Howe Gelb preview

Howe Gelb
Old Town School Of Folk Music, Chicago
Sunday, May 28, 2006

It’d be overreaching to say there’d be no No Depression movement without Howe Gelb, but it certainly wouldn’t be the same. The versatile roots pioneer and Giant Sand frontman comes to Chicago to support his latest, Sno’ Angel Like You (Thrill Jockey), with a choir in tow.

But on his new album, the man who was a conduit to Calexico’s conception and a Zappa-esque father figure to a rebellious batch of alt-countrymen (and women) finds himself shoulder-to-shoulder with the grandaddy of organizations: religion. Unveiling a spiritual side he has never fully explored on record, religious or not Gelb’s musical affirmation arrived via the Ottawa Voices Of Praise Gospel Choir, with whom he recorded and performs.

Newly inspired, Gelb dusted off songs written by late Giant Sand cofounder Rainer Ptacek (“The Farm,” “Worried Spirits, and “That’s How Things Get Done”) and re-recorded them in a way that’s idiomatic but still refreshing. Voices Of Praise, if they ever had a neo-gospel sheen, dirty their robes for Angel and lend a vitality best used warding off the devil at the crossroads.

Opening will be Thrill Jockey newbie Angela Desveaux. Little more information is needed when you learn Lucinda Williams, Gillian Welch, and her grandmother are her favorite things, though “Heartbreak,” off her impending September debut, Wandering Eyes, bespeaks Greenwich Village country, a la Laura Cantrell.

— Steve Forstneger

Category: Stage Buzz, Weekly