COWBOY JAMBOREE MAGAZINE & PRESS
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Hobo Radio by Brian Beatty (with Charlie Parr)

Reviewed by Adam Van Winkle

Charlie Parr’s melodic and often hypnotic picking perfectly backs the words and voice of Brian Beatty on the fantastic spoken word album, Hobo Radio.  Combined this album offers up what might best be described as superb folk.
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To be honest, with Beatty’s accent and tones and Parr’s strings I would listen to this if it were a grocery list.  But of course it is much, much more.

“Wherever You Go, There You Are” is an imagining of a prairie with barbed wire “tuned like the strings of a guitar.”  In “Samuel Beckett,” a lightbulb hangs big as a noose swinging in the breeze (and the poem is perfectly Beckett as a janitor in a theatre pushes a “broom, broom, broom”).  In “Plaid Flannel Shirt” empty space is made corporal when the speaker reveals he is “always discovering a new missing button to replace.”

In other words, this is stellar poetry with images that will knock your teeth out.

The first rate string work from Parr seems to range from banjo to acoustic guitar to slide guitar to a haunting electric.  It and Beatty’s brilliant lines mean this album is a pairing in virtuosity.

If you’re looking for the perfect place to listen to your download of Hobo Radio, I highly recommend doing it at the wheel of a fifty year old truck with a dim dash light glow driving into a warm night with the windows down.

I haven’t heard anything like this in a long time, and doubt I will again soon.  It’s that damned good.

Check out the album at: https://brianbeatty.bandcamp.com/album/hobo-radio
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  • CJ MAGAZINE
  • Current Issue
  • Style & Submit
    • About CJ
  • Books
  • Sheldon Lee Compton
    • Oblivion Angels
    • The Orchard Is Full of Sound (excerpt)
    • Our Lord and Savior Christian Slater
    • Dog With a Rabbit's Head
    • By-blow
    • Until the Going Down of the River
    • The Judas Steer
    • Tooling Up
    • DYSPHORIA (excerpt)
  • Interviews, Reviews, & Presses
    • Blake Johnson's Prodigal: An American Parable
  • Jobbers
    • Big Rig by Shaun Jex
    • A Night Out with Big Ricky by Katy Goforth
    • War Eagle by David Barker
    • True Dreams of Wichita by Shaun Jex
    • Doink the Clown Works Birthday Parties by Michael Chin
    • The Ballad of Ethel Bridges by David P. Barker
    • House Show in Badger County High School Gym by Simon Nagel
    • 288 Miles by David P. Barker
    • Corn Dogs by Shaun Jex
    • Getting Ready + Cowboy by Michael Chin
    • American Dream by Robert Libbey
    • Training Partner by A.A. Rubin
    • Finding the von Erichs by Shaun Jex
    • The Making of Big Sandy by Michael Carter
    • Pot Roast from Vance Godbey's by Mark A. Nobles
    • Abdullah the Butcher in Gotham by Mark A. Nobles
    • PWI by Josh Olsen
  • Harry Crews
  • CJ Issues & Authors
  • Our Father's Lit: Western Pulp