Three years back, the Pennsylvania born singer-songwriter emerged with the provocatively and timely titled Christmas In Fallujah, an album that generally addressed a disillusionment with America, from foreign policy to urban planning. He returns now to further develop his theme with the first of three CDs which, over the course of some 50 songs, will ambitiously trace the history of American culture and music.

The first out of the gate contains 17 tracks that take a broad sweep from 1492 to 1940, from the advent of electricity to the piling up of nuclear waste. However the alt-country guitar ringing Trail Of Tears also extends its reflections on blind jingoism from the Civil War to the jungles of Vietnam and the roadsides of Iraq and it's fair to say that, with lines about conquering savages in the name of Christianity, Columbus Day is as much about Bush's view of the Middle East as it is about the taking of the New World.

Musically, while rooted in an Americana bedrock, he covers a fair few bases, from the mellow folksy strum of Can't Go Home, a fiddle hewn early REM like Rockefellers and the old tyme mandolin and banjo driven bluegrass of instrumentals Appomattox and Lewis And Clark Homecoming to the muddy water slide guitar blues Riverbank Blues, a rockabilly shuck n jive Primates Swinging, the Zep crunching Dam in the River of Life and, the yearning John Prine style waltzing Paperback Romance and its tale of a wallflower orphan and a bullied stutterer finding love together.

Given the sheer number of tracks involved, inevitably some work better than others and, while solid enough you're less likely to return to, say, Wood And Wire and The Sheep And The Goats than you are the Byrdsian Can't Come Back or the Dylan-like Stranger In The Glass. But, taken as a whole it's an impressive and thoughtful project that leaves you eagerly anticipating the issues and genres that lie in store with Vols 2 and 3.

No one can accuse Pepper of a lack of ambition - this is the first of three volumes (the others follow in May and July) charting the history of America in song.

L’apertura del disco di Jefferson Pepper ci porta direttamente in un contesto di brani legati alla tradizione dei folksinger più impegnanti politicamente, di cui ogni tanto se ne sente la mancanza. I connotati storici, politici e sociali sono infatti quelli che emergono con più evidenza dai brani di Pepper.

“American Evolution” è infatti un’opera formata da cinquanta canzoni, che Pepper ha scritto nell’inverno fra il 2006 e il 2007, strutturata in tre dischi in uscita da metà marzo a metà luglio. Red album, white album e blue album, ognuno di quali copre un periodo storico, a cominciare appunto da questo primo volume che osserva gli States nel loro evolversi dal 1492 (“Columbus day”) fino al 1940.

Bisogna concedere una chance di ascolto a Pepper, la merita un progetto così pretenzioso e vissuto con sincerità da un autore cresciuto nella working class e interessatosi alla tematica dell’evoluzione per due motivi: il libro di Howard Zinn “A people’s history of the United States” e il dibattito portato avanti dai fondamentalisti cattolici sul creazionismo.

Il cantautore, cresciuto in Pennsylvania, mescola all’interno del disco differenti stili musicali, tutti legati al roots-rock-folk americano, giocati sulle chitarre acustiche, sul violino, sulla pedal steel, lasciando da parte il punk con cui è venuto grande. I suoi brani ripercorrono la storia di un paese e il suono si sposta dagli elementi più rurali danzanti e irish delle origini, con il fiddle dal timbro tradizionale come per “Lewis and Clark homecoming” e “Appomattox”, a quelli folk, fino al rock.

Spuntano, evidenti come pochi, i riferimenti e gli ascolti di Pepper, da Dylan a Prine, da Young a Cash per arrivare a Springsteen e Earle, i cui ascolti accompagnano il cantautore nella riscoperta della tradizione e della storia (anche musicale) americana. Tutto comincia con un canto di uccelli, “Can’t go home”, a raffigurare l’America pre-colombiana, per arrivare a “Colombus Day” centrata sul sanguinoso primo incontro fra nativi e europei, passando per la ferrovia, la Guerra Civile, l’avvento della civiltà industriale, le banche. Insomma, una storia americana alternativa che piace dal punto di vista sociale; meno chiaro ed esplicito è invece il rapporto con il darwinismo, ovvero quanto nella sua critica sociale il darwinismo e l’evoluzionismo siano presi di mira e inglobati nella smania di possesso e guerra occidentali.

Influenced by Patti Smith, Nirvana, The Clash, Neil Young, John Prine, Johnny Cash, his factory-worker father, and coal-miner and farmer grandparents, Jefferson Pepper spent two years in his home in the Conewago Mountains (Southern Pennsylvania), writing and recording these songs of America seen through the eyes of working people rather than politicians, noting that the two versions don’t always match.

The (red) after the title is to separate this 17-song CD from two more due for release on April 1 (white) and June 10 (blue), making up an ambitious three-disc, 50-song set of what Pepper calls “500 years of cultural evolution.” Spanning the centuries from pre-Columbian America to 1940, the “red” record, he says, is “one alternative-Americana-contemporary folk-roots, rock-alt. country-cowpunk masterpiece.”

Pepper, whose minor abrasion of a voice begins to wear well after a couple of listens, debuted in 2005 with Christmas in Fallujah, an album that included a punk version of Woody Guthrie’s anthem “This Land is Your Land.”

Pepper is a competent musician — he sings lead and harmony vocals and plays acoustic and electric guitars, electric bass, mandolin, harmonica, keyboards, and percussion. He obviously thinks seriously about and marvels at the monkey business of this American legacy/reality stuff. His understanding of a wide variety of music genres and subgenres make him as much of a patriot as his opinions.

Whether the series will be an actual masterpiece or not, the first CD is at least — not to damn it with faint praise — interesting, sincere, and listenable. I look forward to hearing Pepper’s perspective on the rest. — Tom Geddie

Es gibt Alben, bei denen man extra gesagt bekommen muss, dass sie Konzeptalben sind, da man es sonst nicht bemerkt hatte. Das gilt nicht fur “American Evolution (Volume 1)”, Jefferson Peppers erstes Album seiner Trilogie uber die Geschichte der Vereinigten Staaten. Ich muss zugeben, dass ich Jefferson Pepper bei seinem Debut “Christmas in Fallujah” unterschatzt habe - nicht, weil das Album nicht gut war, sondern eher weil sich solch ein Projelt wie “American Evolution” nicht abzeichnete. Die Notwendigkeit der Aneignung von Geschichtsschreibung durch und fur die vermeintlich Schwachen ist die Akzeptanz des Umstands, dass Historiografie immer der Ausdruck von gesellschaftlichen Machtverhaltnissen ist. Das ist die Denkweise, die hinter Howard Zinns “A People’s History of the United States” steht, das jeder, der einmal ein Fat Wreck Chords - Album - Booklet in der Hand hatte, kennt, und das Jefferson Pepper zu diesem Projekt inspiriert hat. Geschichtsschreibung ist immer ein politischer stelle findet sich in “Columbus Day”: “And now it’s been five hundred years and we should be ashamed for honoring this murderer with a day that bears his name. History, it seems to me, is told from the point of view of merchants kings and conquerors not the beaten killed and used.” Neben den sehr ausfuhrlichen Texten ist auch die Musik hervorragend. Jefferson Pepper bietet vielseitigen Country-Folk und liefert einen erfrischenden Nachweis, dass diense Musik - entgegen vorherrschender Klischees diessets des Atlantiks - nicht ausschliesslich von Konservativen fur Konservative gemacht wird. Ich freue mich auf die nachsten beiden Teile, dann gibt es auch weniger Grundsatzliches von meiner Seite.

Concerned about the current state of his native US, Jefferson Pepper has done his research and has written fifty songs chronicling its history from 1492 to the present day, but not-for once-from the viewpoint of the economic and military victors. Volumes 2 and 3 will be released in May and July respectively.

He is not afraid to slaughter US sacred cows. Columbus, Disney, economic disadvantage, religious fundamentalism and materialism are among the subjects savaged without ever resorting to overt vitriol. Pepper's dagger is subtly employed as he holds the absurdities up to ridicule in songs grounded in a wide spectrum of styles, from mountain music to out and out rock. There are positive songs, too-'The Sheep and the Goats' being a good example of Pepper's yearning for a return to traditional community values.

La última sensación de la escena rockera americana es este "American Evolution Volume 1" también conocido como "Red Album" y que supone la continuación a "Christmas in Fallujah", el anterior trabajo de este songwriter de Pennsylvania. Pero el tipo va mucho más allá de un simple disco. Resulta que el amigo Pepper ha grabado más de 50 canciones que publicará en tres volúmenes sucesivos, el primero de los cuales es el que tenemos entre manos. En ellos se pretende explicar, a través de canciones, los 500 años de historia americana tanto social como políticamente hablando. Su forma de entender la música y su compromiso le emparenta directamente con músicos de la talla de Neil Young o Bob Dylan ya que nos encontramos ante uno de los mejores letristas de la actualidad. Si no habías oído hablar de él, esta es una buena oportunidad para entrar en su música. Dudo que te arrepientas.

(English Translation):