Banjo player Danny Barnes made a name for himself with his band the Bad Livers as well as his stints with Bill Frisell. Here, you get some recordings from a decade ago, and he sounds like a minstrel from Leggett, Texas with these Spartan and earthy tunes that are as unpolished as they are alluring. No Nashville Cats or pretty boys with cowboy hats here; Barnes sings and plays like he’s got a gap tooth, brown teeth and a container for chewing tobacco in his back pocket of Wranglers.
His picking style is more folk than bluegrass, trudging along as both the rhythm and melody while his voice is sort of a countrified Tom Waits on “Get Myself Together.” His storytelling is in a similar vein as well, as on “Get Me Out of Jail” and “Wasted Mind.” You feel like he just stepped out of his trailer to tell you about “Cat to The Rat” and he does some picking and grinning on “Cut A Rug.” Almost like lost Alan Lomax tapes!