WILL
KIMBROUGH
Wings
Will
& the Bushmen.
There. I've said it. Not long ago, I swore I would never start a
review or an article about Will
Kimbrough without
mentioning them and I am getting it out of the way quickly this
time because the CD now inhabiting my CD player is the best
Kimbrough I've heard in some time and as much as I love The
Bushmen, it may well be time to let go. Gone is the Kimbrough who
fronted the Bushmen, the pop-rocking youth. Gone is the sometimes
tentative singer/songwriter of later years whose songs ranged from
excellent to, well, tentative (though always well worth hearing).
This Kimbrough is different. You might say that this Kimbrough has
wings.
Wings, indeed. These wings are personal and yet not all Kimbrough. Only two songs, Three Angels and Love To Spare are Kimbrough-penned, the others written in conjunction with others. One, Love To Spare, could easily have John Lennon and Ronnie Lane's names attached for, as he says in the press kit, “This song would not exist if not for their influence.”
The album, in fact, is awash with influences. “Wings started while I was on tour with drummer Paul Griffith and bassist Tim Marks,” Kimbrough writes. “We were listening to JJ Cale and vintage Jamaican music. What we were obsessed with was the atmospheric minimalism that characterizes all of that music. While we did not end up making an Oklahoma blues-dub album, we tried to keep focused on keeping things fairly simple. Eventually, I added elements like an extra guitar part, the odd cello, a little bit of horns, slide guitar, banjo, women's voices, piano, Wurlitzer organ (...not sounding so minimal anymore, it is!).” Well, Will, sometimes minimal has nothing to do with the number of instruments and the one thing you accomplished even while adding embellishments was to keep the music grounded. Simple as that.
Like the superb JJ Cale-influenced It Ain't Cool. First thing I thought when I heard it, and I had not yet read the press kit, was that JJ Cale's voice had changed. Slap this amidst a Cale-athon and some others would think the same. Add very impressive (very impressive) organ and slide guitar, downright ethereal in effect, and you have a tune (written with Todd Snider, someone you should check out, if you haven't already). And the walk-through-the-park Let Me Be Your Frame, written with Sara Kelley. I was just going to ask when the press kit answered--- “Everyone who hears this song asks who is singing with me, and I tell them, 'That's Dawn Kinnard.' Isn't she great?”--- and now I can't hear it without hearing Kimbrough say it. She is, Will. She is. Like the song Kimbrough describes as “country & eastern”--- Three Angels. I will jump out on a limb hear and say that they must be the three most important people in his life, probably wife and daughters. I want it to be that. Truth be told, it makes me want to be him.
The real treat for me, though, is Big Big Love. I have been a Cowboy fan since hearing their Reach For the Sky back in the very early seventies and while I know Kimbrough is not channeling Tommy Talton, one of that band's founding members, it sure as hell sounds like it, right down to the background harmonies and chord changes. Slap this on one of Talton's albums and I could hardly tell the difference. I've gotten all too little of Talton over the years. While this only fills the void a little, it helps. A beautiful song.
One might think that being prolific would make completing an album easier, but in this case I think one might be wrong. Songs, the really good ones anyway, depend so much on mood, setting, energy and so many other factors. Putting them in sequence, for Kimbrough, may well have been a most difficult task. Or even just choosing the songs, for he has to have a trunk full waiting in the wings, no pun intended. It had to have felt good when, songs finished and in the can, they sequenced themselves. Or so it seems. The cover I received had a note attached which said, “OOPS! You can't believe everything you read... but you CAN believe everything you hear. The enclosed Will Kimbrough Wings CD packaging was printed with the tracks in the WRONG order. However, the recording on the CD itself is in the correct sequence.” Printer's error? I think not. I think it was a natural progression, an organic process, if you will. I think that the songs, dissatisfied with the sequencing, rearranged themselves after the cover art was sent to the printer. I think they knew! It sure sounds like they did, anyway.
Frank O. Gutch Jr.
Supporting the Indies Since 1969
