There was a time when The Cactus Blossoms’ brotherly harmonies and Spartan arrangements may have been heard as elegant pop country, in the way Faron Young and Marty Robbins could sing with appeal to teenyboppers and their parents who listened to “The Grand Ole Opry.”
But this is the 2010s, not the 1950s, and what siblings Page Burkum and Jack Torrey proffer can now be slotted into the amorphous designation of Americana. And the way they and their band approach a sound decidedly not in a style commercial country radio embraces nowadays isn’t merely classicist. The Cactus Blossoms utilize their penchant for a sound from before they were born to craft what’s becoming their own kind of timelessness. They amply demonstrated this knack Sunday night at Shank Hall to a nearly reverently enraptured audience.
So attentive was the crowd that it prompted Torrey to joke that they could chat among themselves and get a beer if they like it. The way their harmonies can often be mistaken for those of The Everly Brothers in all their youthful lushness can keep a listener in something approaching awe.
Much as they excel at expounding on romantic happiness, as on the ebullient “Stoplight Kisses” and their remake of rockabilly cats’ Alton & Jimmy’s “No More Crying The Blues,” they assay sadness in a manner that can well mesmerize. Their latest album, You’re Dreaming, offers melancholy morsels of their own composition, such as “Powder Blue” and “Adios Maria.” Their way with Hank Williams’ catalog of heartbreak, as proffered on two encores after a set of 20 songs, may well have elicited a nod of approval from the late Hillbilly Shakespeare from his current home in the great beyond, too.
The British invasion provided inspiration for countrified crooning as well, with The Beatles’ “This Boy” proving as suitable fodder for forlorn pleading as anything to have originated in Nashville. The guys additionally interpreted cockiness from both England and Tennessee, bringing swagger to The Kinks’ “Who’ll Be The Next In Line” and Waylon Jennings’ “Only Daddy That’ll Walk The Line.”
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Somewhere amid the amalgamation of nations and attitudes, Torrey’s unusual handheld steel guitar, abetted by his brother’s acoustic rhythm guitar, and exceptional musicians on stand-up bass and minimal drum kit managed another trick. They teased out the sonic threads connecting their brand of country to the tremolo-laden twang of surf music. So, much as the Blossoms might recall the rural radio of their grandparents’ youth, they seem to share, however subtly, a geographically anomalous appreciation for sounds inspired by salty waves, like fellow Minneapolis band of yore, The Trashmen. Crazy.
More giddy than crazy, local country trio The Whiskeybelles opened the evening with a light touch aptly contrasting to the headliners’ brooding approach. Whether ripping into their own boozy numbers, remaking Milwaukee punk combo Fox Face or putting their own spin on Red Foley and, more peculiarly, Bob Dylan via Jimi Hendrix, their high spirits are pretty infectious. That all three ladies trade off on lead vocals and harmonize enthusiastically shows more initiative and invention than what commercial country gatekeepers have been willing to offer women in more than a decade. Kimmy Unger’s fiddling, occasionally reflecting Celtic and Eastern European influence, makes for the their apex of musicianship, but The Whiskeybelles overall make for an exceedingly fun musical treasure
