Mudcrutch

Mudcrutch

Reprise Records

By Bud Scoppa

Mudcrutch has to go down as one of the great improbable "what if?" records in rock history, right alongside Brian Wilson's Smile, which the Beach Boys auteur started in 1966 and finally got around to completing in 2004. But this long-disbanded group from Gainesville, Florida, formed by Tom Petty and some pals in 1970, goes Wilson one better, because the 10 original songs on this 14-cut album weren't even written until 30-some-odd years after Mudcrutch broke up, though they sure do sound like they've been around for a good while, just like the players, aged 55 to 58 years old.

Last summer, out of the blue, Petty called former Mudcrutch guitarist Tom Leadon in suburban Nashville, where he's a high school music teacher, and drummer Randall Marsh in Florida, where he tutors aspiring drummers and plays in bar bands for fun, convincing them he was serious about making a Mudcrutch album; the band's discography consisted of one failed single. When they got the news, Heartbreakers Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench, also onetime Mudcrutch members, had one question: Why?

This album provides a persuasive answer to that reasonable question. Here's Petty's description of the sessions from the credits, and it reads just like Mudcrutch sounds: "Drums, wires, old friends, etc. Recorded live, vocals, harmony, everything. Arrangements done on studio floor. Made in 10 days, no headphones, Los Angeles in August '07."

In anticipation of the sessions, Petty banged out some tunes on the fly, much as he'd done with the Traveling Wilburys 20 years ago, so they'd have something to work with. Then the five musicians gathered at the Heartbreakers' San Fernando Valley rehearsal space, which had been turned into a makeshift studio for the occasion, set the Wayback Machine to 1972, plugged in and proceeded to let 'er rip. Listening to these performances, you can readily imagine the five of them in a circle, cigarette smoke hanging in the air, watching each other's body language for the wordless cues, Petty on the bass, his Mudcrutch axe, Leadon trading licks with Campbell and locking in the harmony part behind T.P. as if it was second nature.

The LP stands as this once-upon-a-band's take on what Gram Parsons famously described as cosmic American music, encompassing the hippie-billy melodramas "Orphan of the Storm" and "House of Stone," the Crazy Horse shuffle "Topanga Cowgirl," topped off with harmonies that would make CS&N envious, the tough-as-nails Stonesy romp "The Wrong Thing to Do," with Petty using his voice as a rhythm instrument, and the spiky rave-up "Bootleg Flyer," on which Leadon and Campbell's guitars fly in close formation, like Duane Allman and Dickie Betts. They'd don't neglect the Beatles, either, slipping a lilting B-section right out of Revolver into the long-distance love song "Maria."

Making sure we get the idea, they've thrown hell-raising covers of the old Dave Dudley truckers' stomper "Six Days on the Road," a staple of the Flying Burrito Brothers (of which Leadon's brother Bernie was a member before he became part of the Eagles), and "Lover of the Bayou" from the Byrds' final lineup, with Campbell handling the McGuinn jangle (no stretch there) and Leadon more remarkably spinning out quicksilver lines in the manner of the late, great Clarence White.

"Lover of the Bayou" was part of Mudcrutch's extensive repertoire in their early days as a bar band, when they grinded out five sets a night, six nights a week, like countless other aspiring combos. In the early '70s, playing the hits of the day was no great compromise, considering it wouldn't be till years later that art and commerce disconnected. Indeed, the members of Mudcrutch honed their chops by opening up the hoods of classic tunes and finding out what made them tick.

They also break out some electrified bluegrass, opening the record with a hot-rod run through the centuries-old folk song "Shady Grove," with Petty and Leadon trading off lead vocals, and turning the trad "June Apple" into a harmonized-guitar number that splits the difference between the Allman Brothers and Lynyrd Skynyrd (both fellow north Florida bands). Turns out that rockin' up bluegrass tunes was a Mudcrutch specialty, and these nimble-fingered performances bring a burnished texture as well as hot licks to the proceedings, acknowledging the river of folk that fed rock 'n' roll.

There are two tracks on Mudcrutch that grab you by the neck and won't let go, and they couldn't be more different. The first is the instant folk-rock classic "Scare Easy," an anthem of defiance you can just stick right up there with "Refugee," "Even the Losers" and "I Won't Back Down," not just because it's that good a song, but because the band buys into the lyric's sentiment completely, as the rich overtones of Campbell's 12-string Rickenbacker meld with Leadon's Keef-like squalls. And here's the kicker: Mudcrutch's lead singer, who went on to have a few hits fronting a subsequent group, has never sounded any more convincing than he does here, his voice laced with attitude, like the Dylan of "Positively 4th Street." As always, Leadon's harmony is right there, seconding the emotion.

The other mind-blower is "Crystal River, a nine-and-a-half minute rock symphony in which the two guitarists-Leadon mixed to the left and Campbell to the right-urge each other into the stratosphere, where their swooping and soaring over the picturesque topography of Tench's evocative piano explodes into all-out grandeur, on the order of "Layla." Hard to believe they did the song in one take, never having played it before. Rather impressive for the onetime house band of Dub's strip bar in Gainesville.

The whole thing is so immediate you can feel the furnace heat of a San Fernando Valley August blasting out of the speakers, along with the crackle of amps, the whirring Leslie speaker horn and the whacking of sticks on the snare head. Captured in the grooves of Mudcrutch is a rock 'n' roll fever dream of an alternate reality, along with the sense of accomplishment that comes from taking care of some unfinished business. Chalk it up to a wild hair that refused to blow away.