Do T Rocker - by Lonnie Holley

Lonnie Holley - National Freedom 2020 While touring with Deerhunter in 2013, sculptor and musician Lonnie Holley was put in touch with producer and singer / songwriter Richard Swift, and they recorded a session together during a day off. Both artists were ecstatic with the results and felt a spiritual connection with each other, so they booked another session early in 2014, this time with guitarist Marshall Ruffin and cellist Ben Sollee joining them. National Freedom, named after Swift's studio, contains five songs written and recorded during these sessions, and like all of Holley's music, it courses with spontaneous energy. The full-band songs are closer to low-down blues-rock than most of Holley's other work, particularly opener "Crystal Doorknob," which he trudges along as he growls about happening upon an elaborate door while hiking through a deep forest. The more ambitious "Like Hell Broke Away" can be described as dark psychedelic doo wop, as Holley pleads to a lover who wants to throw him out, surrounded by multi-tracked howls and moans as well as swirling, levitating guitar licks. "Do T Rocker" contains a sense of rock roll playfulness, with its lyrics evoking a dance and a banjo-plucked melody, but it ends up being unexpectedly haunting,