Originally formed as a cover band/side-project by longtime friends (and Louisville punk scene veterans) Catherine Ann Irwin and Janet Beveridge Bean, Freakwater was renowned for its strict adherence to bare-bones Appalachian musical forms. Their first couple of releases helped jumpstart the alt-country movement in the early 90s, boasting little more than the cheaply recorded acoustic guitars and vocal harmonies of the two frontwomen, augmented by sparing use of stand-up bass, pedal steel, dobro, and other stylistically appropriate instruments. But this stark, almost severe attention to form was not merely an academic exercise. There was a bucket-load of heart-wrenching humanity there, too.
A lot of that is due to Irwin herself. Other performers have mined this uber-authentic vein from a certain distance, gingerly handling traditional themes (salvation, drunkenness, poverty) and song-structures like sacred library texts to be presented as if under glass. By contrast, Irwin comes across as the genuine article-- a musically homely, inexpert oddball, the updated embodiment of the tragic eccentrics that have always populated this kind of musical landscape. It never sounds like she had to study how to sing or write this way. Her songs and her singing sound convincingly lived-in.
Also contributing to the human factor is the car-wreck compelling, between-the-lines story that is related solely through the interplay of the two women's voices. Countless other long-standing vocal duos have rung the harmony bell with more crystalline clarity, but few have wrestled so explicitly to define a real-world relationship in song. This subtext allows Bean and Irwin to transcend their vocal limitations and gives the music an emotional, in-the-room immediacy that is simply not available to more accomplished practitioners.
Old Paint, originally released in 1996, was Freakwater's high-water mark as a going concern. For the second time, it paired them with madwoman-in-the-attic production specialist Brad Wood, who was still basking in the afterglow of his work with Liz Phair. Bassist Dave Gay was now permanently on board as the third band member, and steel player Bob Egan, who would later spend some time in Jeff Tweedy's revolving door, was on hand to provide the color commentary. Bean and Irwin were more than ready, with an album's worth of supremely evocative original songs-- for the first time, the few, well-chosen covers on a Freakwater album were there to lend context to the original songs, and not the other way around.
The first lines of Old Paint's opening "Gravity" announce Freakwater's worldview quite clearly: "I wasn't drinking to forget/ I was drinking to remember/ How I once might have looked through the eyes of a stranger." A couple of songs later, on "Gone to Stay", things have only gotten worse, as Irwin sings, mournful but clear-eyed, "There's nothing so sure as a razor blade above your wrist." By "Hero/Heroine", the situation is downright hopeless, with some nasty Stones-ish slide work and bleary observations like, "Everyone who gets drunk will not write a good book." There are some moments of redemption as well, from the jet-black humor that propels the buoyant "Waitress Song" to the heavenly cello that levitates the haunting cover of Loudon Wainwright's "Out of This World".
So much discussion about bands like Freakwater hinges on questions of authenticity. As Old Paint demonstrates, that's pretty much missing the point. Specific styles of music are important, of course, because they carry certain traditions across generational lines. But on a personal level, they're really just empty vehicles. No musician can get anything of substance from a particular musical style-- it's what the musicians bring of themselves that matters. On Old Paint, Bean and Irwin gave so generously of themselves that style and substance became virtually indistinguishable, and that's an achievement worth drinking to remember.
