Carll Wilkinson is Back, with a great new CD release, "The Working Poor Blues"

Carll appears at the Maine Songwriters Association Showcase at the North Star Music Cafe on July 16, 2009.

CD Review by Bob McKillop

Carll Wilkinson writes songs about duality.  Rich and poor.  Heartbreak amid the holidays. Hard work and easy riches.  The individual in the context of family legacy.  Our moment in time in the context of the arc of human experience.

The production and arrangement on the tracks on Wilkinson’s new CD, “The Working Poor Blues”, reinforce this duality, in that it is so different from his first CD, “Pomegranate”.  Yet these songs are grown from the seeds sown in that debut record.  And Carll has indeed grown significantly, as a songwriter and performer.

This current disc says as much about the growth of Pete Morse (Busted Barn Recording - Sorcha Cribben-Merrill, Putnam Smith) as a recording engineer as it does about Carll, in that Morse engineered “Pomegranate” for Carll as well.  (Morse also provides some very spooky and distinctive pedal steel guitar parts throughout the new CD.)  There is no producer listed on either of Wilkinson’s CDs, but Morse must get significant credit in both cases.  Where “Pomegranate” was sparse and straightforward, “The Working Poor Blues” is multi-layered, textured, and, at times, lush and complex.  The deeper and broader arrangements provide a much more solid foundation, balance and counter-point to Carll's emotional and passionate vocal delivery. 

The opener on the new disc is the appropriately entitled “Start the Whole Damn Thing All Over”.  The first verse leads us to believe that we’re going to hear “Pomegranate” all over again, but then the piano, bass, and drum kit kick in, and by the time we get to the song’s climax, we are definitely into a whole different sound for Carll.  His familiar percussive, acoustic strum is stage left, and never gets lost. His passionate Lamontagne-esque vocals, and Tom Snow’s piano part, dance nicely with each other in the center of the sonic landscape.  Stefan Samuel’s drums are set further back in the room, punchy and precise, and just where they need to be in the mix.  It’s a very satisfying arrangement, full and flavorful and tasty.

Carll’s vocal and lyrical style has evolved since his first record.  While he retains a mumbly, rapid-fire diction, he is singing the lyrics more clearly than on “Pomegranate”.  He has more concrete things to say on the new record. One of the things he is saying is that he’s back, after a hiatus of a few years, and he’s ready to hit the scene again with power and energy.

Carll follows that strong opener with another fine piece of songwriting, “Microhistory”, which should get an award for best song title.  This is a song about the need to be an individual in the face of the legacy of family. The drumbeat and the pedal steel guitar turn this song into a country number, and the wonderful piano riffs make this track a joy to listen to.

“As much as I have tried to be my own man

I’m accompanied by ghosts

I’ve got the blood of generations in my veins

I can’t escape my family’s legacy

We’ve all got microhistories

The legends and the fantasies

Are left for us to sort through

Doesn’t matter if you want to

You can pick your friends

But not the crowd you’re born to”

Wilkinson takes us down into minor keys, down-tempos, and songs of depression and desperation through the middle of the record.  I especially enjoyed the resentment, anger, and heartbreak of “The Season”, a song about love lost over the Christmas holidays.  But he lifts us suddenly into exuberance with the upbeat and tender “The Wedding Song”.    Nicely written and breathlessly delivered, it’s a “declaration of love”, full of vivid images, energy, and love.  A simple acoustic strum, pedal steel, shaker, and bass track carry the desperate melody and lyrics.

“Still I want to tell you time and time again

How the world stops spinning

How the clocks stand still

Caught up in your spell

Maybe they love you as well”

The title track, “The Working Poor Blues”, is deceiving.  It begins honorably enough as a bluesy anthem for hard work, honest labor, and well-deserved progress toward affluence:

“My daddy read me Horatio Alger

You boot strap your way to the top

Your nose to the grindstone

Your eye on the ball and don’t stop”

But soon, the real story emerges; the real culprit in the current financial mess reveals himself:

“You could start a hedge fund

Bring the world down to its knees

Buy a mansion on Nantucket

Taste the North Atlantic breeze

Get in good with some investors

And cultivate a scheme

Build an Indian casino

Just this side of New Orleans”

Carll has this duality thing down….

I love records that end with introspection and perspective.  Carll closes out this very enjoyable disc with “10,000 Years”, a personal view of his place in the world and in the history of the human condition.  These are powerful lyrics that reveal a strong talent for distilling the underlying vibrations of our world into words that we can relate to.  The song is about getting through life step-by-step, day-by-day; for finding a place in the world and understanding where it all fits in.

It’s great to see and hear Carll Wilkinson out and about in town again.  He is appearing regularly at The Maine Songwriters Association Showcase at The North Star Music Café (he has a set there on July 16th), which is a great way to catch him in an intimate listening room environment.  He is very good live; there is little lost in the translation from recorded arrangements to a solo gig. 

“The Working Poor Blues” is available at Bull Moose Music , and online at CD Baby, iTunes, and Amazon.com.  I highly recommend it.