Album Notes

What's wrong with this picture?

That's the musical question that kicks off Twisted Roots, the tuneful, timely and thought-provoking new CD by roots-rock singer / songwriter / guitarist John Kimsey.

The songs on Twisted Roots are both strikingly original and steeped in tradition -- specifically, Southern roots music traditions like blues, jump, rockabilly and country. With supple touch and incisive wit, Kimsey bends such roots music styles into boundary-blurring explorations of the underside of the American dream. From the razor-sharp satire of "Talking Talk Radio" and "Alibi Club," to the (upside) down-from-the-mountain strangeness of "Mole in the Ground" and "Monkey Trial," to the string-pulling protest of "Somewhere A Guitar" and "Good Morning Mr. Lomax," to the soulful vision of "Lydia," "Dog Eat Dog Eat Dog" and "How Can I Keep From Singing," the album bristles with wry humor, yearning emotion and startling insight.

Initial inspiration for the project came from a photo taken at the 1989 inaugural party for then-President George H. W. Bush. The snapshot shows Bush and his take-no-prisoners campaign manager, Lee Atwater, posing down with electric guitars in front of an all-star R&B band -- a band which the South Carolina-born Atwater, a former R&B guitarist, assembled for the occasion. Some found this image -- of powerful white politicians mugging in front of brilliant black musicians -- troubling, particularly given the boost that the 1988 Bush campaign received from a race-baiting series of TV ads centering on black convict Willie Horton.

When he came aross the photo a few years later, Kimsey -- a Tennessee native who has recorded widely, performed alongside legends like New Orleans' Dr. John, and been nominated Best Guitarist in the Chicago Musician awards -- was struck: "When I saw that photo, my response meter pegged out at the fear-and-loathing end of the emotional spectrum. It was like a map of the American political landscape, with all these creepy fault lines exposed. So I started to write songs which used the language of roots music to talk about some of the underlying implications -- both ridiculous and disturbing -- of that scene. And the project blossomed from there."

The resulting song cycle has been described by music critic David Simpson as follows: "Do you like Dylan, Ry Cooder, Mose Allison? Fiddle music, Delta blues, Dixie rockabilly, Steely Dan? -- all mixed together with a shot or two of Tom Waits, Frank Zappa, Molly Ivins and Mark Twain? Then you will love Twisted Roots, a wonderful blend of lyricism and political satire and a bona fide work of American art."

Or, in the words of veteran Chicago producer/engineer Blaise Barton, Twisted Roots is an album of "heartbreaking music."