The Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band – Dance Songs for Hard Times (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 34:37 minutes | 753 MB | Genre: Blues
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Family Owned Records
The Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band are the greatest front-porch blues band in the world. They are led by Reverend Peyton, who most consider to be the premier finger picker playing today. He has earned a reputation as both a singularly compelling performer and a persuasive evangelist for the rootsy, country blues styles that captured his imagination early in life and inspired him and his band to make pilgrimages to Clarksdale, Mississippi to study under such blues masters as T-Model Ford, Robert Belfour and David “Honeyboy” Edwards. The band has built through their legendary live shows. Playing as many as 300 shows each year, the band has one of the most dedicated followings out there. This following is sure to eat up the band’s latest offering, Dance Songs For Hard Times, a country blues record that was made the right way — two feet on the ground and both hands getting dirty.
Fun to watch and to listen to, this band (Josh “The Reverend” Peyton on guitar and vocals, his wife Breezy on washboard and backing vocals, and a new kid on the drums, Max Senteney) could have stepped right out of Blues Brothers or O Brother Where Art Thou?, or indeed O Blues Brother Where Art Thou? had such a film existed (hey, we can dream). Based in the deep Midwest (Indiana), they play old-school blues, but with a mission to make them as exciting and danceable as any other young person’s music (like rock’n’roll, for example). The aptly-named Dance Songs for Hard Times is their tenth album, give or take. It was recorded in Nashville with the renowned Vance Powell (collaborator of Jack White or Chris Stapleton) in the old-fashioned way, on vintage equipment without overdubs or unnecessary effects. Peyton is not called “The Reverend” for nothing: in this music there is the fervour, the joy and the swaggering mirth of the American South’s preachers, or perhaps of its carnival barkers. Reverend Peyton’s slide guitar playing is reminiscent of Bukka White, whilst his angry, high-pitched vocals bring him closer to vintage rockabilly singers. Lady Peyton punctuates her husband’s barking with her voice of an angry mouse. Festive, simple and full of energy, Dance Songs for Hard Times is the perfect album to put on while you’re getting drunk on moonshine, cutting firewood with a chainsaw, or both. – Stéphane Deschamps
Tracklist:
1. The Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band – Ways and Means (03:38)
2. The Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band – Rattle Can (02:53)
3. The Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band – Dirty Hustlin’ (03:25)
4. The Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band – I’ll Pick You Up (03:17)
5. The Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band – Too Cool to Dance (03:04)
6. The Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band – No Tellin’ When (02:49)
7. The Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band – Sad Songs (03:21)
8. The Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band – Crime to Be Poor (03:15)
9. The Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band – Til We Die (02:47)
10. The Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band – Nothing’s Easy but You and Me (02:50)
11. The Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band – Come Down Angels (03:11)
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