Americana Music Reviews

 

South Austin Jug Band
Pickin' and Grinnin'
Jugband Records

by David Pilot

Funny how things change but stay the same. Find recordings of traditional Irish and Celtic melodies, and hear the strains of fiddles on the porches of Appalachia. Find the hardship in those mountain songs and remember that Nero fiddled while mighty Rome burned. Read some of King David's Psalms, the ones not bent entirely on worship, and realize those lyrics would fit in a Bob Wills tune.

For every Stevie Ray, there's an upward climbing Michael Burks. A Rex Bell following in the footsteps of Townes van Zandt. And in Austin, where Uncle Walt's Band once sought to revive the acoustic and energetic legacy of cowboy music, the movement lives on through a bunch of 20-something kids who're more in tune with the past than the present. Uncle Walt's went the way of the dodo a long time back, beginning with Walter Hyatt's loss in that ValuJet crash in the Florida swamps. David Ball's still chipping away at his solo career, but Champ Hood was lost to us all last fall. His son Warren, though, is carrying the torch as part of the hotter'n hell South Austin Jug Band. With young but pedigreed bandmates James Hyland, Matt Slusher, Willie Pipkin and Will Dupuy, Hood is part of a mix that's bringing back the old sounds in a big, big way. Pickin' and Grinnin' is a live recording of one of the band's bread-and-butter gigs at Momo's, and the raw edges that normally accompany live recordings are certainly here. But with this kind of music they're more benefit than drawback.

Not much original on display here; the show that night was largely a series of covers and traditional songs adapted for the Jug Band's Soggy Bottom Brothers style of play. The first original cut, "Who Is This Woman," is a wind-it-up-and-cut-it-loose bluegrass foot-stomper, though, and when compared to another original, the breathtakingly relentless "Ramen Noodle Rag," it serves as notice that the boys know exactly what sound it is they're after. "Don't Feel Like Cryin'," a cut penned by Hyland, reflects a lot of the Pat Green influence that the band members' previous lives were steeped in, but the smartly written and striking "Ballad of Eddie Mullet" proves Hyland isn't stuck in the generic Texas music vein. There are shades of Slaid Cleaves' "Breakfast in Hell" on this track, while some of the standout storytelling ability of Robert Earl Keen and Ray Wylie Hubbard makes its influence readily obvious.

The covers show exceptional taste and seasoning, from Bob Wills territory ("Bring It On Down, " "Stay All Night") to Townes and Ernest Tubb ("Thanks A Lot"). All told, the fourteen tracks on Pickin' and Grinnin' serve to showcase some young and very accomplished musicians determined to make some music that sounds, well, different, and do it well. The fact that what they've captured here harks back to the oldest and best roots of country and cowboy music only serves to validate their cause. The South Austin Jug Band has performed as far afield as North Carolina, where they were very well received, and if they can deliver on the promise displayed in this live debut, the East Coast and beyond will be their stomping ground for a long time to come.

*The band is new, so www.southaustinjugband.com doesn't exactly have a wealth of information. Bios, tour dates and contact info are readily available right now, though, and the rest is under construction. Swing by and get a taste of campfire and big balls in Cowtown. This is a fun trip.

Contact David Pilot at: tailgunner-at-rockzilla.net

 
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