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This week I received final versions of a couple of new albums for which I wrote liner notes, and I share them here in hopes you'll give these artists a look. The second album from Carrie Hassler & Hard Rain came out on Tuesday. Carrie is a bluegrass singer from East Tennessee with a bold, colorful voice and a love of Patsy Cline. String Theory super-fans might recall that we did a video bio and performance videos with Carrie when she released her first disc. On Monday I'm heading to the tiny town of Fairfield Glade, TN to shoot Carrie's CD release party, so watch for that.

The other project, which comes out August 19, is a best-of collection from the Hot Club of Cowtown, the fire-breathing acoustic swing and gypsy trio from Austin. The band reunited about a year ago after a couple years on hiatus, and as a show here in town a few weeks ago proved, they're back in form as one of the best live acts in the U.S. So this "greatest hits" package would make a good overview if you're just getting to know them.

My liner notes for both projects are posted in their entirety after the jump...

Carrie Hassler & Hard Rain: CHHR2

Carrie Hassler surprised a lot of people with her debut album, not least of all herself. Just four years ago she was a young mom in Crossville, Tennessee who sang at church and local venues at every opportunity because she loved it, not because she was seeking a music career. Then, in a story that echoes Connie Smith’s rise from homemaker to heroine forty years ago, the music business came looking for her. Mountain Heart fiddler and aspiring producer Jim VanCleve heard a tape and lobbied to make a record with her for Rural Rhythm, a resourceful, family-run label better known for deep tradition than bracing new bluegrass voices. But bracing Carrie Hassler was, earning strong reviews for her debut album and landing on stages coast to coast. Two songs, the express-tempo “Going On The Next Train” and the gently progressive “Seven Miles From Wichita” spent many months each on the Bluegrass Unlimited chart.
Carrie and Jim approached this second album as a development of the distinctive sound they’d begun to dial in on the debut, with the benefit of two years of touring and the accolades of the bluegrass community as a tailwind. Indispensable to this were the five men who make up Hard Rain. Kevin McKinnon’s sunny mandolin kickoff of CHHR2’s first single “I Can Go Back Any Time” has all the melodic shape and integrity of an instrumental I’d like to hear all the way through. His identical twin Keith plays a dynamic and modern guitar. Jamie Harper, the band’s newest member, shares fiddle duties here with VanCleve, but shows a fire and intensity that will lift the band on the road in the coming years. Banjo player Josh Miller is blazing ahead as a songwriter, contributing eight of the 12 songs here, including the gorgeous country/bluegrass hybrid “If These Walls Could Talk.” Bass player Travis Anderson has known and played for Carrie longer than anyone, and it shows; his bold support gives Carrie a place to show the colors of her voice.
And how many colors there are. What VanCleve says is true about Carrie -- that she has more nuance and shading than most of her peers. She can hit the long high tones like a lonesome laser beam, but she’s also got some nice Dale Ann Bradley warble and Isaacs-like gospel overtones that conjure a beguiling blend of youth and experience. Nor is she encumbered by a rigid view of bluegrass. While songs like “Devil’s Den” and “Fickle Heart” are saturated with the ancient tones, Carrie’s cover of Bob Seger’s “Turn The Page” shows a bold interpretive skill with the standards of her generation, while the silvery textures of the poignant “Wake Up Anymore” epitomize the contemporary acoustic ballad.
For those of us who try to keep our radar scanning the bluegrass horizon, it’s always refreshing when an important new artist arrives with no advance buzz or obvious pedigree. It proves why this music is so particularly healthy and meritocratic. And like anybody else, we love a good surprise.


Hot Club of Cowtown: Best of

During the two years or so that the Hot Club of Cowtown was on hiatus in the mid 2000s, members Elana James, Whit Smith and Jake Erwin were regularly approached by fans asking if and when the group would reunite. And when, in 2007, they decided to re-up as America’s hottest Western Swing trio, the move was heralded by legendary Texas musician Johnny Gimble on stage in Tulsa at the National Fiddler’s Hall of Fame, to lusty applause. Because for most anyone who had heard the Hot Club of Cowtown, it was disheartening to imagine a future without them.
Fortunately, the band missed each other and the elusive HCC sound as much as their fans, and as they get set to record their first studio album in six years, this collection of band-picked highlights from the Hot Club’s years on HighTone Records makes a compact primer in what made many of us fall for them in the first place: the free-wheeling swing, the nuanced vocals and the contagious enthusiasm.
The group was born in New York circa 1996, when Whit answered Elana’s Village Voice ad and invited her over to match her fiddle with his guitar. They found common musical ground in the hot swing and hillbilly jazz of the 1920s to the 40s. It was a special time when songs were plain-spoken yet literate and when the blues was a complex, refined language of the soul. But it’s always struck the band as funny that our culture is so ready to classify this private reserve of American music as “old” or “vintage” when it’s a biological fact that idioms of music don’t age or deteriorate, as long as musicians keep them vital. Elana, who studied classical violin, says with bemusement that for her, this music was downright modern by comparison.
So Whit and Elana built their new musical union on the bedrock of swinging string artists like Bob Wills, Django Reinhardt, Joe Venuti, Eddie Lang, Stuff Smith, George Barnes and others. The Hot Club of Cowtown name struck Whit in a dream as an affectionately cheeky nod to the seminal band of Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli and their many emulators. Besides, Hot Club of San Diego sounded lame, and that’s where the duo moved to try their thing. They worked eight-hour days busking in Balboa Park and played small clubs. And by the time they moved to Austin in 1997, their reputation preceded them; they had a full calendar of club work right away.
More than that, the old-timers they sought out for schooling in the authentic swing styles welcomed them with open arms and valuable advice. The band was astute enough to know that you can’t fake a serious school of classic music, and the first and second generation players who encountered them were astute enough to recognize the HCC’s commitment to getting it right. The great singer Don Walser was one who took them under his wing, gigging with them and hooking them up with a booking agent. A residency at the Continental Club helped make them one of Austin’s best known and best loved live acts.
The first time I saw the Hot Club, I was drawn by word of Whit Smith’s guitar skills, and I wasn’t alone. More than half the small crowd at the Nashville bar that evening were similarly curious guitar players. We were treated to a tasty, speedy display, full of verve, startling arpeggios and clear punctuation. But it was the full band that made the larger impression. Billy Horton played snap-to stand-up bass that drove the train, and Elana displayed a charming, passionate vocal attack that matched her colorful and joyous fiddling.
Time went on and Horton was replaced by bassist Jake Erwin. But perhaps the most important change came when the band focused on writing original material. Audiences wanted it, and the band had the songwriting chops to go there. The pinnacle of that work was the Ghost Train album, produced by Austin eminence Gurf Morlix. Several songs from that disc are revived here because they show how remarkably HCC can marry tradition to a modern outlook. Elana’s “Forget-Me-Nots” would make Cindy Walker smile (and probably has), and Whit’s “It Stops With Me” is a dark and macabre song of intrigue.
HCC also does a remarkable job picking cover songs and investing them with new ideas. It’s no surprise to hear Hoagy Charmichael’s “Stardust” here, as Willie Nelson’s album of that title was an inspiration for Elana to burrow into the great American songbook. But it took special audacity and insight to wrangle Aerosmith’s “Chip Away the Stone” into a timeless ballad of yearning.
Ghost Train ushered in HCC’s most successful year, but month after month of relentless touring at close quarters led to stresses that were best relieved with some time apart. Happily, that time was relatively short and each artist found creative outlets in the meantime (James made a critically acclaimed solo album and toured in Bob Dylan’s band) and the band reunited almost by force of gravity.
In its first life, the HCC amassed a trophy case of distinguished shows and critical raves. They were invited to play A Prairie Home Companion and the show that inspired it, the Grand Ole Opry. They opened tours for Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson. They built fan bases in Japan, Australia, the U.K. and Europe. And they even became musical diplomats, playing Azerbaijan and other exotic locales under a U.S. State Department program. It will be exciting to watch act two of the Hot Club as they re-emerge, personally and professionally refreshed, because their music is pure Americana, but the whole world is listening.