Brent Amaker and the Rodeo

Johnny Cash, who died in 2003, reportedly sold 4.8 million albums in 2006, making him the second-best-selling artist of the year. It's not surprising that new artists might want to emulate him, but Oklahoma-born, Seattle-based Brent Amaker and his band the Rodeo are almost as much an affectionate parody as actual descendants of Cash. Like their hero, they dress entirely in black, even including black cowboy hats, which Cash himself did not affect. Recording in mono, they take their sound directly from Sun Records circa 1956, even though they write their own original songs. Amaker has a bass-baritone that he uses in Cash's patented style, as a sort of ruminative musical speech. If Cash was an artist who seemed equally obsessed with sin and salvation, it is only the former that interests Amaker and his band. The Man in Black was not known to use four-letter words in his songs, but Amaker does freely, and he adopts the belligerent attitude Cash only sometimes exhibited for his entire lyrical stance. These are songs about drinking whiskey and physical confrontation, whether it's with someone who is messing with the singer's girl ("I Guess You Wanna Die") or messing with country music purity ("Sissy New Age Cowboy"); either way, Amaker is spoiling for a fight, and he expects his bandmembers to be right behind him. This essentially humorous style stops just short of being silly, which is as it should be. If Amaker took it just one step further, this would be a novelty act.