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Whiskeytown revisited
Ryan Adams finds his footing with the Cardinals
BY SAMUEL V. THOMPSON
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Related Links
Ryan Adams' official Web site Carly Carioli reviews Ryan Adams' Love Is Hell Parts 1 & 2
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A week ago Tuesday at Avalon, a chatty Ryan Adams led his new band the Cardinals through a two-and-a-half-hour set that drew on material he’s been writing since Whiskeytown, the notorious alt-country band he once fronted, fell apart. It was an off-the-cuff appearance that drew equally on the energy of an adoring crowd and on the same crack backing band who’ve helped him come full circle on his new double album Cold Roses (Lost Highway) — back to the alt-country basics of solid songwriting, gritty guitar interplay, and rootsy twang. This from an artist who with Whiskeytown seemed poised to break alt-country to a mass audience, a frontman who more or less drank Whiskeytown into the ground, and a singer-songwriter who since 1999 has struggled on albums ranging from the hard-rocking Rock ’n Roll to the pop-inflected Gold and Demolition to the more folk-oriented Love Is Hell. Like the Avalon set, Cold Roses marks a return to the Southern comforts and rock-band chemistry of Whiskeytown. Having toyed with a more metropolitan image as a solo artist, Adams draws on his beloved North Carolina for the new disc. The free-love tenor of the lyrics on "Magnolia Mountain" is supported by freewheeling musical passages. The love-sick "Now That You’re Gone" brings a refreshing wit to what might otherwise be a tired topic. And pedal-steel embellishments set Ryan on familiar musical terrain in "Easy Plateau." It wasn’t until after I’d loaded the two discs onto my iTunes that I noticed disc one is titled "Country" and disc two "Rock." Is this Ryan’s way of setting the table for the Cardinals, a band adept at both sides of the roots-rock equation? Or is he borrowing a ploy familiar to any Grateful Dead fan? (In their first decade, Dead shows would feature two sets: one rock, one country.) One of this year’s Jammy Awards performers, Adams hasn’t ruled out aligning himself with a scene that’s been friendly to alt-country types. And in fact, there isn’t much difference between the two sides of Cold Roses, the album instead pulling together the various strains of rock, pop, country, and folk that Adams has experimented with over the past five years. He’s picked from the best players in New York’s thriving roots scene. JP Bowersock (music guru to the Strokes, and a guy whom Ryan’s taken lessons from in the past) is his guitar foil. Catherine Popper (from the country-pop band Hem) handles bass and backing vocals. And long-time Adams sideman Brad Pemberton plays drums and keeps the Cardinals’ Web site updated. On Cold Roses, Grammy-winning Texas roots specialist Cindy Cashdollar adds authentic touches of slide and pedal steel. Her role in the band’s touring line-up and the next two albums — Jacksonville City Lights comes out later this summer and the tentatively titled 29 should be in stores before the holidays — has been taken over by Jon Graboff, a Brooklynite who started out his musical life as a mandolinist in a bluegrass band. At Avalon, it was evident that this line-up has developed into a band Adams can call his own. And Cold Roses shows him picking up where Whiskeytown left off. He just has a lot more songs to choose from.
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