Ryan Adams Heartbreaker CD

Personnel: Ryan Adams (vocals, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, banjo, harmonica, piano); Ryan Adams; Gillian Welch (vocals, acoustic guitar, banjo, electric bass, bass guitar); Allison Pearce, Allison Pierce (vocals); Pat Sansone (piano, organ, chamberlin, background vocals); Ethan Johns (chamberlin, vibraphone, glockenspiel, drums); David Rawlings (vocals, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, banjo, tambourine); Emmylou Harris, Kim Richey (vocals).
Audio Mixer: Ethan Johns.
Recording information: Pilot Studios, New York, NY; Waltmore St. Studios, Jacksonville, NC; Woodland Studios, Room A, Nashville, TN.
Photographer: David McClister.
As Whiskeytown finally ground to a halt in the wake of an astonishing number of personal changes following Faithless Street (coupled with record company problems that kept their final album, Pneumonia, from reaching stores until two years after it was recorded), Ryan Adams ducked into a Nashville studio for two weeks of sessions with Gillian Welch and David Rawlings. While arch traditionalists Welch and Rawlings would hardly seem like a likely match for alt-country's bad boy, the collaboration brought out the best in Adams; Heartbreaker is loose, open, and heartfelt in a way Whiskeytown's admittedly fine albums never were, and makes as strong a case for Adams' gifts as anything his band ever released. With the exception of the Stones-flavored "Shakedown on 9th Street" and the swaggering "To Be Young (Is to Be Sad, Is to Be High)," Heartbreaker leaves rock & roll on the shelf in favor of a sound that blends low-key folk-rock with a rootsy, bluegrass-accented undertow, and while the album's production and arrangements are subtle and spare, they make up in emotional impact whatever they lack in volume. As a songwriter, Adams concerns himself with the ups and downs of romance rather than the post-teenage angst that dominated Whiskeytown's work, and "My Winding Wheel" and "Damn, Sam (I Love a Woman That Rains)" are warmly optimistic in a way he's rarely been before, while "Come Pick Me Up" shows he's still eloquently in touch with heartbreak. Adams has always been a strong vocalist, but his duet with Emmylou Harris on "Oh My Sweet Carolina" may well be his finest hour as a singer, and the stripped-back sound of these sessions allows him to explore the nooks and crannies of his voice, and the results are pleasing. Whiskeytown fans who loved the "Replacements-go-twang" crunch of "Drank Like a River" and "Yesterday's News" might have a hard time warming up to Heartbreaker, but the strength of the material and the performances suggest Adams is finally gaining some much-needed maturity, and his music is all the better for it. ~ Mark Deming
Whiskeytown were one the mid-'90s wave of bands who approached American roots music--country, folk, singer/songwriter, and combinations thereof--from an alternative rock standpoint. They were apt to be as influenced by Nick Drake and Superchunk as by Johnny Cash and Neil Young. Ryan Adams performs vocal duties for Whiskeytown, and HEARTBREAKER is his first solo album.
It's primarily a singer/songwriter affair, with lots of acoustic guitars, gentle drums, subtle keyboards, and back-porch harmony vocals, but there's also a lot of variety and kick. "To Be Young" tears out of the gate like a rollicking out-take from Dylan's HIGHWAY 61 sessions, and the gentle, shimmering, baroque-tinged "Amy" recalls both the Left Banke, and the Beatles in their "Eleanor Rigby" mode. Many tunes--like "To Be the One"--have a bare-bones, dusty, story-telling quality that recalls Dylan, John Prine, Woody Guthrie, and Steve Earle (who Adams slightly resembles vocally) without ever sounding like Adams is aping them. As a bonus, Emmylou Harris and Gillian Welch supply heavenly harmonies.Rolling Stone (9/14/00, p.177) - 3 stars out of 5 - "...[His] sources run deep...he has the raspy, quavering voice and innate tunefulness to be worthy of [his sources]...which run from Paul Westerberg to Hank Williams....[He has] considerable talent and charm..."
Entertainment Weekly (9/8/00, p.89) - "...A brash, alt-country balladeer with a rock instinct....cementing [his] rep as a latter-day Gram Parsons." - Rating: B+
Q (1/01, p.104) - 4 out of 5 stars - "...An album of aching ballads topped and tailed by some irresistible barroom remorse....Gram Parsons would have been proud."
Uncut (p.92) - "[A] brilliant mix of romantic burn-out, reckless bravado, charred emotions, tender swagger and fractured beauty..."
Alternative Press (5/01, p.104) - Included in AP's "10 Essential Breakup Albums" - "...The torment is all Adams' - we can be certain of that..."
CMJ (1/08/01, p.9) - Included in CMJ's "Best of the Year" for 2000.
CMJ (9/4/00, p.3) - "...A brand-new set of foot-stomping anthems and rum-soaked ballads....[He] is the newest icon of heartfelt country rock."
Mojo (Publisher) (p.61) - Ranked #52 in Mojo's "100 Modern Classics" -- "Adams conjures a kitbag of Dylanesque blues, tear-in-your-beer country and aching Greenwich Village-style folk."
Mojo (Publisher) (11/00, p.98) - "...Haunted and hurting, this is an album about love....though quiet and spare...it's impassioned, lyrically and melodically..."
NME (Magazine) (12/30/00, p.79) - Ranked #45 in NME's "Top 50 Albums Of The Year".
NME (Magazine) (11/25/00, p.34) - 8 stars out of 10 - "...Adams takes sighing acoustic guitars and melancholic country melodies and strips them bare until all that remains are the stinging truths of the heart, and his own ruminations....a fine successor to Jeff Buckley's throne as visionary rock troubador."