John Cowan has never respected musical boundaries much. Starting
\nhis career in rock bands in Louisville, Kentucky, he became a part
\nof New Grass Revival (NGR) in 1974. For those new at this, NGR is
\nthe newgrass band — setting the acoustic traditional world on its
\near for years by breaking new ground in newgrass. Other members
\nincluded the great Sam Bush and Bela Fleck, so we’re not talking
\nlightweights here.<\/p>\n
When NGR broke up in 1990, Cowan began a career that can best be
\ndescribed as relaxed and eclectic, including a second band, The Sky
\nKings, and two solo recordings for Sugar Hill Records — one of
\nwhich,
\nSoul’d Out<\/i>, is a collection of Cowan’s favorite soul tunes.
\nHeady stuff for a blue-eyed bluegrass vocalist — so one expects
\nhis latest release,
\nAlways Take Me Back<\/i>, will be pretty eclectic.<\/p>\n
Eclectic. Check. Damn good? Also check.<\/p>\n
What else can you call an album with a bluegrass cover of Yes’
\n“Long Distance Runaround” paired up with the spiritual “Someone
\nGive Me A Stone”? (Fact is, I prefer the cover to the original,
\nmostly because it has Cowan’s precise, articulate vocals rather
\nthan John Anderson’s quacking.)<\/p>\n
\nAlways Take Me Back<\/i> is a brilliant piece of work. There are
\na number of powerful, powerful pieces on this CD, and they always
\nkeep you guessing. Cowan appears to delight in mixing metaphors;
\nhow else do you explain a blues-rock spiritual search on the
\nOklahoma City bombing (“Read On”), a blow-the-doors-off jam on
\nbeing permanently down and out (“Two Quarts Low”), or a traditional
\nbluegrass take on growing a few illegal crops so you don’t lose
\nyour farm (“Monroe’s Mule”)? Mix in powerful reflections on family
\nlike “They Always Take Me Back” and “18 Years” and you have a CD
\nwhose power is in the words and the music — and what a lot of
\npower there is.<\/p>\n
The highlights by far are two tracks — the bittersweet,
\nhaunting “Blood” and “Love Alone”, both of which have real, deep
\nemotional impact. (I must have played “Blood” twenty, thirty times
\nthis week.) These are great songs, the kind that don’t come along
\nvery often, and to have two of them on any CD makes up for a few
\nweak spots (the aforementioned “Stone” and “Call Me” drag a
\nlittle).<\/p>\n
John Cowan is a unique voice; he blazes his own trail, and in
\nthe day and age of the Corporate Music Zombies, that’s a great
\nthing. Don’t miss out on this CD.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":26165,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6739],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-37384","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-john-cowan","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37384\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37384"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=37384"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=37384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}