PASTE
April/May 2006
MARLEY’S GHOST
*** 1/2
Spooked [SAGE ARTS]
Quirky string band teams with producer Van Dyke Parks for eighth release
A decidedly unusual string band, as capable of reanimating Appalachian folk songs as they are traditional Celtic fare, honky-tonk and reggae, Marley’s Ghost has earned cult-band status over 20 years of spirited musicianship, multi-part harmonies and irreverent humor. With the legendary van Dyke parks producing, the California quartet’s first nationally released album offers the same stylistic buffet they’ve created on their previous seven releases, mixing richly arranged traditional gospel (“Palms of Victory”) with roughly-hewn Civil War-era folk (“Sail Away ladies”) and gorgeous a capella sea shanties (“Seaman’s Hymn”). Taking a refreshingly non-purist route, they remake the standard “old Time Religion” to reference Zarathustra and Aphrodite, and offer the silly Roy Acuff parody “Last Words” -- two tracks that add depth to an album unapologetically eager to entertain. Matt Fink
BILLBOARD
MARLEY'S GHOST
Album Title: Spooked
Producer: Van Dyke Parks
In a shrewd branding move, this singing, swinging four-man string band materializes in the form of an R. Crumb cover drawing, a '60s boomer seal of approval. In a winning musical move, they have producer Van Dyke Parks doing what he does best when he is not working with Brian Wilson—acting as enabler and collaborator on a journey through early American song styles. Traditional seafaring tunes, abolitionist anthems, cowboy songs, spirituals and a Bob Dylan track ("Wicked Messenger") are vibrantly brought to life by the four-voice, harmonically gifted Ghost. Originals are competitive and mischievously funny, especially the nutty French travelogue that becomes "The Ballad of Johnny Hallyday." For dark humor, it is hard to beat "Last Words" with its favors asked of a dying brother: "Do you mind if I have a few records/Just the Beatles, the Stones and the Dead." Distributed by Ryko. —Wayne Robins
L.A. WEEKLY
FRIDAY, MARCH 31
Marley’s Ghost, Van Dyke Parks at McCabe’s
“Old timey” is a term that can scare a modern music fan, conjuring up images of barbershop quartets and jug bands. But Marley’s Ghost makes traditional acoustic music less frightening for young and old alike. This West Coast quartet deftly, and frequently daffily, dashes across decades of American music to create a sound that’s seeped in tradition but never bogged down by traditionalism. The band is celebrating its 20th anniversary with a fine new album, Spooked, that showcases its instrumental versatility and prowess, as well as its terrific vocal harmonizing. Using a spirited blend of reverence and whimsy, the songs address such topics as God, death and French pop idol Johnny Hallyday. Joining the band at cozy McCabe’s will be Spooked’s producer, the venerable Van Dyke Parks, which should only add to the merriment. (Michael Berick)
SF GATE (SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE)
Eight albums and 20 years into its career, Marley's Ghost has made the recording that will likely break the band out of its comfortable West Coast niche and onto the circuit where roots-oriented jam bands hold thousands in their thrall. National distribution will help; so will R. Crumb's "vintage" cartoon cover art. But it's the surprisingly focused music -- a blend of folk, blues, gospel, shanties, reels, reggae, jug band music, country, western and a Dylan cover, all brilliantly produced by the great Van Dyke Parks (Ry Cooder, Brian Wilson) -- that will unshackle the future of multi-instrumentalist singers Dan Wheetman, Jon Wilcox, Mike Phelan and Ed Littlefield Jr. -- Derk Richardson
DAILY NEWS (Los Angeles)
MARLEY'S GHOST: "Spooked" (Sage Arts)
By Bob Strauss, Film Critic
The cover art is by R. Crumb. Van Dyke Parks produced the disc and plays keyboards on a bunch of cuts. The band turns Pentecostal staple "Old Time Religion" into a pagan rave-up. Yup, Marley's Ghost couldn't be bigger hipster geeks if they tried. But their graying flower child eclecticism would just be a goof if this wasn't also a crack old-timey string band, great at harmonizing, phrasing and arranging everything from sea shanties to freedom hymns to yodeling lullabies, with one of Bob Dylan's stranger chestnuts, "The Wicked Messenger," tossed in for good measure. Or for nerdnik nirvana's sake. Whatever, they can make anything with frets sound lively and immediate no matter how studiedly archaic the material may be.
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
Friday, March 10, 2006
Seattle bands: Marley's Ghost
WHO: Multi-instrumentalists and vocalists Dan Wheetman, John Wilcox, Mike Phelan and Ed Littlefield Jr. (Littlefield toured extensively with Seattle western-swing band Lance Romance before founding his studio in Arlington.)
FORMED: Mid-1980s
RELEASES: "Spooked," the group's eighth album, was released last month on Arlington-based Sage Arts Records (www.sagearts.com).
SOUND: During the past two decades, the roots-music group based in Arlington has gained a cult following with its instrumental virtuosity, supertight four-part harmonies and animated live performances. Songs on "Spooked" include a reverent version of Bob Dylan's "The Wicked Messenger" as well as many originals that have an old-timey sound. The album opens with the Civil War-era tune "Sail Away, Ladies" and closes with the a cappella "Seaman's Hymn." Band members describe themselves as "aficionados of antique American music and oblong whimsy."
QUOTE: "I tried to strengthen the group's conviction," Parks said of the recording sessions for "Spooked." "For example, I insisted that they do things to bring enunciation to the parts they played. We'd double guitar parts with an attack on another instrument using techniques that I'd learned from people like Brian Wilson. I mean, I dragged these guys through the production mud. I've never worked harder or had more fun on a record. I never had."
WHERE TO LISTEN: Web site at www.marleysghost.com includes calendar, news, music store and downloads.
NEXT SHOW: CD-release party tonight at 8 at The Triple Door, 216 Union St. Tickets: $16 advance, $18 day of show. Reservations: 206-838-4333.
-- Gene Stout
THE STRANGER (Seattle)
Border Radio
BY KURT B. REIGHLEY
Roots & Americana
Fortune smiles on certain individuals. Take Seattle musician Dan Wheetman. The multi-instrumentalist, singer, and songwriter has an impressive resumé, from years touring with John Denver to writing a Christmas song for Kermit the Frog. He has recorded as a solo artist, as a member of underground cartoonist R. Crumb's string band the Cheap Suit Serenaders, and with the quartet Marley's Ghost. And with Spooked, their eighth full-length, the latter outfit—which plays the Triple Door Friday, March 10—has, as the kids in marketing say, "taken it to the next level."
Not only does Spooked feature artwork by the aforementioned Crumb ("I'm the fellow in the boater with a banjo," says Wheetman when asked to ID himself in the sleeve-art lineup), but it was produced by Van Dyke Parks, the cult hero responsible for such idiosyncratic albums as Song Cycle (1968) and Discover America (1972), and sometime Beach Boys lyricist ("Heroes and Villains," Smile).
Parks is also the snappiest dresser this side of Colonel Sanders, confirms Wheetman. "He wears a bow tie most of the time. And even when he has on overalls, he'll wear a pressed white shirt and a bow tie."
"[Van Dyke] is just the most delightful person in the world," he continues. "We met him about four years ago, and struck up a friendship. When the band would play in Los Angeles, he would just show up and sit in with us, play piano and accordion. He just loved the band." And why not? With their flair for a wide variety of vintage American musical styles, Parks and Marley's Ghost—which also features Ed Littlefield Jr., Mike Phelan, and Jon Wilcox—make a perfect match.
Spooked incorporates a vast gamut of sounds and styles: a sepia-toned interpretation of Bob Dylan's "Wicked Messenger"; gospel numbers ("Palms of Victory"); a pedal-steel-drenched ballad about Jesse James ("High Walls"). Jew's harp, fiddle, banjo, mandolin, double-belled euphonium, marimba... practically the only timbre you won't hear on Spooked is a singing saw. And given the gents' resonant four-part harmonies, and their distinctive turns on lead vocals, it's probably just as well they left the warbling to flesh-and-blood humans rather than hardware.
Three of the four members of Marley's Ghost are songwriters, which accounts for original contributions like Wilcox's tale of misadventures in France ("The Ballad of Johnny Hallyday"). The new disc also includes two songs penned by Tin Pan Alley great Willard Robison, who wrote the standards "A Cottage for Sale" and "Don't Smoke in Bed." A fellow collector of 78-rpm platters had made Parks a compilation of Robison compositions just prior to beginning work on the album, which led to the band adding "There's Religion in Rhythm" and the folksy "Get Off the Track" to their repertoire.
While solid musicianship and unbridled enthusiasm make Spooked a treat from start to finish, the Marley's Ghost live experience is a little more off the rails, Wheetman advises. "Our stage shows are so eclectic. We can't seem to narrow things down too far."
PETALUMA ARGUS-COURIER
Ghost story
Marley's Ghost conjures old-time religion and elegant rhythms
March 8, 2006
By GREG CAHILL
FOR THE ARGUS-COURIER
Call it antique American music, Civil War-era tunes and Stephen Foster song craft with a nod to Bob Dylan and those legendary "Basement Tapes." On their newly released CD, "Spooked" (Sage Arts), the West Coast band Marley's Ghost taps the roots of Americana and infuses it with vibrant reverence, a splash of whimsy and a high level of instrumental virtuosity, all with feet planted firmly in the late-19th century.
"This is the most exciting stuff to play," says singer and multi-instrumentalist Mike Phelan, during a phone interview from his San Francisco home. "You can hardly hear anything today that doesn't echo this stuff in some way. If you look at modern rock and pop, it's not hard to find echoes in the roots stuff.
"Rather than echo it, we'd rather go to the source."
The songs on the new album range from the traditional song "Sail Away, Ladies" to Dylan's "The Wicked Messenger" to the original "Cowboy Lullaby."
Yet, "Spooked" is something of a departure for Marley's Ghost, which performs March 11 at the Mystic Theatre. The band's previous seven albums have blended a wild array of American roots music -- bluegrass, old-timey, country, western -- with such disparate styles as reggae.
What changed? Spooked got a boost when the label hired celebrated producer Van Dyke Parks, best known for his contributions to the Beach Boys legendary "Smile" and "Pet Sounds" albums. "We wanted to do something different," Phelan says, "something that would be exciting for us."
Bringing in Parks, a member of the Mississippi Music Hall of Fame, proved a major coup. "He's a guy who can step into any style of music, any genre, and come up with idea after idea after idea," Phelan says. "The departure point, for us, was understanding what Van Dyke saw in our music that would constitute a shared vision. He brought a level of sophistication that we hadn't seen working on our own or with other producers and taught us a much stronger way of articulating that sound."
Parks also brought something unusual in old-time music projects: a stateliness that evokes, not barn dances, but finely appointed Victorian parlors.
"Van Dyke is an elegant cat," Phelan says. "His sense of where the rhythm sits and what's important really has that flair -- he's a class act. We all heard it, too, and fell right into something real nice."
Marley's Ghost formed 20 years ago when a loose-knit confederation of friends, who had gained some notoriety from their occasional gigs, coalesced after getting an invitation to play at the Strawberry Music Festival, the popular annual bluegrass event held in Yosemite Park.
The band includes Phelan (vocals, lead guitar, fiddle, Dobro and lap steel); Dan Wheetman (vocals, bass, rhythm guitar, fiddle, harmonica, banjo, Dobro and lap steel), a touring member of the John Denver Band and former member of underground cartoonist and old-time music enthusiast R. Crumb's Cheap Suit Serenaders; Jon Wilcox (vocals, mandolin, rhythm guitar, bouzouki); Ed Littlefield Jr. (vocals, pedal steel, Highland bagpipes, keyboards, mandolin, Dobro and lead guitar); and recent addition Jerry Fletcher, who can drum and play keyboards at the same time.
Guest artists on "Spooked" include guitar phenom Bill Frisell, who agreed to participate after dropping by the recording studio to visit Parks. "We handed him a Telecaster and he played," Phelan says, adding with a laugh, "It was sort of like asking a duck to swim."
Crumb contributed the quirky cover art.
For Phelan, Marley's Ghost is a natural extension of the eclectic musical taste he developed as child. He was raised in Pennsylvania and Ohio, and encountered a mélange of touring Motown, country, bluegrass bands.
"It was a Midwestern melting pot of all kinds of music," he says.
He started singing with his father and sisters at age 5. "I was 10 before I figured out that everybody couldn't sing lead baritone and tenor," he says, "and that they didn't all know 500 songs. I just figured that was the way every kid grew up."
By 12, he was playing serious gigs and starting a lifelong interest in music. He's played in countless bands since and mastered many styles, but it's clear that Marley's Ghost is special.
"I just think this stuff will last forever," he says of folk-roots music. "When you sit down to play it, something happens, something magical. When we play, we have a great time and we just try to let the audience in on it. It seems to work."
FORT WORTH WEEKLY
Marley’s Ghost
Spooked (Sage Arts Records)
By Tom Geddie
When Marley’s Ghost sings about that old-time religion, they really mean it. The traditional-sounding Spooked, the quartet’s eighth album in 20 years and the first to be released nationally, is filled with traditional and traditional-sounding folk — it ranges as far back as the Civil War to as recent as Bob Dylan’s “The Wicked Messenger” and includes a couple of the group’s own songs.
With four-part harmonies, guitars, banjo, mandolin, and more, and with the help of a few friends in the studio, including old-timers Ed Littlefield Jr., Mike Phelan, Dan Wheetman, and Jon Wilcox, Marley’s Ghost strolls through the mid-19th century, the old American West, ancient shores, and newly imagined lands. When the singers deliver the familiar opening lines of one song — “Give me that old-time religion, it’s good enough for me” — soon the names “Zarathustra” and “Aphrodite” are evoked and the promise that “she’s naughty and she’s flighty / And she doesn’t wear a nighty / And that’s good enough for me.”
There is some levity, as on “Last Words,” when a man on his death bed has to put up with his friends and family asking for his stuff. But most of the time, Marley’s Ghost plays it straight and well.
The c.d., its cover replete with images by legendary comic book artist R. Crumb, was produced by Van Dyke Parks. A former child actor, Parks has written three children’s books, released seven albums of his own, and produced the first albums of Randy Newman, Ry Cooder, and Rufus Wainwright, and the Grammy-winning album The Esso Trinidad Steelband. He’s scored a dozen or so movies and tv shows and has worked with a galaxy of musicians — Fiona Apple, The Buena Vista Social Club, The Byrds, Cher, Natalie Cole, Judy Collins, Sheryl Crow, Kinky Friedman, Eliza Gilkyson, the Grateful Dead, Keith Moon, Aaron Neville, Harry Nilsson, Bonnie Raitt, Carly Simon, Bruce Springsteen, Ringo Starr, and U2.
Parks said the purpose of Spooked was to revere “the form in this music and find its strength, and at the same time kind of skewer it.” He and Marley’s Ghost succeed at all of the above.
