Loudon Wainwright III – High Wide & Handsome: The Charlie Poole Project

Album Reviews • Monday November 23rd, 2009 • 11:06 am

Loudon Wainwright’s High Wide & Handsome is billed as The Charlie Poole Project — not, you will notice, The Charlie Poole Album. And that’s fitting. Weighing in at two discs and containing a thick booklet complete with historical notes and biographical date, even an essay by Americana guru Greil Marcus, the album is something much more than a typical tribute album. But its sheer girth and lavish extras aren’t what set it apart: What truly amazes is that this isn’t just a set that cherry-picks the best or more famous songs associated with Poole, but it actually makes a respectable effort at representing the artist in his full, multi-faceted entirety.

That means something different when we’re talking about Charlie Poole than it would, say, Wainwright himself, or any other singer/songwriter from the past sixty years. Poole’s era was a different one indeed: A string-band minstrel who rose to prominence in the 1920s, Poole was a working musician at a time when being a working musician didn’t mean selling albums or packing stadiums. Instead, it meant traveling from one regional dancehall or honky tonk to the next and giving the people what they want. A musician like Poole may have been gifted at writing songs in a country-blues or folk vein, but if he wanted to eat he had to be all things to all people, which meant making music people could dance to — and making sure everyone in town was going to like what he played.

Thus, in assembling a collection of songs that represent the full breadth of Poole’s talents, Wainwright has, by necessity, amassed a varied and far-reaching batch of material, and, even at two discs, this is still just a primer, not a completist’s set. That said, the selections here are eclectic indeed. There are folk songs, to be sure, but also honky-tonkers, jokey novelty songs, treacly ballads, even a gospel song. (Even then, it was important to play to the religious set.) Wainwright and producer Dick Connette throw equal weight behind these varied selections, and High Wide & Handsome is winsome in its dogged sense of completion. It’s not just an homage, but a thorough one. Wainwright approached this project with geekish enthusiasm, not only documenting the most minor of details about Poole’s own work but even roping his entire family into the studio to sing these songs with him.

I would argue, though, that a more creative interpretation of Poole’s career — not such a black-and-white recreation of it — would be more illuminating. Certainly, this is a case when a bit of revisionist history might have been helpful. That Wainwright should feel a connection to Poole is understandable; both are criminally underrated folk musicians, both briefly attained fame on the basis of a novelty tune, and both, apparently, like their booze a little too much. And the songs that speak more plainly to these connections are the best ones here.

But not all of these songs are timeless: Doing a little something for everyone meant making a few concessions to commercial considerations or even outright gimmickry, and not all of Poole’s material makes as much sense in 2009 as I’m sure it did in the 1920s. There are parlor folk songs that pay maddeningly tender tribute to the singer’s girl—and sometimes his mama, too—and there are goofy novelty songs that honestly aren’t that funny.

Or at least they’re not as funny, to these ears, as some of Wainwright’s own material. Thankfully, there is some of that here, as well; nine of these songs are originals that pay tribute to Poole’s style and his continuing influence, and the most poignant act of homage here is that Wainwright’s own songs are just as good as Poole’s: He hasn’t just absorbed a few tricks from his idol, but he’s internalized them and put his own stamp on them. High Wide & Handsome is sometimes as much about Wainwright as it is Poole, and it’s at those moments that it really shines.