By Jim Stanford on March 6, 2007
It’s been 11 years since Jalan Crossland drove into Jackson a total unknown and dropped jaws with “The Mad Carpenter” in his debut performance at Dornan’s.
Now the troubadour from Ten Sleep, Wyo., is back with a band and a new CD, ready to rip for two sold-out shows at the Spur Bar in Moose.
One of the most talented and genuinely funny entertainers to come through Jackson Hole in recent years, Crossland is embracing his new role as band leader. Playing in a group is a fun change of pace for the 36-year-old banjo picker and guitarist, who has performed with Steam Powered Airplane’s Tucker Smith on and off but has made his mark mostly as a solo artist.
“Music is an interactive sport,” he said over coffee Tuesday at Shades. “It’s kind of like sex. If you’re only doing it by yourself, you’re missing a whole side of it.”
Accompanying Crossland tonight and Wednesday are Shaun Kelley on bass, Andy Phreaner on drums, Kelli Trujillo on vocals, guitar and mandolin, and Heather Guerin on vocals, washboards, railroad spikes and other percussive instruments.
The group is “undeniably rocking,” Crossland said. In fact, it may be the first band to bring a drum set inside Dornan’s, which Kelley asked be kept quiet. “We don’t want to get fired,” he said with a grin.
Phreaner, inventor of the revolutionary “blasticks,” half-brush and half-stick, plays a quiet drums, Kelley and Crossland emphasized, in mock earnest.
The new album, titled Trailer Park Fire and Other Tragedies, was recorded in a cabin outside Centennial, Wyo. Besides the band members, there are guest appearances by Aaron Youngberg of Hit & Run Bluegrass on pedal steel guitar and John Kidwell on trombone.
Crossland also plugs in and plays electric on a couple of tunes, aiming for a Johnny Cash-style “old guitar sound,” he said.
The bandmates met at Nowoodstock, the annual music festival on the Nowood River in the Bighorns, practically in Crossland’s backyard. They have been performing together for about a year.
Born in San Francisco of the Summer of Love, Crossland is the son of a radio DJ and a mountain girl from Wyoming who went to California “to participate in the great social experiment of the age,” he writes on his Web site.
Having grown up in a ranching town in central Wyoming, he considers himself the hybrid of two mountain cultures: “half-hippie and half-hillbilly, kind of a hillhippie. Either way, you don’t wear no shoes.”
A left-hander who has won numerous guitar and banjo awards, Crossland blends bluegrass and folk with cowboy crooning, Celtic reels and old-time storytelling. His songs are wry and irreverent, and his dexterous picking produces melodies that sparkle like a mountain stream.
“The Mad Carpenter,” from his eponymous debut album, is an extended instrumental for which Crossland taps out a rhythm on the guitar body, then erupts in a fusillade of acoustic rocketry.
Trailer Park Fire is his fourth CD, following Moonshiner (2004), Poorboy Shanty (2001) and Jalan Crossland (1997).
Moonshiner is available for download via iTunes, and all four CDs can be ordered through his Web site.
In the 10 years since his Dornan’s debut, Crossland has toured extensively around the country. Last spring he accompanied Texas crooner Robert Earl Keen on the road, playing in clubs from New Orleans to New York.
During the summers he has split time between Jackson and Ten Sleep. His tour schedule for the coming months already is busy with gigs around Wyoming, meaning those who purchased tickets in advance for these Dornan’s shows should count themselves lucky.
Jalan is a major talent. Ten years ago he seemed destined for national stardom. Somewhere along the line he decided to adopt the I-feel-like-shit fashion statement. It ain’t working in his favor.
All artists want to be loved solely for their talent. Looking like hell is an artist’s way of saying, “Love me for my inner beauty. I give you no other option.”
Consumers, on the other hand, unconsciously invest their interest (and time and money) in artists who look like they’ll stick around for a while, enjoying life and making music. Ironically, that’s even true for blues musicians.
You forgot to mention local phenom Anne Sibley sings on the track Little Iron Cross.
I didn’t know until I picked up the album last night and listened to it this morning.
Great tune!
Anne sang the song at Dornan’s on Tuesday night and Pete Sibley, on banjo, also joined in on a traditional gospel tune Walking In Jerusalem (Just Like John).
Fun show.