Hurricane Season

AMG Review of Hurricane Season

Jeff Burger
All Music Guide

Tom Russell scores consistently as both performer and songwriter on this release, which is loaded with inventive lyrics, effusive vocals, and rich, exuberant instrumentation. Best tracks include "Black Pearl," awhich benefits from Fats Kaplin's accordion; "Chocolate Cigarettes," which Russell cowrote with folksinger Sylvia Tyson; and the poignant "Haley's Comet," about the comet-like rise and fall of rock & roll's Bill Haley. In the years following this album's release, Russell has re-recorded many of these songs, and it's easy to see why -- when you've got material this good, it must be pretty tempting to keep taking it off the shelf.