Soul Journey

As Billy Bob Thornton once pointed out, old America has found a new shelf-life on the coffee tables of Connecticut lawyers through the work of such unlikely bedfellows as Harry Smith and the Coen Brothers. On that level alone, the folks at Warners must be hoping they can translate the headwind stirred up by O Brother . . . into Norah Jones figures (and the two have in common the gift of understatement).

Welch may be a New England girl herself, but this music is more death than lifestyle accessory; one suspects she’s all too aware of how the ghost devils of the south originated in Hawthorne’s pilgrim territory. And to her credit, she learned her song well before she started singing. These verses are forged in the plain poetry of rounders and ramblers, although the sentiments abide to the present day. When in ‘Look At Miss Ohio’ she sings, “I wanna do right/But not right now” and yearns to hang out with the ragtime crowd, she’s naming the demon that raises its ugly head on Saturday nights across the ages. Conversely, you can hear The Palace Brothers’ appropriation of Louvins’ morals on ‘I Had A Real Good Mother And Father’. Check out how the scrubbed, un-made-up face on the back cover matches the severity of a voice endowing lines like “One monkey don’t stop the show” with puritan sternness.

So, don’t be fooled by the bland title and sky blue cover. Yes, the sounds are somewhat less skeletal than on Hell Among The Yearlings or Time (The Revelator) – all wood lodge fiddles, dobros, organ and drums. And yes, the feel is a little breezier (hints of Neil’s Stray Gators or The Band or John Wesley Harding/Nashville Skyline period Dylan on ‘Lowlands’ and ‘Wrecking Ball’). But on balance, Soul Journey still sees Welch coming off somewhere between Grandma Walton and Georgia O’Keefe.

I have no higher praise.