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Reviewed by Happy Joe

In the last quarter of the twentieth century, American roots music, specifically blues and country, had devolved into a soul sucking ooze of commercial self-indulgence and six string snobbery.  High budget production and mainstream marketing stripped the art of storytelling in its bare essence into a convoluted mish-mash of petty woe-is-me-isms and worthless ponderings of the bourgeoisie.

Taking the essence of traditional American Roots music from the teachings of Harry Smith, the outsider inventiveness of mavericks like Tom Waits and Don Van Vliet, all filtered through the radical ideology of hardcore punk, William Elliott Whitmore is one of the few new artists leading the pack of folk revivalists into a new age of raw music.

Coming through Southern California in support for his latest album, Songs Of The Blackbird, Mr. Whitmore was kind enough to stop in with his banjo and some friends to play some songs and tell some tales.  The native Iowan brings a fresh breath of air and gritty realism as an alternative to indie rock's current obsession with woodland mysticism, teepee tree forts and frolicking unicorns.  View the video and witness the truth about new American folk music.