Shovels & Rope: "Gasoline"

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I'd never heard of this husband-and-wife duo until I caught them on Austin City Limits recently, and while it's not really my "kind" of music, I was hooked. (I like to think my taste is fairly diverse, but this is a bit of a stretch given the country-ish sound, even if it certainly qualifies as guitar-driven rock, which is what I tend to prefer, and even if if I'm generally quite fond of "folk," broadly speaking, and this is certainly that. Whatever, though. Those are just labels.)

Michael Trent and Cary Ann Hearst have amazing chemistry, and the sounds they produce as a duo, sharing guitar, keyboard, and percussion responsibilities and switching it up from song to song, are remarkable. And they're just so much fun to watch, so engaging as musicians. Which is why much to my surprise I didn't turn the channel.

If you don't know them, as I didn't, I recommend that you go and search them out and give them a listen. For now, here's one of the songs they performed on ACL, "Gasoline," the first song off their 2008 debut album Shovels & Rope (before they adopted that name for themselves).

Richard, I think you'll like this. (See, it's not all prog rock bands and female singer-songwriters for me.) Enjoy!