Blue Mountain: Tales Of A Traveler

One fact that rarely gets mentioned in discussions of the country-rock revival is that, in certain hands, it can be just as much about reviving rock as reviving country. By throwing blues into the equation, bands like Bottle Rockets have helped make the world safe for bar-rock again, following as much in the footsteps of Tom Petty as Gram Parsons. (Not that those footsteps always head in wildly different directions.) On the new Tales Of A Traveler, Oxford, Mississippi's Blue Mountain—filling out from a trio to a full band with the addition of bassist George Sheldon—falls neatly on the rock side of country-rock, putting a Southern spin on imported Stones riffs that were themselves originally exported from somewhere around Oxford, Mississippi. Producer Dan Baird's old band, The Georgia Satellites, once did something of the same thing, albeit without the subtleties provided by Blue Mountain's husband-and-wife songwriting team of Cary Hudson and Laurie Stirratt. As well as it acquits itself on up-tempo numbers like "When You're Not Mine" and "I Don't Wanna Say Goodnight," the band's slower, introspective numbers make Tales Of A Traveler memorable. "Comic Book Kid," for instance, nicely evokes a misfit childhood, while the spare "Death Is A Fisherman" effectively recalls John Wesley Harding-era Dylan. In the end, a few more songs like the harmony-rich "Lakeside" and a few less like the Santana-esque "My Wicked, Wicked Ways" might have made Tales Of A Traveler great instead of merely good. But it's certainly more than good enough, a solid, thoughtful piece of country-rock from a band with the desire and talent to keep its sound interesting.