Record Reviews

Chuck Prophet

The Hurting Business (HighTone)

Since founding the critically revered roots rock band Green on Red during the Eighties, guitarist and songwriter Chuck Prophet has been performing in near obscurity; bouncing from label to label, while making superb, mostly overlooked albums and building a solid, devoted cult following, especially in Europe. The Hurting Business, Prophet's fifth full-length album and first for the HighTone label, continues in the fashion of his past work: chock-full of songs that are rootsy, inventive, and well matched to finely drawn story lines. Musically, however, this is Prophet's most adventurous work. He continues to draw from a grab bag of American music styles that include rock, soul, country, blues, and folk, yet all are filtered through an electronic sieve and melded with DJs adding turntable tricks and an array of keyboards that include mellotron, different types of organs, and synthesizers. The results are an attractive, modern frame for a cast of oddball characters that populate Prophet's down-to-earth portrayal of life in today's America. "Dying All Young" shimmers and sways, conflicting with its aching tale of a mother and her feelings of loss after a child's death. The title track tips its hat to the Sir Douglas Quintet, while describing the pain of a broken love. At times, Prophet strides daringly close to the territory covered by Tom Waits, with his use of vocals through what sounds like a megaphone, clanking percussion, and angular guitar riffs. Jacquire King, who engineered Waits' Mule Variations, is listed as co-producer on The Hurting Business. Yet where Waits dares to conjure images of a hell on Earth with a clang and a shout, Prophet's vision is easier on the ears and much closer to paradise.