[5/5] The third and final album in a trilogy that began with 2003's Hymns For The Hopeless and last year's Ashes To Dust, Song Of The Blackbird sees Iowa singer/songwriter/farmer William Elliott Whitmore-a 28-year old white man-performing another sparsely beautiful batch of instant country/folk classics, at least half of which sound like they were written by a hundred-year old black man about 50 years ago. From the opener "Dry," with its razor-sharp banjo accompaniment, to "Take It On The Chin"-the best song Guy Clark never wrote-Whitmore uses the story of a particularly harsh farming cycle, with its attendant drought and flood, as an allegory for rebirth and transcendence. The result is an album with true emotional power. Seriously, it's like that scene from Heartworn Highways in which Townes Van Zandt plays "Waitin' Around To Die" and Seymour Washington starts crying. (SOUTHERN) J. Bennett
 Official Website: http://www.southern.com
|
