Simple Tunes for Troubled Times is a recording drenched in the influence of
the Band, from the story-line songs containing nostalgic old-timey themes to the cohesiveness of the playing and lack of individual solos. Even the variety of instrumentation is
Band-esque, featuring accordion, Dobro, fiddle, banjo, trombone, and trumpet, along with the quartet's standard acoustic guitar, steel guitar, standup bass, and harmonica -- all of which are top-notch. There's even a song about Richard Manuel, "The Ghost of Richard Manuel," which name-checks a few of Manuel's signature
Band songs and claims that Manuel's ghost is walking among us "like a natural man." Other standouts include the toe-tapping New Orleans ragtime of "Give My Regards to Miss Moline"; "The Steamboat Queen," about the final run of a Mississippi Riverboat; and "The Long Haul," which references a freightliner working along the Michigan coast, "from the Straits of Mackinac across to Milwaukee." There is also a terrific cover of
Randy Newman's "Mr. President (Have Pity on the Working Man)," but the high point is the album's finale, "Washtenaw County," a six-and-a-half-minute anthem penned by Daniel Kahn, a musician friend of the band. The song features the hypnotic chorus "Orion's got a belt made of stars/Rising over wherever you are/And I'll drive on down to Washtenaw/Three stars over my head." Released by Earthwork Music, a small collective label of folk- and roots-based artists located in northern Michigan,
Simple Tunes for Troubled Times is an album that was easily missed, but also one of the very best that 2008 had to offer. ~ Chris Berggren