Way Highly

A salty dog of an album, Oklahoma roots musician and one-man band Brad Fielder’s new album (or long-ish EP), Way Highly, is a hallucinogenic romp through the back country of American song. With a kick drum, a fuzzed out guitar, and the kind of overdriven vocals-through-vintage-mics that will remind you of the roughest edges of early rock’n’roll, Fielder is ploughing the same kind of field as the great Scott H Biram. Both are true lovers of the lost history of American folk music, and both put their own indelible stamp on the old songs, reverent to the source, but too chaotic to deliver a faithful rendition. With Way Highly, Fielder’s own original songs rub shoulders with traditional classics like ‘He’s A Mighty Good Leader’ from Skip James and the strange Appalachian song ‘I Wish I Was a Mole in the Ground’. It’s clear that Fielder’s listened to the old country blues masters over and over, rendering a stamp of authenticity to songs of his own like ‘Hundred Dollar Walk’ or ‘Stew Meat Hands’. On ‘Every Day’, he growls ‘I’ll make my living singing songs, every day,’ and you can hear quite clearly the grit and determination that’s carried him across 30 years of live performances.