Vintage Guitar - September 2017 - open - 114

HIT LIST REVIEWS

Elizabeth
Cotton, Doc
Watson, and
Various Artists
Classic Piedmont
Blues From
Smithsonian
Folkways

HOT-PICKING
COMFORT ZONE

It's less improvisational than other types
of blues, but East Coast (a.k.a. Piedmont)
blues is no less expressive or impassioned.
In addition to roots in African American
folk music shared with other blues styles,
it developed through a range of inputs,
including ragtime, Broadway, and Tin Pan
Alley stylings. Thus, deceptively lively guitar and measured singing often play against
tragic, eerie, or heartbreaking narratives.
A brilliant example on this collection is
Elizabeth Cotten's take on "Going Down
The Road Feeling Bad," a song of deep
despair despite having become an anthem
for carefree hippies. Like Reverend Gary
Davis, Doc Watson, and many others
included here, Cotten's playing had a
deep and wide effect on generations of
guitarists. Much of the folk music of the
Greenwich Village school comes directly
from Piedmont blues thanks to Cotten and
acolytes like Happy Traum, who learned
firsthand from Piedmont guitar great
Brownie McGhee.
There's also Josh White, whose take
on "T.B. Blues" exemplifies Piedmont's
patchwork nature. White was a fierce lion
tamer of a player who could work a set of
guitar strings to his absolute command.
Doubtless this tasty sampler will whet
your appetite for more from the other
American musical treasures it spotlights.
- Rick Allen

on "Love And War"
takes up the cause of
America's veterans,
expressing sentiments
not unlike those on "Fortunate Son" and other
Creedence classics.
Much as Paisley loves
cameos, however0,
he doesn't necessarily need them. He does
outstanding work alone,
his romantic eloquence
enhancing the powerfully

rad Paisley's albums
have followed a
formula that began
on his 2001 sophomore
album Part II. Generously
programmed with abundant cameos, they blend
love songs with catchy
numbers celebrating idealized small-town and rural
lifestyles as well as the
digital era. His attempts to
meld old and new cultures
have always been sincere,
though he's drawn some
criticism for returning
to these topics time and
again. While his sincerity
is undeniable, he generated controversy with his
well-meaning but clumsily
executed 2013 brotherhood song "Accidental
Racist" with LL Cool J.
All Paisley's records,
however, have one
constant: his distinctive,
aggressive, and evertasteful electric guitar
virtuosity (though he also
plays acoustic, mandolin,
and Dobro here). He
has support from Gary
Hooker on electric and the
acoustic guitar of Brent
Anderson. Yet Paisley's

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skills are everywhere - in
solos, rhythm licks, and
supporting parts throughout the arrangements.
As always, his workouts
synthesize the licks of all
his guitar heroes within
his own fiery style.
He unleashes one
incendiary break after
another on the sensual
"Go To Bed Early." His
picking likewise propels
"Grey Goose Chase," a
drinking number with a
segment where he swaps
licks with fiddler Justin
Williamson and Randle
Currie's pedal steel. With
Timbaland in the background, his lyrics manage
to plug both Grey Goose
and Wild Turkey via clever
lyrics, something he's
done in the past, most
notably on his 2012 hit
"Southern Comfort Zone."
The inevitable cameos include two rock
icons: "Drive Of Shame"
features Mick Jagger, its
arrangement an obvious
homage to the Stones
with rhythm straight out
of "Honky Tonk Women."
The John Fogerty cameo

September 2017

Brad Paisley
Love And War

simple ballad "Today."
The retro R&B feel of
"Contact High" meshes
perfectly with his voice
and guitar. That austerity enhances two other
ballads: his Johnny Cash
homage "Gold All Over
The Ground" and the sentimental "Dying To See
Her" with an appropriate
cameo from Paisley's
longtime Opry buddy
Bill Anderson. As a hit
songwriter and recording artist of the '60s,
Anderson is no stranger
to such sentimental fare.
That carries over to "The
Devil Is Alive And Well,"
a bit of restrained moralizing about America's
current divisions.
It's valid to debate his
formula for albums, but
at his best, the integrity of Paisley's music
and that laser-intense
picking always carry
the day. - Rich Kienzle

Brad Paisley: Jeff Lipsky.

Steve Shelley, and ace U.K. guitarist James
Sedwards, Moore's five-song set (43 minutes) is as long on extended explorations
as it is on his former band's punk and no
wave ethos.
Listeners will find dynamic song structures ("Exalted"), chimey jangle and propulsive tempos ("Cusp"), brilliant interplay
with Sedwards (the highlight "Turn On,"
in particular), a few recognizable classicrock tones, and extended wah-wah hi-jinks
("Aphrodite").
Like Nels Cline (a sometimes collaborator), Moore has earned a rep as an indie
guitar hero who can more than hold his own
outside those cloistered walls. Records like
this are the proof. - Dennis Pernu

Vintage Guitar - September 2017 - open

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