|
|
Bandry Land: Sharecropper's Whine
"Some writers confuse authenticity, which they ought always to aim at, with originality, which they should never bother about." W.H. Auden
Of course authenticity is rare, and getting rarer. Too many distractions in this life lining up to snatch us from what matters. Authenticity's especially difficult to discern when it comes to music, even though lots of people would argue that point. [N.B., I'm not being elitist here. Sometimes, I suppose, you simply need to hear Barry Manilow's "Mandy," although that's a poor point since that song and much of Manilow's work are definitely authentic. How about "Dust in the Wind"?] Mostly, I believe, that music because, of all the arts, is the most powerful and seductive: many times we want to believe when we shouldn't; or our belief is excessive. And this is not simply artist by artist, but song by song. No matter what, we "Don't Stop Believin'," so to speak.
But I know this: Bandry Land's Sharecropper's Whine is authentic. Listen to it and smell late day sweat in the Southern summer sun. Feel the dust tighten your throat, the dank and humid August air choking you like an angry lover's fingers. That's why it matters that you hear this album. It's real and if it slaps you in the face a time or two, be thankful. What have you heard lately that treats you so roughly and rudely, but with such respect?
Bandry Land's former calling card read Drew Landry and the Cajuns. That group released one full-length album, Keep What’s Left (2004), and a post-Katrina EP titled Hurricane Companion & Tailgaten Relief EP—both to excellent reviews. That group is now Bandry Land, and Sharecropper's Whine is its latest (or first, depending on how you look at it) release.
I don't know his earlier work, but I'll seek it out now that I've heard—almost non-stop for the last week—Sharecropper's Whine.
It's an album that would have been (mis) labeled "roots" five years ago. I don't know what roots music means today and it doesn't matter. What this CD stands for is the purity of music, what it means to feel and to have the guts to say what you feel. It's an emotionally treacherous 14-song display of heart and soul. Like Steve Earle, Landry works out of a truth-telling tradition, no holds barred, no sacred cows. (Fuck the FCC; Fuck the C.I.A.) He's not playing; this isn't a game….I been through hell and now I'm back again.
From the song "Conspiracy Theory": "This ain't no joke no more/ hell it ain't no holy war/ just another way a rich man got fat off of the poor." The war, the Katrina disaster, the losers in this life, emotional disaster and nostalgia for the good times and friends we've lost—these all inform Landry's vision as intensely as shedding your skin and "pullin' out of here to win" do Springsteen's.
Landry's working in the tradition of Dave Alvin and Cash and Springsteen and, particularly, Earle—all of whom he'll remind you of. But musically he's traipsing a more varied terrain than any of the above. His music is rock (most definitely rock when it needs to be), country, country blues, Cajun, fiddle-grit, and, of course, the blues. Landry's voice can be lazy, full of twang, urgent and annoyed, or resigned. By turns it's angry in a defeated sort of way, or simply melancholy.
But it's always real. So is Sharecropper's Whine. I'd say it's vital, and represents a chance to hear something, maybe for the first time in a long while, that'll lodge solidly in your gut.
TOP
|
|
|
