The Glory and the Power of Contemporary Americana

There’s a growing number of artists that produce music with a gospel style, whether or not the artists are outspokenly religious. All at once, it hearkens back to the early days of gospel, advances the leading tenants of today’s Americana, and ekes out something all its own. Here’s some of those artists and albums, highlighted.

Parker Millsap
The musician who penned and performed 2014’s “Truck Stop Gospel” to earn himself the title Emerging Artist of the Year was just a shiny green 21 years old at the time. That song is, by today’s standards, an unbearable rodeo with the hook, “I just want you to love my savior.” It’s thick with gimmicky honky-tonk flavor and riddled with pedantic evangelism.
The rest of Millsap’s eponymous album waxes similarly sophomoric. Travel back in time to 2014 and you wonder if this kid will ever figure his shit out, because he’s got a voice full of forceful wonder but the songs ring more “church” than “gospel.” Add to that the fact that other nominees for the Americana Music Association’s Emerging Artist award that year included Sturgill Simpson, Hurray for the Riff Raff, and Valerie June, and it seems as though handing the award to Millsap at that time was either looking too far backward or thinking too far forward.
Because in 2016 Millsap would release The Very Last Day. This album would trigger an interview with NPR where the musician was asked about the religious undertones of the album. In Millsap’s own words: “You grow, you become an adult and face real life. So you have to kind of adjust, you have to find out how that fits in this little mold that you were given that you had no control over.”
And with this album, Millsap has found the way to fit that little mold into his much broader talent for musicianship. The opening track, “Hades Pleads,” burns the barn down with edgy instrumentation and Millsap, playing the part of Hades, attempting to lure the object of his affection to his “house on the Styx.” The religious themes remain, but the songs have lost their evangelical nature. This album is built simply for foot stompin’ and hollerin’.
There are several other delectable tracts, including the light-but-building “Morning Blues,” a cover of “You Gotta Move” with a light touch but so soulful it might wake the dead, the adorable and poetic “A Little Fire,” and the wildly creative “Heaven Sent,” on which that entire NPR interview was focused. But the top track, thematically, musically, and bad-assedly, has to be the titular one, “The Very Last Day.” With mysterious but charming verse and a chorus to rival the atomic explosion about which Millsap sings, it takes the ringing notion of that now-ridiculous R.E.M. song and re-brands it wonderfully into an incredible bluesy tune, complete with a whirring organ and a rather nonchalant fiddle, all things considered.

Hiss Golden Messenger
Perhaps the Bob Dylan to Parker Millsap’s Joe Cocker, Hiss Golden Messenger weaves finely crafted stories through a variety of styles, from roots rock to folk ballads to a mashup of blues and funk. And although Millsap already has had more success than the man once made of Sheffield Steel ever did with original material, the songs and lyrics of M.C. Taylor have a deeper maturity, a greater depth, and a meatier, more intellectual feel.
But that comes from age, wisdom, and more time in the business. Hiss Golden Messenger’s easily obtainable material stems back to 2013, but the group has been producing albums since 2007. In fact, Taylor produced 4 albums on his own record label (in 2007, 2009, 2009 again, and 2010). So there’s a high degree of proliferation here.
And in some ways, it shows. While each of the albums are nice to listen to, they aren’t smashing hit after smashing hit. But hidden within each album is at least one very shiny gem that seems to hit hard, saying something like, “here I am, did you know I feel this way, can you ever unthink me.”
2010’s Bad Debt is full-on emotional low-fi folk. It is raw and fresh and hasn’t suffered any for its age. The increase in production value is immediately clear by the time 2014 and Lateness of Dancers rolls around. Tasting notes shift dramatically from the lo-fi legends like Will Oldham and Jason Molina to clean and polished like The Eagles. The most recent album from the duo so far and the pinnacle of both types of production, Heart Like a Levee, provides a delightful journey, with songs equally attuned to vast road trips and late night glasses of whiskey on the back porch.
This past June, Hiss Golden Messenger released the single “Standing in the Doorway,” a song begins natural and tender enough, before building to an interesting and exciting full-bodied rock tune with an enveloping beat. Hiss Golden Messenger is also set to release the upcoming album Hallelujah Anyhow, due September 22.

Last Good Tooth
Although it seems unfortunate, Last Good Tooth may just have rotted. They’ve produced two great albums — 2013’s Not Without Work and Rest, and 2015’s And All Things on the Scales. Since then, no releases, and social media for the group seems to have gone blank around 2016, although they seem to have been touring as recently as this past May. If the group is still playing together, great, and if they’re planning a new album, great again.
What is it that makes their unique brand of Americana so tasty and satisfying? Sometimes it’s the crackling lyrics, sometimes the irresistible fiddling, the stoically powerful vocal lead singer Penn Sultan, or the way they know how to build a song in layers that start off humble but eventually could fill stadiums.
Last Good Tooth is probably not filling stadiums, unfortunately. According to Spotify, the quartet only has 456 monthly listeners. But if they were, and if we were the sort of culture that would flock to stadiums to hear these songs, the country might be in a better place.
Of particular note is the track “2011 Operation” off their 2015 album. One can listen to this song in its entirety and simply enjoy the full, echoing, somehow nostalgic quality of the instrumentation. But as the name implies, it’s actually quite a political track. Starting off with the lyrics, “Yes and something important/like killing/and knowin’ yours might get killed.”
It’s a tremendously deep track, but one that doesn’t take any outright stance beyond the line “so it’s come to this insanity.” In the midst of an event often met with blind patriotism, it takes an artist to ask whether or not the end of a life is ever something to celebrate with cheers.
There are many other incredible lines peppered throughout this music. It’s a worthy prize for deeper listening. Meanwhile, the songs are varied and meticulously crafted, making either album a pleasure to have on just as well with an absent mind. The melodies have a haunting sort of charm that will weave itself in and out of your mind on its own terms.

