O Cracker Where Art Thou

The idea of taking rock or pop songs and spinning them into bluegrass rave-ups isn’t a new one. Traditionalists such as Del McCoury have been doing it for years, and more recently jokesters Hayseed Dixie have turned it into a quickly predictable career, covering AC/DC , Kiss, and Aerosmith. Despite the title, O Cracker, Where Art Thou? is not simply a well-worn gag. Dave Lowery and Johnny Hickman have teamed with the Colorado jam band Leftover Salmon to re-imagine 10 Cracker songs, and the results are surprisingly effective. Clearly, the guys in Leftover Salmon are great musicians, and any temptation toward improvisational excess is held in check by a respect for the songs, which span Cracker’s career. Wisely, this includes a four-song cluster from the band's best album, Kerosene Hat, including a sexy "Sweet Potato," which effortlessly melds bluegrass pickin’ with New Orleans rhythm, and a version of "Low" haunted by creepy banjo, pedal steel-guitar, and a Hammond organ solo. Lowery's former band, Camper Van Beethoven, experimented with this sort of musical hybrid, too, with greater abandon but less instrumental expertise. There's no way that CVB could have pulled off the double-time banjo and mandolin fretwork required in a satisfyingly traditional run-through of "Teen Angst,"" or even made it through a simple country lament like "Mr. Wrong" without smirking a little too broadly. Fans of Camper Van will probably miss that band's punky attitude--which only surfaces once, on the smashed country waltz of "Eurotrash Girl"--but these 10 songs are good enough to be twisted into new shapes without betraying the old ones. --Keith Moerer