(Translated from my original Italian text by ChatGPT and Piero Scaruffi)
The best band in Atlanta in the early ’90s was perhaps Jody Grind. The group was built around Kelly Hogan’s vibrant jazz vocals, heir to the great Black singers, capable of sublime vocal excursions and fully embodying the roles she “performed.”
One Man's Trash Is Another Man's Treasure (DB, 1990) was performed by a trio without a bass (vocals, guitar, and drums). The sound ranges from the night-time, moribund atmospheres of Cowboy Junkies to a sophisticated recycling of past styles and genres. The band references Ellington, Bacharach, and Gershwin, and in fact it is from these “roots” (more than from blues or folk) that their musical vignettes arise. Hogan dominates with her powerful and dramatic vocals on the martial and solemn Eight Ball, while Bill Taft accompanies her alternating Duane Eddy-style twang and flamenco chords. She is poignant and passionate in the blues One Man's Trash, and melts into the desperate elegy of Florida Maine, with a rhythm that evokes a sense of travel. The trio also nails a delightful period piece with Death Of Zorba, a 1920s ragtime overlaid with steps from Greek dance.
Leaving behind nightclub pretensions and flirtations with kitsch, and finally adding a permanent bassist, Lefty's Deceiver (DB, 1992) showcases a full, gritty sound. The band still excels on the humbler tracks, such as Third Of July, a quiet ballad with Latin and Hawaiian accents, or on the rougher tracks like Funnel Of Love and Superhero, while attempts at jazz (Lounge Axis and Driving At Night) feel somewhat forced. Normalizing and modernizing the sound and vocals unfortunately diminishes the group’s more personal qualities; both the singer’s and the guitarist’s talents are somewhat sidelined.
Tragically, at the same time the album was released (April 1992), the drummer and bassist died in a car accident.
Hogan would later record with the RockATeens (formed by Chris Lopez of the Opal Foxx Quartet) and release her first solo album, The Whistle Only Dogs Can Hear (Long Play, 1996), which set her on the path to a country-rock singing career.
(Original English text by Piero Scaruffi)
The Opal Foxx Quartet, an experimental band with a strong jazz accent,
lived only a brief season. The album
The Love That Won't Shut Up (Long Play, 1993) came out only three
years after it was recorded.
Nonetheless it shines as one of the most original examples of
roots-rock balladry of the 1990s.
Foxx, a clone of Tom Waits obsessed with homoerotic themes,
Clean White Bed is a lengthy chamber ballad that opens with a superb
piano/cello/violin harmony. Foxx delivers his horror story at a martial country
pace, over the oneiric interplay of the instruments. Towards the end
Foxx's voice soars hymn-like.
Foxx's film noir continues with Blue Exception, complete with
soul-jazz keyboards, Eric Clapton guitar wail
and lifting Bruce Springsteen howl;
the touching dirge Sleep,
for Hawaian banjo, tex-mex melody and somber violin;
and peaks with Dirt, a lo-fi confession with just a splash of
glam-rock desperation.
Far from being one long lamentation, the album boasts several rock and roll
numbers, but they never deviate from the dark, menacing atmosphere of the whole.
The dissonant counterpoint, violin lines, pumping rhythm and epic/fatal vocals
turn Frail Body into a Euro-decadent boogie a` la Roxy Music or Ultravox.
The band heats up for the distorted, garage-style rave-up of
Tub Of Love Rumble, punctuated by sinister bass lines and spacey
organ drones.
Live, the band would line up ten musicians and Foxx would openly reveal his
"drag queen" personality.
Smoke was a Georgia band
formed on the ashes of the Opal Foxx Quartet and Jody Grind.
Singer and late bohemien Benjamin Foxx joined Bill Taft
(guitar, banjo and cornet) to form
Smoke, a quintet with cello (Brian Halloran).
The songs on Heaven On A Popsickle Stick (Long Play, 1994)
are funereal portraits of the underworld, played with an existential tiredness
that is a hybrid of Sticky Fingers (Rolling Stones) and
Tonight's The Night (Neil Young).
Sung in Foxx's trademark hoarse Tom Waits register,
with vulgar lyrics that match the intensity of Charles Bukowski's beat poetry,
somber ballads such as
Hole, Beeper Will e Awake leave no margin for entertainment
and are enriched with spare and intriguing arrangements.
The tensions relents only with Luke's Feet, an obscene joke.
Another Reason To Fast (Long Play, 1995) is the natural continuation
of the debut album. An even greater sophistication with arrangements
and Foxx's mastery at the sothern gothic yield tormented tales of guilt and
passion (Trust).
The quintet of cornet, banjo, cello, guitar and drums is establishing a new standard in rock music.
Her
Beneath The Country Underdog (Bloodshot, 2000) benefited from
the help of Jon Langford.
It took a decade to make another solo album,
I Like to Keep Myself in Pain (2011), a classy and eclectic collection of
custom-covers composed for her by
Langford, Magnetic Field's Stephin Merritt,
John Wesley Harding, Andrew Bird, Vic Chesnutt, Robyn Hitchcock, M Ward.
