Review: Sugarcane Jane and The Bucket Fillers- 'Live'

Rating: 8/10

Sugarcane Jane is usually a two-piece outfit, consisting of the husband and wife duo of Savana Lee and Anthony Crawford. If you want to see them as a band, you typically have to see them with roots music supergroup Willie Sugarcapps. But when country legend Dwight Yoakam asks you to put together a band and open for him on tour, you start finding musicians. For Sugarcane Jane, that became The Bucket Fillers, a set of instrumental ringers hailing from Birmingham. To celebrate their newfound status as a band, Sugarcane Jane and The Bucket Fillers decided to record a house show and release it digitally as Sugarcane Jane and The Bucket Fillers Live, available Nov. 1 through their website and on all major digital platforms..

If you're a fan of Sugarcane Jane's mix of rockabilly, classic country, and Gulf Coast boogie, you're going to love the fuller sound the band brings to favorites like “Cabin on the Hill” and “Ballad of Sugarcane Jane.” As much of a guitar hero as Crawford is, he's just one man, and fellow guitarist Gary Edmonds gives the whole thing an injection of Carl Perkins-esque rockabilly flow.

Of the Sugarcane Jane originals on the album, two standout in particular. The first, “Campfire” is from the band's most recent album Southern State of Mind, which Concert Hopper premiered the video for. The song was the feel-good highlight of that album and, as a full band live song, it pops even more. The second, also from Southern State of Mind, is “Man of the Fewest Words.” This song is the best feature of the pair's harmonies, and of their talent for passing vocal leads at just the right moment.

But the real sell of Sugarcane Jane and The Bucket Fillers Live is its covers. Crawford, who has performed extensively as a sideman for both Neil Young and Steve Winwood, pays tribute to his former bosses with a medley of Young's classic “Old Man” and “Can't Find My Way Home” from Winwood's Blind Faith. “Old Man” is an oft-covered song that Sugarcane Jane makes its own, though Crawford has obviously heard the song enough to inject just a bit of Young's Canadian twang into his vocals. The bigger feat is “Can't Find My Way Home.” That one has been covered a few times over the years, mostly badly, to the point that it's a song I consider near uncoverable. There's a quality to Winwood's near falsetto, Clapton's tone, and Ginger Baker's unique drumming that is near impossible to replicate. Wisely, the band doesn't, choosing instead to lower the vocal register (and let both Crawford and Lee share the heavy vocal load), balance the electric guitar flash with some acoustic grounding, and let the bass and drums keep it all on the rails. It's the best cover of the song that doesn't feature Steve Winwood in some way that I've ever heard.

The album closes with a surprise cover, “Folsom Prison Blues”, voiced by drummer Leif Bondarenko. Bondarenko's deep rumble is close enough to At Folsom Prison era Cash that the recording could probably pass for a live bootleg from the day. There's nothing new, innovative, or revolutionary in this cover, and there shouldn't be. Some songs are best left alone. “Folsom Prison Blues” is as perfect a rockabilly sing-along song as has ever been written and a down the middle crowd pleasing show closer is always a good idea.

It's not known if, after the tour with Yoakam, Sugarcane Jane will return to their status as a duo or continue to play occasional shows with The Bucket Fillers, but either way this album should be enough to convince you to see whatever iteration of the group comes your way. You can see their current run of tour dates here.