JOSEPH HUBER – THE HANGING ROAD
2014 – Muddy Roots
I’ve loved Joseph Huber’s music since and including the .357 String Band years and having received this album several months ago couldn’t wait to play it. Then, as occasionally happens I mislaid it and even worse, forgot about it, eventually finding the disc by accident at the bottom of a pile of c.ds! It is a real shame it got lost because albums this good really should be reviewed early, preferably just before the release date.
Joseph is a hugely talented writer, vocalist and multi instrumentalist, having played every instrument on this recording as well as writing every song. He has a natural lonesome sound to his songs, something that is emphasized by his appealingly warm vocal style. He started out as a founding member of the incredible ‘.357 String Band’ about whom I’ve read several times a reformation is on the cards, a rumour that I and no doubt many other real music fans hope has some truth to it!
That wide open spacy mountain sound that runs through this excellent all acoustic album can rarely have been more evocative than that played and sung by this man who seems to have a knack for producing haunting songs that stay long in the memory. There are quite a number of other artists who play this melodic brand of rootsy mountain music but there are very few individuals I can think of who can, despite the beautiful playing and warmth of the vocals, still produce a very uncommon edginess to everything they perform. It is genuinely something that sets him apart from most of his peers, ensuring the listener knows they are bearing aural witness to a very special talent at work.
This is his third solo outing and to my ears is neither better nor worse than the previous two. This is not a negative because those two earlier albums were of an exceptional quality, although his debut may well have been too dark for the more sensitive listeners, being thematically rooted in songs of death! His ‘difficult’ second album was another triumph and whilst not ‘party music’ was more upbeat than its predecessor. This new recording takes elements of both giving the album in its entirety a slightly more varied feel, but as I said, every album has been of an exceptional quality.
The instrumentation hasn’t really changed and includes, banjo, guitars, fiddle, mandolin, bass and a little percussion most played with a virtuosic degree of skill and the slight echo on his vocals contributes to the high lonesome atmosphere of the album giving a wide open spacy feel that envelops the whole recording. It is easy to visualize virtually any song on this recording being used in a movie set in the high Appalachians, such is the haunting, old timey atmosphere the album conjures up.
A lovely banjo and sawing, evocative fiddle get the album under way on Same River Twice, before Joseph Huber’s just as evocative vocal comes in on a tremendous song that virtually epitomes the ‘high lonesome’ sound. On Shovel on your shoulder there is a speedy sawing fiddle throughout this terrific song with banjo and bass and Josephs haunting atmospheric vocals. Whilst those vocals are always excellent the instrumentation alone on this song would be enough to carry a hoedown! Coming down from you has a lovely guitar intro and a slightly different instrumentation that includes several different guitar sounds, overall adding a little diversity to this tremendous album, on the tale of someone trying to get over a lost love on another lovely, quite literally, high lonesome tale. The title track The Hanging Road is a true epic of a song that starts with a chiming mandolin, soon joined by a fiddle, percussion, bass and banjo on a beautifully written and portrayed tale that virtually defines the haunting high lonesome sound of twenty first century ‘old timey’ music! Joseph Huber is far from being a household name but that should not detract from the fact that he is as talented a musician as any you can think of and has what in this twenty first century should be looked on as a strong originality. He has a natural ability to create a parallel music that genuinely has the often dark, haunting and almost overwhelming atmosphere of some of the now long dead musicians who were conjuring their eerie sounds at the dawn of recorded ‘country music.’ Bland country pop it most definitely is not. High quality ‘real country music’ it most certainly is. Just go out and buy all three albums and I guarantee you will hear exactly what I mean!
http://josephhubermusic.com/
I’ve loved Joseph Huber’s music since and including the .357 String Band years and having received this album several months ago couldn’t wait to play it. Then, as occasionally happens I mislaid it and even worse, forgot about it, eventually finding the disc by accident at the bottom of a pile of c.ds! It is a real shame it got lost because albums this good really should be reviewed early, preferably just before the release date.
Joseph is a hugely talented writer, vocalist and multi instrumentalist, having played every instrument on this recording as well as writing every song. He has a natural lonesome sound to his songs, something that is emphasized by his appealingly warm vocal style. He started out as a founding member of the incredible ‘.357 String Band’ about whom I’ve read several times a reformation is on the cards, a rumour that I and no doubt many other real music fans hope has some truth to it!
That wide open spacy mountain sound that runs through this excellent all acoustic album can rarely have been more evocative than that played and sung by this man who seems to have a knack for producing haunting songs that stay long in the memory. There are quite a number of other artists who play this melodic brand of rootsy mountain music but there are very few individuals I can think of who can, despite the beautiful playing and warmth of the vocals, still produce a very uncommon edginess to everything they perform. It is genuinely something that sets him apart from most of his peers, ensuring the listener knows they are bearing aural witness to a very special talent at work.
This is his third solo outing and to my ears is neither better nor worse than the previous two. This is not a negative because those two earlier albums were of an exceptional quality, although his debut may well have been too dark for the more sensitive listeners, being thematically rooted in songs of death! His ‘difficult’ second album was another triumph and whilst not ‘party music’ was more upbeat than its predecessor. This new recording takes elements of both giving the album in its entirety a slightly more varied feel, but as I said, every album has been of an exceptional quality.
The instrumentation hasn’t really changed and includes, banjo, guitars, fiddle, mandolin, bass and a little percussion most played with a virtuosic degree of skill and the slight echo on his vocals contributes to the high lonesome atmosphere of the album giving a wide open spacy feel that envelops the whole recording. It is easy to visualize virtually any song on this recording being used in a movie set in the high Appalachians, such is the haunting, old timey atmosphere the album conjures up.
A lovely banjo and sawing, evocative fiddle get the album under way on Same River Twice, before Joseph Huber’s just as evocative vocal comes in on a tremendous song that virtually epitomes the ‘high lonesome’ sound. On Shovel on your shoulder there is a speedy sawing fiddle throughout this terrific song with banjo and bass and Josephs haunting atmospheric vocals. Whilst those vocals are always excellent the instrumentation alone on this song would be enough to carry a hoedown! Coming down from you has a lovely guitar intro and a slightly different instrumentation that includes several different guitar sounds, overall adding a little diversity to this tremendous album, on the tale of someone trying to get over a lost love on another lovely, quite literally, high lonesome tale. The title track The Hanging Road is a true epic of a song that starts with a chiming mandolin, soon joined by a fiddle, percussion, bass and banjo on a beautifully written and portrayed tale that virtually defines the haunting high lonesome sound of twenty first century ‘old timey’ music! Joseph Huber is far from being a household name but that should not detract from the fact that he is as talented a musician as any you can think of and has what in this twenty first century should be looked on as a strong originality. He has a natural ability to create a parallel music that genuinely has the often dark, haunting and almost overwhelming atmosphere of some of the now long dead musicians who were conjuring their eerie sounds at the dawn of recorded ‘country music.’ Bland country pop it most definitely is not. High quality ‘real country music’ it most certainly is. Just go out and buy all three albums and I guarantee you will hear exactly what I mean!
http://josephhubermusic.com/