Inner Life
Mark Graham
Independent
1998
13 tracks
Ain't it always the way. Just when a release comes along that you want to look into deeper, it arrives without even a letter, let alone detailed liner notes, lyrics, or a promo kit. Mark Graham seems to be a man who is not what he seems, but then he seems to be a lot of things not always compatible with one another.
The photograph on the insert shows a man whose age, tidy beard, and flowered shirt give him a very Fred Penner look. Since Graham hails from Seattle and Penner from B.C., perhaps this is the standard look for modern mountain men. Certainly the music on this release has a feel of the mountains to it -- not of the coastal ranges in the west but of Appalachia.
At surface, this is the sort of down-home country music I remember from childhood. Graham's sound alternates between Woody Guthrie and Doc Watson with a bit of Bill Monroe thrown in for good measure. With original words set to music that follows traditional themes, much of this release has a sound that approaches authentic hillbilly music with a centre that borders on bluegrass.
Many of the songs echo traditional melodies and a few are reminiscent of more modern compositions. While different in content, "Poor Folks" has a melodic and rhythmic feel of Tom Paxton's "Marvelous Toy" and "Big Tongue" has the step-dancing rhythm we've come to recognize in the Bryant's classic, "Rocky Top." On the other hand, "Inner Life" is very much like the English folk song "The Golden Vanity."
There are three instrumental tracks on this release. "Half Shaved" is a lively blues-based harmonica arrangement featuring a variety of hillbilly yelps by Graham. "Blue Adder" has a perky Down East rhythm to it, including a rhythm track that evokes a Nova Scotia step-dancer. The final instrumental is an untitled bonus track that improvises around themes of "Lord of the Dance" and other traditional fiddle tunes. What's interesting in these last two last tracks is that the fiddle part is played on harmonica. At times this works and at other times it's just irritating.
"Song of the Steelhead" stands out as the one spoken word piece on this release. Much as I enjoy spoken word performance, this song sounds out of place here. Read in Robert Service rhythms (accented by a couple of Danny Kaye verbal riffs) backed by barely heard ocean sounds with no music all to fill it out, it seems an afterthought. I suspect it was thrown in to follow "Moby Dick" for no better reason than that it's about a fish.
I do wish I had been able to read Graham's lyrics. Listening to them, I suspect the man is trying too hard. His words seem eloquent and well crafted, but they often betray the homespun nature of his chosen genre. Graham seems either to be not well-enough grounded in traditional forms or, more likely, to be so close to his own erudition that he doesn't recognize when it gets in his way.
Often, Graham's writing leans more toward academic literary poetry than folk storytelling. He uses polysyllabic words that feel unnatural in this context and he indulges in complex phrasing and obtuse metaphors unsuited to a form that is more often austere and apparently artless. At times, rather than a collection of folk music, this release sounds like a thesis project for an MFA in Creative Writing.
There are serious production problems too. It sounds like the songs on Inner Life may have been recorded on an an old reel to reel recorder (perhaps a high-speed Ampex) then dubbed back to a digital format. That's fine. I personally prefer analogue sound to squeeky-clean digital. There is, however, a severe distortion on several tracks. It sounds like the sort of tape-wow you get after recording, when either the tape gets stretched from too sudden braking or one of the reels is wound too slack. This is most noticeable on the instrumental "Blue Adder" and on "Poor Folks." While this flaw is distracting at any time, it's so severe in "Poor Folks" as to be painful.
Mark Graham is a talented and interesting singer of traditional style music (whether you choose to call it country or folk) with an innovative instrumental approach. He also appears to be a better than middling poet. Based on Inner Life, he may do well to wear only one hat at a time: singing and playing songs already in the traditional canon and writing his poetry for publication in academic journals and litmags.|
Since about February 14, 2004, |
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