A River Aint Too Much To Love -

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inIn 1987 Bill Callahan of Smog went on a freighter cruise.

“I don’t know if you know what these are,” Bill says, “It’s these barges you see out in the ocean that don’t ever look like they’re moving. They are full of cinnamon or raw wicker, some cargo like that, and they sell a few berths. There were spaces for seven passengers on the one I went on. For six weeks I was on that thing with my cousin Lee, a couple retirees with absolutely nothing to do and a guy who turned out to be a famous crime novelist who was there to work on his next book. My parents had insisted that I needed to cool my wheels because I was getting into some trouble, as was Lee. So we went to
Papeete, Tuamotu, Suva.

When we finally pulled back into Baltimore’s harbor, I was struck by one thing: the smog. The skyscrapers came in a close second, but they sort of looked like seashells to me. The seashells I’d been collecting at all the ports. But the smog made me say, ‘I live in smog.’ And that stuck with me. I had been writing some ‘instant songs’ while on the journey, short things i could dilute the sea fever with.

When I got home my parents presented me with a bill for 2 grand so I decided to make a record to make some quick cash. Four years later I had the two grand to pay them back.

That was my first album, SEWN TO THE SKY, which came out in 1990.

I was like a caged animal set free after that. Roaming the world with a variety of pick-up bands and making a record wherever I could.”

REVIEW

Uncut (p.97) - 4 stars out of 5 - "The musical settings are crisp, spare, folksy...allowing Callahan to play one of his best roles: a campfire-friendly Leonard Cohen."

The Wire (p.65) - "This latest portal into the curious world of one of America's most imaginative songwriters finds his music pared right back. Accordion and violin crop up from time to time, but most of these songs just feature guitar and occasional drums.

Tracklist

Palimpsest
Say Valley Maker
Well, The
Rock Bottom Riser
I Feel Like The Mother Of The World
In The Pines
Drinking At The Dam
Running The Loping
I'm New Here
Let Me See The Colts

Notes

Smog: Bill Callahan (vocals, various instruments, guitar); Connie Lovatt (vocals, bass guitar); Jim White (drums). Additional personnel: Thor Harris (hammer dulcimer, airdrums, zills); Travis Weller (fiddle); Joanna Newsom (piano). Recording information: Pedernales Studio, Spicewood, Texas (2004). Like fellow southern singer/songwriter Will Oldham, Bill Callahan (AKA Smog) has been moving steadily over the course of his career toward a more straightforward musical approach. Whereas some of Callahan's earlier efforts were concerned with fractured song structures and experiments, 2005's A RIVER AIN'T TOO MUCH TO LOVE finds him at his most appealingly direct. Like most Smog albums, this one is stripped down (comprised mainly of Callahan's guitar and voice augmented by violin, piano, and light percussion), but the writing is particularly honest, intimate, and revealing. That A RIVER AIN'T TOO MUCH TO LOVE was recorded in Willie Nelson's Pedernales Studios may have something to do with its rustic simplicity; it is rootsier and more country-inflected than any previous Smog album. A slow-motion country treatment of the Leadbelly song "In the Pines" drives the point home, but Callahan's lyrics--which demonstrate his usual flair for narrative, imagery, detail, and moving confessionalism--are the real anchor, sounding as though they were written during a winter-long hibernation in a backwoods cabin. Songs such as "Say Valley Maker" and "Rock Bottom Riser" extend the river metaphor suggested in the album's title, and lend a thematic flow to this lovely collection (from www.cduniverse.com)