Artist: Vic Chesnutt
Title: Ghetto Bells
Released: March 2005
Label: New West Records
Notes: From New West Records: Prolific, profound, and ever full of potty-mouthed piss-and-vinegar - Vic Chesnutt is Prometheus in a wheelchair with a battered guitar – a freak-folk trailblazer, spilling his heart and soul and spleen into the microphone, with a sly drawl, dripping humid, Southern gothic imagery in calamitous, sometimes comic songs worthy of a Greek tragedy.
Vic’s new CD (and 12th album to date), Ghetto Bells, matches the poetic power of his words with some of the most elegantly simpatico backing he’s ever been blessed with – including jazz icon Bill Frisell on guitars; legendary writer, arranger and multi-instrumentalist Van Dyke Parks on piano, accordion and organ; Don Heffington of Lone Justice and the Jayhawks on drums and percussion; classically trained session-man Dominic Genova on double bass; sweetheart/sidekick/sounding board Tina Chesnutt on electric bass; and newcomer-singer-songwriter Liz Durrett on exquisite backing vocals.
For some 15 years, producer John Chelew (John Hiatt, Richard Thompson, Blind Boys of Alabama) had been dreaming of pairing Chesnutt with Heffington – ever since he saw the two playing together at McCabe’s Guitar Shop in LA, after Vic’s debut album, Little, was released in 1990. And in their wildest reveries, Chelew and Chesnutt had always envisioned bringing the audacious talents of Parks into the mix. That dream finally came true in 2004, as Chelew, Chesnutt and Parks got together for a week of sessions at Heffington’s L.A. guest house/studio. Adding Frisell completed the layered, vividly moody sonic mélange that Chelew has described a very “nighttime” recording.
The moods and textures of the songs sway from the startling opener "Virginia" with a string arrangement (courtesy of Van Dyke) evoking a seedy, rainy street in some Tennessee Williams play to the omnipotent Greek Chorus of "What Do You Mean;" from the wanton "To Be With You" to the simple short story of "Ignorant People;" from the almost obscenely beautiful, southern Gothic epic "Forthright" to the closing, ghostly falsetto of "Gnats."
Tracks (
Click song title to hear it in RealAudio):| 1. | |
Virginia |
| 2. | Little Caeser | |
| 3. | What do You Mean? | |
| 4. | |
Got to Me |
| 5. | Ignorant People | |
| 6. | Forthright | |
| 7. | To Be With You | |
| 8. | |
Vesuvius |
| 9. | Rambunctious Cloud | |
| 10. | |
The Garden |
| 11. | Gnats | |
• Vic Chesnutt's official site
• New West Records