A.M. - Wilco - 1995

 

Uncle Tupelo were a band formed in East Saint Louis in the late eighties by chief songwriters Jay Farrar and Jeff Tweedy. They were a sort of country rock band, but with strong influences from traditional folk and a fast, hard attack that borrowed a lot from punk rock. They are considered "Alt Country" (i.e., Alternative Country), and in fact, they are considered to have spearheaded the "No Depression" movement of the early nineties, No Depression being actually the name of their debut album from 1990. In fact, for a time it seems that No Depression was at one time been the name of the genre they play in, so dominant they were in the sub-genre. 

In the end, it's all coming from country rock, and the half-burned alcoholic corpse of Gram Parsons looms large over it all,  I guess, but "Alt Country" is a name that I suppose does serve to differentiate it from early sixties and seventies country rock (it's harder and punkier) and also from the early eighties "country punk" movement (it's more sensitive and uses more acoustic instruments.)

I first discovered Uncle Tupelo on Michelle Shocked folk rock/roots rock album Arkansas Traveler: they performed and co-wrote a song called "Shaking Hands", which in fact was based on a Civil War era folk song, told from the point of view of a Confederate soldier who became addicted to morphine after losing an arm in the war. Michelle Shocked is a little nutty (she wanted to cover to be a picture of her in blackface, since so much of American music derives from african American music) but the album is great. If I keep writing this blog, I'll get to it eventually....

I'm not really that knowledgeable about the whole narrative of Uncle Tupelo, but like most bands with more than one good singer/songwriter, they collapsed under the weight of their own talent, which demanded more recognition for their songs. Jeff Tweedy and Jay Farrar did have chemistry and their songs were somewhat cut from the same cloth: but Jay's confident country baritone swagger always seemed to overshadow to Jeff Tweedy's rawer, more emotional vocals. In fact, Jay seemed like the major player in Uncle Tupelo, while Jeff seemed more like the junior partner: but in fact, Jeff Tweedy ended up, through Wilco becoming much more well-known and famous.

After Uncle Tupelo broke up acriminiously, Jay moved to Minneapolis and  formed the band The Jayhawks, while Jeff formed Wilco -- which was literally just Uncle Tupelo minus Jay. At the onset, it seems that Jeff's intentions were to form a more democratic band than Uncle Tupelo had been and he encouraged his bandmates to write songs themselves. This however was not how Wilco panned out: in the end it was thoroughly Tweedy dominanted.

After recording some demos with producer Brian Paulson (who had produced Uncle Tupelo's excellent swansong Anodyne) Jeff decided to add another guitarist to the group: Brian Henneman, who also sang lead for the  Saint Louis based Alt Country band The Bottle Rockets.

Thus the line up on the album was: 

Jeff Tweedy: lead and backing vocals, acoustic and electric guitars

John Stirrat: lead and backing vocals, bass guitar,  acoustic guitar, organ

Brian Henneman: guitars, backing vocals

Max Johnston: dobro, fiddle, mandolin, backing vocals

Ken Coomer: drums, backing vocals

Additionally, Lloyd Cramer added pedal steel guitar to about half the songs and Daniel Corrigan sang backup on one song.

It seems that A.M. was conceived as an album that would basically please the core audience that had followed Uncle Tupelo and it is a Alt Country album -- albeit Henneman's addition adds a bit of rootsy rock that at times recalls  Exile On Main St.'s shabby barroom rock. And in fact, the more acoustic ballads tend to remind me of that too. But what the Stones didn't have is Jeff Tweedy. Basically though, the sound is the sound of Jeff treading water and not really covering any new ground musically, which is understandable enough: I mean, after all, Wilco at this point was basically just Uncle Tupelo, and it sounds like it.

Jeff's voice is one of those rare voices that,  like Alex Chilton's or Dennis Wilson's or Paul Westerberg's or Neil Young's,  displays a ragged emotionalism that just seems to connect with you. It's not technically the most impressive voice, but it has a guileless honesty to it that can make you weep. In fact, I think he's one of the better singers in American rock for this reason and almost anything he sings is elevated by the emotional connection to the listener through his voice. 

A.M. is regarded as a bit of a failure; it seems to have garnered decent reviews,  it didn't sell as well as The Jayhawks' first album, and Jeff Tweedy himself seems to not be as proud of it as he is his later work. 

And there is no question that Wilco would tread more adventurous, interesting Alternative Rock ground on subsequent albums (especially with the later addition of multi-instrumentalist Jay Bennett, whose abundance of musical ideas coupled with Tweedy's songs would help to make Wilco one of the all time great bands.)

But it's actually a really good, late night, dishevelled album, redolent of chilly, dark deserted bars with sticky counters and gleaming Bud Light signs....Pool tables and smokey atmosphere.  Jukebox in the corner, loud floozies, the faint smell of stale beer and cheap perfume.

The songs are all good rocking songs. If it's more traditional and old-fashioned than Wilco's latest stuff, well, so what? It is a bit of a downer album, I suppose with a dourness or a desperation that seems to infect country rock stuff, but, hey, I've been lonely in bars before and I can relate. Taken on its own terms it's a very enjoyable album indeed. 

I should also give a shoutout of John Stirrat who did in the end contribute one song (and a lead vocal) to this album: the Gram Parsons pastiche "It's Not That Simple." John Stirrat would end up staying with Wilco until the present day, if I'm not mistaken,  but in the future, he  would find an outlet for his songs in various side projects as Jeff Tweedy consolidated his dominance of the band (which is not a bad thing.)

I don't have any particular affection for this album: it doesn't evoke any nostalgic memories of me. In fact, I've only become familiar with it in the last four or five years -- but the music does evoke some times  when I was down and out, drinking too much,  spending a lot of late nights in bars, lonely and miserable. And for some reason, I have a nostalgic affection for those times, though I woudln't want to revisit them. Those times when you realize your youth is well and truly gone, but you are in this limbo between youthfulness and adult responsibility, treading water and killing time. 

I also admit that I have a fondness for the band purely becaue they are from the Saint Louis area, which is where I originally come from and where I spent the first ten or eleven years of my life.

I give his album a 7/10.

next up: A.T.O.M. by Carbon/Silicon, an album I've only just acquired.

My albums that start with A:

A.M. Wild

A.T.O.M. - Carbon Silicon

ABBA - ABBA 

ABBA Gold: Greatest Hits

Abbey Road - The Beatles

Achtung, Baby! U2

Actually - Pet Shop Boys

Adult/Child- The Beach Boys

Aerosmith's Greatest Hits

After The Gold Rush - Neil Young

Afterglow - Crowded House

Aftermath (UK Version) - The Rolling Stones

Against The Odds: 1974-1982 Blondie (three disc version)

Aimee Mann Live at St. Ann's Warehouse

Aiming For Your Head - Betchadupa

The Album -- ABBA

The Album That Never Was - The Kinks

All Four One - The Motels

All Over the Place - The Bangles

All Summer Long -- The Beach Boys

All the Great Hits -- Diana Ross

All Things Must Pass -- George Harrison

All This Useless Beauty -- Elvis Costello & the Attractions

All-Time Greatest Hits - Neil Diamond

Alluvium -- Eddie Rayner

Almost Blue -- Elvis Costello & The Attractions

Almost Summer - Celebration

Alpha Mike Foxtrot -- Wilco

The Alphabetchadupa - Betchadupa

Altitude - ALT

American Idiot Green Day

American Prayer -- The Doors

Amnesiac Radiohead

And I Feel Fine...The Best of the IRS years (1982-1987) - R.E.M.

Animals - Pink Floyd

Anodyne - Uncle Tupelo

Another Life - Another Life

Another Music in Another Kitchen: The Buzzcocks

Another Side of Bob Dylan - Bob Dylan

Anthology: Diana Ross & The Supremes

Anthology: Smokey Robinson & The Beatles

Anthology 1: The Beatles

Anthology 2: The Beatles

Anthology 3 The Beatles

Anthology: North South, East West - Tim Finn

Apple Venus: Volume One -- XTC

Apollo 18 - They Might Be Giants

The ArchAndroid: Janelle Monte

Are Well-Respected Men - The Kinks

Armed Forces -Elvis Costello & The Attractions

Around the World in a Day - Prince

Arthur (or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire)

At My Piano - Brian Wilson

Autoamerican - Blondie

Automatic for the People - R.E.M.