Ryan Adams, musical legend or precocious twit? I think there’s an argument to be made either way – but one thing there’s no argument on is that Adams early Band, Raleigh, NC’s Whiskeytown, made some of the best damn alt.country music in it’s short existence.
Whiskeytown’s 1997 major label debut, Strangers Almanac will be re-released in a deluxe, 2-CD edition on March 4, 2008 on Geffen/UMe/Mood Food/Outpost.
During the time of the recording the band was led by a 22-year-old Adams and was in a certain level of turmoil: There was a new rhythm section (bassist Jeff Rice and drummer Steven Terry joined Adams, Cary and Wandscher), band member fiddler-singer-songwriter Caitlin Cary was in a relationship with the former drummer Eric “Skillet” Gilmore, Adams had been offered his own solo deal and they had no guitars because they had been misplaced during the trip to Nashville. The acoustic guitar heard on Strangers Almanac was bought in a pawnshop.
Disc one is the original album plus five previously unreleased live public radio performances. 17 of the 19 recordings on the second disc were previously unreleased recordings and are from the pre-production sessions for Strangers Almanac (commonly referred to as the Barn’s On Fire sessions). Intimate acoustic demos of “16 Days,” “Avenues” and “Excuse Me While I Break My Own Heart,” are included plus several original songs making their premieres in the Whiskeytown catalog: “Kiss & Make-Up,” “Indian Gown,” “Barn’s On Fire,” “Streets Of Sirens,” “Breathe,” “Nurse With The Pills” and “10 Seconds.” Also included are covers of Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams,” Gram Parsons’ “Luxury Liner,” Johnny Cash’s “I Still Miss Someone” and an early version of the True Believers’ “The Rain Won’t Help You When It’s Over.”
If this release comes anywhere close to the treatment reached by the Lucinda Williams’ Car Wheels on a Gravel Road and The Allman Brothers Band Eat a Peach deluxe editions it should be a great addition for Ryan fans.
I posted the overlooked a couple of doozies from the fall music calender.
Mary Gauthier with John Henry 9/20/2007 Blender Theatre at Gramercy New York, NY
Ryan Adams 10/31/2007 Hammerstein Ballroom New York, NY
The New York Times has a nice piece on Ryan Adams, his ending contract and sometimes tumultuous relationship with Lost Highway records, getting back with his old manager, John Silva, and the road ahead. This article contains this great story when one outlaw of country meets another:
One afternoon, as Ryan Adams was recording his new album, “Easy Tiger” (Lost Highway), at Electric Lady Studios in Greenwich Village, the singer-songwriter Steve Earle dropped by to visit. Jimi Hendrix had built Electric Lady in the late 1960s, and Mr. Earle pointed out that “there are some good ghosts here.”
“Yeah,” Mr. Adams blithely responded. “There are the ghosts of about 45 speedballs from when I was recording here a year or two ago,” referring to a mixture of heroin and cocaine.
Like Earle, Adams is working on containing his demons and is producing some of the best work of his life. Horror-meister and former addict himself, Stephen King wrote the record company bio that will accompany Easy Tiger’s release on June 26. Mr. King calls it “maybe the best Ryan Adams CD ever.”
It seems Ryan Adams has a famous, and creepy, fan that might be able to match him in creative output.
Pitchfork reports that horror-meister Stephen King has penned a bio/homage (below) for Adams and a excerpt has been posted on Amazon.com for his upcoming release “Easy Tiger.”
The complete work:
It was, Ryan Adams says, this girl he’s been spending time with; the title of this album is her fault. “She wanted to go out to dinner at eight; I wanted to go right away. She said, ‘Easy, Tiger.’ And that hit me. It stuck with me to the point where I called up Neal [that would be Neal Casal, guitarist of The Cardinals] and left a message on his answering machine with those two words. ‘Don’t forget this,’ I said, ’cause I want to use it.’”
Adams laughs and adds, “I think he’s still got that message.”
And I understand that. Some things you just save, because they’re worth playing over again.
I think there are really only two kinds of pop music CDs these days. There are the ones you listen to only once or twice, maybe downloading the single good song to your iPod or computer; then there are others that grow stronger, sweeter, and more necessary each time you play them. Gold was that way; Cold Roses was that way; so was Jacksonville City Nights. I won’t say Adams is the best North American singer-songwriter since Neil Young…but I won’t say he isn’t, either. What I know is there has never been a Ryan Adams record quite as strong and together as Easy Tiger; it’s got enough blue-eyed, blue-steel soul (with the faintest country tinge) to make me think of both Marvin Gaye and the Righteous Brothers. Probably ridiculous, but true. And the songs themselves are beautiful– the lyrics tightly focused and brief, the feeling one of melancholy calm that will probably be a revelation to fans that remember the old, sometimes angry Ryan Adams.
He agrees that the tone of Easy Tiger is different– not dark, just different– and suggests in passing that it may have something to do with both sobering up and growing up (he’s 32). Then he goes on to talk about the process, which is clearly something close to his heart. “I write on a manual typewriter,” he says. “I get up, I have a cup of coffee, I sit down at the typewriter. I never spent a useless day behind a typewriter.”
I say amen to that, but he’s already going on.
“It’s like– I don’t know, sometimes it’s like chasing a pretty girl on the beach. And things I never thought I could do…I can do.”
I mention how prolific he is, aware that I might be touching a sore point. After all, there are plenty of critics who seem to think that’s a bad thing. Adams, however, just laughs.
“Yeah, yeah, in America people give you shit for working hard,” he says. “But…it’s process, that’s all. I process things. I went into the dream business. If people need ‘em, I’ve got extra.”
He talks enthusiastically about all the unreleased material he hopes to set free in a box set, maybe at the end of the year (“If people hear it all, then they’ll get the connections,” he says), but that’s then. Now there’s this, maybe the best Ryan Adams CD ever. And I know you want to listen to it right away. But slow down. Take your time. This album asks for that, and it will reward your full attention.
In other words– easy, Tiger.
–Stephen King