Most of us had resigned ourselves to the fact that it was only the older stagers like Neil Young who could be bothered to make any kind of stand about Iraq and/ or the Bush Administration, so to find a new, committed and compassionate voice of the calibre of JEFFERSON PEPPER’S howling decisively in the dark is something of a boon to say the least.
Not least because the pointedly-titled ‘Christmas In Fallujah’ is an Americana classic-in-waiting from one of the most politically-charged, gifted and angry singer/ songwriters to hit us from across the pond since Steve Earle. Indeed, it was the drafting of Jefferson’s childhood friend David Maples (as an American Army medic to Iraq) which was the catalyst in persuading JP to record this excellent debut album with the help of influential friends such as guitarist John Fritchey (Tarnation, Wayne Supergenius) and dobro/ banjo player John Farmer (Bill Monroe, Del McCoury) in his native Pennyslvania with producer Marshall Deasy at the controls.
Musically, the results are an energized and focussed melting pot of rock, country and punk, with liberal dashes of Appalachian folk and bluegrass tipped in as and when required. Inevitably, the ghosts of protest singers past such as Woody Guthrie and Phil Ochs spring to mind, but also maverick roots trailblazers such as Steve Earle, John Prine and Townes Van Zandt, and the rock’n’roll spirit of cross-pollinators like Uncle Tupelo, The Replacements and The Bottle Rockets is also guzzled down like the potent firewater it surely is.
Great though the backdrops are, it’s mostly courtesy to his lyrical/ observational skills that Jefferson Pepper really scores, though. Indeed, ‘Christmas In Fallujah’ deserves its’ future-classic status for the title track alone: a devastating anti-Iraq campaign anthem, kissed by skirling violin and the most poignant observations (“I’ve got to take your husband and I’d like to tell you why / But I can’t speak the language and I’m too overwhelmed to try”) we’re liable to come across when relating to Dubya’s corporate-sponsored atrocities in the Middle East. It’s certainly the finest and most erudite commentary on American foreign policy this writer’s heard since X’s wonderful ‘I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts’ and it’s compelling lyric about “my bombs, my guns, their blood on my hands.”
So for this track alone we should bear JP in mind, but the great news is that he has a whole brood more where this has come from, not least when he lays into the equally contemptuous characters hanging out in tunes like the dirty, groovy ‘M-16’ (concerning corrupt and bloated defence contractors) and the slow and predatory, Neil Young-style creep of the ominous ‘Armageddon For Sale’, where the anti-Dubya lyrical barbs (“George had a revelation on a cold and frosty morn/ Arise, ye sons of Satan and move on!”) are surely enough to for the FBI to open a file on our hero.
However bilious JP may be, though, his ire is always tempered with compassion and tenderness and his work is every bit as effective when his band bring it down for tracks like the pedal-steel assisted country canter of ‘Back To 1999’ where Pepper’s vivid portrait of the reclusive, apartment-bound guy who’s lost it all since redundancy (“surrounded by souvenirs of failure and despair”) is – in its’ way – every bit as tragic as the lot of the guy who spends his days communicating with the speaking clock in Scott Walker’s ‘Time Operator.’ Great though this is, it’s probably usurped by the gentle, hymnal Americana of ‘Why?’, where dignified fiddle, sympathetic steel and chapel organ forge the perfect, graceful tribute to those lost in action as a result of the senseless events in Iraq.
|
It’s not all relentlessly political, of course. Indeed, like Billy Bragg, Pepper sometimes reserves his best work for his more personal observations and tracks like the spurned-lover scenario of ‘Christmas Tree’ or the melancholic, lovelorn ‘Bethlehem, PA’ which is caressed beautifully by Ray Eicher’s gorgeous silver shards of pedal steel. Nonetheless, he’s in no mood to shy away from his feelings and brings it all together for – fittingly – a buzzsaw, punkabilly thrash through Woody Guthrie’s ‘This Land Is Your Land’ which sounds like the filthiest alliance of The Minutemen, Mojo Nixon and The Ramones imaginable. I was about to say it’s the ideal way to conclude the record, but there’s also a ‘hidden’ track called ‘Plastic Illuminated Snowman’ which makes emotional reference to a widowed Hiroshima victim and mirrors the wartime follies still being perpetrated in the name of modern day America.
You shouldn’t get the wrong impression, of course. Jefferson Pepper – rightly – loves the land he’s from, but has been galvanised into speaking out about Iraq by the treatment of his fellow man. He’s a brave, inspired and erudite man who’s unafraid of being muzzled by corporate America and has the guts to be defiant. It would be easy to paint him as some kind of ‘new’ Springsteen, shaping himself as a blue collar hero, but I doubt very much such a notion was ever the point. ‘Christmas In Fallujah’ is a personally-motivated, politically-resonant debut that all right-minded roots-loving individuals can relate to and will surely return to for years to come. One can only pray David Maples makes it home safely to hear what his friend has recorded in his absence.
|
