Chuck Prophet – Let Freedom Ring

Chuck Prophet – Let Freedom Ring (Yep Roc)

Chuck Prophet began his musical journey as Dan Stuart’s foil in Green on Red, an often tremendous band that mixed scabrous garage, Dylan-Velvets poesy, and American roots in cool ways. ‘Let Freedom Ring” is a good representation of the best in Prophet’s solo career. Prophet is a sharp, never pretentious, lyricist. The songs on his new record ‘Let Freedom Ring” illuminate the current American predicament, wryly capturing the woes of the workaday and the marginalized.

Prophet uses his modest baritone effectively, sounding like Tom Petty after too many drinks and too much sun. A first-rate guitar player, he has much in common with Mike Campbell, Keith Richards, even Richard Thompson. Some of Prophet’s records court Americana’s banal reserve, but “Let Freedom Ring,’ recorded in a funky analogue studio in Mexico City, rocks loose and profits from it. Chuck Prophet isn’t reinventing the wheel. He rarely strays from a sound that would engage a savvy Dylan, Petty or Stones fan. With a really good record like “Let Freedom Ring,” he makes worthy company for such icons.

Reverberating: 8.2

Chuck Prophet – “What Can A Mother Do?”

Posted on | January 5, 2010 | No Comments

1. Chuck Prophet is not a country singer, doesn’t claim to be. In fact, his new record, Let Freedom Ring!, is more of a tribute to the birth of rock and roll than anything, with its shades of Buddy Holly and Gene Vincent. However, it doesn’t necessarily take a country singer to sing a country song, as he proves on the second track, “What Can A Mother Do?”. Prophet has called these “political songs for non-political people”, and his gentle treatment of loss here strikes a chord. This is not a song about people from the country, but a song for people from America’s rural areas, which gives it all the qualification it needs.

2. Chuck recorded Let Freedom Ring! in Mexico City with Greg Leisz (who produced Dave Alvin’s King of California) at the helm. He sought help from original E Street drummer Ernest “Boom” Carter and, on this song, ex-Nickel Creek fiddler Sara Watkins. Her lilting vocals and swooning fiddle give its shuffling rhythm a nice drawl. Prophet speaks of an “only child”, who was “born to run” (pun intended, as drummer Carter gave that song its signature heft). “Unwanted in seventeen states”, the child wanders around the country while Prophet wonders about her parents, whose baby is “never coming home”. He moves on to tell the story of a youngest child, who scrapped for everything he could get growing up. By the time he enlisted, Prophet notes, he was “three times a dad”. The chorus implies his death, and Prophet’s subtle mention of his occupation makes clear his feelings on war.

3. Prophet finishes by noting the presence of “Jesus on the billboard” and how we have pounded our fists at the sky in vain, asking for some relief from this world. Finishing with the now loaded chorus, he shrugs his shoulders, and the song enjoys one last bit of music before fading away. This is not an overtly political song, as Chuck shows that the parents of runaways and fallen soldiers go through the same thing. Loss is one thing that makes us human, and this simple jaunt carries that simple message, with just enough sugar to make it go down eas

Chuck Prophet has been making terrific records since he started out with the raw-and-ready L.A. band Green on Red nearly a quarter century ago. Let Freedom Ring is the latest in that long line, and it takes a place of pride. The title tells you that, once again, this album centers on Prophet’s favorite subject: America. He recorded the album amid the quotidian chaos of Mexico City, but guess what: One side of the border turns out to be not that much different from the other. If it’s chaos you’re after, Prophet understands that you need look no further than the local news. In his own good-humored, ramshackle way, Prophet earns his last name.

Chuck Prophet has been releasing solo albums for two decades, but little in his past prepares the listener for this powerhouse song cycle. Particularly since that past has often relegated Prophet to the role of catalyst, midwife or sidekick, submerging his artistic identity within someone else’s.

Recently he served as most valuable player on Alejandro Escovedo’s Real Animal, co-writing all the songs on an album that served as Escovedo’s musical memoir. Before that, he collaborated with Kelly Willis on Translated from Love, where he produced and played guitar as well as sharing writing credit with her on half the material. Even in Green on Red, the 1980s band that first earned Prophet some attention, he was overshadowed by founding frontman Dan Stuart.

At the point in a veteran journeyman’s career where one doesn’t expect surprises, he has delivered a knockout, a “State of the Union” album that combines self-assured swagger and bittersweet vulnerability in equal measure. It’s a musical meditation on a particular time, and a particular country. And that country is this one, though, as the punctuation of the title suggests, Prophet and band (including former Springsteen drummer Ernest “Boom” Carter) recorded the project in Mexico City, during a time of drug wars, swine flu and even an earthquake.

With co-producer Greg Leisz (the guitarist who has so often played the MVP role that Prophet has for others), the band entered what that songwriter describes as “a state of the art studio (for 1958 or so).” There’s an immediacy to the interplay that transcends technological limitations and a perspective on the American condition reflected from the vantage of another culture. Not only does distance lend perspective, but sometimes you need to shake things up to see things straight.

The flurry of guitar jabs that open the album with “Sonny Liston’s Blues” shows the music coming out swinging from the outset, though the song’s tender interlude suggests the emotional extremes the music will continue to encompass. It’s a love song of sorts, sung “in ways I just cannot express,” to a woman who has fingered the fallen champ in a lineup--mistakenly he claims. Such a jumble of emotion, such an ellipsis of detail, such a storytelling richness from the perspective of a narrator who describes himself as “a man of few words.” Such brute force. Such open heart.

The title cut and “American Man” suggest the album’s all-American anthemic sweep, yet this America sounds most like Los Angeles, where the gap between the fantasy and the reality runs particularly deep. You can hear echoes of Tom Petty, Joe Henry and particularly Randy Newman in Prophet’s phrasing--three artists who came to L.A. from somewhere else, yet have come to musically embody the city in distinct but interrelated ways.

Like theirs, Prophet’s music has both a hard-edged irony and a soulful empathy, a way of inhabiting characters from the inside out. Take the title track, where the Stonesish riffing and rhythmic propulsion suggest a patriotic fist pumper, but the social Darwinism of the lyrics deflates such jingoism: “Let there be markets, let ‘em run wild, as the sisters of mercy just laugh. All the lost brothers can drink themselves blind, while good fortune breaks hard work in half.”

These are songs of lost brothers and sisters, of lives lived in the margins, in the shadows. Where the uptempo songs that sound heroic on the surface often mask a darker thematic underbelly, the warmth of the album’s balladry frequently carries a sucker punch. “What Can a Mother Do” has the sweetness of a country melody, punctuated by fiddle and vocal harmony from Sara Watkins (Nickel Creek), yet the turn of a phrase about a young girl “unwanted in seventeen states” belies the music’s carefree spirit.

Similarly, the waltz of sad perseverance in “You and Me Baby (Holding On)” and the unflinching tenderness of “Barely Exist” (which would have fit just fine on Escovedo’s album) hit even harder than the uptempo fare, while more raucous rockers such as “Where the Hell is Henry,” “Hot Talk” and the retro/New Wave “Good Time Crowd” have a jittery urgency, a brittleness beneath the power riffing. There’s a tension throughout between the literary command of the lyrics and the electric crackle of the arrangements, as if the album took a lifetime to write and a couple hours to record.

Ultimately, it’s a work that demands to be heard as a whole rather than a selection of cuts to download. And it ends on the perfect note of grace with “Leave the Window Open,” a nighttime benediction after a long day’s journey. “Life is only so long,” sings Prophet. “Don’t let it rub you raw.” Words to live by.

Prophet's ninth solo album shares its title with a conservative think tank, a Barry Manilow song, a jazz album and a civil rights box set. If this were a tick the box personality test, the last one's closest: its 11 tracks were written swiftly in the fretful run-up to the US Presidential election. But though lyrically it touches on the socio-political, the freedom here is about being unrestrained, uninhibited, alive. Prophet's not sounded this loose and immediate on a studio record in a long while (it helps to have recorded it swiftly in an archaic, digital-free studio in Mexico City). But though he's focused on rocking out with his fine band, which includes guest backing singer Kelly Stoltz, the songs are excellent - among them You and Me Baby (Holding on), Barely Exist and American Man, channelling Tom Petty, Mink DeVille and early Stones. Greg Leisz co-produced. -- Sylvie Simmons

Chuck Prophet rarely disappoints and ¡Let Freedom Ring! is no exception. Once again, Chuck proves he's got singing chops, goo-gobs of guitar playing skills, charm to spare, fashion sense, and the instincts of a svelte cheetah when it comes to producing. Prophet and his crew recorded his ninth solo CD at a studio in Mexico City (yeah, all the cool kids are recording there now) during a swine flu outbreak. More burritos for them, I guess—"them" being guitarist Tom Ayres, bassist Rusty Miller and drummer Ernest "Boom" Carter. Chuck's phrasing has always reminded me of Lou Reed's, sort of half talking, half singing, always meaning it. He also seems to favor the ladies in the background singing the la-las and the yeah-yeahs. I like the way he exhibits a What's the god damn hurry? attitude in the way he delivers a song. I really love "American Man"—Chuck sounds a bit like Tom Petty on this one but with a lot more edge. "What Can A Mother Do?" is hilarious lyrically ("She was unwanted in seventeen states with the engine light on and Alaskan plates") and really tuneful. I also love the rhythmic "Good Time Crowd," which features really cool vintage instrumentation and vocals. Wrapping up the album, "Leave The Window Open" is plaintive and gorgeous. "I don't want this day to end, I don't care if it rains," he sings. Yeah, like that. Go, Chuck.

Holed up in a studio in a Mexico City ravaged by earthquakes and firmly in the grip of a swine flu epidemic, Chuck Prophet could be forgiven for playing it safe, keeping his head down and taking it a tad easy. Yet, this is the same Prophet who let loose for eight years with Green On Red when barely a fresh-faced kid out of high school, the same Prophet whose incendiary guitar playing leaves jaws dropped wherever he plays, and the same Prophet whose whole career thus far has been a journey down the B-roads of the American dream. No, ‘Let Freedom Ring,’ far from being safe is hard hitting and dangerous.

Eleven tracks knocked out as live in just over eight days this is an album that is a fresh, vibrant, and essential. From the opening ‘Sonny Liston’s Blues,’ a loose, lithe boogie channelling into the mind of one of America’s troubled mythical sporting giants. A man on the fringes of the accepted, misinterpreted and mythologized by the mainstream, Liston was a man from the other side of the tracks unable to be truly appreciated, resorting instead to drugs and drink. It’s a sad indictment that the ‘dream’ only ever seemingly works for the chosen few. It’s an air of unjust resignation that blows through the album like a freak gale. The title track kicks along like a Stones cover, and Prophet lets loose some blistering guitar work alongside the equally fluid band of Ernest ‘Boom’ Carter, Tom Ayres, and Rusty Miller. At the controls Greg Leisz just lets them get on with it – plug it in, play, record. Simple.

Whilst ‘American Man’ – “folded like a page / from the book of the damned/ I’m your American Man" – is ballsy and unforgiving, there is little respite for the immigrant father (‘Barely Exist’) whose escape from "dying on a cattle farm, a face without a name, no two ways about it" comes at the expense of his son. A side swipe at the lunacy of Wall St (‘Hot Talk’) – “Were gonna see how Wall Street takes the news / when Wall St finds New York City’s gone” – is prime-time Prophet, a social observer who judgments are subtle yet brutal.

Nine albums in and this is the best yet. Here’s to the next nine.

Chuck Prophet has always been so far ahead of sonic trends that he can barely see them in his rearview mirror. From the visionary country-rock architecture of Green on Red in the '80s to his wide-ranging solo career, Prophet has been creatively restless, reinventing himself like a rootsy David Bowie and applying his own stamp to whatever direction he pursues. His last album, 2007's Soap and Water, was yet another demonstration of his ability to find new inspiration within Stonesian parameters while wearing all of the hats he's sported since 2000's roots-and-turntables marvel, The Hurting Business. His latest, ¡Let Freedom Ring!, broadens the focus even more while honing in on the specifics of each individual song, perhaps influenced by his work on Alejandro Escovedo's Real Animal last year.

"You and Me Baby (Holding On)" is the sound of Bob Dylan guided by the Velvet Underground rather than Woody Guthrie, while "American Man" is the Stones posing as SoCal rockers at their swaggering, staggering best and featuring some of Prophet's most incisively political, Dylanesque lyrics ("American Man, up on the mound/With an orange alert and a new wave sound"). Recorded in Mexico City at the height of the swine flu epidemic and in the middle of an earthquake and brownouts in a studio that hasn't been upgraded since the Eisenhower administration, Prophet poured the negative energy into this amazing set of songs written in and about the economic, political and emotional maelstrom we find ourselves in at the moment. Is this the best Chuck Prophet album ever? Sure, why not? They all get to wear that medal for a while. — Brian Baker

You've got to hand it to Chuck Prophet. While the rest of the world was panicking about the swine flu outbreak, the San Francisco-based songwriter was holed up in a sound studio in Mexico City, recording what ranks as the most staggering rock record of 2009. From the blistering opening chords of "Sonny Liston's Blues" to the plaintive refrain of "Leave the Window Open," Prophet has produced a suite of songs whose exuberance will call to mind not just the mid-'70s heyday of the Stones, but also vintage Cheap Trick.

Prophet's voice is pure Southern California drawl, and his Stratocaster seems never to have met a lick it couldn't shred. But what stands out here is Prophet's ability to survey the moral landscape of America, as the nation faces up to the brutal economic hangover of the go-go Bush years. "Let there be markets, let them run wild," he sings, on the rousing title track, "as the sisters of mercy just laugh/All the lost brothers can drink themselves blind/While good fortune breaks hard work in half." Not even the shimmering chorus can blunt the sting of that sort of truth. What's most remarkable about this album is that Prophet has told the ugly truth about our imperial ills and made it impossible for us not to sing along. -- Steve Almond

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It sounds like a collection of disasters that could befall a character from one of his songs: When Chuck Prophet went to Mexico City to make this record, he encountered a pandemic, an earthquake, and an antiquated studio. But with the grit and resilience that have typified his work since his days in Green on Red, Prophet soldiered through. The result is "Let Freedom Ring!,"another solid collection of his sturdy, rootsy rock 'n' roll.

Prophet is a storyteller with a sharp eye for detail and a deft sense of character. His ninth solo album nods to Bob Dylan ("Hot Talk," "You and Me Baby"), Randy Newman ("Barely Exist"), and John Mellencamp ("American Man"), with a bit of Texas roadhouse blues thrown in ("Where the Hell Is Henry?"). It doesn't delve quite as deeply as "The Hurting Business" or "Soap & Water," but as always, Prophet's stories ring true.