Bill Callahan's first live album reflects his approach to music. It's a 2xLP set (also available as a download, no CD), and the packaging is minimal-- two slabs of vinyl, no notes, and all credits and recording info are printed on the disc labels. The functional nature of the package says, "The music is what's important here." Callahan kicks off the album by mumbling, "We're gonna get right down to business," and then he and the band-- guitar, bass, drums, violins-- proceed to do just that. It's 2007, they are in a small club in Australia, and Callahan is drawing from a catalog of songs any songwriter would envy. Turned out to be a good night.
Though Woke on a Whalehart, Callahan's first album under his own name after leaving the name Smog behind, was just about to come out when Rough Travel for a Rare Thing was cut, the setlist focuses heavily on his previous full-length, 2005's A River Ain't Too Much to Love. Five of the 11 songs come from that release, with stops at Supper, the "Rock Bottom Riser" single, and Knock Knock along the way. There's one reach back to 1995's Wild Love ("Batheysphere"), and one tune from Whaleheart ("Diamond Dancer"). Heard together, with this band providing lean and effective accompaniment, the songs sound like they belong on a single album. Rough Travel flows. Callahan's voice, having grown richer and deeper over the years, is front and center, putting the focus squarely on the words and the way he phrases them. There's plenty going on there to keep things interesting.
Indeed, Callahan's singing is a model of how much can be done with a limited vocal range. Sometimes he's half-talking and telling stories. Sometimes he's bending lines to put emphasis on certain words. Sometimes he's doing something close to a croon. In every case, his vocals are bound to the lyrics and reflect how he writes. The songs here are on the long side-- six minutes or so on average-- but it's not because Callahan wastes words. He knows when to leave space, and he has a way of making hard, clear images stay in your mind. When he sings a word like "gold" or "river," you see the color and you can feel the water. Three words placed next to each other, like "rock," "bottom," and "riser," the way he sings them, can tell a tiny story on their own, complete with a discernible arc. Performance and arrangements aside, Rough Travel, though not a "greatest hits" kind of set, affirms the authority of Callahan's songwriting. No wonder writers tend to love him.
Though Callahan's focus can come across as remote and stoic, he can also be playful. Take "The Well", for example. Much of the song focuses on the narrator's obsession with a single drop of water clinging to the edge of an old bucket perched at the top of an abandoned well. It's not much to hang a nine-minute song on, but Callahan imbues the image with drama and gets in some funny lines along the way. "Everybody has their own thing that they yell into a well," he sings, one of those lines of his that makes you think, "Yeah, that feels right." And he puts some echo on his voice as he runs down his: a hoot, a "Hello?", and a "Fuck all y'all."
The instrumentation here is mostly acoustic, and the structure of the songs, including the traditional "In the Pines", which Callahan has covered on record and turned into something that feels like his own, lend a stately feel. But the songs are not easily bound to genre. Unlike his label-mate Will Oldham, whose loose rootsiness can lead to music that seems like it's drifting in from the past, Callahan's work seems of its time and makes you aware of the artist behind it. And Rough Travel, though ultimately only for established fans, turns out to be a very good snapshot of where that artist's music stood at the end of the last decade.
