Grady
A Cup of Cold Poison
Grady’s second album of roughneck blues is a long way from Sunday school; as “One of These Days You’re Gonna Lie Down Dead” advises, “Your sweet chariot is a box of pine.” A farmer’s prayer for rain in “Rolling Thunder” comes in language better known as a Vietnam bombing run and fits new drummer Billy “Thunderball” Maddox’s razor-blade swing. Welcoming Continental Club peers Chili Cold Blood; “Tyrant of Texas Funk” Barfield, whom the Austin trio covers; and Bourbonitis poet laureate Alejandro Escovedo, who guests on romp “Three Legged Race,” frontman Gordy “Grady” Johnson unleashes his guitar like a starving hellhound with a fresh whiff of raw meat. Grady’s slash-and-burn theology is nothing if not educational. Closer “On the Wagon” recounts the morbid origins of the familiar expression: a hangman, his condemned, and one final swallow of whiskey. Somewhere in there is a lesson for us all. (Grady rifles the Continental Club, Thursday, April 5.)
This article appears in April 6 • 2007.