Atlanta-based singer-songwriter Jefferson Ross dedicated each song on his brilliant 2022 Southern Comfort to one of the South’s eleven states. Ross has emerged three years later with an even more eclectic collection of songs, still coming to grips with the American South but with a more existential approach. He juxtaposes his observant worldview with his unshakable Pentecostal upbringing. As you’d expect, there are some bizarre stories in his fourteen songs, from a snake-handling mountain woman and an idealistic couple who start a cult to enrich their lifestyle to portraits of Jerry Lee Lewis and Mary Magdalene. As the latter suggests, a Christ-haunted thread runs through the material and less severe, whimsical tunes. Yet, unlike the last record, Backstage Balladeer is a solo endeavor as Ross wrote, played, recorded, and mixed every note and lyric of each song, as well as shot the photographs that grace the jacket. He uses both acoustic and electric guitars and keyboards.
The rambling “Crooked Lines,” infused with his tremolo guitar, opens with philosophical advice that says don’t be too quick to judge because things are more often complicated than they seem. Simple straight lines would be boring to God, “who made these crooked lines.” He had certain politicians in mind, citing Capitol Hill in the Jim Croce styled “Power,” politely saying too many are consumed with power (“You are the great I am”)and too many go about recklessly when kindness and mutual respect should count for a lot more. He backs the tune both with organ and tasty guitar picking. Maybe it’s my affection for Bruce Cockburn’s “Wondering Where the Lions Are” that draws me to the chorus of “Lion In Zion,” but I also share Ross’s love for old gospel music purveyed by The Soul Stirrers, The Dixie Hummingbirds, and The Five Blind Boys of Alabama. The song is a tribute to them.
“Travel” takes the words of Mark Twain directly in a plea for open-mindedness – “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all in one’s lifetime.” He revs up his choogling guitar and organ for the lighthearted “One Taco at the Time”. At the same time “Let’s Start a Cult” is not a poke at the MAGA movement but instead on the absurdity of a business model that likely results in either hell or prison. He paints the prototypical character of the South in “Jerry Lee Lewis,” explaining in notes, not in the song, that as a teenager, Ross played in the TV band of his cousin Jimmy Swaggert. Ross’s voice goes to the lower register – “I’m a killer, the killer Jerry Lee Lewis,” adding tinkling piano for good measure. Not that there will ever be a better hangover song than Kristofferson’s “Sunday Morning Coming Down” but “Brimstone Blues” will draw its fair share of chuckles, not to mention some fine picking.
Ross reverses the story of a snake-handling preacher who was convicted of trying to kill his wife with one of the church’s rattlesnakes, with the wife taking it into her own hands in the banjo-driven, acoustic “Serpent.” The bluesy “Mary Magdalene” holds her up as the symbol of forgiveness and moving on, as if decrying that we don’t have many of her kind currently. Ross’s “The Blues and Blood” (“the blues of man and the blood of Jesus”) centers on the same topic with far different music as Ross again employs his guitar blues chops and layers his vocals for a background chorus. The title track is a gentle tune with a beautiful melody as he sings about the self-conscious state and his preference to be a behind-the-curtain observer. “The House of the Lord” is repurposed from his 2012 Hymns to the Here and Now,” imparting a need for empathy and compassion.
Ross further cements his growing reputation as one our most insightful and relatable songwriters.
