Press and Reviews
STL Sound
Blue Weathered Dreams CD Review
By Laura Hamlett
“The music Caleb makes is richly woven and carefully considered, timeless, really. It's alt-country (no getting around that moniker with the plaintive wail of pedal steel), but it's also rock and indie and singer-songwriter. Like I said, timeless. It manages to sound wholly comfortable, well-worn, familiar and fresh, all at the same time.”
“At first listen, you're likely to stop whatever it is that you're doing and listen, you know, really listen. This is a guy who's got something to say; Caleb & Co. are well worth your four or seven or 52 minutes. But be warned: Once you've given your time, you'll want to give it again, and again.”
Riverfront Times
Blue Weathered Dreams CD Review
by Christian Schaeffer
“With a deep, sonorous voice and a satchel full of minor-key strums, Caleb Travers appeared on the singer-songwriter circuit about a year ago. Blue Weathered Dreams is his first album, and it achieves its goal of setting the stage for Travers' country-colored story-songs. These songs ache with the seriousness of a singer who sees darkness on every horizon, from the unbreakable bonds of family to the search for redemption. “
“The arrangements retain an austere beauty that place Travers' voice and acoustic guitar at the center. Scott Swartz of the Linemen rounds off the rough edges with spot-on steel guitar, and the rest of Big City Lights do a good job of keeping out of the way.”
River Front Times Best Of St. Louis Awards
Best Country Band (Alternative) 2007
“His Ryan Adams jones shows, but so do his good nature, ambition and talent. Travers is pushing all of 25 and his band, including veteran pedal-steel whiz Scott Swartz of the Linemen, is pushing this son of south city toward more than just Telecaster strumming and dirt-road divining. His band can play it Stonesy, Byrdsy and Whiskeytowny without ever sounding dated or in denial over how much room they have for growth. Travers sings with wiry strength, with an inviting slur and unfaked Midwestern drawl, and his songs get their hooks in, indirectly echoing pure country-rock, whether from the Eagles or Buffalo Springfield.”
Bio
The leaky windows and age-old power lines of Travers' South St. Louis apartment had failed inevitably. An ice-storm had brought the whole city to a grinding halt. But It wasn't the storm, or the week-long power-outage that was on Travers' mind. All he could think about was getting that sound, that really timeless sound that he kept hearing out of his head and into live shows.
It was cold, but the fire had been smoldering since summer of 2005, when a friend took him to Memphis to see a band he'd had never heard of before. Like most visitors to Memphis, they went to Sun Studios before the show. He didn't know what it was, but there was something altogether alluring about the "historic" rock 'n roll he heard about on the Sun Studio tour. Later that night, as Nels Cline, Pat Sansone, and the rest of Wilco delivered a blitzkrieg of noise behind the beautiful melody of Via Chicago, he was changed. But this was the dead of winter, nearly a year-and-a-half later and Travers had no discernible course of action to live out what he so clearly wanted to do. He did have songs, though. And so, like the ice-storm that beset his city, he would have to wait it out.
Spring of 2007 would reveal the fruits of Travers' labor. With a 5-piece band in place including veteran pedal-steel player, Scott Swartz, Caleb Travers and Big City Lights had been rehearsing steadily and were making plans for a debut CD. The band's first gig was accidentally secured when he evoked an encore at a popular open mic. After he stepped off stage, Travers was offered an opening spot for Austin-based indie-pop quartet What Made Milwaukee Famous. Big City Lights continued to gain momentum opening for Alt. Country heavy, Bobby Bare Jr. and by the end of 2007 they would be named Best Alt. Country band by the River Front Times.
Blue Weathered Dreams brings Travers full circle, with songs that go back to the singer's origins. The tune "Annie", which grounds the album, is based on his parents' travels across the Southwest & Midwest as Pentacostal musicians. By the time he was born, however, his mother & father were becoming disillusioned with ministry life and ultimately settled down. Irked by the contradictions of his religious upbringing and the incompletion of his parents' uncharted travels, the album explores the meaning of Travers' own restlessness and the ties to the story that shaped his own.
Sonically, the album walks a tight-rope between pristine, layered guitar work, genteel steel guitar played by Scott Swartz, Travers' rising and falling vocal theatrics and pure rock 'n' roll revelry. With imaginative song-craft, Travers writes himself into the prayers, stories and dying wishes of lovers, killers and strangers, sometimes as a walk-on cameo or a sympathetic observer, and other times as the protagonist, singing with a grave and penitent delivery.
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