Cannery Row

Combining ragged textures with tasty instrumental finesse, Deadstring Brothers’ Cannery Row invokes Southern landscapes filled with bruised lovers, hard-luck vagabonds, and assorted ghosts of days gone by. Cannery Row is the first album recorded after the Detroit-rooted combo relocated to Nashville. The country-rock phase of The Rolling Stones (think Sticky Fingers through Exile on Main Street) remains the Brothers’ chief reference point; fortunately, they inject enough of their own sensibilities into the mix to transcend mere imitation. Lead singer Kurt Marschke’s twanging tones blend with the honeyed vocals of The Smoking Flowers’ Kim Collins to fine effect on “Like a California Wildfire” and “Talkin’ with a Man in Montana.” Clean-edged slide guitars and shivery organs bring out the swampy Delta colors of “Oh Me Oh My,” “Just a Deck of Cards," and the title tune. The Brothers brighten Cannery Row’s mostly downbeat atmosphere with “It’s Morning Irene” (featuring veteran Willie Nelson sideman Mickey Raphael on harmonica) and “Lucille’s Honky Tonk” (a feisty two-stepper sparked by Marschke’s agile acoustic fingerpicking).