Rich Hopkins and Billy Sedlmayr
The Fifty Percenter
Hayden's Ferry Records

by William Michael Smith

If Steve Earle moved to Arizona and hung out a few years, he'd probably sound a lot like Rich Hopkins and Billy Sedlmayr. Or join their band. In fact, given songwriter/vocalist Billy Sedlmayr's "time away," it is fair to say his background mirrors Earle's to some extent. Sedlmayr's voice is certainly reminiscent of Earle's informed, hip, streetwise, edgy Southern drawl and his lyrical view is just as Sprinsteenian as Earle's.

It's not a conscious "let's-copy-Steve" thing, but there is an awful lot about The Fifty Percenter that reminds a listener of Earle's work and his band. The title track, with its ominous melancholy lyric about hard luck, hard traveled characters could easily fit on Earle's Transcendental Blues. Hopkins' and Sedlmayr's songs are the stuff of the street and of the hard life where there are no easy answers, where the daily bread is a struggle, where hope is a fictitious, unaffordable commodity.

I come to find it's less than luck
And my conscience won't rub clean
My card's been dealt away
In alcohol and old rodeo queens
I never should've left Odessa

As someone who grew up in Odessa, I can testify it doesn't get much more desperate than to say I never should've left. This song is pure desperation and resignation.

Love is another of those unaffordable commodities for Hopkins and Sedlmayr. They keep making down payments, but never pay off the loan or get title to the goods. Sedlmayr's vocal on "Amelia" again exhibits the personal pain and contradictory internal anti-storybook confusion that mark Earle's best work.

Amelia Catalina Flores-Jones
Slips into a public phone
Calls me from her demilitarized zone
To say
She can't stay

The airport's under siege
Would you check your baggage, please
Or throw away what you don't need, Amelia
A couple down the hall
Picked your rounds out of the wall
We kissed, that's when you got the drop on me

But it's not all Earle-ish on Fifty Percenter. On "Careless," Hopkins breaks out and shows why he's one of the most respected and innovative rock guitarists in the western desert. This is big, loud, anthemic U2 (or Moody Blues) rock coming out of the speakers in full Technicolor. Hopkins various bands and projects (Sand Rubies, Los Illuminarios) have often included MC5 bassist Michael Davis, and Davis shows his legendary rock status is well deserved as he drives Hopkins' guitar into the sonic stratosphere. On "Cherry Betrayal," Hopkins' overlayed guitars and Sedlmayr's surly drawl are reminiscent of the great Steve Earle/Supersuckers combination on Earle's "Going to New York City," and Davis is once again the key rhythmic cog along with drummer Brad Kemp. Hopkins shows he can play guitar with anyone with his cascading incendiary solos and reckless tone.

The album has a nice mix of styles and changes of pace. Hopkins' "Nacodoches" and Sedlmayr's "Grace By Which You Fall" come out of an electrified folk tradition and, true to their Arizona heritage, each gives his song a clear tonal purity reflective of the Western desert and Southern California musical influence.

Despite the quiet acoustic picking on "Coffee Grounds and Goodbyes," with its deranged early Springsteenish intro vocal aside by Sedlmayr ("Yeah, crazy Tom Roswell took three heads in six days and moons...hate factory, Santa Fe. 'Dig it, Carnal,' he said, 'Yeah, I smoked opium in Nogales-Sonora jail, drank whiskey, walked barefoot all the way to Shanghai, ain't stoppin' 'til I dug my way all the way to Chinee!'"), this song snatch seems a reverent, minimalist remembrance of a jailhouse buddy. But the scanty, cryptic lyric is open to multiple interpretations.

Hopkins and Sedlmayr close out the album with two distinctive guitar tracks. "A Message to Pretty" sounds fit for the Rickenbacker electric 12-string jangle of the late '60s Byrds' records. The song projects a spiritual feel and has a peaceful, reassuring quality.

I go through life searchin', tryin' to find The One
I go slip, slip, you go slip, slip away
And I don't need you to help me find my way
I can make it if I just don't see your face

"Apology" is another rocking monster track with a great hook. The album was recorded with essentially three different ensembles, and "Apology," like the other intensely rocking tracks, again finds Davis and Kemp in charge of the rhythm as they do their usual expert job at anchoring the sound while Hopkins overlays multiple guitar tracks, ranging in sound from airy and ethereal to full-blown, hard edged rock reminiscent of Waddy Wachtel's playing on some of Jackson Browne's hardest rocking tracks. The extended outro crescendo is as good as any rock being recorded anywhere today.

The Fifty Percenter is a super example of where the rocking end of the Americana movement is in Arizona. The songs are edgy and lyrically superior, and with the great players onboard the music is heady and innovative. It's a shame this album didn't get more critical and commercial attention. It certainly deserves it. Maybe if Steve Earle was in the band...

* The Fifty Percenter can be purchased at www.haydensferry.com


Contact William Michael Smith at: wms-at-rockzilla.net

 
Read Rockzilla's Guestbook
Sign Rockzilla's Guestbook