Healthy White Baby CD

Given their pasts as part of the Blacks and Blue Mountain, you might think that Danny Black and Laurie Stirratt's new project would be another alt-country band. Think again. There's still just a touch of twang left in Healthy White Baby, but for the most part they've traded it in for a rocking garage punk stomp. Recorded at Black's house, the production is tough and lean with a no-frills guitar/bass/drums lineup and minimal overdubs (generally just another guitar). Black's guitars are loud and Stirratt even adds a little fuzz bass on a set of tunes that more often than not deal with love gone wrong (not surprising considering both were in bands with their exes). Sure there's some bitterness, but that kind of bile can give strength, too, and that's what comes across on Healthy White Baby. And it's not all bitterness and acrimony. There's a touching Bill Monroe cover, a bit of dark humor, and the album closes on a hopeful note with "Home." There's nothing especially earth-shattering or revelatory here, just another band armed with three chords and the truth: a formula that's served up great rock & roll for about 50 years. ~ Sean Westergaard

I first met Laurie when we toured together when I was in The Blacks (bloodshot) and she was in Blue Mountain (roadrunner, black dog). Years later, Laurie moved to Chicago after Blue Mountain broke up and we met up again while we were both working at the Hideout, a great Chicago bar…Whenever we were working together I always loved the music she brought in, Otis Redding, Skip James, Lee Dorsey, The Faces, Black Sabbath, CCR. Besides being impressed and enlightened by her musical tastes, we also had a lot in common as far as our former bands, having both played with our exes with disasterous results. We both knew what it was like to have our bands and our relationships break up at the same time. It can take a little out of you. When we met up again, The Blacks had been broken up for years and I had made a few unsuccessful attempts at getting a new band together but something was always a little off and it was wearing me out. I was happy doing home remodeling and painting religious icon-type portraits of my favorite women like Lauren Bacall and Mahalia Jackson. I figured I’d just play music strictly for fun and not even bother trying to get a band together anymore. I even got a drum machine and spent 3 years recording and rerecording songs by myself. I got to play my trumpet and my lap steel but God, those songs were depressing. I’ll release it sometime, cause the songs came out good but since I didn’t have anyone to tell me “enough already”, I messed with them so long I didn’t want to have to play them anymore. Playing with Laurie got me excited (in a strictly platonic way) about playing with a band again cause it felt so good and was so easy. Laurie met Ryan through a mutual friend and I finally felt like I had band with some chemistry. After Laurie, Ryan and I had been playing together for a couple months, we recorded the record ourselves at my house in two weeks. I wanted to keep it simple and stripped down without thinking about it too much and ruining it, just vocals, guitar, bass and drums. I was inspired by the sound and simplicity of CCR and Velvet Underground records… since we’re a trio, I wanted to use it to our advantage instead of using a lot of overdubs to fill out the songs. I wanted to leave space in the arrangements. Healthy White Baby was lifted from a line in one of my favorite movies “Raising Arizona”. I just liked the way it sounded but I also thought it was a fitting name for my next band considering what a dysfunctional band The Blacks were. I bought the artwork that’s on the album cover from a local artist who’s as obsessed with religious art as I am. The piece is about overcoming death and new life, that’s a bit heavy but I immediately fell in love with the art and it fit so well with this band being a new start.

Photographer: Jim NewberryUncut (p.92) - 3 stars out of 5 -- "[I]t's a riffola feast that evokes the spirit of Credence Clearwater Revival or Uncle Tupelo..."