William Elliott Whitmore – Song Of The Blackbird

William Elliott Whitmore – Song Of The Blackbird (Southern)

In the scurry to get a taste of what’s new, what’s good, what’s hip, I failed to take a look in my own backyard. We’ve got it rough in Iowa; most tend to think our lone contribution to the musical lore is Slipknot, or at the very least, one of their side-projects. There’s more to the landscape than corn, hogs, and metal bands with mask-wearing personnel, I can assure you, but unfortunately the landscape is littered with more bands that ape their influences than bands that are actually inspired by them.

We’ve had a long musical dry spell in Iowa. We’ve had an even longer dry spell in my old hometown of Keokuk, Iowa, located on the banks of the Mississippi River in the southeastern corner of the state. In the 60s, there was a band called Gonn from here. One of the thousands of garage bands that littered the American landscape in the wake of Beatlemania, they were good enough to get added to Rhino Records’ expanded box of Nuggets.

The lead singer and bassist in Mr. Mister was also from Keokuk, but he left sooner than you could say “Kyrie.” I don’t think he’s been back since he was six and, quite honestly, I don’t blame him; Keokuk is one of those towns that had the misfortune of building its streets on the back of the manufacturing industry and when those jobs left, it became one of those towns that had the misfortune of being introduced to methamphetamine.

From what I understand, William Elliott Whitmore still resides around Keokuk. So imagine my surprise when I picked up his third album for Southern, Song Of The Blackbird. It’s the type of album with enough well-worn lyrics and authentic Americana arrangements to make me beam with hometown pride and chastise myself for not hearing about this guy sooner.