Like much of his music, Paul Burch’s new album Cry Love carries its listeners on a rambunctious, sometimes mellow, tour of the back roads and highways of Americana music. From the slip and sliding rockabilly of “Glencoe,” the hip-shaking jukebox country pop of “One If by Land,” and the hard-charging two-lane highway rock of “Radio Gal” to the textured jazz soul of “Rice Pudding” and the closing parlor room piano of “Jitterbug Waltz,” Cry Love conducts invites us to cast of our shoes and dance or hold those we love close.
In addition to his new album, Burch recently released his debut novel, Meridian Rising (Georgia, Sept. 1), a “bio-fictional” glimpse at the life and music of Jimmie Rodgers, the “Father of Country Music.” Similar to George Saunders’ Lincoln in the Bardo or W.G. Sebald’s Vertigo, Burch weaves historical sketches and photos with imagined letters and with Rodgers’ own “memoir” to reveal Rodgers’ take on the music business and the characters who revolved around him. Among the characters we meet include talent scout H.C. Spier, Rodgers’ wife Carrie, his nurse Cora Bedell (in a surprising role in the novel), Jim Evans, president of the Jimmie Rodgers’ Historical Society, and Howlin’ Wolf, among others.
