Well I've been fortunate enough to land a "preview" copy of El Chivato, the second release from Duluth songwriter Billy Southern and on first listens it seems as appropriate a record as any to rekindle these pages with a little writeup. Like it's predecessor "Swamp Dog," El Chivato is ably recorded and engineered by Jake Larson (Charlie Parr, Off The Mike Mark et. al) and is once again accompanied by longtime live show cohort Barry Schwarz on lead acoustic guitar as well as Karl Anderson on upright bass along with Jillian Lantry on fiddle and backing vocals and Greg Tiburzi on percussion.
El Chivato starts unassumingly enough with Three Lakes Road, a true story of a couple of young kids (one a young Southern) lost in the woods of Northern Minnesota and forced into an unplanned all-night vigil, hiding from the snow under a balsam tree. Southern's confident picking and Lantry's fiddle provide a tempo that drives like the wind and snow through the night and sets an apt platform for the rest of the record to unfold. This little tale obviously belied a sense of confidence and survival which Southern has carried with him through the years, as a "Billy the Kid" character loosely weaves through the rest of the fourteen songs of which the writing and playing display considerably more grit and less pathos than many singer-songwriters. Interesting that Southern would choose this inspiration, the storied "El Chivato" as the protagonist for his songs as Billy himself says that he is a songwriter, a storyteller first, then a musician. And the literary bent to the lyrics, along with the well played acoustic accompaniment really works. El Chivato doesn't really sound like anything else. Sure, if you like the efficient carefully chosen words of John Prine, if you like the wry humor of Todd Snider, if you like the edgy rawness of Guy Clark you will like Billy Southern's new record. But Billy doesn't really sound like an offshoot of any of them. Billy Southern just sounds like Billy Southern. And isn't that what makes a new record truly stand out?
Previews/availability info at www.myspace.com/billysouthernmusic
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