Review: Grayson Capps- 'Heartbreak, Misery, & Death'

Sometimes you can look at the title of an album and know just what you're getting. Heartbreak, Misery, & Death, the seventh release from Alabama troubadour Grayson Capps is one of those albums. While Capps is no stranger to any of those three subjects in his original music, for this album he pulled sixteen favorite covers, from traditional to more contemporary songs, running the gamut from Doc Watson and Roy Acuff to Leonard Cohen and Jerry Jeff Walker.

The highlight of the album is also its oldest song. “Barbara Allen” is a ballad that dates back to the 17th Century and briefly saw a renewed popularity during the folk revival of the '60s when artists like Pete Seeger recorded covers. Capps' version of the song strips much of the flair from even those folksy renditions. The entire album features only Capps and his longtime collaborator Corky Hughes and it's on these ancient songs that the format works best. Capps' gruff and bluesy vocals sell the tale of a dying man whose love is spurned by “hard-hearted Barbara Allen”, and I've seen it sold.

Another song that is enhanced by the stripped down format is another traditional that dates to the 17th Century, “Old Maid's Lament.” Over Hughes' ambling strum, Capps gives an almost cheery take on the heartbreak of a young lady who can't seem to find a husband despite standards that are increasingly lowered as the song goes on.

But you can't get much more stripped down than the album's opener, Doc Watson's lament “Wake Up Little Maggie.” Here Capps takes a cue from the original and goes a cappela. There just isn't any better way to convey the mournful tone of the song's narrator. Instruments get in the way.

For the “death” part of the album, Capps highlights a pair of early-to-mid 20th-century compositions. One is “Wreck on the Highway”, made famous by bluegrass icons like Roy Acuff and The Louvin Brothers. Here is where Hughes' input is most valuable to the album. “Wreck on the Highway,” with its religious overtones, only truly works as a bluegrass tune and, while Capps doesn't have the range to do the “high and lonesome” vocals, Hughes can and his harmonies help immensely. Another death song is “Moody River,” first made famous by Pat Boone in 1961. Telling the story of a woman who cheats on her lover and kills herself in a fit of regret by drowning herself in a river, it's a song that fits Capps' more timeworn vocals than it ever did Pat Boone's dulcet tones.

But it isn't all old songs that find a place in Heartbreak, Misery, & Death. Capps also finds inspiration from more modern songs. “Stoney” is a song by Jerry Jeff Walker that dates back to 1970. Walker's witty lyrics and delivery are a pretty good comp for Capps' career output so it's no surprise to find he's a fan, nor that “Stoney” feels the most like a Grayson Capps original. Elsewhere he takes on Randy Newman's “Guilty,” “Early Morning Rain” by Gordon Lightfoot, and what feels like the world's most covered song, Leonard Cohen's “Hallelujah.”

Just to make sure it isn't all “Heartbreak, Misery, & Death,” Capps ends the album with what he calls “the greatest campfire song of all time,” “Copper Kettle.” Another early 20th Century folkie best known for a cover by Joan Baez, it's the tale of a moonshiner family who takes up the business because “never shall you toil.” With its refrain of “Watch that whiskey flowing in the pale moonlight,” it's easy to see why it would be a great song for a campfire guitar pull and that's exactly what it sounds like here.

Capps doesn't reinvent the wheel here. There are no radical reinterpretations of any of the covers represented here. That isn't what Heartbreak, Misery, and Death is about. Instead, it's a celebration of some of Capps' favorite traditionial, meant to be enjoyed just as they are. In that respect, the album works. It's as fun as an album full of songs about dying can be.