free music friday: rachel harrington

In Rachel Harrington’s second album City Of Refuge (out on Monday), Portland, Oregon, has produced yet another utterly absorbing musical experience to join releases from fellow residents Lauras Barrett, Gibson and Veirs as some of the year’s finest listening goods. Enduring old-timey traditionals like ‘I Don’t Want To Get Adjusted To This World’ and ‘Old Time Religion’ rub shoulders with Rachel’s own acutely observed tales. These include compelling sepia-hued yarns of a young boy’s tragic death (‘Angel Boy’), an Alaskan prostitute (‘Karen Kane’) and Oregon-born minimalist writer Raymond Carver (‘Carver’). Like Carver, Rachel sees herself as more of a short story writer than anything. “The story always comes first,” she says emphatically.

Rachel has kindly given us permission to give away the album’s cover of Bobbie Gentry’s colossal and oft-interpreted 1967 hit, ‘Ode To Billie Joe’. The spelling of the titular character, who kills himself in the song by throwing himself off a bridge, has varied over the years (most famously in the 1976 film that expands on the tale and describes Billy Joe’s suicide as a guilt-ridden plunge following a gay sex encounter). With covers from the likes of Sheryl Crow, Sinéad O’Connor and the famous duet between Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald already out there, what does Rachel’s arrangement and performance bring to the song? A spotlessly soulful country vocal that takes in all the domestic humdrum and deeper sadness the story commands, plus flawless musicianship with plenty of mandolin and ‘guitjo’ and Tim O’Brien’s mournful fiddle part, that’s what.

FREE MP3: Rachel Harrington, ‘Ode To Billy Joe‘

Written by: Alan Pedder

Tags: rachel harrington

This entry was posted on Friday, November 21st, 2008 at 1:03 pm and is filed under All A/V, free music friday. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.