it seems to me that bob has felt a need to record this album for quite some time. in a way, there is a sense of closure about it.  he has described it himself as a collection of ‘cowboy songs’, and it is definitely that. in the dead nomenclature, that term usually referred to any of the songs from their repertoire that had in its subject line stories from the old west, and bobbie sang many of them (me and my uncle, jack straw, mexicali blues, as a few examples). but that is really not what is at play here. to a certain degree, this is autobiographical. he ran away in his midteens and stayed on a ranch, and this is where he developed an appreciation for campfire songs sung by the ranchhands he worked with at that time. weir also had experiences with ranch lifestyles through his collabaration with his long tome lyricist, john barlow, whose family has had property in wyoming since the beginning of the last century. he gives credits in his liner notes to his adoptive parents, and he says they found him at the ranch and let him stay there.

if you have seen the recent documentary ‘the other one’, he spends time on the reconciliation with his parents in recent years. all of that is a backdrop to this release, which is really quite interesting to me. let me start with what i like about it. the production, and the musicianship, is really well done. it is produced by bob and josh kaufman, and it has a very daniel lanois type of feel to it (think of the ‘no mercy’ album from dylan). lush and sparse at the same time, it has a laid back atmosphere throughout. josh ritter is involved in most of the lyrics, with bob and others as cowriters on maybe half the songs. he then uses a slew of americana musicians, notably members of the national (dessner and devendorf brothers). this is very much a weir solo album, and his first compilation of totally original material in thirty years.highlights are ‘gonesville’, which sounds like it could easily be a johnny cash tune (bob says he envisioned elvis when writing it, but i don’t hear that), and ‘ki-yi bossie’, which he wrote himself and plays unaccompanied on acoustic (ramblin’ jack in the background).

the title track, ‘blue mountain’, is also a keeper. what keeps me from giving a big green light to this release is bob’s singing. those who know me will not be surprised about this. on at least half the cuts, i think he does great. but bob’s weakness, i think, is that he tries to hide his less than natural singing abilities by trying to veer from ‘just singing the song’. he will bend the lyrics, growl or bark, sing slightly off key, tend towards spoken word interpretations, and all manner of improvisations, instead of just singing the frickin song. it has annoyed me to no end for decades. he really is a good singer when he stays lyrical, but for whatever reason he feels the need to elaborate, and he doesn’t generally do that well. add to that his degradation in vocal ability (he’s 68 and been on the road for over 50 years), and you get some merely average performances on some of the songs. but please don’t let that get in the way of checking this out. he seems like he needed to get some things off of his chest with this release, and overall i think it is an impressive statement from him. he is touring on this release over the next month or so, and so if you are going to see him, you really need to get this.

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/review-bob-weir-blue-mountain-w442061

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/22368-blue-mountain/