So on a week that I spent most of the time thinking about my best of 2010 I did manage to listen to a couple of new albums. First and foremost was Dan Baker’s new album Sad Song Junkie and I really liked this album from this Massachusetts native. The second album was Highway 71 from 3 Penny Acre also a very fine album.
Sad Song Junkie is the second release from Baker , who is a Boston based singer-songwriter. His first release was 2008’s Outskirts of Town, The album has been high on the FAR Chart, the Roots Music Report and eneded the year No. 1 on the Euro-Americana Chart! It has appeared on many folks list of Best of 2010! According to his website:
Baker headed down south to team up with some of Nashville’s best musicians, Jeff Taylor (Elvis Costello, Vince Gill, Ricky Skaggs) on accordion, Joe Spivey (Merle Haggard, Shania Twain, Faith Hill, Kris Kristofferson, Joan Baez, Hank Williams Jr) on fiddle & mandolin, and Steve Hinson (George Jones, Dolly Parton, Kenny Chesney, Randy Travis) on steel guitar, just to name a few.
The songs are simple songs about finding that sad song on the radio “Sad Song Junkie”. life in prison, “365 Days”, that “Little Something” to take the edge off, and “Lttle ol’ Death” (the only uptemp song on the album) and lots of others…… and the perfect musical arrangements particularly Steve Hinson’s lonely steel guitar and Joe Spivey’s fiddle and mandolin never overpower Baker’s vocals but rather set the right tone for each song!
Here’s the title track “Sad Song Junkie”
The second album that’s been getting steady play on the iPOD is Highway 71 from 3 Penny Acre a trio from Fayetteville, Arkansas composed of Bernice Hembre on upright Bass, Bayard Blain on guitar, mandolin, and bouzouki, and Bryan Hembree on Guitar and Brush Bucket. All three provide vocals!
I’ve seen their name for a while on the DJ Folk Charts and other charts but haven’t found them on Rhapsody but they came up on emusic this month and I quickly downloaded the album. Highway 71 is their second album and according to their website:
Highway 71 is an album of 10 songs documenting the people and places of middle America. 3 Penny Acre, whose name comes from the cost of the Louisiana Purchase, is a fitting name for a band whose members were all raised inside its borders. The album paints a portrait of their homeland two-hundred years on. The songs are beautiful and longing, yet at times anti-nostalgic, resisting the temptation to “gold wash” the tough history of the people and places they portray.
The songs are mostly story songs and cover a wide range of topics from highways that go from Minnesota to New Orleans, “Highway 71”, lynchings “Sonny Brown” to songs about coalminers “Aldridge”
and other like “The Ballad of John Lambeth”, All well written performed with vocals that are a treat as is the picking! Truly a winning listen and one that will be around on the player of a good while!
Here’s the group performing “Highway 71” at the 2010 Folk Alliance!