NY Press Best of NY-Best Nostalgia-Free Revival Act
author: New York Press
I wrote this for the Press, and I was at this show, and it all holds true--
All it takes to prove that songs about rambling, romance, longing and loss don't need to be revived is someone who can write and play as well as Ian Thomas. Ian, fool that he is, seems to think that with enough humor and talent he can get away with playing honestly.
It's not that he's trying to sound like a sharecropper—he is definitely hanging his own modern hat on the old coat rack— but he doesn't dull the natural power of the form by dressing it up in too much keen appreciation. You shouldn't need refined sensibilities to appreciate these lyrics from his song "I Ain't Lonesome":
"But I ain't calling out anybody's name,/ Nor whining for the trees above to bend./ And I ain't lonesome 'bout any one girl,/ I'm just lonesome 'bout being in this world."
Listen to the song, which you can hear on his first album A Young Man's Blues or at his website. The melody is mournful, beautiful and sung with a sharp resolve that keeps it from self-pity.
Unlike a lot of the musicians from the anti-folk scene that Ian came out of, there's no dolled-up primitivism or preening folk-punk, just a rare combination of musicality and lyricism, intelligence and directness.
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Running and Rambling
author: Son Institute
The man is a wraith. He has a shamanic ability to channel energy from the world and spin in into songs that fit like worn in boots. I once heard a story of Ian Thomas running and rambling into Haiti to steal back the souls of blues legends long gone. Like a whip cracking in the face of the devil, pressing hat on head with one hand, guitar in the other, screaming out songs to boot.
Read more...
Running and Rambling
author: Son Institute
The man is a wraith. He has a shamanic ability to channel energy from the world and spin in into songs that fit like worn in boots. I once heard a story of Ian Thomas running and rambling into Haiti to steal back the souls of blues legends long gone. Like a whip cracking in the face of the devil, pressing hat on head with one hand, guitar in the other, screaming out songs to boot.
Read more...
Running and Rambling
author: Son Institute
The man is a wraith. He has a shamanic ability to channel energy from the world and spin in into songs that fit like worn in boots. I once heard a story of Ian Thomas running and rambling into Haiti to steal back the souls of blues legends long gone. Like a whip cracking in the face of the devil, pressing hat on head with one hand, guitar in the other, screaming out songs to boot.
Read more...