Thirty Tigers

Jim Lauderdale and Robert Hunter are at it again. More than decade after Lauderdale first enlisted the lyricist for help on a Ralph Stanley album, the pair initiates a tour of America, with a predilection for southern climes, populated by characters such as Freight Car Betty, while name-checking Jesse James and Elvis Presley (the latter proves fitting as his guitarist James Burton and drummer Ron Tutt appear, along with a stellar cast that includes Garry Tallent and Patti Griffin). The themes are straight out of the country music handbook, where lust and wanderlust predominate. However, with Hunter as co-pilot, the journey is rarely linear. One can imagine Jerry Garcia singing the loping title track, which Lauderdale vests with his own country twang: “Heard Joe Farmer say, if I may/ Serve you breakfast on a supper tray/ Got no eggs, but I saved some shell/ Lost the clapper but I found the bell.” If, on occasion, some of the melodies approach more serviceable realms, Lauderdale’s vocals (and by extension Hunter’s lyrics) hold sway. “Up My Sleeve” finds him intoning, “We all know meaning is essentially a relative thing/ What you can’t exactly say you can sometimes sing.” On Patchwork River, he is up to the task.