#83: Don't Be Denied
Duane Betts | Bob Wagner | Widespread Panic
Welcome back, folks. We’ve lost some paying subs in the last month. I kind of take it personally. Times are hard, I know, but this thing takes real time and effort and is worth more than a latte every month and that’s all we ask for.
I really stepped out of my comfort zone this week with a couple fantastic new records and I’m all the better for it.
I can’t really pinpoint why more mainstream, modern singer-songwriter stuff has turned me off for so long. Maybe it’s just the old indie rocker in me refusing to die, but songs with a budget just never really hit me.
So it’s weird that I hit play on Duane Betts’ new LP Isle of Hope. The album has been released via legendary old school rock and roll label Sun Records. Pre-LSD rock never became an obsession of mine and Elvis people are weird, so I don’t know a whole lot about the label and when/how it has come back to life. Duane is Dickey’s son and, to be completely honest, that relationship is the only reason I gave this record a shot. So this is another usual thing for me—the children of musicians I love and admire almost never get a look/listen. That’s probably my own generational trauma at play but it’s the truth.
Back to the music…Isle of Hope is great! Betts’ voice is warm and welcoming and his guitar playing is unsurprisingly reminiscent of his old man’s. Dickey passed on a couple years ago and that monumental life event surely affected Duane and this record. Rather than a rough & tumble, drinking-beers-and-riding trucks thing, Isle of Hope is introspective and cathartic. It opens with “Heartache”, a full bodied mid-tempo song about letting the thing happen, acknowledging it and moving on. A warm acoustic guitar and hand percussion keep the ship steady for a lovely guitar solo and things only get better from there. “Reckless” follows in a similar fashion and I love the slightly distant recording of Betts vocal, a real turn away from the in-your-face style most modern rock recorders lay on us. Stones-y background vocals abound on Isle of Hope and the guitars are always fired up and rolling along—i do wish things got a little looser and longer on the album. Duane is definitely jam-adjacent, so maybe he and his band open these great tunes up on stage. “Into the Void” has some great piano and keyboard accents and, like everything else on the album, bobs along lazily like a leaf on a late summer stream. Betts’ isn’t reinventing of the country rock wheel on his second full-length but, thank fuck, he doesn’t sound like some dipshit from Brooklyn trying to cosplay as Gram Parsons either. The best part of Isle of Hope for me is “Manatee River.” The track opens with a trotting acoustic rhythm and sitar-like lead before Duane starts a story of the old times with pops. It opens up to a rollicking gallop and just feels real good and blue skied. It’s the song that most closely resembles Dickey’s songwriting and the younger’s guitar is just sublime on it. This is where I’m pissed they didn’t jam the fuck out for 10 minutes but that’s my problem, not yours.
Stream this great sounding record on a sunny day or two and consider picking up a copy, because this is just lovely music full of heart and soul.
Earlier this year Mike Gordon did a tour with a new lineup for his solo band, one of the members was a cat named Bob Wagner.
Apparently Bob has been on the Burlington scene for a while and has just released his first solo LP. I’ve Been Down sees release via Royal Potato Family (the good people who put out Duane Betts’ first album, as a matter of fact). I streamed some of the Mike Gordon shows and they were greasy, rocking and very Little Feat-y. So, in other words, fucking awesome. A lot of what appealed to me was Wagner’s guitar and singing so it was with great excitement I dove into his album.
“Sad and Lonesome” is as twangy as you think but with a fatty synth in it, putting a real nice twist on the path through the prairie. The organ on the track is funky and Wagner’s guitar tone is thick and tasty. Again, suggesting great jam potential. Second track “Good Night and Good Luck” is a more conventional shuffle that I probably will skip most of the time but Wagner’s vocals might could convince me to hang around once in a while. “Richest Man on Earth” sounds a lot like Tom Rush to me and that’s a real compliment while “Universe Is Calling” is what I want Little Feat songs I’ve never listened to sound like but they never do. Things get rocking nicely on “Jesus, Coffee, Etc.” though I could’ve used a smidge more of that great gritty guitar wailing in there but it’s still a killer track—real nice soulful background vocals, too. As a survivor of 90s classic rock radio, I definitely don’t need this cover of Elton John’s “Daniel” but it’s tasteful and sober and if it means something to Bob or you, it’s good to have. After the cover, “Duende” comes in like an asteroid spun off the orbit of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, nicely flayed and landing in a green pasture.
The album stays grounded for its finale; the joyful, jumpy and triumphant “Fly Away”. It sums up all the strengths of I’ve Been Down and will likely have you running back to the front to get another cup of the good stuff. Thanks, Bob.
As threatened, I’m going to drop a favorite Widespread Panic show that I’ve been listening to. To be fair, I only discovered this one yesterday, but I was instantly smitten. As I do with any band with endless live tapes, I pick shows to listen to from places I imagine to be beautiful and interesting. New Mexico is one of those places that seems just endlessly mystical to this Northeast fella. I read about the Paolo Soleri venue in Santa Fe because Phish played there in the early 90s, and apparently it was an amazing place to see/hear music.
The thing about Panic is they don’t jam THAT MUCH. I mean they certainly do but they rarely take a song further out than 10 minutes and for some people (like me) that’s barely jamming.
The magic of Panic is setlist construction and cover choices. Some sets just flow like water with folk rock flowing into blues and funk and back again. 6/19/01 is one of those shows where the magic is there all night. It begins with a stunning opening run of The Take Out > Space Wrangler > Stop-Go > Weight of the World is a great intro to this band. On this evening, Panic did a wonderfully jamband-y thing by not playing a single song off their seventh studio album (Don’t Tell the Band) that was released that day.
The first cover of the evening comes late in the abbreviated-by-weather first set in the form of a cosmic take on Blind Faith’s “Do What You Like” sandwiched in the great, lurching original “Proving Ground.”
Set two opens with Neil Young’s “Don’t Be Denied” drawing appreciative cheers as the tale of a band’s humble beginnings is told. WP pick choice covers and as I’ve said before, they were going deep into Neil’s catalog before albums like Time Fades Away, Tonight’s the Night and On the Beach were reexamined and rallied around by the post indie set later in the decade. Highlights in this abound but don’t hit as hard when taken out of their fuzzy and atmospheric context. “Porch Song” and “Driving Song” are quintessential Panic pieces and are performed here with great gusto and set alight brighter than usual by guitarist Mikey Houser’s untouchable tone and phrasing. Dr. John’s “I Walk on Guilded SPlinters” gets the furthest musical stretch by the band on this evening in Santa Fe, rolling into a long drums section before a full band jam commences, with Dave Schools’ bass doing things a lot of low end theorists could only dream about. The jam resolves back into the second half of “Driving Song” that melts into a tale about rain and madness—”Hatfield”. A personal favorite from the 1993 album Everyday, Hatfield contains another deeply satisfying jam. The set closes with a dependably sultry and grooving reading of JJ Cale’s “Travellin Light”, a tune Panic have been doing so long I wouldn’t be surprised if some acid-fried wooks think it’s an original.
I got into this one on a run via an audience recording on the ReListen app but I just realized the band officially released the soundboard recording on Nugs. So soundboard weenies can find it over there, everyone else should download FLACs of Charles Fox’s great tape, captured in front of the soundboard with a pair of Schoeps mics. It’s a FANTASTIC capture. I’ve been listening to this show so much I don’t know when I’ll listen to the next night but I know I’ll get there someday. Enjoy. GET THE FULL SHOW HERE.
“Stop-Go”
“Porch Song”
Somedays I hear JJ singing Travelin' Light and think man how cool he's doing a Panic song. Will check out show while mowing the lawn this week. Thanks as always!