There's a passage near the end of the beseeching R&B groove of "Can I Say It Again" by the Soul Walkers that prays for a repeat.
The moment arrives after the song's bridge, on the outro, when a member of the relatively unknown '60s and '70s teenage band from Owensboro, Ky., hits a piercing falsetto note.
"Don't leave me," the voice cries, begging with a wavering wail that drips with agony. The lament is so raw, so honest, so powerful.
This is the sound of love collapsing, with the yowl riding a hobbling beat, with guitar slinking and sliding over lunging organ and shambling drums and bass.
The 50 seconds of music is transcendent, and a thrilling, unfamiliar side of Kentucky music -- there's R&B and soul music in the commonwealth? -- that is captured again and again on the splendid new Oxford American Southern Music issue album, the magazine's 19th such edition, this time celebrating the music of Kentucky.
Kentucky invokes certain images: bourbon, coal mines, horses and, of course, country and bluegrass music. But where the newest Southern Music issue record succeeds -- and where its forerunners have likewise triumphed -- is by introducing listeners to all of the music of Kentucky.
Yes, bluegrass god Bill Monroe is represented with "Y'all Come" -- and what a crime it would be to exclude the luminary. But there also are nods on the album to pop soul (Matt Duncan's "Beacon"), music legends (Loretta Lynn with "Women's Prison" off the astounding Van Lear Rose), Southern Gothic-fueled rockabilly (Legendary Shack Shakers' "Down to the Bone") and post-rock chamber music (Rachel Grimes' "Eights").
This is the music of Kentucky: 27 tracks, plus two bonus tracks for downloading, including the gorgeous folk bluegrass of Ben Sollee and Daniel Martin Moore with "A Few More Miles."
Dwight Yoakam, a Pikeville native and one of the greatest country performers of all time, is present, too, with a stripped-down country take on the traditional "Some Dark Holler" and backed by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, also of Kentucky origins. And a new face of country music, Sturgill Simpson of Jackson, pops up with his cosmic country "Sea Stories" from the Grammy-winning, 2016 record A Sailor's Guide to Earth.
But this is an album that belongs to the unexplored: the joyous, resilient hip-hop of James Lindsey on "Rainbows," the 1927 blues and more of the Booker Orchestra on "Camp Nelson Blues," the insistent electronic jazz groove of Les McCann's "It Never Stopped in My Home Town" and the Mexican folk song "Cancion Mixteca" by the late Harry Dean Stanton, a West Irvine native and noted actor who released his debut -- and only album -- Partly Fiction in 2014 at the age of 87.
The sparkling writing in the 160-page magazine -- issue 99 and available now on newsstands and online -- expands on the record, with John Jeremiah Sullivan on the jawbone, Amanda Petrusich on punk-rock architect Richard Hell of Lexington, Ronni Lundy on Yoakam and more.
As with any Southern Music issue album, especially recent ones that have been state-centric (although last year's release focused on the blues exclusively), there's always the game of who's missing and why.
That's a needless diversion. The Oxford American Southern Music issue record is always a musical journey and not a terminus. With the Kentucky album (and magazine), the Little Rock-based magazine once again furnishes a path for listeners (and readers). Some stops are obvious; some stops are out of the way; but no matter the place, each stop is truly Kentucky and meant to be heard.
Style on 11/26/2017