He also makes it incumbent upon us to pay close attention to the lyrics, both because they’re frequently finely turned and because he tells such fine stories. “One-Eyed Katie,” a track with a four-note back-beat like Hopalong Cassidy, opens with a really fine couplet: “This here’s a story about one-eyed Katie/She’s all woman but not one bit lady.” Here James’s voice is more relaxed and conversational, too, which is refreshing after so much growl. You realize what a great baritone he has, not quite bass but close.
“Sugar Smallhouse and the Legend of the Wandering Siren Cactus” is magnificent if only for its title, opening very quietly, a laid-back and ghostly guitar, then picking up a more sinister rhythm. The vocals are consistently very high in the mix, which is good here, James seeming to float above the tunes. We’re told that, “of all that’s deadly, out there in the sand/the wandering siren cactus is the first to end a man/It calls you with its beauty, both sight and sound/They find your body full of spines and there’s no cactus to be found.” That’s pretty fabulous, and so is the gotcha finish.
Pulling off an album like this is hard. The dangers of cliché and corn abound. Samuel James avoided both and produced sometime that’s better than classic or contemporary. He made something timeless.
On the Web
www.myspace.com/sugarsmallhouse
Sam Pfeifle can be reached at sam_pfeifle@yahoo.com.
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