Whiskeytown - Pneumonia (2001)

BIOGRAPHY
by Steve Huey
A band with as turbulent an existence as Whiskeytown was bound to implode sooner or later, but by the time they did, they had one of the largest cult followings of any alt-country band. Most accounts traced the source of all the turmoil to bandleader Ryan Adams, a gifted young songwriter whose flashes of brilliance came hand in hand with a volatile temper and an appetite for alcohol. Adams became notorious for his outbursts and erratic performances, and countless disputes with bandmates (some of them on-stage) inevitably led to frequent personnel changes. Yet during their five-year lifespan, Whiskeytown made some undeniably compelling music that only increased the mystique around their enfant terrible leader.Whiskeytown was formed in 1994 in Raleigh, NC, by singer/guitarist/banjoist Adams, a 20-year-old ex-punk rocker who'd discovered the country-rock of Gram Parsons. The band's other charter members were fiddler/occasional lead singer Caitlin Cary, guitarist Phil Wandscher, bassist Steve Grothmann, and drummer Eric "Skillet" Gilmore. They cut a seven-song EP called Angels for the local indie Mood Food in 1995 and quickly followed it with their full-length debut, Faithless Street, in early 1996. Strongly indebted to Parsons, Uncle Tupelo, and the Replacements, the album earned rave reviews from the alt-country press (No Depression magazine in particular), and a performance at that year's South by Southwest music festival helped net them a deal with the Geffen roots affiliate Outpost. Mood Food issued Rural Free Delivery, a compilation of early recordings, in 1997, the same year Whiskeytown completed their major-label debut, Stranger's Almanac. There was already a new rhythm section, in the person of bassist Jeff Rice and drummer Steven Terry, and Wandscher left not long after the album was released that summer.The supporting tour for Stranger's Almanac was a stormy one, doing much to earn Adams his bad-boy reputation, and by the time the dust settled, Adams and Cary were the only members standing. They added multi-instrumentalist Mike Daly, who not only played keyboards, guitar, pedal and lap steel, mandolin, mandocello, and dulcimer, but also co-wrote a great deal of material with Adams for the band's next album. Supporting musicians came and went at a furious pace, including onetime fIREHOSE member Ed Crawford and original drummer Gilmore. Somehow, a semistable studio lineup coalesced long enough to complete Pneumonia, the third official Whiskeytown album, in 1999. However, a series of label mergers shelved the record indefinitely, during which time it was heavily bootlegged and acquired a strong underground reputation. With the album in limbo, Whiskeytown gave up the ghost. Adams released his solo debut, Heartbreaker, in 2000, and Cary issued her own solo EP, Waltzie, that year as well. Pneumonia was finally released in 2001 on the Universal roots subsidiary Lost Highway and earned some of the group's strongest reviews yet for its eclectic approach. Adams' second solo album, Gold, appeared in 2002, and Cary released the solo albums While You Weren't Looking and I'm Staying Out in 2002 and 2003, respectively.

REVIEW
by Mark Deming
Whiskeytown had ceased to be a band in the truest sense by the time they recorded their third (and final) full-length album, Pneumonia; the group began to collapse during the touring following Strangers' Almanac, with members coming and going at a remarkable pace, and for the Pneumonia sessions, the only musicians on hand who had appeared on Faithless Street three years earlier were lead vocalist and songwriter Ryan Adams and violinist and backing vocalist Caitlin Cary. Multi-instrumentalist Mike Daly and percussionist/producer Ethan Johns dominated the sessions' sprawling cast of players, with James Iha and Tommy Stinson popping up on some tracks. Ultimately, Pneumonia sounds more like a Ryan Adams solo project than anything else, and it walks a decidedly different path than the Whiskeytown albums that preceded it — there are no charging rockers in the manner of "Drank Like a River" or "Yesterday's News," and the country twang of "Too Drunk to Dream" or "Someone Remembers the Rose" has receded into the background (though Cary's violin and occasional mandolin or steel guitar lines from Daly do add a high-lonesome undertow to several songs, especially the plaintive "Sit and Listen to the Rain" and "My Hometown"). This is easily Whiskeytown's most ambitious and eclectic work, and the sparkling pop of "Don't Be Sad" and "Mirror Mirror," the lovely faux-tropicalia of "Paper Moon," the haunting tape-loop reverie of "What the Devil Wanted," and low-key power balladry of "Crazy About You" all prove that, despite his reckless public persona, Ryan Adams had gained a wealth of maturity and intelligence (at least as a songwriter and recording artist) since the last time he'd entered a recording studio. Pneumonia was recorded in 1999, but the closing of Outpost Records in the wake of that year's Polygram/ Universal merger put the album on the shelf for two years; in the meantime, Pneumonia developed an underground reputation as a lost classic, and while that description is going a bit far to make a point, it is an undeniably striking and beautifully crafted set of songs, and it's interesting to imagine where this music would have taken Whiskeytown if the album had met its original release date — assuming that Whiskeytown was still a band by the time the record was finished.

CREDITS
Ryan Adams - Guitar, Harmonica, Piano, Vocals, Art Direction
Caitlin Cary - Fiddle, Vocals (bckgr)
Richard Causon - Keyboards
Jennifer Condos - Bass
Mike Daly - Dulcimer, Guitar, Mandolin, Pedal Steel, Keyboards, Vocals (bckgr), Mandocello, Lap Steel Guitar
James Iha - Guitar, Vocals (bckgr)
Ethan Johns - Bass, Guitar, Mandolin, Percussion, Drums, Keyboards, Mandocello
Brad Rice - Guitar
Tommy Stinson - Dobro, Guitar

TRACKS
1 Ballad of Carol Lynn (Adams, Daly) 3:03
2 Don't Wanna Know Why (Adams, Cary, Daly) 3:56
3 Jacksonville Skyline (Adams) 3:00
4 Reasons to Lie (Adams, Daly) 3:27
5 Don't Be Sad (Adams, Daly, Iha) 3:21
6 Sit & Listen to the Rain (Adams) 4:04
7 Under Your Breath (Adams, Daly) 3:26
8 Mirror, Mirror (Adams, Daly) 3:15
9 Paper Moon (Adams) 4:40
10 What the Devil Wanted (Adams, Daly) 3:38
11 Crazy About You (Adams) 2:44
12 My Hometown (Adams) 2:44
13 Easy Hearts (Adams, Cary) 5:06
14 Bar Lights (Adams) 7:27

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