Red Dirt

t first it seems an unlikely pairing: Andre "Mr. Rhythm" Williams, proud purveyor of raunchy 1950s R&B ("Bacon Fat", "Greasy Chicken", "Jail Bait") and Canada's The Sadies, a sharp alternative-country/surf (!) band. But like the old expression goes, the proof is in the pudding. RED DIRT is a spicy dish that has generous portions of honky-tonk country (classics like "Busted", "I'm An Old, Old Man", the obscure, chilling "Psycho" are covered), Screamin' Jay Hawkins-style rhythm & blues and irreverent Jerry Reed-style funky country.
There are also small side portions of late 1960s uptown funk and southern soul, all served up by Williams' gravely, lascivious vocal delivery and the Sadies' lean, mean, stroke-of-midnight twang machine. If you can appreciate both Johnny Paycheck and Howlin' Wolf, or like your country music dark and creepy, get some RED DIRT under your fingernails.|

In the late '90s, Andre Williams was undergoing a bit of a renaissance as small, independent labels realized that this R&B/rap pioneer still had plenty of gas left in the tank; they started recording him again for the first time in several decades. It also helped that enlightened times give the more salacious aspects of his art a wider playground than they had back in the 1950s and early '60s, when he was cutting his streetwise, spoken-word classics for labels like Fortune and Chess. Efforts for St. George and others focused on the style and substance of those landmark recordings, but this one put a different spin on the Andre Williams sound. Backed by the country-rock group the Sadies, this is Williams' country album. He applies his rappin' mastery to Johnny Paycheck's "Pardon Me (I've Got Someone to Kill)," Leon Payne's "Psycho," Harlan Howard's "Busted," Eddy Arnold's "Easy on the Eyes," and Lefty Frizzell's "I'm an Old, Old Man." His patented slow drawl makes these songs his own, while the band provides minimal support, rife with twangy guitars, mandolins, fiddles, and dobros throughout. Williams and guitarist Dallas Good co-wrote everything else, with "She's a Bag of Potato Chips," the moody and downright eerie "I Can Tell," and the goofy opener "Hey Truckers" being standouts. It's the aural antidote to the CMA Awards. ~ Cub Koda