History: Blue Mountain Edition

Blue Mountain: Jimmy Carter
Blue Mountain: Epitaph

[purchase]

"The past is never dead. It's not even past."
--William Faulkner, author and resident of Oxford, Mississippi

Two submissions in the history department, both from Blue Mountain and their debut album, Dog Days (1995). BM was one of the best live bands in the peak years of the great alt.country scare of the mid-'90s. They were a trio featuring a lockdown rhythm section (Frank Coutch on drums and sweat; Laurie Stirratt on bass and harmonies) and a half-man, half-tasmanian devil on Gibson Les Paul (Cary Hudson, also singer and principal songwriter).

The Faulkner quote is no accident, because like the famed author, Blue Mountain hail from Oxford, MS, where the past and present are two sides of the same coin. Patterson Hood of the Drive-By Truckers referred to this as "the duality of the Southern thing," and it's as familiar to residents of the deep south as BBQ, sweet tea, and breath-choking humidity. Having lived in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, I can say without hesitation that both Faulkner and Hood know of what they speak.

For Blue Mountain, that southern past/present includes a pair of historical figures, each of whom bound by their own historical gravity. One was an ill-fated president, a butt of jokes at worst, a source of pity at best ... the one and only Jimmy Carter. Not much in the way of political analysis here, but I will note that it's a peculiarly southern trait to find pride and a source of strength in the ill-fated, picked on, and historically-befouled. Most importantly, though, the song kicks ass. A rockin' two-step grounded by a heavy beat, it features some of Cary's best guitar work, like a chicken-pickin' chainsaw cutting through hillside kudzu.

The second song pays homage to two brothers, one arguably the most popular southerner of the 20th century, the other his stillborn sibling. I speak, of course, of Elvis Aron and Jesse Garon Presley, the former brother born about 45 miles away in Tupelo, MS. Unlike "Jimmy Carter," "Epitaph" is a slow burn, a brooding and minimally-adorned acoustic track consistent with its theme of death and rebirth. Over his own deft fingerpicking, Cary sings about, "How the angels sang on the day he came/To be born in Tupelo." Enjoy.