PONY BRADSHAW - CALiCO JiM

ROUTES & BRANCHES

featuring the very best of americana, alt.country and roots music

February 10, 2021

Scott Foley, purveyor of dust

2019's Sudden Opera was one of the year's most notable debuts. Delivered by Pony Bradshaw, the collection was a polished gem, introducing a songwriter who had seemingly arrived on the national scene nearly fully formed. What's more, the North Georgia denizen was granted a seat at the Rounder Records table. Pony Bradshaw's follow-up finds him choosing a much different path, and it's an impressive statement of artistic identity. 

Calico Jim springs from the mythology of Pony Bradshaw's North Georgia home, drawn from the cadences of speech, the stories and the sounds, even down to the roots of the flora. Songs call forth the cinnamon vine and the sweetgrass, the poison sumac along with the kudzu wrapped in hemlock teeth. Like the record's jacket art, the pictures are rich but they are not precious. The place is beloved but it is not sacred. Bradshaw called it less glamor, more nutrients.  

The polish that graced Bradshaw's Sudden Opera has been sanded down to a rough grain  on pieces like "Sawtoothed Jericho". Casey Collis' fiddle wheezes atop a subtle bass pulse, countered by slicks of bluesy electric guitar. These rituals / Them dark spells / Come on cast 'em mama, he sings, Ain't no shaman but I'll wade through the slough & the scruff.  The title track is delivered in a rollicking mid-tempo gallup, a strummed acoustic racing alongside Philippe Bronchtein's pedal steel (Bronchtein has recorded some terrific records under the Hip Hatchet moniker). These aren't lo-fi recordings, but they focus on the warmth and the embrace of the primarily acoustic instruments, comfortable in their imperfections. 

Pony Bradshaw reveals himself to be a lyricist of rare talent on his new collection, stacking words like firewood and casting sparks with his wordplay. He takes risks in sidestepping easy rhyme schemes and lazy verse-chorus-verse arrangements, and this is tremendously welcome in a genre that too often cruises by on cliche. The evocative "Jimmy the Cop" tells a full story in a couple lines of verse: I cook with my uncle in this third flush of youth / He's been off the grid since he left Roan Mountain / It's a stubborn march towards decay. "Hillbilly Possessed" is a spirit-haunted tale of a snake handling preacher, pedal steel ringing and keening in the tune's dark setting: I once saw him suck out the poison / From an ankle bone bite wound of a gal he was courting. These are stories. They are poetry.  

The North Georgia of Calico Jim isn't a cartoon or a paradise, it's not a warning or a cautionary tale. Most importantly, Pony Bradshaw's work doesn't damn the South for its transgressions, he simply allows the stories to speak for themselves. In a voice like a young Lyle Lovett, he embodies the defiant spirit on "Dope Mountain": Proud to be a hillbilly, 6th generation / But we ain't no white trash. Atop the heavier guitar of "Guru", he calls, Stretch out your vowels boy, show 'em your pedigree.  

The songwriter himself explains, I tried to think small about big things. In his warts-and-all portrait of the South, Pony Bradshaw can join the rare cast of initialed songwriters like SG Goodman, HC McEntire and MC Taylor. Even more than these others, the Calico Jim lyric sheet reads like a collection of short stories, impressionistic poetry that casts spells and recites incantations about the magic of place. 

^ Pony Bradshaw, "Hillbilly Possessed" Calico Jim  (Black Mt, 21)

- Staves, "Next Year Next Time" Good Woman  (Nonesuch, 21)

- Aaron Lee Tasjan, "Another Lonely Day" Tasjan! Tasjan! Tasjan!  (New West, 21)

- Leigh Nash, "Good Trouble (feat. Ruby Amanfu)" single  (One Vision, 21)  D

- Band of Horses, "Throw My Mess" Why Are You OK  (Interscope, 16)

- Julien Baker, "Favor" Little Oblivions  (Matador, Feb 26)

- Shovels & Rope, "Cry Baby (feat. Deer Tick)" Busted Jukebox Vol 3  (Dualtone, 21)

- Jim Keller, "Easy Rider" By No Means  (Orange Mt, Feb 12)

- Rock*A*Teens, "Across the Piedmont" Golden Time  (Merge, 99)

- Weather Station, "Tried to Tell You" Ignorance  (Fat Possum, 21)

- New Madrid, "It's OK (2 Cry)" New Madrid  (Lemonade, Apr 30)  D

- Painted Shrines, "Heaven and Holy" Heaven and Holy  (Woodsist, Mar 5)

- Sun June, "Everything I Had" Somewhere  (Run For Cover, 21)  D

- JD McPherson, "Style (Is a Losing Game)" Undivided Heart & Soul  (New West, 17)

- William the Conqueror, "Move On" Maverick Thinker  (Chrysalis, Mar 5)

- Jay Gonzalez, "(I Wanna) Hold You" Back to the Hive  (Middlebrow, Mar 5)  D

- Esther Rose, "How Many Times" How Many Times  (Father/Daughter, Mar 26)

- Hem, "When I Was Drinking" Rabbit Songs  (Nettwerk, 01)

- Jake Xerxes Fussell, "Copper Kettle" single  (Paradise of Bachelors, 21)  D

- Lasers Lasers Birmingham, "Making a Scene" single  (LLB, 21)  D

- Birger Olsen, "Color of Spring" single  (Olsen, 21)  D

- Left Arm Tan, "Carnations" Alticana  (LAT, 13)

- Melissa Carper, "Makin' Memories" Daddy's Country Gold  (Carper, Mar 19)  D

- Rick Holmstrom, "Losing My Shit" See That Light  (Louellie, Feb 26)

- Brigitte DeMeyer, "Salt of the Earth (feat. Oliver Wood)" Seeker  (DeMeyer, Mar 26)  D

- Lucero, "All My Life" When You Found Me  (Liberty & Lament, 21)

- Lia Ices, "Earthy" Family Album  (Natural, 21)

- Elijah Ocean, "Phoenix" single  (Envoy, 21)  D

- Jon Charles Dwyer, "Mississippi" Junebug  (Bitter Melody, 21)

- Beth Orton, "Sweetest Decline" Central Reservation  (Deconstruction, 99)

This week's additions to A Routes & Branches Guide To Feeding Your Monster add some promising light to our present musical tunnel. Drive-by Trucker Jay Gonzalez will make available his second solo full-length record next month. Due March 5, Back to the Hive will be released on the singer-guitarist's own Middlebrow label. Black Twig Pickers are the strongest argument I know for the value of old time string band music. Six years since the excellent Seasonal Hire, they've announced the release of Friend's Peace April 2 via the VHF label. Ten years after its initial release, Shakey Graves has planned for Roll the Bones X. The expanded double-LP lands via Dualtone on April 2. That same day, save your allowance for Ryley Walker's Course in Fable on the Husky Pants label. Last year's Summerlong garnered some end-of-year acclaim for Wooden Shjips and Moon Duo member Ripley Johnson and his Rose City Band. May 21 marks the release date for the follow-up, Earth Trip (Thrill Jockey). 

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