Time: 59:01
Size: 135.1 MB
Styles: Jazz/Blues/Swing/R&B
Year: 2009
Art: Front
[4:09] 1. Digga Digga Doo
[3:35] 2. Paul Revere
[4:10] 3. D.R.I.N.K
[4:05] 4. Since I Met You Baby
[4:30] 5. Shine On Harvest Moon
[4:26] 6. Got My Mojo Workin'
[2:50] 7. Some Of These Days
[4:35] 8. Dance This Mess Around
[4:28] 9. Tv Party
[4:19] 10. Hick Hop
[3:33] 11. Tight Like That
[7:02] 12. Sugar In My Bowl
[3:21] 13. Going Up To The Country, Paint My Mailbox Blue
[3:53] 14. It's A Sin To Tell A Lie
The Asylum Street Spankers defy easy categorization. Sticking resolutely to acoustic instruments including clarinet, harmonica, banjo and at times even musical saw, the Spankers perform a bewildering array of songs in just about every popular style extant in America since the end of World War I. Though the band's lineup changes with each recording, the two leaders have remained constant: Christina Marrs, whose vocal tone and range remind me of Barbara Cook with touches of Aretha Franklin and Betty Boop, and Wammo, who is truly one of a kind. The Spankers' MO is to take absolutely nothing seriously except their musicianship (which is polished to the point of glowing) and to celebrate all forms of pleasure, not excluding those that are generally considered to be either immoral, illegal or fattening. (For their sake, I hope John Ashcroft never gets hold of a copy of "Spanker Madness.") Their new album, "Mercurial"--so named for Mercury Hall in their home town of Austin, where this CD was recorded--basically is a sampler of everything that makes the Spankers great. They perform everything from true old-time numbers such as "Shine On Harvest Moon" and "Digga Digga Doo" to a hilarious cover of the B-52's "Dance This Mess Around." Christina Marrs lights up the torches in such down-and-dirty blues numbers as "Got My Mojo Workin'" and "Sugar in My Bowl," but it's Wammo who is the album's standout in his wonderful original, "Hick Hop," best described as a rumble between the posses of Toby Keith and Snoop Dogg. Sadly, "Mercurial" probably marks the last appearances of Stanley Smith and Korey Simeone as regular Spankers--Smith quit the band because of ill health, Simeone to pursue an acting career--but the new touring group of Spankers is as tight an ensemble as ever, and bodes well for the band's survival as a living monument to the Pleasure Principle. ~Miles D Moore
Mercurial