Ralph White: press

White was a member of well-loved punk bluegrass outfit Bad Livers but his solo work is possessed of a much more lonesome spark, exaggerating the implied drone at the heart of the music of Dock Boggs and The Stanley Brothers. "Navasota River Devil Squirrel" was originally released as a CD-R in 2007, but this limited vinyl version comes courtesy of fellow musical loner Joshua Burkett's new imprint. White plays wooden six-string banjo, violin, accordion and kalimba and his voice has a high, eerie quality to it that allows it to blend with the various primitive strategies that the music employs to reanimate traditional and original material alike. The use of kalimba situates aspects of the sound in some avant hillbilly fourth world, while the combination of dense matrices of string and White's transporting vocal is extremely psychedelic.

9. Ralph White -- Navasota River Devil Squirrel
(Spirit of Orr/Mystra Records)
Most modern avant-folkies do more or less the same thing. They paste together a little free improv, some finger-picking, and an exotic instrument or two and dip them in a vat of reverb. The end result is spacey and cool on a superficial level; kind of rootsy and more often then not sloppy, formless and utterly rudimentary. I suppose you could call them “sub-tradition” in the sense that they tinker with elements from old folk styles they can’t actually play. Ralph White, in contrast, is "supra-tradition." Navasota River Devil Squirrel is the work of a banjo player who has fully internalized old time and bluegrass and who is now reshaping them into a brand new, highly individualized form. This album is avant garde, yes, but it's not loose or amorphous because of ignorance. In fact, it's hyper-stylized. White's picking trickles oh so naturally, just like a stream. His falsetto whisper delicately curls every word into a spring blossom. This guy isn't naive; he's a master. Navasota River Devil Squirrel would’ve cracked my top five with ease had the thing not arrived in December. It has spent more time on my turntable this month than just about anything else in the new release stacks.

From banjo and fiddle to kalimba and mbira, Ralph White is a master of ethnomusicology, and it's all self-taught. The 56-year-old troubadour served as fiddleman in Austin punk-grass legends the Bad Livers. He toured with the Butthole Surfers, played with the Gulf Coast Playboys, traveled to Africa and Australia, and finally settled here at home. Off the road is just his style. Since 1999, White has played solo, and it's indescribable. The blues mentality mixed with Outback echoes and safari serenades echoes off 2006 release Navasota River Devil Squirrel. His solo shows, as well as those he plays with new Austinite Amy Annelle, are stocked with hipsters, old-timers, music professionals, and doe-eyed fans. He matches old-school with new-school, kids with elders, and the line doesn't cross down the middle. Close your eyes, and listen to a million decades coalesce into one eerie, beautiful one-man band, with one foot on a chuck of wood and hands full of sound. There's nobody in the world like Ralph White.