#rumble strip

[elizjjwold]

No services

By Elizabeth Johnson-Wold

[rumblestripvermont]

(Rumble Strip) For most of Jesse’s early childhood, her mother was addicted to crystal meth. She called it her 'high functioning addict period'. She kept a spotless house, worked a regular job and had four well behaved kids. Then Jesse’s mom started using opiates, and everything changed. She lost the job, lost the money, and it became harder to keep a car. The eviction notices started coming. For a time, with the help of Suboxone, she got clean. Then in 2010, her youngest son died in a car accident. He was seven at the time. After that she relapsed and everything got a whole lot worse.In this show, Jesse talks about what it was like to grow up at the mercy of her mother’s addictions. Her home life, her school life, and her thoughts about her own future.

[rumblestripvermont]

(Rumble Strip) The first time I learned of Amelia Meath was in an email exchange. She’d written me a nice note about Rumble Strip and at the end she wrote--in rather an understated way--'P.S. I’m in a band. It's called Sylvan Esso.' And because I'm old, I'd never heard of Sylvan Esso.So I looked her up online and I spent the rest of that night listening to every version of every Sylvan Esso song I could find, really loud and over and over. If there had been an album cover, I would have been clutching it to my breast.Ever since their first single in 2013, Sylvan Esso has gotten famous pretty fast, and they tour all over he world. Last month they played in Burlington, and I spent a rainy day talking with Amelia and Nick in their tour bus before the show. We talked about their music, touring, and the complexities of success. And there's a lot of music in the show.It's like a musical.

[musiconspotify]

John Leventhal - Rumble Strip (2024) … memory bank of songs …

[krispyweiss]

Album Review: John Leventhal - Rumble Strip

It’s not until five songs in to John Leventhal’s debut solo album, Rumble Strip, that voices - his and that of his wife, Rosanne Cash - appear for “That’s all I Know about Arkansas.”

Coming after the short instrumentals - maxi-snippets, call them - built on piano (“Floyd Cramer’s Blues”), acoustic guitar (“J.L.’s Hymn, No. 2”) and full-band (the title track; “Tullamore Blues, No. 2”) arrangements, “Arkansas” features Leventhal’s moody, somewhat-muted production values, recalling LPs he’s worked on for Cash, Sarah Jarosz and others.

“Arkansas” gives way to more wordless offerings - “Clarinet Concerto,” an acoustic-electric guitar duet; the languid and brooding “Inwood Hill,” which adds banjo and a melody in the final 30 seconds; and “Meteor,” a crunchy, Americana “Green Onions” rewrite.

This is the point where it becomes clear Rumble Strip is more a collection of song ideas than completed songs. That’s not to say album is unpleasant - because it is not - but with Cash popping up again to duet on “If You Only Knew” and Leventhal singing of the life of a scraping-by musician on “The Only Ghost” - amid short bits like “Marion and Sam” and the Julian Lage-inspired “Who’s Afraid of Samuel Barber” - it is disjointed.

Sequenced as it is, rather than grouping instrumentals and vocal tracks together, the album trickles like an ephemeral stream as dry season approaches, rather than the flowing rivers Leventhal’s created for others while at the board.

So while “Hymn No. 2,” “Arkansas” and the country strut of “Three Chord Monte” are well worth slowing down for, Rumble Strip is ultimately a disappointment - 16 tracks, crammed into 43 minutes that explain why Leventhal has thus far devoted his career to making others sound better; that’s the best use of his considerable talents.

Grade card: John Leventhal - Rumble Strip - C+

2/8/24

[krispyweiss]

Song Review: John Leventhal - “The Only Ghost”

The excitement generated by “JL’s Hymn No. 2” and “That’s all I Know about Arkansas” is tempered by “The Only Ghost.”

Single No. 3 from John Leventhal’s forthcoming (Jan. 26) first solo album, Rumble Strip, is a relatively uninspired folk-leaning song about the life of a struggling musician on the road.

I should’ve been long gone by now but I made it through somehow/with all the hopeless saints and sinners on a one-way drive/ … am I the only ghost around here that’s still alive, Leventhal sings on the chorus.

The song is entirely listenable and relatable; however, “The Only Ghost” is a number that’s been done many times in many ways by many others. So, where “Hymn No. 2” and “Arkansas,” with Leventha’s wife, Rosanne Cash, lending a hand, suggest Rumble Strip could be incredibly special; “The Only Ghost” suggests it could be padded with filler.

Grade card: John Leventhal - “The Only Ghost” - C

1/22/24

[krispyweiss]

Song Review(s): John Leventhal - “JL’s Hymn No. 2” and “That’s all I Know about Arkansas” (feat. Rosanne Cash)

After a long career as producer, session musician and sideman, Mr. Roseanne Cash, aka John Leventhal, finally got around to making a solo record. And if “JL’s Hymn No. 2” and “That’s all I Know about Arkansas,” the latter featuring Cash on co-lead vocals, are any indication, Rumble Strip promises to be varied and, potentially, fantastic.

“Hymn” is a lovely, introspective solo-acoustic instrumental that finds Leventhal playing at the intersection of John Fahey and James Taylor.

“Arkansas” is a low-fi country blues on which the couple sings together about a couple splitting apart. The musical setting is not unlike that which Leventhal cooked up on Sarah Jarosz’s 2020 LP World on the Ground.

She’s heading to/another life/god only knows/where she will land/the frozen north/with all its strife/the muddy south/she plowed by hand, Leventhal and Cash sing over a gloomy rhythm; acoustic and electric guitar; and mandolin.

Rumble Strip is out Jan. 26, 2024, on Cash and Leventhal’s new RumbleStrip Records imprint.

“The best thing to come out of the pandemic is that he sequestered himself in the studio and created what can reasonably be called a master work, and my favorite album for a very, very long time,” Cash says of her husband’s forthcoming debut.

“I was fortunate to be asked to sing on a couple of tracks, although he didn’t need me. This is an eclectic, beautiful, surprising, refined album that showcases a truly great musician and songwriter.”

Sure, Cash is biased. But judging from “JL’s Hymn No. 2” and “That’s all I Know about Arkansas,” she’s also correct.

Grade card: John Leventhal - “JL’s Hymn No. 2” and “That’s all I Know about Arkansas” (feat. Rosanne Cash) - A/A

11/14/23

[oublietonorgueil]

Regardez "Belleruche - Rumble Strip" sur YouTube