Articolo di: Luca Meneghel Del 14/10/06

Sono sempre piů, dall’inizio della seconda guerra del golfo, gli artisti che nel mondo del rock sentono il bisogno di far sentire la propria voce contro un conflitto che non condividono: il culmine del fenomeno č stato il “Vote for Change Tour”, a sostegno di Kerry (poi sconfitto alle presidenziali), al quale presero parte anche Rem e Springsteen (del quale, sull’Iraq, non possiamo dimenticare “Devils and Dust”). L’antimilitarismo, del resto, č un’assoluta costante nel rock and roll dai tempi del Vietnam e anche Jefferson Pepper, nel suo piccolo (siamo al disco d’esordio, nei negozi a novembre), ha sentito il bisogno di levare la propria voce e commercializzarla attraverso l’American Fallout Records.

Per Jefferson, chiariamo, č difficile dire qualcosa di originale: sull’Iraq č stato ormai detto tutto e anche nel suo disco troviamo inevitabilmente guerra, amore e dolore fusi assieme alla disillusione per un conflitto a suo vedere ingiusto. Qualcosa di particolare, perň, riesce ad esprimerlo comunque. Prendiamo la titletrack, “Christmas in Falluja”: non si tratta di cantare la guerra in generale, quanto la piů sanguinosa battaglia avvenuta sul suolo iracheno, dieci giorni di assedio ad una cittŕ di trecentocinquantamila abitanti; su una musica delicata e con una voce che rimanda al cantautorato classico americano, Jefferson Pepper inscena il monologo di un soldato con parole molto forti (“We came to help the people, it’s not about the oil / I came here to Fallujah with presents in my sack / I bring the gift of freedom through unprovoked attack”, piuttosto che “We’re coming down your chimney with guns and blinding lights”, chiaro riferimento al Babbo Natale che entra dal camino col sacco pieno di doni) ed incisive.

Questa č la linea generale del disco, per gran parte incentrato sull’Iraq e sul Natale (uscirŕ, dicevo, a fine novembre: attenti a chi lo regalate, č tutto fuorché allegro e la lettura e comprensione dei testi č fondamentale). Musicalmente parlando vi č una grande alternanza di momenti lenti e riflessivi ed altri incentrati su chitarra elettrica, basso e batteria: anche la voce di Jefferson sa calarsi bene nelle diverse parti richieste dai singoli pezzi.

Notevoli, oltre alla titletrack (il cui testo richiederebbe perň una musica piů incisiva), sono la ruvida e tagliente “M-16”, “Back to 1999” (che esula dalla tematica irachena per mettere in scena un operaio che perde lavoro e affetti), “Deceived” (sulla disillusione di un bambino che scopre l’inesistenza di Babbo Natale) e una classica “Why?” che, tra Dylan e Young, dŕ voce ad una madre che si chiede perché Dio le abbia strappato il figlio in guerra.

Tiriamo le somme. “Christmas in Falluja” č composto e interpretato da un bravo artista, molto attento alla parte testuale delle sue canzoni e meno originale sul fronte musicale (il disco č comunque ben suonato, anche se certi testi avrebbero richiesto fondamenta migliori); la tematica irachena, ormai logora, si intreccia a quella natalizia: inevitabile, in certe parti, l’eccedenza di pathos. Detto questo, č sempre bene riflettere sulle nostre azioni e ancora meglio se a farci riflettere č il rock: buona fortuna, Jefferson, sperando di ascoltarti presto anche su altre tematiche dopo l’ottima prova di “Back to 1999”.

Elsewhere, the album, graced by pedal steel, fiddle, mandolin and the dobro and banjo of John Farmer (Bill Monroe, Flatt and Scruggs, Del McCoury) is a thoroughly engaging blend of gutsy country and roots-rock, driven by a punk-influenced energy exemplified in cuts like the sprawling rock of ‘M16’, the pedal-steel-garnished, growling country rock of ‘Interstate Highway’ and the gentle, poignant ‘Why?’ Pepper demonstrates his versatility further with the superb picking-fest that is trad cut ‘Soldier’s Joy’ and on an angry country-punk reworking of Woody Guthrie’s ‘This Land Is Your Land’.

5/5 Sean McGhee

Možná to bude tím, že zvuk rockové kapely se nese přeci jen dál než akustické kytary country zpěváků, o nichž se stejně tak nějak předpokládá, že budou spokojeně grilovat steaky z texaských telat a neremcat na poměry. Faktem ovšem je, že umělci vyšlí z country a folkové scény se bouřili proti estabilishmentu v dobách, kdy si budoucí rockové stars šedesátých let hrály ještě v uhlácích na horníky. Takovým připomenutím je slavná píseň Woody Guthrieho This Land Is Your Land, kterou Pepper v razantním bezmála "pogues" aranžmá zařadil na své album. Druhou převzatou je Soldier´s Joy, tradicionál s údajným datem vzniku 1820, jenž je naopak pojat v tradičním duchu akustické country.

Ačkoli byste od Jeffersona Peppera podle řady vnějších znaků a vcelku klasického country rockového modelu, na jaký lze v USA běžně narazit více méně v každé druhé venkovské tančírně, čekali právě ty spokojené chvilky u barbeque, ve skutečnosti je debut Christmas in Fallujah politický od sklepa až na půdu. Počínaje satirickým bookletem, kde bojují figurky vojáčků mezi vánočními ozdobami, strýčka Sama pózujícího po boku Santa Clause a panáčka, jež třímá nad hlavou nápis It´s not about oil a konče názvy písní (M16, Armageddon For Sale) a samozřejmě obsahem jejich témat.

Promo výkřiky ve smyslu "americana folk-punk troubadour" je nutné brát s rezervou. Přestože je deska skutečně hodně energická a nivých country popěvků je minimum, řeči o punku bych si být vydavatelem protentokrát snad raději odpustil. Pokud by se však přeci jen mělo žonglovat s žánry, tak vedle country a rocku, naleznete něco málo folku, bluegrassu a jižanského rocku ve stylu Lynyrd Skynyrd (podobnost riffu z Plastic Illuminated Snowman s tím ze slavné Sweet Home Alabama je až zarážející). Dokonce se našlo i několik pasáží, které čerpají z grungeové minulosti (vokální linku z Armageddon For Sale byste čekali spíše od Kurta, popřípadě Eddieho, než od kovboje z Pennsylvanie), což je vzhledem k věku hlavního aktéra vcelku pochopitelné.

Nejenom country živ je Jefferson Pepper. Vedle "povinných" hrdinů (Hank Williams, Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Lucinda Williams, Steve Earle) přiznává ovlivnění i těmi, jejichž cílem je country "podkopat zevnitř" (Uncle Tupelo, Neil Young, Wilco, Bad Livers, Whiskeytown), resp. klasiky, kteří žánrové hranice s oblibou překračují, resp. překračovali (Tom Waits, Patti Smith, Bruce Springsteen, Talking Heads, Ramones). Pepperův debut si v současné době velmi slušně vede v country hitparádách i rádiích, přičemž vzhledem k výše zmíněné rozmanitosti má jistou šanci oslovit i jiné než striktně countryové publikum. Každopádně na debut velmi slušné!

Don’t be misled. There are bright, shiny baubles on the cover, song titles containing the words Christmas and Bethlehem, even one song called ‘Christmas Tree’ and the whole package is festively clad in red. But this is no 'Phil Spector Christmas Album' and the sound of Nat King Cole couldn’t be further away. The toy soldiers lurking behind those Christmas decorations on the cover, the banner declaring “It’s Not About The Oil” held up by a smiling Christmas elf on the CD inlay and other song titles like ‘M-16’ paint a truer picture that all is not well with this world, Christmas or not, and serves as notice that Jefferson Pepper is not about to get all sentimental on us.

Billed as "an Americana Folk-Punk Troubadour" by his record company which is without a doubt the best way of describing new talent Pepper, this album was released in some countries last year and is now finally available in the UK through American Fallout Records.

Pepper has been writing songs for 20 years but ‘Christmas In Fallujah’ is his debut album. He financed the recording by taking out a second mortgage on the home he built in the hills of rural Pennsylvania. The album is dedicated to his neighbour, 21 year old David Maple. Maple joined the army to train as a medic and is now serving with the US army in Iraq. The title song of this album is the tale of a soldier stationed in Iraq and is quite simply one of the most effecting and heartbreaking songs you will ever hear. It’s also one of the best anti-war / protest songs / call it whatever you like ever to be recorded. Ever. As this is in the year that Neil Young also released one of his best ever albums in ‘Living With War’, one wonders if Young had heard ‘Christmas In Fallujah’ before he recorded that album. The two singer-songwriters obviously feel the same way about a lot of things in the world today.

But while Young returned to the electric guitar rocking stance for his album Pepper has taken a much broader sweep. For starters not all the songs are about the evils of war. Pepper touches upon failed relationships along with his feelings on all that is wrong with his country. Then on a musical level he touches a number of bases; acoustic laments rub shoulders with what is best described as a punk-rock version of Woody Guthrie’s ‘This Land Is Your Land’ before taking in the traditional instrumental ‘Soldier’s Joy’, all mandolin and fiddle along the way. But not once does Pepper let his obvious talent for writing strong melodies with either cutting or heartbreaking lyrics slip.

Space doesn’t allow a track by track review which is what this album really deserves so to concentrate on just a couple of the songs I’d choose the aforementioned title track as the first one. And that really demands that the lyrics are printed in full with Pepper twisting the lyrics of certain Christmas songs in the chorus of ‘Christmas In Fallujah’(“Uncle Sam’s made a list he’s checking it twice…sometimes the names they get mixed up, if we get it right half the time that’s close enough”). This is after the song opens with a sad, lonely fiddle and Pepper taking on the role of a soldier (“I bring the gift of freedom through unprovoked attack”). We later hear the same soldier declare “I’m sorry about your mother; she’s somewhere down in a hole”. I can only repeat what I wrote earlier; the song is simply heartbreaking. You can almost hear Steve Earle thinking “Wish I’d written that!”

But to show another side of Pepper’s writing I’d choose the failed relationship song which is ‘Bethlehem, PA’. With dobro, mandolin, fiddle and pedal steel it’s an alt-country gem of a song and Pepper again shows he can write lyrics that few can match (“She never asked for anything, I gave her what she asked”). All wrapped up in such a gorgeous melody; the song is simply stunning.

The album is very eclectic as said before; it’s just amazing that Pepper can take on all genres and excel at them all. But by doing so Pepper has made the best album of the year so far and as November is looming it’s highly unlikely that anything else yet to be released this year is even going to come remotely close.

Most of us had resigned ourselves to the fact that it was only the older stagers like Neil Young who could be bothered to make any kind of stand about Iraq and/ or the Bush Administration, so to find a new, committed and compassionate voice of the calibre of JEFFERSON PEPPER’S howling decisively in the dark is something of a boon to say the least.

Not least because the pointedly-titled ‘Christmas In Fallujah’ is an Americana classic-in-waiting from one of the most politically-charged, gifted and angry singer/ songwriters to hit us from across the pond since Steve Earle. Indeed, it was the drafting of Jefferson’s childhood friend David Maples (as an American Army medic to Iraq) which was the catalyst in persuading JP to record this excellent debut album with the help of influential friends such as guitarist John Fritchey (Tarnation, Wayne Supergenius) and dobro/ banjo player John Farmer (Bill Monroe, Del McCoury) in his native Pennsylvania with producer Marshall Deasy at the controls.

Musically, the results are an energized and focussed melting pot of rock, country and punk, with liberal dashes of Appalachian folk and bluegrass tipped in as and when required. Inevitably, the ghosts of protest singers past such as Woody Guthrie and Phil Ochs spring to mind, but also maverick roots trailblazers such as Steve Earle, John Prine and Townes Van Zandt, and the rock’n’roll spirit of cross-pollinators like Uncle Tupelo, The Replacements and The Bottle Rockets is also guzzled down like the potent firewater it surely is.

However bilious JP may be, though, his ire is always tempered with compassion and tenderness and his work is every bit as effective when his band bring it down for tracks like the pedal-steel assisted country canter of ‘Back To 1999’ where Pepper’s vivid portrait of the reclusive, apartment-bound guy who’s lost it all since redundancy (“surrounded by souvenirs of failure and despair”) is – in its’ way – every bit as tragic as the lot of the guy who spends his days communicating with the speaking clock in Scott Walker’s ‘Time Operator.’ Great though this is, it’s probably usurped by the gentle, hymnal Americana of ‘Why?’, where dignified fiddle, sympathetic steel and chapel organ forge the perfect, graceful tribute to those lost in action as a result of the senseless events in Iraq.

It’s not all relentlessly political, of course. Indeed, like Billy Bragg, Pepper sometimes reserves his best work for his more personal observations and tracks like the spurned-lover scenario of ‘Christmas Tree’ or the melancholic, lovelorn ‘Bethlehem, PA’ which is caressed beautifully by Ray Eicher’s gorgeous silver shards of pedal steel. Nonetheless, he’s in no mood to shy away from his feelings and brings it all together for – fittingly – a buzzsaw, punkabilly thrash through Woody Guthrie’s ‘This Land Is Your Land’ which sounds like the filthiest alliance of The Minutemen, Mojo Nixon and The Ramones imaginable. I was about to say it’s the ideal way to conclude the record, but there’s also a ‘hidden’ track called ‘Plastic Illuminated Snowman’ which makes emotional reference to a widowed Hiroshima victim and mirrors the wartime follies still being perpetrated in the name of modern day America.

You shouldn’t get the wrong impression, of course. Jefferson Pepper – rightly – loves the land he’s from, but has been galvanised into speaking out about Iraq by the treatment of his fellow man. He’s a brave, inspired and erudite man who’s unafraid of being muzzled by corporate America and has the guts to be defiant. It would be easy to paint him as some kind of ‘new’ Springsteen, shaping himself as a blue collar hero, but I doubt very much such a notion was ever the point. ‘Christmas In Fallujah’ is a personally-motivated, politically-resonant debut that all right-minded roots-loving individuals can relate to and will surely return to for years to come. One can only pray David Maples makes it home safely to hear what his friend has recorded in his absence.

With a vaguely Dylan/Earle nasal vocal and a musical framework that takes jangly Americana folk rock as its centre and goes off at punk and bluegrass tangents, the Pennsylvania born Baptist raised Pepper keeps up the protest themes pretty much throughout, the snarling punk of M-16 mixing up single-minded defence contractors and the way kids are indoctrinated into violence with war toys, the moody Armageddon For Sale (with its reference to Genesis and The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway) noting how freedom is often used as a blind for other agendas, and the organ and pedal steel slow waltzing Why? telling of the grieving mother of a dead soldier.

It’s not all about war though, Pepper’s concerns embrace social and personal issues too. The cruising guitar rock Interstate Highway addresses how consumer culture drives the American Dream, the jerky rocking Stranded laments the state of contemporary American architecture and urban planning, while Back To 1999 is a sad country rolling portrait of a worker surrounded by his ‘souvenirs of failure and despair’, fallen into booze soaked decline after losing his money in the Enron scandal and made redundant when the factory relocated to a cheaper work force in Mexico.

Disillusion rears its head again on Deceived, using a child’s discovery that Santa doesn’t exist and mom and dad lied as an image of how we’re constantly fed bull about the Yellow Brick Road. And there’s relationships heartache too with the angry rejected lover in the uptempo rocking Christmas Tree and the much more forlorn poignancy of the keening Bethelem, PA.

The album’s rounded out with a fierce punk bluegrassed cover of Woody’s This Land Is Your Land in the manner of Jason & The Scorchers and The Pogues, a lovely instrumental banjo, mandolin and fiddle reading of the traditional Soldier’s Joy and the hidden bonus Plastic Illuminated Snowman, a bluesy number about a survivor of Hiroshima and a Japan ‘basked in the glow of American fallout.’ Unlikely to rival Slade, Bing or Wham in the list of Christmas musical favourites, even so it’s a welcome alternative voice to the usual chestnuts roasting by the open fire.

Die kleinen, schwer bewaffneten Zinnsoldaten, die sich das Cover mit Weihnachtsbaumkugeln und Nussknacker teilen, lassen erahnen, dass es sich hierbei nicht um ein heimeliges Album für die schönste Zeit des Jahres handelt. Jefferson Pepper ist nicht der Weihnachtsmärchen-Onkel, er ist vielmehr das Gewissen des anderen Amerika, der nicht nervende, erhobene Zeigefinger. Seine Geschichten sind Beobachtungen einer verwirrten, verängstigten Nation, deren Antwort auf eigene Unzulänglichkeiten Krieg lautet. Das ist engagiert und gut verpackt vorgetragen, in einer Mischung aus Country und Folk und mit einer sorgfältig eingewebten Liebe zu Rock. Gelegentlich klingt das so angenehm glatt wie ein David Munyon-Album (Deceived), erinnert beispielsweis bei Stranded an einen guten Steve Wynn-Song, bei Armageddon for sale an einen rockigen, weniger stillen und zerrissenen Vic Chesnutt. Beim Woody Guthrie Cover This land is your land winken abschließend sogar deutlich die POGUES, nur leider zwischendurch auch ab und zu langweiliges folk-tümliches Weihnachtsklingeling (Back To 1999, Christmas Tree).

Es ist nicht so, dass man sich vor Aufregung schon die Fingernägel abbeißen müsste in Erwartung des zweiten Jefferson Pepper Albums, aber "Christmas In Fallujah" beschwört den Gedanken herauf, dass das nächste Album mit ein bisschen Glück richtig gut werden könnte - oder eben total belanglos.