Jake Xerxes Fussell was raised and mentored by folklorists, but he also grew up in the age of MTV. He knows firsthand how stories and perspectives that originated in different eras and circumstances can commingle, and he puts that knowledge to work on his fifth LP. When I’m Called is his first for Fat Possum, but changed business affiliations aside, it fits right in with his other records.
Once more, Fussell sings found songs with a practiced storyteller’s immaculate enunciation in a voice rich enough to ruin your cholesterol-test results. His understated fingerpicking could carry these songs by itself, but he has talented friends. So, Joan Shelley and Robin Holcomb sing along, guitarist Blake Mills lays down a few fancy licks, and producer/arranger/multi-instrumentalist James Elkington wraps everything in sounds that are by turns luminous and simply unfussy.
Elkington and Fussell know how to craft a setting that’s appropriately rustic to frame songs that were once sung while gathering crops or sails but are pretty much impossible to pin to a given decade. This proves handy in a couple ways. Fussell’s records can float out of time, encouraging listeners to gravitate to the stories rather than instrumental sounds that carry a sell-by date. His vocal delivery further fosters that sense of timelessness; it’s the feeling of bereftness that registers on “Gone To Hilo,” not the fact that it was once sung by whalers who broke hearts at both ends of a circuit between England and Peru. And the music helps to make sense of an inspired move like the one on the title track, where Fussell combines a folk song about the open road with a scrap of text taken from a student’s apology that includes a promise not to breakdance in the hall.
If you already know Fussell’s music, rest assured that When I’m Called won’t disappoint. If you’re new to him, there’s no better place to get acquainted. [Fat Possum]
—Bill Meyer
