- Fred J Eaglesmith
Dusty
A Major Label
By Michael Hansen
 On Fred Eaglesmith's
last studio album, Falling Stars and Broken Hearts there's
a hidden track. The last listed track, "Your Sister Cried"
is pretty much standard Eaglesmith fare; mid-tempo country swing,
incisive electric guitar, lashings of pedal steel and Fred's
strummed acoustic guitar and acute but careworn lyrics. Around
thirty seconds later what do we hear? In the absence of a listing,
we'll call it "Thinkin' 'Bout Mary-Ann", and it seems
way out there compared with the rest of the recording. Drum machine,
a gentle samba groove propelled by electric piano, voice mixed
way forward, and all this in an echo drenched atmosphere punctuated
by snapping, clicking, booming percussion and ooh-aah, ooh-aah
background vocals.
And now we have Dusty, Eaglesmith's latest collection
of songs that have been variously described as "a shock",
"completely outside of the scope of anything in his prolific
discography" and a work that "has brought a bit of
dissension into the ranks." A major element in "the
ranks" presumably being those aficionados of all things
Eaglesmith, the Fredheads.
In some ways "Thinkin' 'Bout Mary-Ann" could be
seen as a sign of things to come, a template for the general
tone of Dusty that has been stripped back even further,
a model that has been refined and tweaked to a level of minimalism
that has not been approached on previous Eaglesmith recordings.
Dusty was produced by Scott Merritt, who has produced
four of Eaglesmith's earlier CDs and here has been given considerable
license to leave his own footprint on the album, and a significant
one it is.
As well as producing, Merritt is responsible for a raft of instrumentation
including gut string guitar, Hammond organ, glockenspiel, Wurlitzer,
reed organ, and baritone guitar. Supplementing Merritt's input
are assorted bass players, drummers and percussionists and four
cellists. Not one of Fred Eaglesmith's touring band, The Flying
Squirrels appears on the recording.
Scott Merritt is a protégé of fellow Canadian
Daniel Lanois whose work includes production credits for Merritt's
own 1979 recording, U2, Willie Nelson and most famously Bob Dylan,
on Dylan's two "comeback" records "Oh Mercy"
and "Time Out Of Mind". In his book Chronicles; Dylan
documents at length the recording of "Oh Mercy". About
Lanois, he writes that a particular song "was becoming way
too complicated and convoluted. An ambience of texture and atmosphere
is what the song called for and what Lanois is so good at all
of a sudden I know that I'm in the right place doing the right
thing at the right time and Lanois is the right cat."
Listening to the textural sound scapes Merritt has created
on Dusty it is clear that the trademark Lanois milieu
has significantly shaped Merritt's approach and it would not
surprise to hear Fred Eaglesmith declare that Merritt "is
the right cat." (or maybe the "right guy". I doubt
that "cat" looms large in Fred's patter).
The world that Merritt has constructed for Eaglesmith's characters
to inhabit on Dusty has a noir ambience, with low wattage
lighting. It's a place of deep shadows, bringing fear and disorientation,
loneliness, heartbreak and helplessness.
So, is this a Scott Merritt record or a Fred Eaglesmith record?
Never has Eaglesmith been this exposed in his studio career.
The stripped back atmosphere, the absence of his band, and the
reliance on rudimentary keyboard rhythm tracks, organ, cellos
and simple instrumentation to populate the background challenges
him to produce the goods vocally and lyrically. Is he up to the
task, does he pull it off? The answer in both cases is an unequivocal
yes. Dusty is radical, daring and brilliant. It's a moving
and convincing recording, and I love it.
This departure from the "norm" should come as no
surprise when Eaglesmith's back catalogue is considered. The
furious picking, the country raveups, the sardonic humour,
the cars, tractors, trains and machines large and small are all
elements of the many faceted Eaglesmith package, but over the
long haul it has always been the songs that have been paramount.
Eaglesmith's song stories of the fringe dwellers, the loners,
and those who walk the line have always been perceptive, often
profound and frequently heartbreaking. His hallmark capacity
to draw vivid cinematic chronicles involving ordinary but desperate
characters on the edge in works like "Rodeo Boy", "Water
in the Fuel" and "49 Tons", and his unaffected
ability to tell their tales in his careworn, sometimes gruff,
but always honest to goodness voice are both abundantly in evidence
on Dusty.
Eaglesmith has been quoted as saying that recently revisiting
some pre-Beatles music including Roy Orbison, Dusty Springfield,
Jimmy Webb and Mickey Newbury, has provided some of the stylistic
inspiration for his approach to writing Dusty. This is
not to say that he has given us a "MacArthur Park",
but certainly the ambience of songs like Webb's "One Lady"
and "The Moon's A Harsh Mistress" and Newbury's "All
My Trials" is reflected in this latest collection.
Eaglesmith's songs on Dusty are replete with tales
of broken dreams and lost souls inhabiting a world of sometimes
profound sadness and resignation. Over solemn strings the title
track tells the tale of someone just released from prison. The
landscape confronting him is bleak and unforgiving :
"Across the mesa
The daylight shines
In your eyes
And it makes you blind"
Stately cellos and flute like organ add to the melancholy
of the almost spoken vocal. Release from prison offers little
respite from loneliness and alienation. Although a free man,
he seems eternally trapped:
You're just Dusty now
There's flies on you
Your guns are rusty
And your soul is too
The Texas is wearing off
Of your leather boots
You're just Dusty now
There's flies on you
"Tunnel" is somewhat more upbeat in comparison.
An infectious samba-like drum loop punctuated with musicbox
chiming sets up a tale of selfless support and fidelity. On each
occasion that the protagonist is vulnerable the girl is there
for him.
And when I stumbled
And I fell
She'd light the light
At the end of the tunnel
Having "seen the flame" he is able to reciprocate,
to light her way. But is it enough? I guess we'll never know,
but he's done all he can.
Now she's standing
In the darkness
A shattered world
She's broken hearted
I light the light
I light the light
I light the light
At the end of the tunnel
Not only has the light been lit in the narrative, but also
the hope implicit in the act is emphasised in the instrumentation,
which builds throughout with acoustic guitars and back up vocalists
culminating in a drum and string driven finale.
"I-75" is North America's Interstate 75, traversing
1800 miles across six states from Michigan in the north to Florida
in the south. It is a metaphorical river of dreams for the disillusioned,
a symbol of hope and a means of escape for the trapped. On the
highway we encounter "old station wagons, driven by women
with too many kids", and "some long distance trucker,
hunched over the wheel", and all look to the I-75 to take
them somewhere else, somewhere away from their "situation".
And the river of cars
They fall like stars
Down the I- 75
The seekers find no relief, no promised land. In his book
"Roads", Larry McMurtry travels America's interstates.
He writes about the necessity for human contact being eliminated
along the interstates. "It is now possible to drive coast
to coast without speaking to a human being at all: you just slide
your card, pump your gas, buy a couple of Hershey bars, perhaps
heat up a burrito, and put the pedal back to the metal."
This de-humanization confronts our I-75 travellers. For them
it's a bleak world of "broken headlights", "busted
speedometers", "engines that blow", compounded
by "citations, warnings and fines." And still, the
river of cars fall like stars, down the I-75, as they surely
always will.
Melancholy organ and strummed acoustic guitar where the left-hand
string squeaks are an integral part of the instrumentation set
up a gospel feel on "Ship". This is a tale of the lost,
lonely and confused, adrift and homeless. Eaglesmith's anguished
plea for an emotional landfall intensifies amid swelling organ
and driving percussion. The organ is particularly effective,
bringing a hymn like quality to the song, underscoring the distressed
prayer for guidance.
Lord I'm beat up and I'm broken
And my light is getting dim
Lord if you could find me
A place to land
My ship needs to come in
"Rainbow" is a lovely, but heartbreaking song that
gives us Eaglesmith's most moving and evocative vocal performance
on Dusty. There's no self-assured swagger here but a bewildered
vulnerability. A tick-tock rhythm track overlaid with beautiful
strings and chiming glockenspiel mirror the fragile demeanour
of the singer in his search for explanations. A litany of rhetorical
questions exercises his confounded mind.
What are you supposed to do
When your rainbow breaks in two
And all you're left with is a half
And how can you carry on
When you've been stolen from
By the very one who said she'd be true
Are these questions answerable? Probably not conclusively,
but here stoicism and resignation with a dash of hope are the
order of the day.
Pick up half a rainbow
Throw it over your shoulder
Tell her you're glad
That it's finally over
And find another rainbow
That you can link up to
That's what you're supposed to do.
"Rainbow" is indicative of why Fred Eaglesmith is
a significant artist rather than just a good one. The insight
of his lyrics and his eye for the emotional train wreck that
looms so large in the lives of ordinary folks are underpinned
by a fundamental tenderness and empathy. Although at times shrouded
by the gruff exterior, the sardonic humour and the cowboy bluster,
these qualities remain the creative foundation of his best work.
Along with the title track, "Wichita" and later
"Codeine" could almost be Cormack McCarthy or Annie
Proulx stories. The acuity with which Eaglesmith captures the
essence of the American west with its heart-wrenching beauty
set against unforgiving brutality, is no less telling than the
work of either author. McCarthy's characters who "rode out
the remnant night in a deep blue sink with the new day falling
down about them" could be the old man and the fourteen year
old boy in "Wichita" traversing Kansas and Oklahoma
with a runaway horse in a broke down truck and trailer. The truck
has "split windows and busted wipers" and the pair
takes comfort from the "Wichita gospel radio, (that) played
all the country songs that you've ever known." This familiarity
is inevitably short lived as the radio signal fades:
And we'd shut it off
And listen to the wild horses
Stampeding through the ranges
Of our mind
"Codeine" is the tale of a down and out old cowboy
whose physical capabilities are diminishing rapidly due to age,
illness, infirmity, an excess of alcohol and medicine.
You keep falling in and out of your broken saddle
And there's so many knots you've forgotten how to tie"
The old man is a relic of a different era. His plight is compounded
by the encroachment of fences, barbed wire, survey stakes and
machines, invaders that relentlessly change his prairie home
forever, and with it, his way of life and that of his cohorts.
And the sight of those machines could start you crying
And the sounds keep you up in the night"
Dusty is without doubt a quantum leap stylistically
for Fred Eaglesmith. There are no Mighty Big Cars, or Ten Ton
Chains, and not one Blue Tick Hound in sight. We're not urged
to Rev It Up, it's not Time to Get a Gun, and there will be no
Dancin' on the Bar. In place of the frequently raucous, often
ass-kicking, but always perceptive alt-country twang and bar
room bluster, we have a set of finely crafted songs that are
plainspoken, brimming with pathos, and musically eloquent.
For Eaglesmith, Dusty is as radical a recording as Nebraska
was for Bruce Springsteen and Train A Comin' was for Steve
Earle. For Springsteen and Earle those recordings have come to
be recognised as indicators of those artists' creative maturity
and as benchmarks against which future work and the works of
others are measured. And so it should be for Fred Eaglesmith
and Dusty. It's a mature, powerful and sharply rendered
statement of his craft.
www.amlrecords.com
www.fredeaglesmith.com
Contact Michael Hansen at hansen-at-rockzilla.net
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