Details
Track Listing
1. Between Love and Hate, (It's a Mighty Thin Line)
2. I Still Can't Believe You're Gone
3. Mystery
4. I Don't Believe in You
5. Papa Was a Rodeo
6. Easy Loving
7. Wild Mountain Berries
8. Sudden Stop
9. Crackers Rule
10. Gone
11. Whispering Pines
Album Notes
Personnel includes: Kelly Hogan (vocals); Jon Langford, Andy Hopkins (vocals, guitar); Edith Frost (vocals); Celine (guitar, mandolin, fiddle); Jon Rauhouse (pedal steel guitar); Tom Ray (acoustic & electric basses); Steve Goulding (drums); Robbie Fulks, Ana Egge, John Wesley Harding (background vocals).
Recorded at King Size Sounds Labs, Chicago, Illinois in 1999.
Singer Kelly Hogan has been in the bands The Jody Grind and the Rock*A*Teens, and has sung with John Wesley Harding and The Mekons. This, her second solo album (her first was 1996's WHISTLE THAT ONLY DOGS CAN HEAR), is a terrific amalgam of country and late-'60s Southern R&B and gospel. Hogan's voice is a warm, full-bodied mix of Dusty Springfield and Tammy Wynette, soulfully committed and straightforward.
The program consists of well-chosen covers and Hogan originals--highlights include Johnny Paycheck's honky-tonk "(It's A Mighty Thin Line) Between Love And Hate," Stephen Merrit's eerie Lee Hazlewood-like "Papa Was A Rodeo," and a truly affecting version of The Band's "Whispering Pines." The musicians--including members of the Waco Brothers--are as on-the-money as the Muscle Shoals posse that backed Dusty and Aretha. BENEATH THE COUNTRY UNDERDOG is 2000's answer to 1969's DUSTY IN MEMPHIS and FROM ELVIS IN MEMPHIS.
Industry Reviews
7 out of 10 - ...Like the jukebox in a cool alt-country bar....it grips your arm and says: That's why they 'put' that tune on the jukebox...
Spin (06/01/2000)
...[Her] alluring, barroom-ready vocals recall classic country-rock chanteuses like Wanda Jackson and Patsy Cline, and she covers a diverse roster of tunes....The strongest of which is the roadhouse ballad 'Crackers Rule'.
Dirty Linen (06/01/2000)
...Has the country-soul inclinations of DUSTY IN MEMPHIS, and the lo-fi aesthetic shared by punk and early Sun Studios recordings....[The band] provide a twangy backdrop for Hogan's voice, a sweet, powerful belt tinged with melancholy that grows fluttery in quieter moments...
CMJ (05/01/2000)
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