Album review

Various

Lost Highways: American Road Songs 1920s - 1950s

added: 19 Aug 2009 // release date: 27 Jul 2009 // label: Viper
reviewer: Owen Gillham

There has always been an artistic fascination with the road: Kerouac, Easy Rider, Duel... it’s the open spaces set against urban monotony, the vast unknown versus the mundane, opportunity pitched against normality. I think Fraud called it ‘unheimlich’ – the concept of familiarity and comfort fighting against the innate need to explore.

Taking this concept and using it as mortar to tie together otherwise fairly disparate snippets of art is not exactly a new idea, so perhaps what makes this collection stand out is it’s absolute lack of kitsch, pretention or self-conscious grandeur. Unlike the ‘road movie’ or Kerouac’s streams of consciousness text, there’s no sense that this record is trying to be ‘cool’ or romanticise ‘the open road’, and there is no grand idea at play.

More a documentary of how the distance travelled by musicians has had an impact on their music, the collection offers little in the way of adventure or stylistic cohesion – it’s not a collection of rock ‘n’ roll, gospel or folk. Neither is it a record that inspires you to jump in the car and floor it.

That said, the peculiarity of this record is its crutch and as a collection it acts as the perfect witness to how deeply the “US route map penetrates the American song book”. If the context were different, setting Jerry Lee Lewis, Nat King Cole and Buddy Holly against Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Robert Johnson and Woody Guthrie would probably be intolerable, but here it works a treat. A great piece of musicology this is not, but an interesting listen it makes nonetheless and there are a few rarities thrown in for good measure too.

> For more Music-News album reviews click here

Comments

Be the first to comment on this review:

Add your comment

Name

Town & country

Comment

We welcome your opinions. This is a public forum. Libellous and abusive comments are not allowed. Please read our House Rules.

I agree to the House Rules

Enter the number in the image below in the box