JD Allen: Americana Volume 2

Tenor saxist JD Allen goes rural and rootsy, evoking sonic images of Rev. Gary Davis with his team of guitarist Charlie Hunter, drummer Rudy Royston and bassist Gregg August on an album that is filled with red clay under the fingernails. Hunter sounds like he’s standing at the crossroads of some dusty roads, sweltering under the sun with Royston before Allen finally wheezes in like an emphysemic  58 Ford Truck on “Up South” . Gospel folk tunes are never fare away her as on “This World Is A Mean World” and the gutbucket of “The Battle of Blair Mountain”. Allen blows in a dustbowl of a storm on his intro of the informal take of “Jackie and Johnny” and hovers like a morning fog for the earthy “The Werk Song”. Theres’s a bit of R&B on the country road of “Irene (Mother) while the band mourns around August’s strums on “Mickey and Mallory”. Farmer John overalls in blue.

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