lease:Arkansas Traveler
Released: re issue.. 2004
Label: Mighty Sound
Catalog#: 
Format: FLAC / Lossless / Log (100%) / Cue
Country: USA
Style:folk ,americana


1	Michelle Shocked With Pops Staples ΓÇô	 33 RPM Soul	4:09	
2	Michelle Shocked ΓÇô	 Come A Long Way	4:43	
3	Michelle Shocked With Band, The ΓÇô	 Secret To A Long Life	3:50	
4	Michelle Shocked With Red Clay Ramblers, The ΓÇô	 Contest Coming	3:31	
5	Michelle Shocked With Hothouse Flowers, The* ΓÇô	 Over The Waterfall	4:43	
6	Michelle Shocked With Uncle Tupelo ΓÇô	 Shaking Hands	3:26	
7	Michelle Shocked With Taj Mahal ΓÇô	 Jump Jim Crow	3:31	
8	Michelle Shocked With Gatemouth Brown* ΓÇô	 Hold Me Back	5:09	
9	Michelle Shocked With Doc Watson ΓÇô	 Strawberry Jam	4:33	
10	Michelle Shocked With Alison Krauss ΓÇô	 Prodigal Daughter	6:43	
11	Michelle Shocked With Norman Blake (2) ΓÇô	 Blackberry Blossom	3:31	
12	Michelle Shocked With Messengers, The* ΓÇô	 Weaving Way	2:57	
13	Michelle Shocked With JImmy Driftwood ΓÇô	 Arkansas Traveler	4:20	
14	Michelle Shocked With Dollar Bill ΓÇô	 Woody's Rag	2:51	
Bonus Tracks
15	Michelle Shocked With Dan Crary ΓÇô	 Worth The Weight (Live @ Mountain Stage)	3:22	
16	Michelle Shocked ΓÇô	 Come A Long Way (Acoustic Studio Demo)	4:46	
17	Michelle Shocked With String Cheese Incident, The ΓÇô	 Blackberry Blossom (Live @ Steamboat Springs)	3:27	
18	Michelle Shocked ΓÇô	 Weaving Way (Alternate Version)	3:09	
19	Michelle Shocked With Jimmy Driftwood ΓÇô	 Down In The Arkansas (Live @ The Folk Hall Of Fame)	1:59	
20	Michelle Shocked ΓÇô	 Introducing Dollar Bill (Live @ Vienna)	2:12	
21	Michelle Shocked With Dollar Bill ΓÇô	 C-H-I-C-K-E-N	2:53	

One may feel a certain pity for Mercury Records when it took delivery of Michelle Shocked's third album for the label, Arkansas Traveler. Mercury had signed the feisty country-folk singer/songwriter in the wake of the hoopla surrounding her first album, The Texas Campfire Tapes, an impromptu collection recorded on a cassette player at the 1986 Kerrville Folk Festival. Shocked eschewed a hefty advance in favor of greater artistic control and then delivered the well-received Short Sharp Shocked (1988), followed by Captain Swing (1989), something of a swing-band genre exercise. Both albums reached the Top 100 in Billboard and spent six-plus months in the charts. At first, Arkansas Traveler must have sounded like a breakthrough effort; it was certainly ambitious. Shocked was adapting old folk and country material such as "Soldier's Joy," "Frankie & Johnny," and "Cotton Eyed Joe" with new arrangements and lyrics, and she was conducting sessions around the world with a host of impressive partners. In Australia, she collaborated with Paul Kelly's backup band, the Messengers, on "Weaving Way," and she went to Ireland to record "Over the Waterfall" with the Hothouse Flowers. In the U.S., there were sessions in Chicago, IL, with Pops Staples of the Staple Singers ("33 RPM Soul"); Woodstock, NY, with Levon Helm and Garth Hudson of the Band ("Secret to a Long Life"); Chapel Hill, NC, with the Red Clay Ramblers ("Contest Coming [Cripple Creek]"); St. Charles, MO, with Uncle Tupelo ("Shaking Hands [Soldier's Joy]"); Los Angeles with Taj Mahal ("Jump Jim Crow/Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah"); Memphis, TN, with Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown ("Hold Me Back [Frankie & Johnny]"); Wilkesboro, NC, with Doc Watson ("Strawberry Jam"); Franklin, TN, with Alison Krauss & Union Station ("Prodigal Daughter [Cotton Eyed Joe]"); Rising Fawn, GA, with Rising Fawn String Ensemble ("Blackberry Bottom"); Mountain View, AR, with Jimmy Driftwood ("Arkansas Traveler"); and Mineola, TX, with Dollars, Taxes, featuring her father, "Dollar Bill" Johnston, on mandolin (Woody Guthrie's "Woody's Rag").

The music ranged from folk-rock to old-timey country, and Shocked interacted well with her many guests, reinvigorating the traditional tunes and remaking them in her own exuberant style. If they had a chance to think about it, the executives at Mercury might have dreamed of a PBS special featuring all the musicians and a home video to further expose and promote a release that might have seemed like a potential cross-genre smash. Then would have come the bombshell. Shocked, it seemed, had been inspired in her conception of the album by an interest in the history of blackface minstrelsy, which provided the source of such songs as "Jump Jim Crow," and she wanted to appear in blackface on the cover of the album. Despite her contracted artistic control, Mercury rejected this desire, which of course would have constituted commercial (and perhaps career) suicide, but the label did allow her to write a sleeve note about her intentions and then felt required to add a disclaimer to the effect that her views "do not necessarily represent those of the musicians who have generously contributed their time and talent to this project." One could certainly listen to and enjoy Arkansas Traveler while ignoring all this small-print, handwritten commentary in the album's booklet, but of course critics couldn't be expected to do that, and while praising the music, they also commented on the artist's no doubt well-intentioned, but seemingly confused -- or at least confusing -- concept. As a result, Arkansas Traveler failed to sell