![]() Handclaps and slide guitar accompany the five-part harmony. The lead track of their latest album, Trouble I Wrought, “Mama’s Got the Backbeat,” gives me chills as they repeat the chorus of Mama’s got the backbeat, praise the lord. ![]() Their sound has all the earmarks of a revival meeting rave-up sometime in the ’30s, with a muscular intensity and an exalting lift. We hear part of a sermon about David and Goliath: “…David was a young man …” that fades out on a gospel singer’s soaring voice.Īll that’s missing in Bobtown’s two albums is the static. A ghost-like broadcast of an ancient gospel program floats in on the ether from decades earlier. I’m reminded of the late Chris Whitley’s song, “Dust Radio.” As the song fades out, we hear the fiddling of a dial on an old radio and a high whining static. Without knowing this, it’s still apparent that the band’s music taps deep into the roots of the American heartland. Bobtown, the band, is named after an outcropping of blue-collar homes located along the banks of the Des Moines River in Fort Dodge, Iowa.
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