On
Dirt on the Angel, his fourth outing, multi-instrumentalist
Danny Barnes, formerly of the Austin, TX-based
Bad Livers, soldiers on mining the tradition for new songs while displaying an eclecticism that's nothing less than endearing and simultaneously visionary. With the help of a band that includes
Bill Frisell,
Chuck Leavell, and
Darol Anger (
Barnes was/is a part of
Frisell's group the Willies),
Barnes' own songs, such as "Life in the Country" and "Get It While You Can," the two opening tracks in sequence, display
Barnes' high lonesome gutbucket funky bluegrass. With a voice that resembles
Leon Russell and a banjo delivery that is closer to
Roscoe Holcomb and
Dock Boggs than
Earl Scruggs,
Barnes keeps it close to the heart of the heart of the country. On a cut such as the title track,
Frisell's lyrical gift and
Leavell's gorgeous wide-open chord voicings color a lament that is both haunting and bittersweet and sounds as if it could have been produced by
Daniel Lanois. The wide-open country-rock of "Water Wagon," a paean to sobriety, gives a nod to
the Band's pastoral Arcadian blues and features a stunning fiddle solo by
Anger. The cover of the traditional "Keep My Skillet Good and Greasy," made infamous by
Uncle Dave Macon in the 1930s, is rendered here as nasty and lonesome as is possible in a new millennium. But the most telling moment is a cover of "Ooh La La" by the late
Ronnie Lane and
Ronnie Wood of
the Faces.
Lane taught the song to
Barnes, and here it is tenderly yet not overly reverently rendered, full of humor and warmth, offering a portrait of
Lane as the musician he truly was -- somebody as close to the country as he was to the roots of rock (and perhaps why he and Ian McLagan relocated to Austin). Gritty swing makes an appearance in "I Likes My Chicken Hot," and a woolly cover of
Beck Hansen's "Loser" closes the 14-song set with a sampladelic pasting of
Macon's reading of "Keep My Skillet Good and Greasy" to anchor the weight of the tune and make it a hillbilly blues song with sound effects.
Dirt on the Angel is easily the most focused -- and fun --outing of
Barnes' solo career thus far. ~ Thom Jurek