Somewhat akin to what Billy Bragg and Wilco accomplished with 1998’s Mermaid Avenue, where previously unheard Woody Guthrie lyrics were set to newly composed music, Pastures of Plenty by Chicago’s Gina Marie & The Golden Bucks uses Guthrie’s song “Pastures of Plenty” as a jumping-off point for an album of 1930’s and 1940’s-inspired tunes that “capture the life, times, and trials of the American working experience.”
Guthrie’s original recording of “Pastures of Plenty” is a relatively sparse affair and Gina Marie (vocals, percussion) and her Golden Bucks (Brendan Frank on electric guitar; Edgar Gabriel on fiddle; Elias Broxham on bass; John Rice on acoustic guitar, mandolin, and dobro) turn the “dust bowl ballad” into a stirring campfire song that draws from a number of musical traditions that came in the wake of the early American Folk recordings. There are traces of Hollywood Cowboy Songs, Western Swing, and Rockabilly that update Guthrie’s original for slightly younger ears.
Further along, “Where the Blue of the Night Meets the Gold of the Day” re-imagines an American songbook standard (made popular by Bing Crosby) as a ‘Countrypolitan’ tune (sans the orchestral accompaniment) in the vein of Patsy Cline.
The Golden Bucks take on the chestnut “Cow Cow Boogie” adds some Honky Tonk to the mix and is more serious in its intent than classic versions by Ella Fitzgerald and Ella Mae Morse, which treated the song as a bit of a pop culture novelty.
Gina and the Bucks’ version of Jelly Roll Morton’s “Aaron Harris Blues” takes a more straight-ahead Jazz (and Blues) approach (especially with regard to the bass and vocals) while “Sugar Daddy,” which sounds like it could have been a risque song from the 1930s, is actually a tasty cover of a tune from Hedwig and The Angry Inch.
Pastures of Plenty closes with a cover of The Carter Family’s “You’ve Been a Friend to Me” and the album’s goal of paying “homage to Woody Guthrie and the traveling American Song-smiths who captured the life, times, and trials of the American working experience” becomes clearer: Life is work offset by family, friends, love, loss, and even a bit of frivolity.
