•
Rating: You may say: but there is already a review from two years ago! Who cares! I won't allow anyone else to "claim rights" over what I consider the most precious vinyl in my discography, with that cover steeped in a strange acid green apocalyptic light, the hand holding a necklace with a cross that stands out in front of the Miami palms.
Jeffrey Lee Pierce, the classic American loser, with that voice too big for his small stature, with a heart too weak to withstand a life of abuse and hardship (he won't even have the money to pay for medical care).
As a boy, he discovers the blues, Howlin’ Wolf, and follows the great Mississippi river: Robert Johnson and Charlie Patton. He moves to Los Angeles and is struck on the road to Damascus: the city's vibrant punk scene dangerously mixes with his musical background, creating that strange blend of blues played outrageously fast, made surreal by our hero's feline voice (someone said born from a sexy menage between Iggy Pop, Lou Reed, and Jim Morrison) and Ward Dotson's slide. In '81 "Fire of Love" is born with the anthems "She's Like Heroin to Me", "Sexbeat", and even the punk version at a mad speed of "Preachin the Blues" by Robert Johnson!
The year after this wild and instinctive record, costing just $2000, a different, less aggressive, and more mature project is born: "Miami". There is less blues, the speed slows down, the voice becomes even more captivating, feline, fluted like that of a strange tropical bird hidden in the lush and unhealthy swamps invaded by crocodiles of this part of Florida.
A ballad with a hint of country like "Carry Home" opens the album; Jeffrey unfurls his lugubrious singing that gets lost in the starry night: "I've come back/ through a thousand highways/ and so many tears". The other instruments wait for his chant to finish, to create a soundscape for him with the slide accompanying the unfolding voice... damn! This man calms you down and gives you chills at the same time.
Still a pseudocountry start for "Like Calling Up Thunder" and then the pogo starts: "I'm calling the thunder/ with hands to the sky" invokes Jeffrey, who in the next "Brother and Sister" sends shivers again with the deep tone of his voice evoking the skeletons of his sins hidden in the trees of the dark night.
The cover of "Run Through the Jungle" by Creedence (another old love of Jeffrey) has lyrics different from the original, and Ward Dotson's guitar goes wild here: "play the guitar, move!" urges Jeffrey. In tracks like "Devil in the Woods", "Bad Indian", and "Sleeping in the Blood City", he revitalizes the fresh myth of the hyper-fast tracks from the first album, while other compositions like "Texas Serenade" are electric ballads or even steeped in wild country like the grim story of "John Hardy", a railway worker hanged for the murder of a man.
The closing "Mother Heart" is pure country & western veiled with melancholy from the slide's plunges: "Mother Earth the wind is warm/ I tried my best/ but I failed"
An epochal album.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 Carry Home (03:18)
Come down to the willow garden
with me
come go with me
come go and see
Although I've howled across fields and my eyes
turned grey
are yours still the same?
are you still the same?
Carry Home
I have returned
through so many highways
and so many tears
Your letter never survived the heat of
my hand
my burning hand
my sweating hand
Your love never survived the heat of
my heart
my violent heart
in the dark
Carry Home
I have returned
through so many highways
and so many tears
Carry Home to where I am from
carry to the place that I have come
carry to the dust and flies behind me
carry to the cracks and caves on the face of me
Oh, but I didn't change, I just had to work
Yeah, but I didn't change, I just had to work
and now I'm home, and now I'm home
do you still want me?
Now, that I'm home
Come down to the willow garden with me
come go with me
come go and see
03 Brother and Sister (03:02)
Why do you keep me
way underground?
My sight is dying
as was the sound.
Why do you paint me
and cover me with jewels?
Where are we going?
What are we going to do?
you used to say, you'd take me home
but, I keep falling to the sister
brother falls unto the sister
keep getting pushed further and further
away
The sins of me
they buzz and hiss in the trees
their little skeletons
will harm no one
Why do you always
bring them back to me
they're kingdom come
and earth will be done
on heaven and earth and me
you used to say, you'd take me home
but, I keep falling to the sister
brother falls unto the sister
keep getting pushed further and further
away
And who is that there
always beside you
when I count us together
together we are only two
I had a dream
and there was foxfire in your hair
I am your brother, your lover
I give you my blood
I will follow you anywhere
you used to say, but, you never know
but, I keep falling to the sister
brother falls unto the sister
keep getting pushed further and further
away
07 Watermelon Man (04:11)
See the Watermelon Man ah' come
see the Watermelon Man ah' come
see the Watermelon Man ah' come
see the Watermelon Man ah' come
Haiyo! Haiyo yah!
See the man put on a smiley face
See the man put on a smiley face
See the man put on a smiley face
See the man put on a smiley face
Haiyo! Haiyo yah!
He no dead, he no dead he dea' yah!
See the Watermelon Man ah' come
See the Watermelon Man ah' come
See the Watermelon Man ah' come
See the Watermelon Man ah' come
See the man put on a smiley face
See the man put on a smiley face
See the man put on a smiley face
See the man put on a smiley face
Haiyo! Haiyo yah!
He no dead, he no dead he dea' yah!
Haiyo! Haiyo yah!
Loading comments slowly
Other reviews
By Enkriko
His vocal cords strangle the lyrics, sob, suck, swallow... all accompanied by extremely high doses of sulfurous rock.
This is blacker-than-black music, reviewed and corrected by the drugged and destabilizing mind of a white boy, son of punk and its ephemeral revolution.
By preachinblues
The blues is like a cruel chill that makes you shiver, so preachin’ blues, uh uh uh, preachin blues now......
'Miami' is a true masterpiece that wonderfully merges urban urgency, blues ritualism, and toxic/ancestral country into an apocalyptic and ancestral musicality.
