Buddy Miller: Midnight and Lonesome : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

On one level, Buddy Miller is the other-dimensional Richard Thompson -- if Thompson was born in Texas and grew up happy. Both spice up their region's folk rock with inspired, tone-bending guitar work and have written their most memorable tunes for (or with) their wives. Miller, however, has built a reputation as a great second banana, backing up Emmylou Harris, Steve Earle, Lucinda Williams and his wife Julie, so this homemade spotlight effort comes across as relaxed and self-effacing. The music dodges between traditional country and rockabilly, offering rich originals and some odd covers (the Everly Brothers' "The Price of Love" and Percy Mayfield's "Please Send Me Someone to Love"). But the writer most in evidence on Buddy's new album is Julie: The rowdy title track is a waltz-time, fiddle-driven rocker, and her "Quecreek," written as a reaction to this summer's near-mine disaster, resurrects the gentle art of timely ballads that tell small, poignant stories. Years from now, people will get a clearer idea as to what the tense event was all about from this song than watching news tapes or reading old newspapers.

CHARLES BERMANT
(October 15, 2002)