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.
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
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.
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