THE WHIPPOORWILL
Based in Atlanta, GA, this country/southern rock band have performed throughout the United States as headliner and as supporting act for artists such as ZZ Top & Lynyrd Skynyrd, and their most recent album was released on Zac Brown's Southern Ground label.
2012's The Whippoorwill is the best album yet from Blackberry Smoke, the best southern rock band out there today. I can hear influences of The Band throughout this album, and the band echoes the glory days of Skynyrd, Blackfoot and Molly Hatchet with a pinch of outlaw country (which I would not be able to identify without the persistence of one Stephen T. McCarthy).
On The Whippoorwill, Blackberry Smoke deftly bridges the gap between the southerns style rock of today and that of the late sixties and early seventies. Southern rock fans have been waiting for a band like this to come along for a long time.
This album has it all - from rock to to jam band and most everything in between. When they lean country, it is not so far that you feel like selling a pickup truck because your girl left you, and when they wear their influences on their musical sleeve, the album is brilliant-there is not one tune I skipped on my first several listens.
Top to bottom this is one of the best
albums I have purchased this year. The
lyrics show depth and reflect real life experience, and the music is written with
soul and passion and performed with stellar musicianship.
Simply put-this album sounds more like Skynyrd than Skynyrd's new album!
ONE HORSE TOWN
SIX WAYS TO SUNDAY
LEAVE A SCAR
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>>...a pinch of outlaw country (which I would not be able to identify without the persistence of one Stephen T. McCarthy).
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Never heard of the punk.
(Well, Todd Snider woulda gotten ya there eventually.)
>>...this album sounds more like Skynyrd than Skynyrd's new album!
Ha!
This weekend, with the help of my nephew, I put together two CDs of music for this 24 or 25-year-old guy where I'm working now.
I like him because he likes "Classic Rock" better than his own generation's music (thanks to his dad's music collection). But I think he's been almost exclusively exposed to the more commercially successful stuffs like Elton, Eagles, Stones, Beatles, and so on.
So I decided to record him a couple of "Mix" CDs. The idea was to... 1) stick to really good songs I figured he's probably never heard, and... 2) to largely go with groups/artists he's probably not familiar with.
I did include a few well-known performers, like Dylan, Doors, Tom Petty. But in those cases, I recorded songs that NEVER get played on the radio. Such as "Everything Is Broken", "Subterranean Homesick Blues", "Peace Frog", and "Something Big".
Mostly though, I selected performers he's probably never been exposed to. Disc 1 begins with 3 tunes by David & David, moves on to some Zevon (NOT "Werewolves..."), Todd Snider, Nils Lofgren, etc., etc.
Disc 2 ends with Traffic, Rickie Lee Jones, Tom Waits, The Band, and Bob Dylan with The Band ("Forever Young" from 'The Last Waltz'). Great stuffs all the way through!
And of course I had to include a couple cuts of 'Outlaw Country'. Namely, "Trouble Man" by Waylon, and "All My Rowdy Friends..." by Bocephus. This kid is a football fan, so I know there's going to come a point while he's listening to "Rowdy Friends" that he will think: Wait a minute! I KNOW this song! This used to be the theme song for Monday Night Football. Wish I could be there to see his face when the light bulb turns on.
~ D-FensDogg
'Loyal American Underground'
It's sad, isn't it, that with the internet people can really explore a lot of music they never would have been able to before (how else would I find all of the obscure bands), but yet they tend to still only get exposed to the same twenty classic rock staples?
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