accompanying old school honky tonk harmony vocals). At times, Warner’s vocals here sound eerily like his former bandmate Jason Ringenberg, which is to be expected as the two ran the roads together for a couple of decades. 

Warner had a friendly relationship with late outlaw country legend Billy Joe Shaver and his late guitar-slinger son Eddy, so it makes perfect sense to cover “Hottest Thing In Town,” from Shaver’s 1993 album Tramp On Your Street, as a sort of tribute to the pair. Hodges affords the song a raucous, country-rock performance with a red hot guitar solo that surely would make the younger Shaver smile. Magellan’s drums cascade through the speakers like cars piling atop each other in a trainwreck, and the overall dense squalls of instrumentation make for a helluva good time. Absolutely closes out with the slower-paced “Still Got A Ways To Go,” a searing sorta-ballad with emotional vox, bluesy guitars, syncopated percussion, and an overall Allman Brothers/Creedence Clearwater Revival vibe that finishes up the album with a sizzling slow-burner of a performance.

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

Hodges may be best-known for his genre-bending, forward-thinking performances with his former band, but put aside the onstage gymnastics and the larger-than-life persona and consider the man’s imaginative and creative guitarplay and you’ll find an artist that stands quite tall on his own merits. An overlooked instrumentalist, and a dynamic performer, Hodges’ recordings – none of which have been released in the United States (save for the first, self-produced and limited edition Disciples of Loud CD) – have only found an advocate in Mick Brown and his U.K. based Jerkin’ Crocus (JCPL) label, which is likely why Hodges has found an enthusiastic European audience. Wake up U.S. labels – there’s a market for these guitar-driven roots-rock sounds that eschew autotuned vocals or A.I. generated soundtracks. Absolutely is the stone cold real deal, hand delivered by Warner E. Hodges and a gang of creative collaborators that are musically unimpeachable. (JCPL Records U.K., released February 5th, 2026)

Archive Review: Blue Cheer’s What Doesn’t Kill You (2007)

Although they’ve influenced everything from Seattle grunge to modern “stoner rock,” Blue Cheer has always been nothing more than a humble ‘60s-era Frisco hippie band. Hard to tell, really, with the amps turned up past eleven and the band’s trademark blues-based, psychedelic candy-coated, acid-drenched hard rock sound. Forty years after the “Summer of Love,” Blue Cheer has bounced back with a brand new album featuring a streamlined old sound. 

Although not as crude as the band’s earliest output, What Doesn’t Kill You rocks every bit as hard, Dickie Peterson’s callused vocals pitched against Andrew McDonald’s strangling riffs, with drums that sound like a demolition derby. The songs are all sandpaper grit and diamond flash, showcasing a hard-won instrumental finesse and unflagging rock spirit, and what the band does to Albert King’s classic “Born Under A Bad Sign” is just downright sinful…which is exactly as it should be. (Rainman Records, released 2007)

Review originally published by Harp Magazine...