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Bonnie 'Prince' Billy

Summer in the Southeast

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by Wampus on 12/05/2005

Live albums fall in different categories—ego trips, contractual obligations, bootlegged fandom docs, and the not too numerous ones that are actually interesting. Summer In The Southeast, complete with silly contradictory cover photo of snow-covered mountainside, shows imaginative reworkings of the usually bleak and spare songs of Will Oldham’s persona Bonnie “Prince” Billy. It’s a creative risk for someone whose perceived strength is the solitude and fragility of his songs to elaborate on them with fuller instrumentation and voice. His choice pays off. These live versions aren’t perfunctory performances to sell the recorded version; they are great interpretations that can stand up to their studio forbears and in some instances will be preferable for the casual or new Bonnie “Prince” Billy listener. “Madeline Mary” is transformed from a sad intonation on the album I See a Darkness to a Crazy Horse jam with audience singalong. The changes on some songs aren’t that drastic and the emphasis still lies on the vocals and lyrics (how many other live albums boast lyrics and most minimal liner notes in their booklets?). Pink Nasty adds beautiful backups and paraphrasing the producer in "Coal Miner's Daughter," Will got "more pickers" for his backup band. And in spite of the recordings being culled from different shows in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and JawJaw, somehow the sequencing follows a certain logic of searching for faith and love in the wake of death. Standouts are "Wolf Among Wolves" complete with howls and "A Sucker's Evening " where the band breaks out and rawks while the audience cheers Bonnie's altered-from-before line "because the fuck, he derserves it."

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Album Details

Year: 2005
Label: Sea Note
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Tracklist

1	master and everyone
2	pushkin
3	blokbuster
4	wolf among wolves
5	may it always be
6	break of day
7	a sucker's evening
8	nomadic revery
9	i see a darkness
10	o let it be
11	beast for thee
12	death to everyone
13	even if love
14	i send my love to you
15	take however long you want
16	madeleine mary
17	ease down the road

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