Sticks That Made Thunder

The SteelDrivers are a reasonably tradition-embracing bluegrass band composed of session musicians from Nashville. "Reasonably tradition-embracing" means that they still use all the instruments you would expect, and they don't go off into Happy Jazz Land much (or at all, really), but that they are definitely pushing the boundaries of what Bill Monroe himself would find tolerable. Also they write all their own stuff. Their eponymous debut album was released this January on Rounder, and it has already become real good friends with my CD player.

The main attraction is Chris Stapleton, guitarist, lead singer, and songwriter (all the songs are written by him and one other person; the person in the second slot varies from tune to tune). Actually, that's not quite true. Stapleton is a damn solid rhythm guitar player (a species which is a dime a dozen in Nashville) and a damn fine songwriter (not as common a species, though not always a guarantee of well-arranged and well-performed music), but the main attraction of the SteelDrivers is Chris Stapleton's voice. I mean holy Odetta this man can friggin' sing. And the mental image I had of him after listening to this record a few times is nothing like the picture you see at right.

The best way to understand the force and quality of his voice is, well, to listen to it and make your own judgment, but if you put Travis Tritt's voice, a box of cigars, a couple bottles of Jack Daniels, a few feet of your driveway, and some okra in a blender and put it on "Chunky," you might get something like Stapleton's voice. This intricate metaphor, however, fails to give you an idea of his versatility: he can warble and moan on the languorous Civil War song "Sticks That Made Thunder" (an apt image for instruments as well as muskets); he can rasp and cackle on "If it Hadn't Been for Love," a murderer's lament-type song that's one of my favorites from the album; and he can howl in a clear and shatteringly powerful (but still chunky as hell) Howitzer of a tenor on tunes like the boppin' bluegrassy opener, "Blue Side of the Mountain." And he can do a tasteful amount of that Mariah Carey melisma crap when he feels like it, too. Nor is he afraid to make his voice sound flat and brash when it fits the line or the syllable. I could go on, but the point is that Chris Stapleton's vocal chords are one of the finest artifacts of modern bluegrass.

His songs ain't bad either. My chief gripe about modern bluegrass bands, as I believe I've griped before, is weak songwriting in the midst of tight instrumentation and phenomenal chops, and so by comparison with some of the dreck I've heard passed off as bluegrass, the SteelDrivers' songs are fantastic. In the grand scheme of things this makes them better than average but not instant classics (except maybe "If it Hadn't Been for Love," which deserves to be covered well and frequently). The songs nod to and flirt with bluegrass cliches while occasionally inverting or altogether rejecting them. There's a war song, a drinking song, a murder song, a homesick song, a few lovesick songs, you know, but they're well-done expressions of their various archetypes.

The instrumentalists are chosen from Nashville's finest session musicians, and it shows. Together they achieve a remarkably tight and crisp sound, while managing to sound raw and unpolished. How does that work? I'm terribly jealous of this effect. Individually, they vary. Stapleton has great rhythm with his guitar but eschews lead lines. Bassist Mike Fleming is like a pet rock: groovy and steadfast. Banjoist Richard Bailey is my favorite instrumentalist in the band, with wonderful bounce, sparkling tone, and eternal creativity. Mandolinist Mike Henderson (who co-writes many of the songs) remained an enigma for a while because, whether it's the poor mix of the album (hard to believe on such a slick product) or the poor quality of the Amazon download or the cheapness of my equipment, I couldn't hear the mandolin breaks on any of the songs worth jack when listening on my CD player. With headphones, on my computer, I found his breaks to be competent, clean, simple, and firmly within what Bill Monroe would find tolerable. Fiddler Tammy Rogers... well, now, let's be fair, I'm a fiddle player, and thus am terribly critical of other fiddle players. She's quite good, and plays with a lot more soul than many Nashville fiddle robots I know of, but sometimes she tends to sound a bit frenetic and sometimes her breaks tend to sound kind of the same. Also there is one lick that she plays over and over and over again in various songs, no matter the key or time signature, which gets to be aggravating. (Listen for it... it starts on the flat 7th of the chord and has a big slide in the middle.) She does sing some fine harmonies upon occasion as well.

Altogether, this is one of my most highly recommended bluegrass albums of the past year or so. It may get knocked down a few slots after I spend all my Amazon money on new stuff, but it's a very enjoyable, slightly edgy, jazz-free traditional piece of tightly orchestrated yet foot-tapping bluegrass, essentially demonstrating the many sides of a marvelously gifted singer and some friends he gathered into a band, from honky-tonkish romping to a level of precision after Flatt & Scruggs' own hearts to limit-pushing, genre-pulling, rocked-up, twangy singer-songwriter material. Check it out.