Burrito Deluxe

The Music Is What Matters - Burrito Deluxe - Georgia Peach

On the website for this CD, http://www.burritodeluxe.com/mainy/story/story.html , Professor Luke Powers gives so much information about this disc I feel I'd be running a shoddy second to his fine writing if I tried to cobble together more history. Anyway, the duty of a CD reviewer is to give out with personal impressions and opinions, so I'll skip over the amazing history of this little group of remarkable musicians and recommend you read the article at the above link if you want to know more. It's worth the read - not only is this group fascinating, the Professor's a danged fine writer.

Now for the review: It's just about the music, because really, when you come right down to it, that's what this one's all about. This is country-rock at its most pure, most real, and most basic. It's sharp, it's driving, it's gritty, it's true; it's all those good things that make one listen to country music in the first place, and has that rockin' beat which filtered through the late 60's and early 70's with bands which were too rock for country's mellow modes of the age but are so very country now there's nothing else you can call 'em.

"Georgia Peach" is a real, down-to-basics, earthy tribute to the late Gram Parsons, one of the inventors of the country-rock sound of that time. It's not a lame retread of Gram's songs done by a string of Nashville favorites; nor is it even one of the better-done Americana tributes. Nope, this is Gram's own friends and band mates getting together to reinvent and celebrate Gram's SOUND more than anything else - that sound which has made him so much a legend many people who know his name don't know where they know it from. There are of course a number of Gram's own songs, but also songs that Gram liked to sing, or songs by Gram's friends and colleagues.

The disc begins with the Flying Burrito classic "Wheels" (recently reinvented by The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, another veteran of that time period, with Dwight Yoakam on "Will The Circle Be Unbroken III"), a crisply done and clearly defined remake that sounds so good it's amazing to consider living in a world where this style of music isn't embraced by the "mainstream." This is the sound of crystalline country-rock, as it sounded BEFORE the Almighty Don Henley imagines he created it - the sound which was being played and sung by the likes of Michael Nesmith and the First National Band, the Stone Poneys, Poco, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, and of course the Flying Burrito Brothers long before the Eagles took it "mainstream."

And it stays that good, through a thrilling update on "Hickory Wind" (with Gillian Welch and David Rawlings on backup vocals), perennial favorite "Streets of Baltimore," "Louisiana," engaging countrier-than-country "Bluest Brown Eyes," terrific two-stepping "Feels Like a Heartache," some of Gram Parson's own voice on George Jones' "She Once Lived Here," and the title track, "G.P.," a song which captures just who and what Gram Parsons was before his strange odyssey into Beyond and his Legend.

This is a stunning album when you know the history behind it; but if you just listen to it without that knowledge, it's just a plain, old-fashioned, terrific country album. This one's about the music, and this music is good.

When it comes down to brass tacks, that's all that really matters, and all anyone should remember. "It's the song -- not the singer -- that ultimately matters." Isn't that the truth.

Kathy Coleman Take Country Back February 2003