I\u2019ve lived in Mississippi my entire life, but I\u2019ve never been to Iuka, the home of Eddie (vocals, instruments) and Frank Thomas (production). Listening to Maggie\u2019s House<\/i> is a visit of sorts; it certainly has a strong sense of time and place. While the album sometimes reminds me of where I grew up (Cascilla, Miss.), I have an urge to see this town \u201cwithin a hoot and a holler of Tennessee and Alabama,\u201d as the liner notes say.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m most interested in the mischief of Maggie\u2019s House<\/i>. When the guitar playing starts in \u201cWhite Lightning,\u201d you already know the boys are up to something. Eddie\u2019s finger picking brings to mind the late Jerry Reed, whose notes told you everything you needed to know. But I\u2019m glad \u201cWhite Lightning\u201d isn\u2019t an instrumental, as I wouldn\u2019t have learned that white lightning is a term for moonshine. Eddie\u2019s story involves a chase after a raccoon, but the important part is the misplaced bottle of moonshine in the woods. Besides the fun of it all, I find \u201cWhite Lightning\u201d culturally significant. At one point Eddie sings \u201cthat jug of mountain dew,\u201d and I was taken aback because my brain initially brought up the disgusting soda. Corporate America has stripped away a nice phrase involving illegal activity and slapped it on a product that messes us up anyway. As imaginative as it might be (after all, memory is tricky), Maggie\u2019s House <\/i>is about bringing one back to what\u2019s real and cherished. <\/p>\n
Another fun track is \u201cDrive This Train,\u201d which seems to be a bit of wish fulfillment on Eddie\u2019s part. He doesn\u2019t want to have anything to do with cars or boats and is \u201ca rocket on a rail in a cast-iron overcoat.\u201d The song is as old-timey as it is rock \u2018n\u2019 roll. <\/p>\n
And then you have the title track that describes a recurring Saturday party in an Alabama home. Eddie shares detail after detail of the event, but I think it can be summed up with this great bit: \u201cToo much wine, too much cheese \/ I lost my car, found my keys.\u201d Along with \u201cDancing With Bonnie\u201d (which features some tasty trumpet playing), \u201cMaggie\u2019s House\u201d is an entertaining portrait of small-town people getting down back in the day. <\/p>\n
The remainder of the album deals with quieter, sweeter themes. \u201cIn Perfumed Air\u201d captures both a fleeting group of moments (punctuated by smell) and the almost unbearable nostalgia that comes with remembering them. \u201cMarie\u201d concerns a single dance in the dark with what sounds like Eddie\u2019s first love. \u201cYoung Boy\u201d is perhaps the strongest of these tracks \u2013 indeed, our interactions with nature, a horse in this case, define our humanity. <\/p>\n
The only weakness in Maggie\u2019s House<\/i> is that a couple of tracks (\u201cYou And Me\u201d and \u201cDid You Know?\u201d) don\u2019t translate as vividly as the other songs and thus don\u2019t seem as important. But there\u2019s no question that Eddie and Frank Thomas have created a well-produced and honest album with a lot of personality. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":73,"featured_media":30687,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[8725],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-42360","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-eddie-and-frank-thomas","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42360","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\/73"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42360\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=42360"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=42360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}