Word: mandolin
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...songs range from winding country melodies to light folk numbers to blackface minstrel songs--a genre with a strange place in the history of popular American music. The arrangements of the songs vary, but are all thickly textured with instruments rarely present in popular music today such as fiddle, mandolin, banjo, "field snare" and "bones." Shocked Iyrics are clever and ironic, only sometimes focusing on traditional country and blues lyrical themes...
...Jump Jim Crow," one of the minstrel songs on the album, features a sparse arrangement of guitar and mandolin which complements Shocked's simple vocals. Towards the end of the song, Shocked signs "Zip-a-Dee-Doo Dah" in a soft, shrill voice reminiscent of early 20th century popular music. Moral and political implications of the blackface minstrelsy aside, "Jump Jim Crow" is one of the most successful songs on the album...
Unfortunately, the band often became so absorbed in their music that they seldomly raised their heads from their instruments; the two male Timminses, along with Alan Anton (bass), Jeff Bird (mandolin, harmonica), Spencer Evans (piano, clarinet, organ) and Ken Myhr (electric guitar) seemed to be playing more for the enrichment of their own souls than to win over the huge crowd before them...
...clan picked up guitars seven decades ago and invented the Carter Scratch. The new wave of country singers is dominated by artists who have succeeded largely on their own terms, consolidating an eclectic mix of contemporary sounds with old-fashioned catches in the throat, tinkles of the mandolin, sugary sobs and vertiginous swoops of pedal steel guitar. This generation's performers are the first bred on both rock and country who are consciously choosing Nashville, as Vince Gill did when he turned down a chance to join the rock group Dire Straits in favor of continuing his country career...
...Black Eyed Man, that problem is solved by supplementing the traditional country instrumentation--lap steel guitar, fiddle, accordion, tremolo guitar, tambourine) with more daring sounds--a fat horn section now and then, a mandolin, a cello. Helping out is Margo's willingness to sing something other than lamentations (although "Cowboy Junkies Lament" is as good as they get), and Alan Anton's discovery of the melodic capabilities of the bass...