Bob Rea: Ragged Choir

[John (Biscuits and Gravy) Davy]

        

www.bobreamusic.com

 Bob Rea hails from Durango, Colorado and has spent his life stumbling amongst the foothills of The American Dream; he's worked at several sorts of job, fallen foul of the law, struggled to raise his family and somehow survived it all with enough self-respect intact to be able to document this kind of life in song. There are hordes of people like Bob, all at sea with the way a capitalist society works and dismissed by the admittedly high proportion of people for whom it all seems to work just fine. A lot of these "losers" succumb in one way or another but once in a while someone like Bob comes along who has lived that kind of life and can relate the perspective from the bottom to a wider world.

 

          An earlier album of Bob's, Black Highway, received a lot of praise and I'm sure that Ragged Choir can only enhance his reputation. The fourteen songs let his imagination range around all sorts of aspects of the underbelly of American life. Frequently giving vent to a simmering anger he seeks to understand the circumstances and the states of mind that produce the people who never seem to thrive. Along the way he comes up with some great scenarios and some cute observations.  In "My Getaway" the protagonist is bowling down the highway, with "Jesus on the radio/ And the devil in my soul".   Similarly, in "Stand Up", he pictures the "congregation waiting for the rapture to come/One hand on the Bible and the other on a gun".  Both of these are particularly American dichotomies, stumbling blocks on the road to an America at peace with itself.

 

          From what he tells of his own life, Bob himself could easily have been centre stage in all of these stories but I kind of feel that, like a proper artist, he's actually using his imagination to put himself in others' shoes, some of the time at least. The most impressive song, though, probably comes from personal experience.  "Lights Out" paints a picture of life in the cell block; it's as bleak as the life portrayed and pins down why prison remains prison, a kind of living death, no matter what the comforts or privileges provided. 

 

         So what about the music? Well Bob himself picks an acoustic guitar like a true folkie, with masterful fluidity.  Sometimes Bob's playing is centre stage and it's a pleasure to hear that; no more of a pleasure, however, than the very fine band playing throughout this album.  Strings maestro Tim Lorsch is the producer and he's put together a very fine collection of players to flesh out these songs. There's some great electric guitar (and especially slide guitar) from George Bradfute, some lovely dobro and steel guitar from Mike Daley that produces much of the "country" colour to this album and generally the highest quality playing throughout, entirely in tune with the demands of the material. One musical surprise, of sorts, comes with the blues-y jazz overtones introduced by a flugelhorn solo that outros "Lights Out". It's good, though, adding depth to the feeling of sadness at all those wasted lives.

 

         The musical landscape is changing fast, nothing seems quite as predictable as it once was. If part of this change is that guys like Bob Rea, articulate and musical down to the toes of their cowboy boots, can conjure a musical career as they approach retirement age then that's just fine by me.

 John Davy

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