Dirty Linen

It’s the unique artist who has the ability to truly allow the listener to taste the dust of the backroads or to hear the ghosts and demons of the rural soul. Only the rare bird can portray with amazing clarity the dirt on a beat up old pickup truck or the sound of a gun cocking. In a sense, they are field recordings into our psyche. While Steve Earle, Springsteen and Dylan are capable of capturing the essence (as did Woody Guthrie) and garnering critical acclaim, Canadian Fred Eaglesmith has plowed the fields and traveled desolate highways with far less praise. Raised on the farms of southern Ontario, near Lake Erie, Eaglesmith harkens back to the dust bowl and Depression era. A masterful lyricist with an anguished country twang, Eaglesmith has lived the life. He has a tale to tell and you believe him.

Bridging a gap between country/folk/rock and the blues, Eaglesmith’s songs are about struggle; life for the poor is hard, very hard. No bones about it. Banks foreclose, crops fail and sometimes a gun just goes off for the wrong reason.

One of nine children, Eaglesmith’s rural and strict Christian upbringing is the springboard for his narratives. Issuing his self-titled debut in 1980, Eaglesmith recorded infrequently throughout the remainder of the decade, with only two more albums, The Boy That Just Went Wrong and Indiana Road. Constant touring eventually created a ripple among the coffeehouse circuit crowd. The 90s have so far seen Eaglesmith release a quintet of albums, including the brilliantly dark Things is Changin’ in 1993 (made on a shoestring budget of $3,300) and his most recent, the critically acclaimed Lipstick, Lies and Gasoline (1997).

Voted the third best album of 1997 by music critics of the Southam Newspaper chain in Canada (i.e., the Globe & Mail, Vancouver Sun), Lipstick, Lies and Gasoline [Razor & Tie] shared the podium with the likes of Dylan, Radiohead and Steve Earle. With limited airplay and a minimal advertising budget accompanying Lipstick, Lies and Gasoline, establishing how large of an audience Eaglesmith has is near impossible. "America is a big country. I don’t know how many people know me. I’m basically on the road all year and I put people in the clubs, but I’m certainly not selling hundreds of thousands of records. I don’t really care. I’m happy to sell a few thousand. We just did 10 shows in Alberta where we did these pig roasts. We called them ‘High Octane Nights,’ " he laughed. "It was sort of a trailer trash theme. That’s where I sell my records, not really in stores."

Pig roasts? "Oh, they’re great. You got the pig on the spit and all these cowboys drinking way too much. You got to look away when you pass the garbage cans though, ’cause they’re full of pig’s heads. It’s really gross. Those are the days when I think I’m going to become a vegetarian."

This is a sample of what's in Dirty Linen #79
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