Posted by jeffrey k. on 07-02-2009 at06:59:
Michael Roe - We All Gonna Face The Rising Sun - Available Now
Lo-Fidelity Records is proud to present the latest solo recording from Michael Roe, We All Gonna Face The Rising Sun.
Michael Roe will admit it -- making his new album scared him half to death.
Start with the fact that We All Gonna Face the Rising Sun, is essentially a one-man show. Roe produced it himself, setting up shop in his California home, playing almost all of the instruments. It’s the first time he’s worked this way, and though it was a daunting proposition, the result is one of the most intimate of his nearly 30-year career.
But it’s the material itself that scared him even more. Rising Sun continues down the old-time spirituals/gospel path that Roe started with Holy Ghost Building (last year’s Seventy Sevens album). But, this time he dug deeper, unearthing countless records, haunting music from a bygone era, containing forgotten traditional songs and hymns. Then he set out to cover not only the songs, but evoke the sound and feeling of those records.
“I listened to hundreds of songs to come up with these,” he says of the 11 tracks on Rising Sun. “It’s one thing to like a song, but quite another to feel it, and to feel like I can pull off performing it with some kind of authenticity.”
There’s no question he pulled it off. Rising Sun starts in familiar territory, with acoustic guitars and sweet vocals, but it soon veers off into entirely new areas for this veteran performer. The title track in particular is a jaw-dropper --- it sounds like a field recording from a time long gone --- four men around a microphone singing to their Lord. In reality, the voices are all Roe’s, and the ‘dusty’ quality is down to creative mixing. But the feeling is genuine, and for Roe, that’s what counts.
Roe found himself haunted by these old songs, wondering again and again why they had been lost to the ages. Knowing very little about the origins of these recordings, he made up stories for himself, loose ideas of how he imagined the original artists came to learn and set these songs down. In the case of the title track, originally recorded by the Delta Big Four, the mystery added to the emotion of Roe’s version.
“The original record sounds so far away,” he said. “It has such a haunting quality to it. I wondered just how long these guys had to drive to get to some sleazy hotel just so some guy from a big city record company could capture their performance for his profit only. The whole time I was doing this, I had a loose idea about what I thought was going on, and that idea in my head became critical to the feeling I put down when singing and recording these songs.”
“I like the fact that I don’t really know the true story,” Roe said. “Like they’re all ghosts to me...”
Elsewhere on Rising Sun, Roe shows off a few new sides to his musical personality. On “Come to the Savior,” originally recorded by the Bailes Brothers, he pulls out a stunning Art Garfunkel impression, and the result sounds like an outtake from Wednesday Morning 3 A.M. He plays mandolin on “You Can’t Go Halfway,” and banjo (for the first time ever) on the gorgeous “Dry Bones.” And he takes on closing song “We Need More Rattlesnakes” like an old Kentucky storyteller, passing on an ancient oral tradition.
But perhaps the most striking thing you will hear on Rising Sun is Roe’s dead-on impersonation of Charlie Patton’s gruff shout, on Patton’s “I’m Goin’ Home.” It conjures up images of rickety wooden porches, rocking chairs, and old bluesmen with the dust of America in their bones. And it is the song here that most intimidated Roe.
“It was all about courage,” he said. “Do you dare to sit in Charlie Patton’s seat, and try to sing like him, and get away with it? But I eventually said, Charlie Patton’s not here to do it, and I know what it made me feel like when I heard him sing it. And I wanted to do it so bad.”
These songs may sound like nothing Michael Roe has ever recorded, but their themes are familiar ones for him. These are songs of redemption, of repentance, of God’s saving grace… and its chilling alternatives. In the end, it’s the songs themselves that scared Roe the most, not just because the world needs their message, but because he does as well.
“These songs make me tremble in my boots,” he said. “I cannot sing these and not feel it every time I sing them. I picked songs I need to hear.”
In a sense, though this is a different kind of Michael Roe album, its waters flow from the same river he’s always drawn from. He sings of life, of pain, of salvation, and though the songs this time are taken from years gone by, they are relevant and powerful even today. The sun is rising, and we all gonna face it, and these are the songs we will sing when it is our turn. (Andre Salles)
The tracklist for the album is as follows:
Jonah In The Wilderness
Dry Bones
Woke Up This Morning With My Mind
Come To The Saviour
You Can't Go Halfway
We All Gonna Face The Rising Sun
Satan Your Kingdom Must Come Down
Paul And Silas In Jail
I Know My Time Ain't Long
I'm Goin' Home
We Need More Rattlesnakes
Price - $15 (plus shipping)
Ordering begins July 2, 2009 - Shipping begins July 6, 2009.
The album has also been submitted to Itunes (as well as every other major digital retailer) and will be available for download worldwide within 4-8 weeks. Watch for updates on this!
The album will be available from both the 77s store, http://www.seventysevens.com/store_music.html - and Michael Roe's online store http://www.michaelroe.com/store/store.html - as well as on Mike's upcoming tour. Please check Mike's myspace page for tourdates in your area. - http://www.myspace.com/micro77s
***As a special bonus for online buyers, the first 400 orders will receive a special bonus CD with alternate mixes, rough takes, and an instrumental from Mike's personal archives. Please note, the bonus CD is only available online and will not be on the tour.***
As always, thanks for supporting Michael Roe and independent music.
jeffrey k.
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