Whiskeytown - Rural Free Delivery (USA 1997)

Uncle Roddus Album of the Day

1. Take Your Guns to Town (2:29)

2. Nervous Breakdown (2:19)

3. Tennessee Square (2:49)

4. Captain Smith (2:10)

5. Macon, Georgia County Line (2:29)

6. Pawn Shop Ain't No Place for a Wedding Ring (4:33)

7. Oklahoma (2:55)

8. Angels Are Messengers from God (4:06)

I really dig Whiskeytown and this sort of stop gap EP/Album is just as good as the three proper albums they released, although pretty hard to get your hands on nowadays, which is why I don't have it on CD. A bunch of great country tinged rockers, with elements of bluegrass, country ballads and good rockin numbers some time reminiscent of mid period Violent  Femmes(see "Captain Smith")on the more up-tempo numbers. The wonderful "Angels Are Messengers from God " is a classic and one I am most familiar with from this set and the fact that it is a slightly different version of "Faithless Street" from the first album, "Oklahoma is a very cool slab of cow punk. Not a weak moment here on this awesome set of Americana which really kicks ass in an Alt Country way. Rating 5/5.

Whiskeytown - Pueumonia (USA 2001)

Roddus Album Of The Day

The other of my essential favorites of the younger generation of  musicians along with Jack White is the also prolific and idiosyncratic Ryan Adams. Whiskeytown , fronted by Adams, was an alt country band along the lines and properly influenced by Uncle Tupelo. They released 3 Lps before they folded, this being their third, which wasn't released untill well after they had split and Adams had released his debut solo effort.
 Adams is a class A song writer and this albums consists of  a score of  excellent melodic laidback alt country pop tunes that grow in stature after repeated listens and have become classics for me over the years, along with much of Adams other releases and I suspect that if this album had been released earlier and they had stayed together, the commercialbility of this music may have payed off handsomely for them.That said, for me this is the weakest Whiskeytown Album and clocking in at 57 minutes is a tad long and the songs in the second half don't have quite the same appeal for me. Another album where the songs tend to blur into each other later in the piece and make it harder to retain my attention,although they do stand up well on their own. still overall, worth a respectable 4/5 on the Roddusometer.

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