Search - Blue Rags :: Eat at Joe's

When this North Carolina quintet went into the studio to make their gloriously rambunctious 1997 debut Rag-N-Roll, they were enthusiastic youngsters who knew nothing about the studio process. The result was an irresistible, rollicking blend of ragtime, old-time, blues, and bluegrass delivered with reckless abandon. Unfortunately, much of that loose and wild spontaneity is lost on this 1999 follow-up. Whereas Rag-N-Roll mixed in a variety of supercharged covers (ranging from Leadbelly to Professor Longhair to Jelly Roll Morton) with delightfully offhanded originals, Eat at Joe's contains 12 originals, mostly clichéd reflections about the road, the girl, and "the biz." (The one cover is a blistering but "hidden" version of Jimmy Martin's "Freeborn Man," ironically the record's most compelling cut.) The record does grow on you with repeated listens, but then again, the beauty of Rag-N-Roll was its immediacy--its ability to grab hold of you from the get-go. The Rags deserve credit for trying to mature and develop their sound and their songwriting, but in doing so, they've played away from their strengths. --Marc Greilsamer