featuring the very best of americana, alt.country and roots music
March 4, 2021
Scott Foley, purveyor of dust
Honesty is essential in our kind of music. It's a quality that can be defined in a couple ways beyond simply telling the truth. Most of these identifiers refer to less tangible things: Is an artist genuine? Does their music square with our experience of reality? Are the stories they tell true? Maybe more importantly, do the lyrics speak to the abiding Truth of our lives?
I'm new to Charles Ellsworth, a Brooklyn-based songwriter who's just released Honeysuckle Summer. He's made music and shared it with groups and as a solo artist, finding home at various times in Arizona, in the midst of the burgeoning Salt Lake Americana scene (is this a thing?) and in his present New York home. Ellsworth has written quite a bit, toured a lot, and followed his musical attention from Mormon hymns to classic rock, alternative to americana. On Honeysuckle Summer, he ventures into territory he's rarely explored: the truth of his own abusive childhood, the truth of depression, addiction, salvation.
Like much of Ellsworth's life, much of Honeysuckle Summer happens on the road. With its barrelhouse piano and appealing backing vocal, "White Cross On a Highway" ushers us into the mind of the man behind the wheel during a time of reckoning: There's cows and corn and not much else / Except plenty of time to think to myself / Of every little thing that I ever fucked up. The driver pushes past the miles, drawn by possible stability down the road, troubled by the sense that it might be getting late: I don't want to be an old man crying in his beer / Because he forgot to live while he could still feel alive.
Set to tape just as the country was shutting down, Ellsworth and his homebound cohort chose to secure themselves in the studio to finish their project. As a result, the session sounds full and complete, the singer supported by his band's rock-leaning americana. "Gripping Onto Water" follows a thread from the fear of his father to a resentment of his work and elusive relationships as an adult. Drums and guitars stand boldly in the mix on the tune that features both an organ and a guitar break. The conclusion Ellsworth draws from these life lessons: I guess somewhere we learn that love is suffering. With its evolving time signatures and ambitious philosophizing, "Trouble" recalls Sturgill Simpson's Metamodern Sounds. The multi-chapter opus begins with the narrator greeting the morning like a goddamned brick to the face before discovering traction on the rebound from rock bottom: Saying yes to what is and simply not forgetting to / Be right here, right now.
Charles Ellsworth is a strong storytelling vocalist, with a timbre that might've found a home in 1970s folk rock. While there's a bittersweet aspect throughout the collection, it's a bright sounding CD that lands its solid punches with upbeat rockers. He says he approached "Miami, AZ" with my best Tom Petty impression, sharing the story of a young couple severing parental bonds and embracing the promise of what lies ahead. A memorable slide guitar and organ provide the soundtrack: Get Jesus off the wheel / And I'll lead us out of town. "Max & Geraldine" sets its sweet lovestory to a reggae-tinged organ riff.
Charles Ellsworth tells the truth on Honeysuckle Summer. He's straightforward about the abiding impact of trauma, and is just as committed to playing genuine music, most of it as familiar and comfortable as a favorite pair of jeans. While few of us share the specifics of the story, we acknowledge that this is how life works, that this is what see from our car window. Ellsworth sings about breaking points and reckoning, especially on the impactful "Laundromat":
The spinning of the earth, I think it's starting to say / That you can try to cut and run / But you won't get away from it all. / Learn how to love who you are. / Embrace the thing behind your thoughts and let yourself ride on. / Ride on.
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A veritable ton of new stuff has been added this week to A Routes & Branches Guide To Feeding Your Monster, our unsettlingly accurate new release calendar for our kind of music. Peter Case's next full-length is a tribute to the magic of late night radio. It's also his first collection of new material since 2007 not released on the Yep Roc label. Midnight Broadcast hits the airwaves March 12 via Bandaloop. Unexpectedly, First Aid Kit's next record is a full length concert celebrating the songs of Leonard Cohen. Who By Fire arrives March 26 courtesy of Jagadamba. Another concert offering, Alela Diane will share Live At the Map Room on the Rusted Blue label on April 9. The set was recorded in 2018 and features Diane alongside Heather Woods Broderick and Mirabai Peart. Most recently, Riley Downing has been keeping busy as a member of the Deslondes. His debut solo record, Start It Over arrives via New West on May 14. The Monster Who Hated Pennsylvania is the new collection from the prolific Damien Jurado. Due May 14, it's also the first album on Jurado's own Maraqopa label. Also on May 14, Steel Woods will share All Of Your Stones, their final sessions with their late co-founder and guitarist Jason "Rowdy" Cope. Isa Burke, Ellie Buckland and Mali Obomsawin are Lula Wiles on Smithsonian's Folkways. Their second record, Shame and Sedition has been set for a May 21 street date. John Hiatt's new CD pairs him with the Jerry Douglas Band. Leftover Feelings will appear wherever music matters on May 21 thanks to New West. Like I said, lots of stuff ...
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