Eilen Jewell - Sea Of Tears
Tuesday, March 24, 2009 at 4:07PM 
" Before I discovered Woody Guthrie and folk music, " says Boston singer/songwriter Eilen Jewell, " I was listening to Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, and, later on, the Animals and the Kinks. I love that stuff, and I love to play it. "
Listening to tracks from her new album Sea Of Tears, it's obvious that Jewell's fiddle-less new project is a bit like moving from coffeehouse to roadhouse dive, from double-latte to whiskey shot. There's some dirt under the fingernails in the twangy echoes and rock solid beats that inhabit the stripped-down songs such as her own bluesy "My Final Hour," where Jewell rides a Hammond B3 for the first time, or the three well chosen covers including the classic 60's rave-up "Shakin' All Over." The sound is stark and direct, her fine-tuned band sounds loose and a little dangerous with guitarist Jerry Miller's razor sharp solo lines adding some sweaty grit.
“Since the ‘60s folk revival, there’s been this fear of rock,” observes Jewell. “If people define you as a folk musician, it’s somehow scandalous to play with drums and electric guitars. It’s thought of as selling out or being commercial…but, to me, it’s all folk music.”
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