Americana came out of the dusty crossroads of folk, country, blues, rock, and soul. In its earliest iterations as “roots rock” it came in the shape of The Band, Gram Parsons, The Blasters, and others. It was always a responsive type of music. The Band were responding to the excesses of Sgt. Pepper and Cream. Parsons was responding to what he believed was the soulless aspect of modern country music. The Blasters were a breath of fresh air amidst the rhinestones and huge hair of the late seventies and early eighties, as well as a riposte to the punk ethos of burning down the past and starting anew. The Blasters wallowed in older styles of music and called their first album American Music. Throughout the eighties, nobody quite knew what to call this style of music that was neither fish nor fowl. Eventually the term “alt-country” was used to describe bands like The Jayhawks and Uncle Tupelo, and then that label gave way to “No Depression,” named after the Carter Family song covered by Uncle Tupelo. Desperate for a label that would stick, the Grammy Awards instituted “Americana” as a category in 1990. It was, and still is, something of a catch-all.
In 1991, Grant Lee Buffalo was formed, led by singer and songwriter Grant-Lee Phillips. The Buffalo were an important voice in shaping the sound. Their music was sometimes described as “folk punk” but that’s not really correct. Their sound was black and white in widescreen format: gritty, hushed, lyrical, atmospheric. Phillips was a truly gifted songwriter and lyricist, as well as being an uncommonly good singer (he was voted Male Vocalist of the Year in 1994 by Rolling Stone). The canvas on which he painted was America. Songs about the siege at Waco, Texas (“Lone Star Song”), the voodoo happenings of New Orleans (“Dixie Drug Store”), the undiscovered grave of Tecumseh (“The Last Days of Tecumseh”), and Johnny Cash (“Demon Called Deception”). Historical and popular culture figures trip off Phillips’s tongue like rain from the skies: John Wilkes Booth, Marie Laveau, Evel Knievel, John Wayne…Gacy. Famous American places are named, from Leavenworth, Kansas to South Rampart Street in NOLA, to the haunted hotel of The Monterey in California. Their sound was a combination of acoustic ballads and alternative rock’s hard edges.
Sadly, Grant Lee Buffalo never found a space in the marketplace. Too quiet for alternative rock, too rocky for folk, they split up after four excellent albums full of vivid imagery and emotional depth.
Grant-Lee Phillips’ solo journey, beginning with 2000’s Ladies’ Love Oracle, marked a shift from the lush, electric sprawl of Grant Lee Buffalo to a more stripped-down, folk-leaning sound that aligned closely with Americana’s core. Albums like Mobilize and Virginia Creeper showcased his knack for weaving personal and historical threads into songs that felt both timeless and urgent, drawing on influences from his Muscogee (Creek) heritage and the American South’s sonic palette. His voice—warm, clear, weathered, evocative, and soaked in sweetness—became the focus, carrying tales of love, loss, and resilience.
With his latest album, In The Hour of Dust, Phillips has once again proven himself to be one of the finest songwriters in the field. Self-produced and recorded with a small group, the record is a continuation of the sound he has carved out for himself since Virginia Creeper, over 20 years ago. The sturm und drang of the days when the Buffalo roamed are now a distant memory, replaced by some of the finest balladry of the times. Once again, the main weapon here is Phillips’s voice and softly strummed acoustic guitars, yet there’s an urgent undercurrent throughout the album the saves it from turning into Nick Drake territory, especially on tracks such as “Little Men,” “Bullies,” and “Stories We Tell.” While it might be nice to hear him break out the distortion pedal once again, those days are solidly buried in the past. “Lone Star Song” and “Homespun” are still there, available to listen, but it isn’t where his head is at these days.
Phillips calls on his Native American roots with “Did You Make It Through The Night Okay?” a particularly good song that blends light humor about strange days with a chorus that opts for cheer instead of doom. “Bullies”—with Jamie Edwards, Phillips’s first ever co-written song— takes the schoolyard bully and brings him into the adult world of boardrooms and government bureaucracies and then refuses to give any concessions to them. It’s typical of his defiant attitude toward the “little men who want to rule like Caesar” (“Little Men”), and his penchant for bringing politics into his art in subtle ways.
The album’s centerpiece is “Stories We Tell,” a beautiful lyric of self-doubt and affirmation married to a sprightly rhythm track that belies the subject matter of the song. There’s a sense of hope in the music even as Phillips sings of the “crooked lies” and “fables” that we tell ourselves, and that’s a common thread through the album. “Regret is a martyr that bleeds ‘what ifs,’ he sings, “and laments what might have been.” He dismisses the idea by calling them “all those fairy tales” even while acknowledging the very real feelings that are generated by the stories. “None of this is writ in stone,” is the message of a pep talk we all need to hear on occasion. Musically the song fits right in between the jauntier tracks like “Little Men” and “Did You Make It Through The Night Okay?” and the bedroom quiet of love songs like “She Knows Me” and tunes that bespeak of a desperate loneliness like “Someone.”
Grant-Lee Phillips’s career since the dissolution of his old band has been one of a remarkable consistency. While the quiet, whispered tones of much of his solo work can be a little much when listening in depth, there’s simply no denying that the man seems incapable of writing a bad song. With In the Hour of Dust, like his earlier triumph The Narrows, there’s enough going on musically to keep the interest and while his voice has certainly lost some of its bellow and upper range it remains a gorgeous instrument. He is simply one of the best Americana artists walking the stage today. Smart lyrics, a small band, and honey-soaked vocals. What’s not to love?
Grade: A
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