Chatham County Line - Route 23
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Music CD Cover
Artist: Chatham County LineEdition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2005-02-22
Music Label: Yep Roc Records
Soundtracks:
- Nowhere To Sleep
- Dark Clouds
- Route 23
- Louisiana Freight Train
- Gunfight In Durango
- Engine No. 709
- Parlour Light
- Arms Of The Law
- Sun Up
- Take Heed
- Ruination
- Make Some Pay
- Saro Jane
- Born To Be With You
Free Music Notes for Route 23
Free Music Review: Country folk with a big helping of bluegrass
Hit: 4 Stars
This Raleigh, NC band is influenced by the string-band sounds of bluegrass, but their guitar-mandolin-banjo-fiddle-bass line-up is extended by touches of pedal steel and harmonica, and their harmonies are often more Everly-sweet than hill-country blue. These aren't criticisms so much as a suggestion of what distinguishes this group from their stage-mates at summer festivals. There's a lot of folk influence in Dave Wilson's songwriting, and the playing feels more back-porch relaxed than straight-ahead bluegrass combos; when they breakdown for an instrumental it's more like a cantering hootenanny than a hot-picked gallop.
The album's filled with great original songs that peer toward the future. "Nowhere to Sleep" seeks to resuscitate a relationship, "Louisiana Freight Train" dreams of the romance at rail's end, and "Arms of the Law" ponders the mental prison at the conclusion of a jail sentence. The album's title song is the set's highlight, a sad tale of those deserted by the "progress" of new highways; you can just about hear the tumbleweeds blowing along the Mother Road. The lone cover is a banjo-lined, harmony-rich version of Don Robertson's "Born to Be With You" that's scarcely recognizable as the mid-50s hit by The Chordettes. [©2005 redtunictroll at hotmail dot com]
Route 23 Poster
Though there are no brothers by birth in this North Carolina bluegrass group, the imprint of the Louvins, the Stanleys, and even the Everlys in their harmonies suggests the reedy strength of blood ties. The quartet began as a side project for some members of Tift Merritt's band, who subsequently decided to devote their full creative energies to this acoustic offshoot. With songs of fishin' holes ("Make Some Pay") and old-time religion ("Take Heed"), the material of frontman/guitarist Dave Wilson evokes a rural South steeped in nostalgia. Yet there's a timelessness in the balladry of "Dark Clouds," "Louisiana Freight Train," and "Saro Jane," while the threat of the superhighway on the title track suggests a past that can never be recaptured. Best of all is "Arms of the Law," a cry-in-your-beer lament with a deadpan drollery ("You're in the arms of another/And I'm in the arms of the law") that's difficult to resist. A pair of instrumentals ("Gunfight in Durango" and "Sun Up") spotlight the lively interplay of John Teer on mandolin and fiddle, Chandler Holt on banjo, and Greg Readling on bass and pedal steel, while a bluegrass revival of the pop oldie "Born to Be with You" brings the band's second release to a rousing finale. --Don McLeeseCountry Music CDs
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