I'm a sucker for a sad song with a pedal steel guitar. That's what got me hooked on Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris back in the day, or more recently on Neko Case and Shelby Lynn. I know that songs about being dirt poor, broken-hearted or on the run don't offer much uplift. But when they are delivered as sharply and authentically as on The Delines's Colfax, with melodies that recall Jimmy Webb's "Witchita Lineman," you know you're witnessing alt-country art being fashioned from unhappiness.
The power of Colfax comes from the collaboration of novelist Willy Vlautin (whose other band Richmond Fontaine backs here) and vocalist Amy Boone, who inhabits his lyrics about strong women in desperate straits. "The Oil Rigs at Night," which opens as the singer prepares to leave her husband, makes you stop dead in your tracks:
Golden light from the oil rigs at night
I can see them off the coast
Twenty three more days he'll be away
it'll be a week before he even knows
We've been friends since we were little kids
But any spark blew out if it ever did exist.
And then there's the title track, about a woman who goes searching up and down "Colfax Avenue" for her younger brother, a PTSD-shattered veteran:
I know, I know: "Thanks, Jack, for this complete, total downer." But recall the irresistible tug of Jackson Brown's The Pretender, written in the aftermath of his first wife's suicide and take a chance on Colfax. Like Browne's best, it has a beauty that heals.
BTW, take a minute to remember Glen Campbell and his career-making performance of the aforementioned "Witchita Lineman," as he now struggles with Alzheimer's. Godspeed, Glen.
No comments:
Post a Comment