6623 - WHISKEYTOWN - Strangers Almanac (DeLuxe Edition), Disc One (1997)(2008)
WHISKEYTOWN
''STRANGERS ALMANAC (DELUXE EDITION), DISC ONE''
MARCH 4 2008
JULY 29 1997
146:19
DISC ONE
1 /Inn Town/5:50
2 /Excuse Me While I Break My Own Heart Tonight/3:15
3 /Yesterday's News/2:49
4 /16 Days/3:54
5 /Everything I Do/4:31
6 /Houses on the Hill/2:38
7 /Turn Around/5:17
8 /Dancing With the Women at the Bar/4:38
9 /Waiting to Derail/3:54
10 /Avenues/2:31
11 /Losering/4:00
12 /Somebody Remembers the Rose/2:30
13 /Not Home Anymore/5:59
14 /Houses on the Hill/3:42
15 /Nurse With the Pills/4:40
16 /I Don't Care What You Think About Me/3:18
17 /Somebody Remembers the Rose/2:33
18 /Turn Around/4:26
DISC TWO
1 /Indian Gown/4:46
2 /16 Days (Acoustic)/3:13
3 /Somebody Remembers the Rose (Acoustic)/2:45
4 /Avenues (Acoustic)/3:34
5 /Excuse Me While I Break My Own Heart Tonight (Acoustic)/2:43
6 /Houses on the Hill/2:25
7 /My Heart Is Broken/3:04
8 /I Still Miss Someone (Acoustic)/2:24
9 /Kiss & Make-Up/3:31
10 /Barn's on Fire/1:43
11 /Dancing With the Women at the Bar/4:28
12 /Dreams/5:49
13 /Breathe/4:07
14 /Wither, I'm a Flower (From Hope Floats Soundtrack)/4:53
15 /Luxury Liner/2:40
16 /Theme From a Trucker (From the End of Violence Soundtrack)/4:29
17 /Streets of Sirens/3:44
18 /Turn Around/4:02
19 /10 Seconds/4:15
20 /Ticket Time/3:54
21 /The Rain Won't Help You When It's Over/4:34
Ryan Adams/acoustic & electric guitars, vocals, banjo, piano, percussion
Phil Wandscher/electric guitar, vocals, organ, percussion
Caitlin Cary/violin, vocals
Steven Terry/drums, vocals, percussion
Jeff Rice/bass guitar
Additional musicians:
Alejandro Escovedo/singing
John Ginty/piano, wurlitzer electric piano, hammond b3 organ, church keys
Greg Leisz/pedal steel guitar, lap steel guitar, mandolin
Curt Bisquera/percussion
Bill Ladd/pedal steel guitar
Rick Latina/pedal steel guitar
Dan Navarro/trumpet
Crecencio Gonzalez/trombone
Jim Goodwin/alto sax
Jim Scott/percussion
REVIEW
By Mark Deming
1997's Strangers Almanac was Whiskeytown's major-label debut and the album that first introduced Ryan Adams to a wide audience, but at the same time it marked the beginning of the end for the group. When Whiskeytown went into the studio to record Strangers Almanac, the band had undergone the first of what would become a long line of personnel shakeups, and in addition to Adams, the only proper members of the group on hand for the sessions were violinist and vocalist Caitlin Cary and guitarist Phil Wandscher; session musicians filled out the lineup, while the new rhythm section, Jeff Rice (bass) and Steve Terry (drums), was hired only two weeks before recording began. Despite its chaotic creation, Strangers Almanac sounds stronger and more cohesive than its ragged but forceful indie predecessor, Faithless Street, and there's a deeper resonance in Adams' tales of wasted nights and wasted lives, such as "Inn Town," "Losering," and "Dancing with the Women at the Bar." Strangers Almanac doesn't rock as hard as Whiskeytown's earlier material, but when the guitars kick into high gear on "Yesterday's News" and "Waiting to Derail," it reveals just how good a match Adams and Wandscher were, and "Excuse Me While I Break My Own Heart Tonight" and "16 Days" are as strong and moving as their country gestures got. However, though Strangers Almanac starts strong, most of the best material is used up by the two-thirds mark, and editing one or two tunes from the final innings would have done this album a world of good. Regardless of its faults, Strangers Almanac captures Whiskeytown when they still had some business calling themselves a band rather than just Ryan Adams' backing musicians, and the glorious world-weariness of its best moments makes it a far more satisfying listen than most of what would follow once Adams struck out on his own.
BIOGRAPHY
By Steve Huey
A band with as turbulent an existence as Whiskeytown was bound to implode sooner or later, but by the time they did, they had one of the largest cult followings of any alt-country band. Most accounts traced the source of all the turmoil to bandleader Ryan Adams, a gifted young songwriter whose flashes of brilliance came hand in hand with a volatile temper and an appetite for alcohol. Adams became notorious for his outbursts and erratic performances, and countless disputes with bandmates (some of them on-stage) inevitably led to frequent personnel changes. Yet during their five-year lifespan, Whiskeytown made some undeniably compelling music that only increased the mystique around their enfant terrible leader.
Whiskeytown was formed in 1994 in Raleigh, NC, by singer/guitarist/banjoist Adams, a 20-year-old ex-punk rocker who'd discovered the country-rock of Gram Parsons. The band's other charter members were fiddler/occasional lead singer Caitlin Cary, guitarist Phil Wandscher, bassist Steve Grothmann, and drummer Eric "Skillet" Gilmore. They cut a seven-song EP called Angels for the local indie Mood Food in 1995 and quickly followed it with their full-length debut, Faithless Street, in early 1996. Strongly indebted to Parsons, Uncle Tupelo, and the Replacements, the album earned rave reviews from the alt-country press (No Depression magazine in particular), and a performance at that year's South by Southwest music festival helped net them a deal with the Geffen roots affiliate Outpost. Mood Food issued Rural Free Delivery, a compilation of early recordings, in 1997, the same year Whiskeytown completed their major-label debut, Stranger's Almanac. There was already a new rhythm section, in the person of bassist Jeff Rice and drummer Steven Terry, and Wandscher left not long after the album was released that summer.
The supporting tour for Stranger's Almanac was a stormy one, doing much to earn Adams his bad-boy reputation, and by the time the dust settled, Adams and Cary were the only members standing. They added multi-instrumentalist Mike Daly, who not only played keyboards, guitar, pedal and lap steel, mandolin, mandocello, and dulcimer, but also co-wrote a great deal of material with Adams for the band's next album. Supporting musicians came and went at a furious pace, including onetime fIREHOSE member Ed Crawford and original drummer Gilmore. Somehow, a semistable studio lineup coalesced long enough to complete Pneumonia, the third official Whiskeytown album, in 1999. However, a series of label mergers shelved the record indefinitely, during which time it was heavily bootlegged and acquired a strong underground reputation. With the album in limbo, Whiskeytown gave up the ghost. Adams released his solo debut, Heartbreaker, in 2000, and Cary issued her own solo EP, Waltzie, that year as well. Pneumonia was finally released in 2001 on the Universal roots subsidiary Lost Highway and earned some of the group's strongest reviews yet for its eclectic approach. Adams' second solo album, Gold, appeared in 2002, and Cary released the solo albums While You Weren't Looking and I'm Staying Out in 2002 and 2003, respectively.