Bonnie “Prince” Billy marches to his own beat. As a musician he’s recorded with everyone from Johnny Cash to Bitchin Bajas, he’s acted in John Sayle’s movie Matewan and appeared with Zach Galifianakis in a Kayne West video. He does things his own way, which is why The Purple Bird is only his second record with an outside producer, his old friend and sometime band-mate David Ferguson, making this recording just a bit different than the other recordings in his catalog.
Some variations are obvious from the outset. Will Oldham’s voice is a little sweeter, the piano and guitars a little clearer, and the songs (at least some of them) have more of a country feel, although nothing on the album is quite that simple. The songs (often written in conjunction with other artists, including John Anderson, Pat McLaughlin, Tommy Prine and Roger Cook) tell their tales in a more straight-forward fashion. There’s a sense of economy; no words are wasted.
There’s a plea to ‘Turned to Dust (Rolling On)’ that’s hard to ignore. Amidst the piano and guitar rests a sense of deceptive simplicity to the band’s playing, “Right is right and wrong is wrong/ No matter what side you’re standing on/ Can’t we all just get along/ Life keeps rolling on.” The unpretentiousness to that sentiment hard to ignore.
A straight ahead country track like ‘Tonight with the Dogs I’m Sleeping’ seems as pure as a country stream yet the fiddle merges with the organ and trumpet coming out of the chorus is something exceptional, “Sleeping with the dogs tonight, howling at the moon/ Seems like the morning light always comes too soon/ I’m all bark and she’s all bite/ I’m sleeping with the dogs tonight.” Clearly, the protagonist living with a woman gets pretty angry.
The steel guitar on ‘Boise, Idaho’ cries with a palpable sense of sadness, while the chorus of voices only adds to the song’s sorrow. While the combination of the left-leaning Oldham and the right-wing politics of John Anderson may initially seem at odds, they find more than a little sense of common ground on ‘Downstream’ as the uillean pipe and whistles add to the need to do something about pollution while we still have time.
When it comes to a song title, ‘One of These Days (I’m Gonna Spend the Whole Night with You)’ is about as country as it comes. The gentleness of the song, though, instead of seeming at odds with the sentiment, fits perfectly. There are no disguises for Billy/Oldham to hide behind. Everything is out in the open.
Bonnie “Prince” Billy has always followed his own path, listening, learning and doing whatever he sees fit. The Purple Bird is a remarkable achievement, capturing an ever-changing artist doing exactly what he wants, working at the height of his powers and trusting his muse.
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