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San Francisco's singer-songwriter Sean Hayes debuted with the acoustic folk songs for voice and guitar of A Thousand Tiny Pieces (Snailblue, 1999)
in a style that is frequently subdued and meditative (A Thousand Tiny Pieces, The Same Meow)
with rare moments of convulsion (Mary Magdalene).
The way he couples whispered lyrics and twangy guitar in Give in Give in, the almost transcendent quality of She is in Everything
and especially
the slippery blues-jazz-folk singing style a` la Tim Buckley
of A Simple Song and Paint your Face Red
already revealed a complex musical persona.
Lunar Lust (Snailblue, 2002) contains the
vibrant Hello, the jazzy Painted Clown, the unusually
melodic Mind Looping and especially several
moribund litanies that expand his repertory
(For Inspiration, Birdcagedbird and
Swim Swim Swim).
The moribund style gets perfected in the opener of
Alabama Chicken (Snailblue, 2003): Moonrise, which also
toys with a theremin.
Diamond in the Sun and Smoking Signals sound like agonizing versions of, respectively, Neil Young (Harvest-era) and John Denver.
Alabama Chicken
evokes the eccentric country music of freak-bards like John Hartford.
There is a strong melody in Rattlesnake Charm, which is almost bubblegum-pop;
and there is rhythm in The Rain Coming Down (like Tim Buckley backed by a bossanova combo).
The album also includes a cover of Dylan's Walkin' Down the Line.
This time the accompaniment features banjo, jaw harp, fiddle, marimba, piano and drums.
His most musical statement yet,
Big Black Hole and the Little Baby Star (2006), another album with drums and discreet arrangements, contains
the limping bluesy 3 a.m.,
the elegantly soulful 33 Fool,
the rocking (by his standards) Feel Good,
and
the elegiac Pollinating Toes.
The atmosphere becomes surreal with
the eccentric marching shuffle with trumpet Big Black Hole & the Little Baby Star,
and with
the swinging chant All Things and its intricate vocal games.
Hayes employed trumpet, clarinet, sax, accordion, marimba, bass and drums to
arrange Flowering Spade (2007), an even more musical album on which his
wavering voice reached a higher level of expressivity.
It contains two of his eeriest rhythmic narratives, All For Love and
Midnight Rounders,
and one of his trademark swinging tiptoeing numbers, Hip Kids.
At the confluence of these two styles he pens his melodic country gem
Flowering Spade.
The violin wreaks havoc in Baby I Do and duets with a
country banjo in Cool Hand.
Run Wolves Run (2010) veered towards more conventional entertainment,
for example
the funk-soul ballad Soul Shaker,
the blues-jazz jam One Day The River,
the laid-back shuffle Garden.
Songs like When We Fall In belong to the era of
Otis Redding.
At the same time the album includes two
hard-rock numbers, Gunnin and So Down.
A rather odd combination.
Before We Turn to Dust (2012) is another minor collection, despite the
slow, nocturnal, agonizing dirge Lucky Man.
Low Light (2016), again, veers towards cocktail-lounge music, although Naked as the Sun and She Knows still articulate Hayes' pathos in
sophisticated ways (especially the latter).
The radio-friendly Shine and Bell stand out among the swampy
and languid blues-soul ballads of Be Like Water (2021).
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