* * * * (4 Stars out of 5)
1492-1940 in seventy minutes of high class social history
As big ideas go, a three album history of America, if not quite up there with Sufjan Stevens, is certainly rather more than most singer-songwriters would attempt. It's also constantly at risk of the message overriding the medium, but on American Evolution Volume One, which covers 1492 to 1940, Jefferson Pepper largely avoids this problem.
One album for 450 years and two for 60 seems an odd split though, and it would have been nice to see the early period of American history explored in more detail, but given that Pepper is primarily concerned with the state of his nation today it's perhaps understandable.
As well as the lyrics Pepper uses the music to chart the journey as well, so there's acoustic blues (Riverbank Blues), swing (Primates Swingin'), rural folk (Appomattox), and bluegrass (Fine Fine Day) nand even a touch of reggae on Only Survivor. But it's the lyrics where Pepper cuts the deepest, and laudably he resists the sledgehammer in favour of the scalpel. Dam in the River of Life slices and dices the creationists, Columbus Day names and shames the man and Wood and Wire rips aside the curtain on the American Dream ("I've mortgaged my whole life for a place to spend the night"). Pepper's one misstep is the overly sentimental and contrived Paperback Romance but apart from that it's bullseyes all the way.
Pepper's laments, and make no mistake, that's what they are, gain power from being presented straight without any tack spitting or howling rage. Instead he just documents what was in an almost matter-of-fact way that actually has the effect of making the listener pause to try and fathom just why what happened, happened. If he can keep up the standard on Volumes Two and Three, which are both due this year, the full set could be a landmark collection.
