The Holmes Brothers do what they do supremely well, taking all sorts of music and making it into gospel -- a sort of musical equivalent of alchemy. There's more of it here, plenty of their own material, but with some absolutely glorious covers. They utterly re-imagine Cheap Trick's perky "I Want You to Want Me" as a piece of '50s gospel, make country-soul from "I Can't Help It If I'm Still in Love with You" (with a great vocal from Rosanne Cash), and do delicious things to a pair of Lyle Lovett tunes. It's good to hear so many covers, actually, not because their own material is weak (anything but!), but rather because they have a special sense of style and a way to extract things from a song that you'd never imagined, as they do with the chestnut "Bad Moon Rising." With a crack band -- and a real tip of the hat goes to multi-instrumentalist Larry Campbell -- they're in top form here, and a few guests, like Levon Helm and Joan Osborne, help keep everything down-home and funky. The Holmes Brothers continue their series of small triumphs here.
Sorry about the hiatus. My work has been eating my life lately. Hope that this post is a first step toward a full-fledged re-engagement with MOG.I'd never heard of the Holmes Brothers until Cody (who else?) facilitated the introduction. In their blissfully under-the-radar way, they may just be the best purveyors of cover versions out there. When a song is reinvented by them, it stays reinvented...
More >
_(L to R) Popsy Dixon, Sherman Holmes and Wendell Holmes_Happy Birthday to *Popsy Dixon* of the "*Holmes Brothers*":http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:aifyxq95ldke, born on this day in 1942 in Norfolk, Virginia. Popsy plays the drums and sings (most notably in an angelic falsetto) with this three-piece dynamo of blues, soul, R&B and gospel. He also sports one of the coolest nicknames I...
More >
Click to purchase…
© 2006-2009 Mog Inc. All Rights Reserved
 "State of Grace")
