CRITIC'S PICK: KEVIN GORDON
By Barry
Gilbert
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
October 20, 2005
Opening for Chris Scruggs, Greg Garing and Rosie Flores
9 p.m. Oct. 26, 2005, at Frederick's Music Lounge, 4454 Chippewa Street. $5. 314-351-5711.
Kevin Gordon is a songwriter, guitarist and poet who holds a master's degree in fine arts from the University of Iowa's Writer's Workshop. But that just means his songs are bursting with razor-sharp imagery that makes his gritty, twangy and swampy music so memorable. Or, as he puts it: "I take my John Lee Hooker with a side of Gerard Manley Hopkins. It leads you to some interesting places." A Louisiana native now living in Nashville, Gordon recently released "o Come Look at the Burning," his first CD in five years and just his third since his 1998 debut, "Cadillac Jack's #1 Son." Gordon and his band recorded live with no overdubs, and the result is a Tony Joe White-Creedence Clearwater groove that bristles with songs about people struggling against demons, those within and without. New tracks such as the title song, "Casino Road" and "Calhoun" will coexist nicely with Gordon classics, including "Over the Levee," "Down to the Well" and "Jimmy Reed Is the King of Rock and Roll." Gordon, an accomplished guitarist, blazed with his band this summer at Frederick's but, on Wednesday, he'll be solo and acoustic, opening for third-generation picker Chris Scruggs, singer-songwriter Greg Garing and rockabilly filly Rosie Flores. That trio will play together in a jam session, preforming their own and each other's songs. It promises to be a great night of music.