New Tattoo

Description

Product Description Bluegrass. Newgrass. Rock N Rollgrass. As John Cowan proves, true innovators defy easy categorization. His ability to move easily between music styles while bending genres into creative new forms has made him one of acoustic musics most significant voices for over three decades. Cowan rose to fame as the lead singer of New Grass Revival, which included renowned band-mates Sam Bush, Bela Fleck and Pat Flynn. The band introduced a new generation of music fans to an explosive, experimental brand of bluegrass. Since NGR, Cowan has followed his creative muse across a diverse landscape of music, delivering a string of acclaimed albums along the way. Now, he returns to his acoustic roots, teaming with an A-list of musicians and noted rock producer Jay Joyce (Patty Griffin, John Hiatt, Tim Finn). The result is the powerful New Tattoo. desertcart.com As the lead singer of New Grass Revival, über tenor John Cowan always brought an urgency and bold authority to the experimental form his bandmates forged out of bluegrass. So it's no surprise that his versatility carried over to his next ventures, blue-eyed soul and prog-rock, or to his current eponymously named acoustic ensemble, where he's joined by Jeff Autry (guitar), Wayne Benson (mandolin), Shad Cobb (fiddle), and Noam Pikelny (banjo). Their kick-off tune, "Carla's Got a New Tattoo," in which a locomotive rhythm propels Bob Lucas's cheeky lyrics about the cool of body art, recalls the legendary New Grass at their zenith. But the band quickly switches gears to the dark blues of "Misery and Happiness," in which Cowan, powering down his force-of-nature voice to make room for ghostly harmony by Patty Griffin, stunningly evokes the searing pain of redemptive love gone cold. The highlights here are many, and a lot of them bear the stamp of Cowan's friend Darrell Scott, beginning with the spiritual "6 Red Birds (In a Joshua Tree)," which Cowan and Scott wrote together, and segueing to "With a Memory Like Mine," an exquisite song of the crazy-making grief of war (written by Scott and his father, Wayne). But the collaboration that will long stick in the mind is "Drown," a harrowing story song of child molestation. Cowan and Scott (who contributes plaintive piano accompaniment) wrote it together, but it's Cowan's own story of violation, and it's one of the bravest songs of the year. All in all, this is a sterling collection of unusually fine material, delivered in Cowan's trademark ice-and-electricity vocals. --Alanna Nash