The Purple Bird – Will Oldham’s 22nd album as Bonnie “Prince” Billy – may be one of the warmest, mellowest country-pop releases of recent years, but that doesn’t stop him using it to vent a little spleen about modern America. Over the porch-swing sway of opening track “Turned to Dust (Rollin On)”, he laments a nation “tempted by the lure of a liar, who preys on the foolish and the weak”. Later, against the farty brass parp and accordion lurch of a polka called “Guns Are for Cowards”, he asks listeners: “If you could do it without anyone saying that you’d committed a crime/ Who would you shoot in the face?/ Who would you shoot in the brain?/ Who would you shoot in the back?” More curious is his follow-up question: “Then how would you feel?/ Exalted? Or destroyed?”
Produced by David “Ferg” Ferguson (best known for engineering Johnny Cash’s later albums and producing John Prine) and recorded with some of the most seasoned session musicians in Nashville, The Purple Bird is reassuringly well-crafted and woodsy. Musicians assembled at the restored studio of Cowboy Jack Clement – who started out engineering/producing for the likes of Elvis Presley Sun Records – and slotted into an easy groove.
