Andy Dale Petty "All God's Children Have Shoes" (2008)
- How far can a banjo take you? As long as there are young men who in their heart and spirit combine an open mind with a feeling for history and a lust to wander the country to see what the people really want, it can take you pretty far. Across a continent and down a century or two, if you let it. Andy Dale Petty is exactly such a person as described above. He picks his banjo and starts to ramble the country and life around him in increasing perimeters. He meets love, fun, joy and happiness, but also hardship, pain and loss. He sees the preachers talking about sin and salvation, he hears the country stars and the rock stars sing about wide variety of things, he hears the politicians of various colours talking their slang, but most of all he hears the stories the people tell. And at night he listenes to the sounds of nature. Unlike William Elliott Whitmore, the other young man who rambles the country with a banjo, he does not carve out a niche all of his own, but he collects the scraps and records of others and builds his world from there. Which makes his world a lighter, better and warmer place to live in.
- Only in this mindest is it possible to play songs by Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash on the same record as playing christian traditionals (“in christ there is no east or west”) or sing about traditions in self penned songs. And finally hit a hard note by covering John Fahey at the end of the record. That is the span Andy Dale Petty covers and it is pretty far by all means. In the middle he does a haunting version of “Joe Hill” and comments in the liner notes: “the anarchist poet and fighter who in 1915 was murdered by capitalist swine for defending his God-given right to work.” Pete LaFarge would stand up and say something, but I am still amazed by the wideness of ideological input a person can take. But wasn’t it Walt Whitman, who said in his penultimate US-american poem (before “Howl” probably…) about contradicting himself: “I am big, I can take many things.”
- And he didn’t even know Johnny Cash. I am very careful when comparing somebody to Johnny Cash, for everybody knows that he sits to the right of the Lord in my personal religion, but when I stumble upon a young god-abiding socialist from the backwoods of the USA, then I find some paralells. As if to put blame on blame Petty covers “He turned the water into wine” by Johnny Cash, the hymn from his most bible-fearing record escapades and the result of a travel to Israel of June Carter and him.
- Enough of that. Later on it is songs about the American folklore character The Goatman, strange songs about lost love, cowboy waltzes, bootleggers and other bloddy deeds. The music is constantly rather uplifting and basic in instrumentation: banjo, acoustic guitar, a little piano here and a little percussion there. Probably recorded in somebody’s wood-panelled living room. It only gets dark at night, right?
- Most fortunately, “All god’s children have shoes” strays away from any bland retro-superficiality. Though the cover of the album is strictly from the old country and hillbilly song collections and the intro sample of Petty’s grandma welcoming him home, definitely have a feel of a little kitsch, but the musical selections and their interpretation are strictly rooted in the here and now. But I guess you can listen to it anytime.
3 comments:
Really like this... what's up with the Clash track though?
Really like this. Petty has a very nice/different way of delivering his songs .. some well-known folk and covers like "Joe Hill""Walking Down the Line" "The Coo Coo Bird". Great instrumentals too. I looked to see if he has recorded anything else, but he hasn't. Apparently he is working on another record.
Thanx a lot!
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