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

Chuck Prophet

Let Freedom Ring (Yep Roc)

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

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.

Not an everyday occurrence, admittedly, but Prophet remains the only performer I’ve ever heard quietly slag off his audience to a fellow band member just minutes before going onstage to play for them. (“Look at all these f***ing sheep”, he drawled to Green on Red partner Dan Stuart. Trent Poly, 1989. I was there. It happened. Makes me smile to this day.) Since the band fell apart not long after, Prophet has done well with his particular blend of spit and sawdust blues rock, releasing albums regularly and playing and writing for the likes of Aimee Mann, Jonathan Richman and Lucinda Williams. ‘!Let Freedom Ring!’ was recorded in Mexico City last year. Prophet’s smart liner notes tell the story, the album pieced together in just 8 days with the help of blackouts, police corruption and an earthquake. (“With the paint barely dry on a shoebox full of songs and the telescope pointed backwards, we rolled tape and with the punches …”)

‘!Let Freedom Ring!’ is a beautifully realised slice of soulful rock ’n roll and exquisite song writing. As always, the guitar playing is exemplary, breathtakingly good on the soaring title track where his double tracked solo is an unholy marriage of Keith Richards and Tom Verlaine. ‘Sonny Liston’s Blues’ kicks in the door with that trademark Telecaster snapping off all over the place. ‘You and Me Baby (Holding On)’ is a beautiful ode to growing old and growing apart. ‘American Man’ is wry with its politics, from the same mould as Springsteen’s ‘Glory Days’. ‘Hot Talk’ struts like early 70s Stones and the breathless delivery carries lyrics poignant and true. ‘Leave the Window Open’ is the most heartbreaking take on ‘Me and you against the world, babe,’ I’ve heard in quite a while. The mix of bluesy balladry and bar band rocking is smartly placed throughout.

A work of honest, soulful endeavour, ‘!Let Freedom Ring!’ is a timely reminder that, amidst the recent clamour for anyone who’s managed to buy a plaid shirt and go without a shave for a few weeks, there were those who stood above the scene long before the scene existed. If you subscribe to ‘Uncut’ and are comfortable using the word ‘Americana’ in polite conversation, I’m offering you a risk-free recommendation.

Two decades into his solo career, Chuck Prophet still tends to be defined by his time spent with LA-based roustabouts Green on Red, Which must be galling because he’s a sparky songwriter worthy of greater attention. A snarling Sonny Liston’s Blues and American Man’s tongue-in-cheek Tom Petty-isms help bring ¡Let Freedom Ring! well up to par.

Cult longevity can often be as much a curse as it is a blessing. While the existence of an audience means an artist can continue to make his or her presence felt, opportunities for gleaning new listeners tend to be scant. That doesn’t mean that the product has to be irrelevant – something former Green on Red man Chuck Prophet proves to mighty effect on this incendiary new offering. Recorded with luminaries such as Kelley Stoltz and former E Street Band drummer Ernest ‘Boom’ Carter in Mexico City at the height of the swine-flu panic, Let Freedom Ring is an energised shot across the bows of the American dream. Prophet’s playing and singing burns with righteous ire throughout from the Clash-like Telecaster thrusts of opener Sonny Liston’s Blues to the disgusted denouement of the title track where he laments the fact that ‘the hawk always cripples the dove’. Lovers of unfettered rock and roll and impassioned and politicised songwriting chops will find much to cherish.