Son Volt – After spearheading the alt country movement with Uncle Tupelo, Jay Farrar pursued his vision with Son Volt – Live and Onstage @ World Records Thursday October 10

Son Volt’s latest album, Union, is out now! Jay Farrar channels folk music’s enduring legacy of the troubadour on Union. “There are so many forces driving our country apart,” observes Farrar. “What can we do to bring our society back together?”

After spearheading the alt country movement with Uncle Tupelo, Jay Farrar pursued his vision with Son Volt, who recorded three landmark albums in the ’90s before the groundbreaking artist put the band on extended hiatus and cut three solo LPs. Missing the free exchange of ideas and the surprises that inevitably occur when a group of simpatico musicians lock together, Farrar assembled a new lineup of Son Volt in 2004 and has since released five albums.

Along the way, Farrar has collaborated with Ben Gibbard, Jim James, Will Johnson and Anders Parker to produce odes to Jack Kerouac and Woody Guthrie. The latest Son Volt album, Union, released March 29, confronts our turbulent politics and articulates the clarity and comfort music can offer in the tumult.

Jay Farrar’s work often seeks out the ghosts of America’s discordant or forgotten past, converses at length with them, and writes songs that stake a claim to a better future.

“Broadsides will be hurled to capture the truth,” sings Farrar on the brooding and blues-driven song that takes its name from the one-page bulletins that used to spread both proclamations and ballads. And songs such as “The 99,” “While Rome Burns,” and “Lady Liberty” push up the acoustic guitar in the mix to underscore the enduring role of troubadours in troubled times. “A lot of these songs are songs of turmoil,” says Farrar. “Questioning what’s going on.”

On Union, Farrar taps into folk music’s rich lyrical legacy. It’s a tradition he has tapped often both in Son Volt and in Uncle Tupelo. “I was raised on folk music,” observes Farrar. “Politics is a common thread there. In a time where we see threats to our way of life, and our democracy, from within, you say: What can I do? I put pen to paper and write music.”

Available at World Records

The chorus of Union’s title song was a “mantra” of James Paul ‘Pops’ Farrar, about whom Farrar has written so affectingly in his memoir, Falling Cars and Junkyard Dogs. “He thought the Israeli model was best,” says the songwriter. “Everybody serves in one capacity or another, and that was the best way to bring a country together. It did happen here in World War II.  People of different spiritual and economic backgrounds brought together. And there was an immense period of prosperity after that – for a myriad of reasons, but the idea that all walks of life were working together is important.”

Union grounds its politics in startling images and portraits of the human costs of our divides. Guitar and organ commingle on “While Rome Burns” to underscore a connectedness in the way that “the freeways lead to the gravel roads, to the town squares and the rodeos.”

The mournful shuffling “Reality Winner” echoes direct protest songs such as “Hurricane” – Bob Dylan’s ode to boxer Rubin Carter, who was wrongly convicted of triple homicide in 1967. Winner is a former intelligence analyst who leaked a National Security Agency document that detailed Russian attempts to hack voting systems to the media. She was convicted of violating the Espionage Act and sentenced to five years and three months in prison.

A reinvigorated band chemistry anchors the new record, with new and returning members turning up in the Union mix. Longtime members Mark Spencer (piano, organ, acoustic slide, lap steel, backing vocals) and Andrew DuPlantis (bass, backing vocals) have been at the core of Son Volt’s recent work.

Guitarist Chris Frame – who toured with Son Volt in the Okemah era – rejoined the group for the Notes of Blue tour and plays on the new record. DuPlantis recruited fellow Austin musician Mark Patterson to play drums and percussion. 

Initially, Farrar intended Union to be an explicitly political statement. “Midway through,” he says, “I realized I needed some balance on the record.”

The result is a cluster of new songs that reflect on the power of love, time, and music to heal and sustain us. “Holding Your Own” builds to a shimmering and powerful climax of piano and electric guitar as it relays the hopes Farrar identifies in “watching kids grow up and find their place in society.”

“Slow Burn” is an ode to hope and resilience’s power to shake off darkness. The song’s piano chords pave a road out of futility and reminds listeners that “every tunnel reaches the light.” Another highlight on the record is “Devil May Care” – an ebullient celebration of the joys of playing music. Farrar strip-mined musical gear catalogues for the poetry in their terminology, reeling off lines like “harmonic fidelity boost high pass filter on a balanced line / Or a cigarette on a headstock, all the same just make it rhyme.”

The attitude of bands such as the early-era Replacements was present as he wrote the song. “That is the essence of what a band is,” he says. “You remember: Wait a minute: Music is supposed to make you throw your burdens to the wind, so I tried to include that approach as well.”

Eight of the thirteen songs on Union were recorded at places associated with two figures in American history who Farrar says “made a difference”: Renowned American labor activist Mary Harris “Mother” Jones and quintessential American troubadour Woody Guthrie. Three songs were laid down at the Mother Jones Museum in Mount Olive, Illinois, while four others were recorded at the Woody Guthrie Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

“I felt doing it in a more challenging environment might inspire us along the way,” says Farrar. “Doing mobile recordings was a way to push myself a little bit. It also pushed Jacob Detering, our engineer, who had to assemble a mobile unit and did a great job.”

Proximity to Guthrie and his legacy pushed strongly into Union’s closing song: “The Symbol.” The song’s point of origin was Guthrie’s 1948 poem “Plane Wreck at Los Gatos,” which was later set to music by composer Martin Hoffman and is best-known as “Deportee.”  Guthrie wrote at a moment when “workers needed to work fields weren’t even considered as people,” observes Farrar.

In “The Symbol,” Farrar paints a compelling portrait of a Mexican man who helped rebuild New Orleans after Katrina and now finds himself buffeted by the wave of anti-immigration rhetoric and vengeful law enforcement.

Farrar says that the key to writing songs on topical issues that stand the test of time is to be a truthful observer. “‘Deportee’ made such a lasting impression on me,” he observes. “But it was written in the 1940s. You have to give your own take. Say this is what happened. Even if it seems temporary. Hopefully it’s not.”  

Opening for Son Volt is Andrew Duplantis

Andrew Duplantis is an American songwriter and musician based in Austin Texas. He is currently the bass guitar player with Son Volt and Jon Dee Graham. Although he is best known as a bass player, having toured and recorded with Meat Puppets, Alejandro Escovedo, Tia Carrera, The Hobart Brothers, and Lil Sis Hobart and Richard Buckner, he has also played bass with Bob Mould, James McMurtry, Carrie Rodriguez, Freedy Johnston, Susan Cowsill, Ralph’s World, Buick MacKane, Dumptruck, Glory Fountain, Chip Robinson of the Backsliders, Ray Wylie Hubbard and Chip Taylor.

As a solo artist, Duplantis has released two full length albums; ‘Only Funny the First Time’ (2004) and ‘Colorblind’ (2006).

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