A couple of times a year, I join my cousin Ted in Colorado Springs for a fishing trip to Elk Creek near Gunnison. He just got a new CD player for his 1975 Ford F-150 to play the six discs of music he carries with him; a couple of greatest hits albums from Willie Nelson and two from Waylon Jennings, an old Merle Haggard re-issue, Arlo Guthrie’s “Hobo Lullaby”, and a beat up copy of the O Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack. When I asked him why his selection is so limited, he said “There just isn’t much out there worth listening to, Hoss”. So when I played the new Spooked album from Marley’s Ghost, it was a happy shock to my system when he pulled the truck over and said “Whoa, these guys are amazing! How come I never heard of them before?”
Marley’s Ghost is certainly one of those rare gems that don’t have the following or distribution they deserve. A rhythm and roots band consisting of multi-instrumentalists Dan Wheetman, Jon Wilcox, Mike Phelan, and Ed Littlefield Jr., they explore, folk, bluegrass, white spirituals, some smooth cowboy jazz and wrap it up in a package that can only be described as vintage Americana. Marley’s Ghost does so much more than just show off their virtuosity in each of the genre’s they’ve chosen, they dig deeply into the fertile soil originally laid down by their predecessors. They expose their deep and abiding love for the music that inspired Leadbelly, Robert Johnson, Bob Dylan, and Pete Seeger. “Spooked” is a beautifully crafted album which serves as a tribute to the sounds the 20th Century cut its teeth on.
This musical quilt was stretched and formed by producer Van Dyke Parks, composer/arranger for hundreds of Warner Brother’s artists and producer of albums by Ry Cooder, Randy Newman, and the late anarchist and folksinger Phil Ochs. Spooked is riddled with Parks’ particular genius for tuning and arranging. His detailed attention to the expression of the instruments allows for even greater emotional resonance from the group, and his interweaving of styles by the order of song shows an incredible gift for storytelling. In a way, listening to Marley’s Ghost is akin to reading a selection of short essays from Mark Twain. Each song illuminates a period of history, whether it is the hysterically funny cover of “Last Words”; the politically relevance of Get Off the Track and Dylan’s The Wicked Messenger; or the sweet poetry of Cowboy Lullaby.
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