Watch America Roll By

Album Review

Despite having been born in 1977, J.B. Beverley (at least in his country work; he also fronts a punk band) likes to pretend it's the '50s on his second album with the Wayward Drifters, Watch America Roll By. With the group contributing banjo, fiddle, and standup bass, he sings in his sawdust tenor of life on the road and women who give you the blues, occasionally name-dropping Hank Williams or Johnny Cash. The sound effects of cars and trains going by are heard between tracks, as if Beverley and the band were playing by the side of the road. Only occasionally does the singer acknowledge the time-warp nature of his work, as in "They'll Only Play My Music (When I'm Dead)." Most of the time, he is inside the concept (or the conceit) that his songs and performances come from another time and place. Of course, in a bar with a cold one or two, it's easy to pretend to be just about anywhere at any time, and those are the kind of places where this outfit spends much of its time.