Alt-country we’re perfectly comfortable with – and all of its unwashed t-shirts, shaggy haircuts, bruised personalities and cute, smooth-skinned chancers that are just that little too meek to sell their soul and go all the way with rock ‘n’ roll. The bare bones of the real-deal though we weren’t so sure of. We thought that was the preserve of ageing Midwestern country folk happy to hum the same song to themselves day in day out, year after year, decade after long repetitive decade, when they weren’t already preoccupied damning “evildoers” and forcefully slamming their pitchfork down into the dusty earth. And we’re also old enough to remember Billy Ray Cyrus.
And maybe we wouldn’t be far wrong, take the universal themes of ‘This Old House’ (“If this old house could talk, what stories would it tell, it would tell about the good times and the bad times as well”) alongside its rinky-dink guitar and tambourine soundtrack as confirmation. ‘Mrs Leroy Brown’ is much the same but a hell of a lot more fun (“I’m almost drunk from the drinks I’ve turned down”) and it’s the latter impression that defines this mild surprise of a record. It’s a collision of the old and the new, the alt and the straight, it’s the world’s most in demand rock star vs. a country legend. Jack White is at the desk and also leads her band for this album, the Do Whaters. Of course we’re not shocked at the fact of the matter, just taken aback at some of the results.
Three moments stand out most clearly. Their powerful duet ‘Portland Oregon’ lands early on and sees their voices melt together over a raucous, upbeat backing, marking the pair of them out as natural complimentary talents. ‘Have Mercy On Me’ is pounding rock ‘n’ roll with cursory country inflections and would slide nicely onto ‘De Stijl’. And most surreally ‘Little Red Shoes’ is rambling and comparatively avant-garde beat-poetry, like a mellow Patti Smith reflecting hurriedly on former angers. The rest of the album does sidle into more apparently clichéd territory, but only very occasionally does it remind of that episode of The Simpsons where Homer turns hapless country music impresario. Rumour is there’s more mileage in this collaboration. And that’s no bad thing.
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