On JP Harris’s latest release, fans won’t encounter the tough-as-nails twang of albums past. They won’t hear the razor-edged, fork-tongued honky tonk that has soundtracked a decade of hard-ridden ballads and last-ditch elegies. Listeners will instead unearth something far more innate on Shaving A Dead Man.
The shadowy country songsmith recently cracked open a time-bound tome of traditional Appalachian music, revisiting a range of old-time tunes that sparked a love within him years ago and informed his artistic baseline from then on. What Harris came away with was a sixth studio album and a brand-new chapter for a centuries-old songbook of more than mere classics: Shaving A Dead Man contains heirlooms, road maps, and reminders for the present day.
Across the 10-track collection, Harris is an intuitive interpreter of 18th century folk ballads, pastoral hymns, and dusky lullabies, breathing new life into both the familiar, like “Hang Me,” and the more uncommon, like “Poor Robin.” Tradition is embraced and emboldened throughout as the artist refreshes a bygone sound and imbues a waning style with passion and power. With an ear trained to the past and a foresight tunneled by a tenuous future, his translations are both respectful and inspired, these songs offering an education and a discourse.
