Trains: Amtrak Crescent

Scott Miller and the Commonwealth: Amtrak Crescent

[purchase]

For a more traditional train song we turn to Scott Miller and the Amtrak Crescent, a rail line that runs from New Orleans to New York. Even when life goes wrong... the train rolls on and on.

This song is a sort of travelogue documenting the many stops along the train's journey. The narrator buys a cheap ticket in New Orleans in an attempt to escape yet another sticky situation. At each stop along the way, he finds something to hold his interest (Georgia peaches, Carolina BBQ, etc...), yet he always allows the train to carry him away.

In January of 2004 Miller decided to live out his song... taking his band out on the rails for an Amtrak Crescent tour. Scott Miller and the Commonwealth played 15 shows in three weeks using only the Crescent for transportation. Miller's blog documenting the trip is still up and is an interesting read.

Baby Mine: For Jack Tymon

Scott Miller & The Commonwealth: For Jack Tymon

[purchase]

Scott Miller's hatred of babies has been well documented over the years. He isn't shy about his views. In fact, you can even buy a "Scott Miller Hates Me" onesie for your kid on Scott's website. Of course, you'll have to find them when they aren't sold out (as they currently are)... they're the best selling piece of merchandise he has.

There is, however, another side to Scott Miller. When one of his best friends had his first child, Scott wrote this song full of well wishes and hopes and dreams for the child's future. It appeared on his 2003 album Upside Downside.

I unknowingly played this song on the air last year on Jack Tymon's birthday. I got a phone call from a family friend who heard the song driving home from Jack's 8th birthday party. As it turns out... his back is straight, and he does have ten fingers.

Just don't start thinking that Scott Miller has softened his stance on babies once you hear this song...

Scott Miller - Hates Babies

Blog Names: A Fifty Cent Lighter & A Whiskey Buzz

Scott Miller: I Made A Mess Of This Town

[purchase]

As a folk blogger, I pay close attention to good blogs with a regional focus and a tendency towards any music remotely resembling folk. After all, by its very definition, folk music is rooted deeply in its community, and most of the better communities (such as the mid-New England valley region that I call home) have more than enough going on to keep any blogger busy. As such, it becomes nigh impossible for any one folkwatcher to keep tabs on the total spectrum of emerging sound without learning to depend on a few stalwart trendspotters and authenticators from as full a spectrum of local folk hotspots as possible.

Which was why I was so happy to find A Fifty Cent Lighter & A Whiskey Buzz. Star Maker regular Nelson has only been blogging for a few months now, but in that time, he's been a powerful influence on my own renewed interest in the Kentucky and Tennessee music scene, and in the curious cross-section of americana, indiefolk, country, and southern rock and roll which seems to both radiate out from and coalesce in the region.

Nelson really does know what he's talking about: he's a DJ on a local listener-supported Americana station down there, and he actually went to high school with two of my favorite new americana musical phenomena, old-timey newcomer Brett Ratliff and my own personal vote for best new singer-songwriter of the year, Steeldrivers lead singer Chris Stapleton. And the song from which his namesake lyric comes, a twangy alt-rocking ditty by local boy Scott Miller, speaks volumes about his local focus.

The combination of astute ears, local knowledge, and the access that radio station DJ-ing gives him to a breadth of new music has produced a series of entries which are as well-written as they are celebratory. His recent series on the Americana Music Awards was thorough and wise, a powerful introduction to both the breadth of modern americana as a genre, and the kind of awards show and stamp of approval that I am thrilled to find out about. Other recent favorites have included this week's wonderful post about meeting Charlie Louvin and the Old 97s, and one of his great "Top Five" posts about the work of Alejandro Escovedo.

In the end, A Fifty Cent Lighter is a perfect way to track a vital part of the modern music scene, a solid mix of the familiar and the unfamiliar, perfect for someone like me, who is just starting to trend towards the country side of americana, and needs a good local guide. Twice in as many months I have sat down to write a blog entry about a brand-new, previously unblogged musician or band only to find that Nelson got there first, and said it better than I was hoping to. If that isn't both validating and the highest praise, I don't know what is.

The Sun: Goddamn The Sun

Scott Miller and The Commonwealth: Goddamn The Sun

[purchase]

The Sun:
Giver of light…
Provider of Heat…
It makes the roosters crow and the grass grow.
It is the center of our solar system.
A wondrous blazing ball that blesses the Earth with its light and warmth…
The Sun.

Hey, Scott Miller. How do you feel about the Sun?

Submitted by Nelson

History: Scott Miller Edition

"I am behind the times. But not so far that I don't realize the futility of making a 'regional' record in a 'global' world. By looking at my past, not just of my life but of my family, I can gather clues to what makes me as I am."
--Scott Miller

If you don't know Scott Miller, a brief history lesson is in order. In the mid-to-late 1990s, he co-fronted The V-Roys, a blast furnace of kickass rock 'n' roll, like a slightly twangier Soul Asylum circa ... And The Horse They Rode In On or The Replacements circa Pleased To Meet Me.

Following the V-Roys' 1999 breakup ... a moment of silence, please ... Miller ventured into solo territory, with a succession of albums progressively more informed by historical memory. His first studio album, in fact, was titled, Thus Always To Tyrants, which not only serves as the Virginia state motto, but in its Latin form (Sic semper tyrannis), was the phrase John Wilkes Booth snarled in Ford's Theatre after shooting President Lincoln.

Miller's songs often venture into personal history, which we'll get to in a moment, but his subject matter also includes such weighty subjects as The Civil War and World War II, which we'll also get to in a moment. This love for the past manifested itself most poetically in his January 2004 Amtrak Crescent Tour, in which he hit 15 cities by train, beginning with New Orleans and ending with New York City ... or as he likes to call it, New New Amsterdam. He's such a stickler, that Miller.

So, that's the background, here's the tunes.

V-Roys: Virginia Way/Shenandoah Breakdown [purchase]

Coming at the tail end of the V-Roys run, this is a personal homage to Scott's family and his home state of Virginia. We didn't realize it then, but this was a sign of things to come. And for the "Shenandoah Breakdown," he enlisted the help of genuine bluegrass royalty in The Del McCoury Band.

Scott Miller: Daddy Raised A Boy [purchase]

An incisive personal history, but with a great reference to the bombing of Japan. If we ever tackle the father theme, someone else can do "Cat's In The Cradle," I'm taking this one.

Scott Miller: Highland County Boy [purchase]

A Civil War tale rendered with stark beauty by Tim O'Brien on saw fiddle and Scott on harmonica and guitar thump. Though narrated by a southerner, the song serves as an elegy for each side, the Blue and the Grey both seemingly doomed to failure because of their inherent weakness as men. Powerful medicine.

'Tis wickedness and self conceit
That is the deign of man
The farmer and the land compete
As God's first reprimand

There'll be a day, the Blue and Grey
Will hear the trumpets blow
And they'll dance around like ol' John Brown
On the long end of a rope.

Scott Miller: Red Ball Express [purchase]

A left turn in the Miller catalog, this song concerns a World War II truck convoy consisting mostly of black soldiers. The Red Ball Express was an extremely dangerous 1944 supply operation, providing General Patton's troops in France with gas, ammunition, and food, amidst gun and rocket fire from German combatants. To learn more about the Red Ballers, check out Wikipedia and this great Department of Defense article. We're talking American heroes, people!

As always, enjoy.