Well After Awhile

We all know Kevin quot;Shinyribsquot; Russell is a loose cannon. How else to explain covers of R. Kelly's quot;Feelin' on Yo Booty,quot; and Elvis Costello's Indoor Fireworksquot; in the same night. Most folks who follow such things consider his outfit, the Gourds, one of the best live bands in the land, in large part because of Russell's brazen eccentricites and creative syntax. However, the most overlooked thing about Russell is that when he plays it straight - as he does for most of his new Shinyribs record Well After Awhile - the man can produce some of the funkiest and most beautiful roots music on the planet. It's not to say the quot;psycholiteranaut w/8 AA batteries-tweed facade-equal parts Waylon Jennings, Robert Rauschenberg and Harvey Kormanquot; (to quote his Twitter feed) doesn't dig into his bag of twistedness here. But a listen to the straight-up duet quot;Shores of Gallileequot; (with Sally Allen), the sweet quasi-fable quot;Who Built the Moon,quot; or the intimate cover of Sam Cooke's quot;Change Gonna Comequot; that closes the record, shows that even when Russell puts aside some of the tricks, he delivers grade-A Country Soul.