Despite a COVID ravaged year’s worth of performance dates, Joe Troop, the GRAMMY-nominated bandleader for Che Apalache has not stopped. During that time, he took to the rural roads of North Carolina and the American South, pushing to get out the vote among rural progressives and interviewing those most affected by Trump’s horrific policies. After a year of learning direct action from stalwart progressive organizers, he’s now channelling that energy into his first proper solo album.
Borrowed Time, out August 20 on Free Dirt Records, may feature big names like Béla Fleck (who produced Che Apalache’s GRAMMY-nominated album), Abigail Washburn, Tim O’Brien, and Charlie Hunter, but the powerful songwriting speaks for itself and is designed to push listeners out of their comfort zones.
You can hear this for yourself on the timely released Red, White & Blues below (out today). His delivery is nothing short of brilliant, from the yodelling chorus line to his wry observations about the “jumbled mess of white myth”, don’t let the light-hearted sound of his music mislead you…he packs a lyrical punch that is all the more potent for it.
As noted in the album’s press: This is the kind of activism that got Pete Seeger blacklisted, and Troop’s no stranger to controversy, having been chased off stages and threatened for his radical songs. But as an openly gay man growing up playing bluegrass in the South, Troop never had a choice, he had to stand up for what he believed in, no matter the consequences. With Borrowed Time, Troop is doing much more than just bringing together a group of great musicians to embody songs of protest, he’s building on his community of activists and organizers to tell his own story and the stories of those whose voices have been pushed down. “I’m just cutting my teeth as an organizer,” Troop says, “but being in the presence of someone like my mentor Presidente Baldemar Velasquez of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee is an amazing honor and an opportunity to learn how to do this kind of work without demonizing the opposition, to leave an open door for dialogue.”
More power to him.
Joe Troop on Red, White & Blues:
“I wrote this song a month or so before recording my album and immediately summoned Tim and Nokosee’s pony magic. I consider it my homecoming song. (You see, the pandemic landed me back in North Carolina after a decade in Buenos Aires.)
“The 4th of July is really odd. People celebrate the independence of a nation while gorging on grilled sausages and decking themselves out in a bunch of patriotic trash produced in China. It’s very similar to a sporting event, but with a far greater impact on collective identity. Nonetheless, younger generations’ disinterest in celebrating is noteworthy. There’s a major zeitgeist shift in the US right now, and the declaration of Juneteenth as a federal holiday has placed the convergence of nationalism and white identity under the microscope. Not surprisingly, Dixie’s death growl grows ever more deafening.
“It’s hard to stomach the ridiculousness of white identity in the US, our convoluted sense of history and heritage so stained by the heinous truths that so many stubbornly deny. Writing this song brought me healing. And I hope it can help others rejoice in the possibility of owning up to the trash heap which is our identity: this jumbled mess of white myth, fake-fur coonskin hats, consumerism and imports, Kraft macaroni and cheese, nationalism, unemployment, junk cars, indebtedness, classism, smokey dive bars, country music, Disney World, desperation and hard liquor.”
“Red, White & Blues” from Joe Troop’s upcoming solo album ‘Borrowed Time’ (out August 20th). Pre-order: https://lnk.to/jtborrowedtime.
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You can also catch Joe Troop on the upcoming Online Festival – Streaming Across the Sea – http://www.truenorthmusic.co.uk/streaming-across-the-sea/
Photo Credit: Kendall Atwater