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[email protected]////////////////////John Darnielle (THE MOUNTAIN GOATS) : "I would love for Souled American to cover one of my songs, and I'd write for them or with them any day for free..."Chicago roots rockers Souled American pioneered the alternative country movement of the early '90s before the music boasted either a name or a fan following. Even as kindred spirits like Uncle Tupelo began making commercial inroads, Souled American slipped through the cracks following the demise of its record label, and still today the band's true influence on a successive generation of bands remains sorely undervalued. Singer/guitarist Chris Grigoroff and singer/bassist Joe Anducci formed Souled American in 1987 after first collaborating in the Normal, IL, group the Uptown Rulers; guitarist Scott Tuma and drummer Jamey Barnard completed the lineup, which quickly honed an expansive, compellingly idiosyncratic approach to rock that reduced the idiom to its basic elements — country, folk, and bluegrass chief among them — then reassembled the parts to forge an otherworldly music quite unlike anything produced by the band's contemporaries. In 1988 Souled American signed to Rough Trade to issue its cult classic debut, Fe, arguably their most difficult and far-ranging effort. Flubber appeared a year later and was supported by a tour opening for Camper Van Beethoven. But shortly after the release of 1990's psychedelic Around the Horn — an album comprised largely of covers — the U.S. division of Rough Trade went bankrupt, stranding Souled American without a label and effectively removing their records from stores. The band limped on, issuing 1992's Sonny under Rough Trade's European operations, but few copies reached U.S. shores, and as their fan base dwindled, Barnard left the lineup to focus on his family; the remaining trio opted not to replace him, recording 1994's spare, haunting Frozen sans percussion. The dirge-like Notes Campfire followed three years later and remains Souled American's final new release to date. However, the band still performs live on occasion in its native Windy City, and after years out of print, its four Rough Trade LPs are again available via the tUMULt label. Rock critic Camden Joy also published Fifty Posters About Souled American, a deeply personal book charting his long obsession with the group.
(allmusic.com)About "Notes campfire" : "Notes Campfire is the album that signaled a kind of resurgence of interest in Chicago's Souled American. The trio, already ten years old by the time of this recording, had already gone through an incarnation as a proto-insurgent country act. Souled American's early, rootsy, Americana-plumbing albums such as Fe and Rubber arrived on the scene at around the same time Uncle Tupelo was beginning to be a known roots music commodity. Further exacerbating the interest in the band, perhaps, was the work of guerilla rock criticism "50 Posters About Souled American" orchestrated by writer Camden Joy. Notes Campfire, for its part, furthered Souled American's unprecedented examination of the skeletal elements of country and folk music that the group had begun several years previous when the group lost and never replaced its drummer and its label, Rough Trade, folded. Guitarists Chris Grigoroff and Joe Adducci, with bassist Scott Tuma, manage with Notes Campfire to create the sound of American folk music, slowed to a molasses-in-February pace and delivered as gorgeous waves of guitar sound, texture, and raw emotion. Grigoroff's vocals sound like a man who's spent too long in solitary confinement or, rather, someone who's just come to an epiphany about the ugly, emotional truths of the world. Either way, in the strains of Souled American's soundscape exercises in musical tone and shape, you can hear Appalachia and darkness stretched to its limits. Souled American manages to find man sublime moments somewhere between abstract terror and vague, lingering familiarity." (allmusic.com)
