Wurtele Thrust
Twenty-six years after their T-Bone Burnett produced debut Love & Hope & Sex & Dreams led them to winning a Rolling Stone reader’s poll as Best New American Band, the BoDeans are still rocking and harmonizing gracefully, exposing longtime fans (and their kids) to real, heartfelt and trend-free music. Best know for their mid-90s Billboard hit anthem Closer to Free, which became the theme song for the "Party of Five" television show, the band is touring behind their 2012 album American Made. The album features a dozen songs that are laced through with strands of indigenous roots elements - Heartland hoedown folk (American, with guest Jake Owen spinning out the guitar solo), Celticrooted mountain music (Walk Through This World, Flyaway), zydeco (Everything You Wanted), Southern roadhouse soul (Don’t Bring Me Down), Chicago blues (Shake the Fever) and 100-proof roots rock (All the World). These tracks are played with heartfelt emotion as well as jaw-dropping skillfulness by the band - Neumann on vocals and guitars, original member Michael Ramos (Patty Griffin, John Mellencamp) on keyboards and accordion, longtime BoDeans bassist Ryan Bowman and new member Warren Hood, a fiddle/violin virtuoso from Austin.