Songbones

iTunes Review

These recordings document Grayson Capps holding forth in all his bayou-bohemian glory during a late-night New Orleans session in 2002. By that time, he had already built up a reverent cult audience across the South thanks to his excellent blues-inflected songwriting and scruffy vagabond mystique. Songbones serves up Capps’ rueful musings and fevered confessions in the raw, with only Tom Marron’s fiddle and harmonica for accompaniment. The album includes some of his best compositions — tunes like “Graveyard,” ”Junkman,” and “Slidell” have the sly wisdom and bloodshot insight of early Bob Dylan or prime Tom Waits. He lightens his mostly brooding set with lighter romantic numbers like “I See You.” Previously unreleased tunes like “Guitar” (a chilling Old English-style ballad), “Psychic Channel Blues” (a weird, sweet love song) and “Junior & the Old African Queen” (a nervous narrative with a touch of dark humor) are a special treat. Capps’ unvarnished vocals and guitar work are mesmerizing in their quiet force — there’s no sense of distance here. Almost eerily intimate, Songbones definitely gets under your skin.