ARTIST: The Rounders
TITLE: Wish I Had You
LABEL: Blind Pig
GENRE: Blues
BITRATE: 212 kbps avg
PLAYTIME: 0h 53min total
RELEASE DATE: 2007-01-30
RIP DATE: 2007-01-19
Track List
----------
01. God Knows I'm Trying 3:54
02. Wish I Had You 4:23
03. My Getaway 3:39
04. You Know Better Than That 5:05
05. Through No Fault Of My Own 6:05
06. Oh, My Dear Mind 3:43
07. When It's Bad 3:15
08. Oh Why 4:16
09. Let Me Talk At You 3:55
10. Wait For Me 4:19
11. Leave My Trunk Behind 3:19
12. It Wasn't My Baby 3:30
13. Goodbye, George 4:04
Release Notes:
In terms of blues bands, the Rounders are the brilliant kids who give
teachers fits - they color outside the lines, answer rhetorical
questions and turn in the kind of work that every authority figure
swears was stolen from the masters, but thorough investigation reveals
it to be the work of completely original thinking based on solid
knowledge. The Oklahoma City five-piece featuring singer Brian
Whitten, guitarists Ryan Taylor and Michael Stone, percussionist Stu
Williamson and bassist Dave Spindle apply that solid knowledge of
American music to a sound that might crackle with the authenticity of
a Folkways recording, but feels too alive to be a museum piece.
In 2000, a band of high-school dreamers crumpled up the template,
invited Whitten and Spindle to join them in their efforts to become a
true blues-based rock band, and renamed itself the Rounders. The band
did not play the kind of rolling Texas Blues rock that metastasized in
the wake of Stevie Ray Vaughan, but a sound filled with reverence for
Delta and Chicago blues styles that thrived completely in the here and
now. Six years into a career that attracted immediate and consistent
praise from both the indie-rock press and the blues establishment, the
Rounders follow up with their first release for Blind Pig, Wish I Had
You.
Woven guitar lines and a hard shuffle beat usher in the opening song,
"God Knows I'm Tryin'", setting the scene for Whitten's powerful
baritone voice - a sound with an indeterminate age or provenance but
possessing a surplus of emotion. This is a young band of old souls
without a real stylistic home, and Wish I Had You combines country and
urban blues, roots-based indie rock, and traditional country in a way
only the Rounders can.
"If we had a band motto, I think it would be, 'We like to make old
music sound new and new music sound old," said Taylor. "I don't know
if there is a unifying thread for the songs on this album, but if
there were, I think it would have to be the mixture of modern and
traditional music."
And so it goes on Wish I Had You: the Rounders' talent for
timelessness and their expansive musical palette keeps listeners on
their toes - the electric country of "You Know Better Than That" takes
side trips into Dickey Betts-style finger picking and even Eastern
modalities, and the slow-burning "Through No Fault of My Own" contains
elements of English blues that rev into a monstrously rocking chorus.
But the Rounders do not simply combine disparate styles for the sake
of showboating. Everything works, and every sound has a purpose,
whether it is the railroad rhythms of "Oh My Dear Mind" or the
devastating crunch of "When It's Bad."
Thanks to the Rounders' musical chemistry, the songs fit well
together; they all travel the same road at varying speeds and degrees
of recklessness. Williamson said that some of his favorite bands have
succeeded in incorporating non-traditional elements without diverging
too wildly from what makes those artists special, and the same is true
of the Rounders.
"It makes your conception of what that band sounds like bigger. Once a
band has an established 'sound,' it can be applied to other genres
without it sounding like a stretch."
The Rounders' musical eloquence has served them well in reaching
wildly different constituencies. The group competed in the
International Blues Challenge at the annual W.C. Handy Awards in
Memphis, but also blew away the indie-rock competition when Oklahoma
City alternative rock station "The Spy" held its "Underground Talent
Search." No matter if it is dyed-in-the-wool blues purists or young
musical adventurers, the Rounders' music speaks to them. There is a
genuine desire for something real that does not sound like a hand-me-
down, and Wish I Had You is brand-new, but with classic lines.
"I think a lot of people are certainly weary of the music being passed
of as blues these days," Taylor said. "We started this band in an
attempt to offer an alternative to the endless supply of 'blues-rock'
bands on the market. We weren't interested in using blues clichΘs to
help promote ourselves as blues artists. I don't know that we've
succeeded in this, but I believe people are becoming hungrier for this
kind of approach."