Pony Bradshaw’s latest, North Georgia Rounder, is a mix of Southern gothic fiction and a travelogue of Appalachia set to a beautifully haunting soundtrack of country music. That’s not entirely true – in terms of location – as there are several songs here about life on the road as a traveling musician. Regardless, the end result is a highly literate and just as enjoyable exercise of one musician struggling with his chosen path. Impressively, the entire record was recorded in just five days.
“Every day, I wrestle with the moral consequences of being a touring musician,” Bradshaw said in discussing the record. “I’m always finding ways to make it okay to be doing this. I feel irresponsible sometimes because I basically make my living off the goodwill of others and chance. So, I’m always trying to battle those two things.” And you can hear that battle playing out in songs like “A Duffel, a Grip, and My D35” and “Kindly Turn the Bed Down, Drusilla”.
There’s an authenticity to Bradshaw’s music that lets him use a term like “yonder” (in several songs) and not come across as pandering or forced. And while there are plenty of examples here of just how strong Bradshaw is as a songwriter, the meditative “Safe in the Arms of Vernacular,” singing about his dad coming back from Desert Storm before switching the song’s focus to a waitress in a small town, is wildly impressive. He covers a novel’s worth of plot lines in three minutes. Bradshaw has a poet’s knack for singling out the most descriptive words to draw you into the scene while also managing to be as frugal as possible.
The record ends on the slow, deliberate “Notes On A River Town,” taking the listener back to North Georgia and showcasing Bradshaw’s most powerful vocal performance yet on the record. Through 10 songs, he takes the listener on an emotional and geographical trek on for a remarkably affecting experience that stays long after the music is over.
