THE ORANGE HUMBLE BAND
Title: Humblin' (Across America)
Label: Half A Cow (Australia)
Catalogue No: (hac91)
Format: CD (album)
Released: 2001
Price: $ 30.00
Reading the names on the sleeve of this lovingly crafted collection of soulful pop-rock is like reading a map of the genre (Memphis Division). Australian Darryl Mather pursued his love for melodic rock in his late 80s band The Someloves, and from there his journey has taken him to one of the sources of his inspiration in Memphis.
Track Listing: (52:30 m:s)
- Vineyard Blues (Remembering Loudon) (4:42 m:s)
- What's Your Crime? (3:29 m:s)
- On Our Way Back Home (3:55 m:s)
- Any Way You Want It (3:56 m:s)
- One Hour's Lonely Play (4:55 m:s)
- Better Just Fake It (3:04 m:s)
- Listen Up! (3:12 m:s)
- Annie Run Run Run (2:32 m:s)
- Ballad of Gospel Sam (1:51 m:s)
- Can You Imagine? (5:39 m:s)
- Freewheelin' (3:25 m:s)
- Skyway Believin' (2:45 m:s)
- Crescent City Ball Park Theme (1:29 m:s)
- Way She Moves (3:02 m:s)
- Come Try This (4:43 m:s)
This is the OHB's second album, with a line-up including Mitch Easter (producer of some of REM's early classics and The Someloves and member of Let's Active), singer Ken Stringfellow of The Posies and drummer Jody Stephens of 70s power-pop legends Big Star. Most of the album was completed at the Ardent Studios in Memphis, where Stephens had worked on those seminal albums with Big Star almost 30 years ago. Of course, the antecedents of this music go back even further than that, via The Byrds and Badfinger to the richly varied melodies of The Beatles of Rubber Soul and Revolver.
But the point about Humblin' (Across America) is that this is not just some fan's reconstruction but the real thing. The opening cut, Vineyard Blues, is a killer, with Stringfellow's vocals recalling Donovan at his finest. And it doesn't let up from there, whether it is soulful and brassy on the soaring What's Your Crime, jangling power-pop on Skyway Believin' or just the hint of country-rock on Better Just Fake It. Mather contributes the lyrics and guitarists Easter and Anthony Bautovich co-write the music with him, but it is Stringfellow who really makes the album soar. It might be his best-ever vocal performance. Certainly, Stringfellow was so impressed with the results he bought the microphone from Ardent to take home to his studio.