“This is great rootsy rock music. Halford’s slide playing is raucous, raw and foreboding. His poetry transcends the run-of-the-mill lyrics.”
NO DEPRESSION
“...Halford’s storytelling talents are obvious, almost a Hemingway armed with a blues guitar.”
DIRTY LINEN
With songwriting that nods as much towards Sam Shephard and Jack Kerouac as it does to the usual songwriting gods, Hunkpapa captures the multi-faceted soul of America past, present, and maybe future as well. This album is a redemptive journey that just happens to be a collection of songs.
Long admired as a songwriter, Halford shows a new muscularity on Hunkpapa. His fiercely idiosyncratic songs create an original vision that blurs the distinctions of time and space, and the barriers between the deeply mysterious and the plaintive. Hunkpapa deftly intertwines our own American mythology with those things about which we care most.
While each song stands sturdily on its own, the force of Hunkpapa may be in its collective effect. These songs, like a strange new mirror, emanate a reflection that calls us to our better nature.
The core music in Hunkpapa is all Healers: a searing, rock gumbo combining essential ingredients of blues, folk, rockabilly, Sun Records country, all with a very big beat. The texture of each song is so true that you can feel it coming up through the soil of the Great Plains, the sweltering meltyour- shoes asphalt on Beale Street, the break-your-back lettuce fields of the San Joaquin Valley.
Hunkpapa is complemented by an array of notable guest artists, including members of the renowned Gospel Hummingbirds, who practically sanctify the gospel-infused Satchel’s Fastball. Also on hand is Bay Area guitar great Chuck Prophet, who lends inspired support on two of the tracks, Steve Bowman (ex-Counting Crows) on drums, Trey Sabatelli (Jefferson Starship, Todd Rundgren) on drums, and Myron Dove (ex-Santana) on bass.
Can rock music really redeem America? Listen to Hunkpapa and you decide. Check out more! Go to his web site jeffreyhalford.com
