Six Volts: Fred Eaglesmith

Sweetwater Music

Ramblin’ troubadour Fred Eaglesmith never met a roots music genre he didn’t like. Over the course of 18 albums he’s switched up styles seemingly every time he drops one. So it makes total sense that this ‘un, album 19, comes in the form of a Fred Eaglesmith sampler collection.

Every genre and roots subgenre he’s ever worked in is represented here; alt-country, stone cold folk, dry as dust roots, road songs, Gospel and it’s alter ego the murder ballad, all get their moments in the Eaglesmith sun and that’s a special place.

Backed by a full band, featuring quick pickin’ mandolin player Mike Zinger, and recorded with the group gathered around a single microphone, the sound is stripped down and warm, made edgy upon occasion by bursts of skronky electric guitar and made vital by Eaglesmith’s lived-in vocals.
Subject matter includes stories of the down and the downtrodden, cheating wives, truckers on amphetamines, singers, crazy women, nights on the town, days on the road and da country music life.

Highlights include but aren’t limited to the technically flawlessly constructed murder ballad. ‘Katie’, the Gospel-inflected “Cemetery Road”, a poignant road song ‘Stars” wherein he recollects, “We played like we were stars/Willie played mandolin and we thought it would never end.”

Very strange and very much a standout is “Johnny Cash,” which takes shots at Johnny-come-lately fans of the Man In Black who listened to him now rather than back when “Johnny’s shows weren’t selling” and asks “where were you in ’89 when it looked like Johnny’s career was in decline/back when you were listening to heavy metal,”

Why now, these many years after Johnny Cashed out, is knowable only to Eaglesmith. Even stranger, the tune is punctuated with shredder-style guitar breaks that’d sound right at home on a Neil Young song. There’s an Eaglesmith subtext buried somewhere in this thing.

For folks who’ve never had the pleasure, Six Volts makes for a fine introduction as to why many consider Eaglesmith a national treasure.

James Lizzard