Blues Society of Western PA - Newsletter

It's always a pleasure listening to a new CD from an artist you know and like, but it's a real blast to come across something from someone whom you are not familiar, that simply blows you away. Austin "Walkin' Cane" Charanghat blew me away! This CD oughta come with mason jar fulla corn liquor and a map of Mississippi. With Austin's booming voice, tough as nails lyrics, and the classic tone of his National Reso-phonic guitar, you feel like you're in a rocking chair on the back porch of some Mississippi shotgun shack, watching the sunset over the bayou, and swattin' at mosquitoes.

"High Rent Lemon Girl, Aren't Ya?" starts it off with what is the theme of much of the CD...death and the willingness to accept it. "If I die tomorrow, don't put me in no box in no ground / High rent lemon girl, give my ashes to her / She'll know what to do with them...spread 'em around the world, yessir..."

The title cut, "Murder of a Blues Singer", continues the theme with a hauntingly beautiful song that showcases Walkin' Cane's extraordinary slide work on his National guitar, and talks of a jealous man poisoning Austin's glass of whiskey. I do not know if this song is based in fact or not...or if it is somehow a reference to Robert Johnson's demise...or if it is foretelling Austin's own fate...but the lyrics are astounding. "Didn't sell my soul at the crossroads, or pray on tombstones at midnight / I fell for a gin-soaked girl, with the moonlight in her eyes..."

"The Devil's Backbone" is a more upbeat tune, but again, the lyrics are stunning. "The Naches train.....the Devil's Backbone.....Hey now baby, it ain't paved with gold, it's stained with blood.....the Devil's Backbone"

Another rolling, upbeat tune is "Step It Up, and Go", which is one of the few songs on the CD that don't mention dying...but the lyrics make damn sure you know this cat's got the blues..."Rollin' like a freight train seven days a week, tired of tryin' to make ends meet / What I haven't got is already spent...my love is sinkin' like a shipwreck..."

In what is billed as a tribute to Robert Lockwood Jr., Austin does a great version of Robert Johnson's "Ramblin' on My Mind". One of only two songs on the CD that he did not write or co-write, Walkin' Cane does a great job of putting his own signature on this well-worn classic. "Georgia Moon" is another upbeat tune, and again showcases Austin' writing ability..."Well, I comb my head with a catfish back...yeah, I made my bones in a dynamite shack..." and this beauty: "I got a barrel fulla monkeys underneath my hood / squeeze me out a living outta wire and wood...” Nice little metaphor of guitar playing.

Getting back to the overriding theme of the CD, "Graveyard Town," gets knee-deep in the dark side with it's opening line: "Dust on the floor, and blood flowin' down the drain...” but does it in a fairly matter-of-fact way...like it is the only life that he has ever known. "Graveyard town knows nothin' but poison rain...” Very powerful lyrics. "Hold on the Night" swings a bit, like the boxcar Walkin' Cane is traveling in to get back to his woman. It talks about how he's beaten down at every turn, but "hold on baby, I'm comin' home tonight..."

What I think is the most powerful tune on the album is "Late Great Singer". Aside from using the term "Late" in reference to his death, yet again, I am just amazed at how this man strings words together to tell such an exquisite story. "Never gonna be, never gonna be, a late great singer / Never gonna fill, never gonna fill, Carnegie Hall / Never gonna be, never gonna be, the star that you picture...lightenin' up your bedroom wall." This is a powerful, powerful song. And in closing out the CD with the established theme, "See That My Grave is Kept Clean" leaves little doubt about the depth of the blues Austin is chronicling.

The lyrics on this CD are simply breathtaking...some of the best that I have ever heard. And the overall feel of the record is as genuine as it gets. In the liner notes, Austin tells of how the band got the songs a week before recording, rehearsed once, recorded live in the studio, and mixed in 3 days...in the old "Chess Records" tradition. It worked...this thing is a gem!