Jeffrey Halford is one of the premier purveyors of rootsy, bluesy rock ‘n roll with a pop sensibility. The remarkable Hunkpapa, the follow up to 1999’s critically acclaimed Kerosene, showcases the best of Halford’s songwriting and his distinctive guitar sound.

“...Halford’s storytelling talents are obvious, almost a Hemingway armed with a blues guitar.”
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With songwriting that nods as much towards Sam Shephard and Jack Kerouac as it does to the usual songwriting gods, Hunkpapa captures the multi-faceted soul of America past, present, and maybe future as well. This album is a redemptive journey that just happens to be a collection of songs.

Long admired as a songwriter, Halford shows a new muscularity on Hunkpapa. His fiercely idiosyncratic songs create an original vision that blurs the distinctions of time and space, and the barriers between the deeply mysterious and the plaintive. Hunkpapa deftly intertwines our own American mythology with those things about which we care most.

While each song stands sturdily on its own, the force of Hunkpapa may be in its collective effect. These songs, like a strange new mirror, emanate a reflection that calls us to our better nature.

The core music in Hunkpapa is all Healers: a searing, rock gumbo combining essential ingredients of blues, folk, rockabilly, Sun Records country, all with a very big beat. The texture of each song is so true that you can feel it coming up through the soil of the Great Plains, the sweltering meltyour- shoes asphalt on Beale Street, the break-your-back lettuce fields of the San Joaquin Valley.

Hunkpapa is complemented by an array of notable guest artists, including members of the renowned Gospel Hummingbirds, who practically sanctify the gospel-infused Satchel’s Fastball. Also on hand is Bay Area guitar great Chuck Prophet, who lends inspired support on two of the tracks, Steve Bowman (ex-Counting Crows) on drums, Trey Sabatelli (Jefferson Starship, The Tubes, Todd Rundgren) on drums, and Myron Dove (Santana) on bass.

Can rock music really redeem America? Listen to Hunkpapa and you decide.

SONGS: 1. Stone’s Throw 2. Radio Flyer 3. Oh, Susanna 4. Black Gold 5. St. Vincent de Paul 6. Lost and Found 7. Memphis 8. .44 9. Small Craft Advisory 10. Crazy Horse 11. Satchel’s Fastball 12. Straight Razor

CUT-BY-CUT

Stone’s Throw
Let’s just call it a dark love song. This live track both vocally and instrumentally, in the folk blues tradition, features Halford on a modern electric National Resolectric, his signature guitar.

Radio Flyer
A parent’s relationship to his child, the beauty of childhood, a wagon. The song features Chuck Prophet on guitar and Steve Bowman (Counting Crows) on drums, with Halford on acoustic guitar.

Oh, Susanna
A love song and soliloquy by a soldier to his girl, as inspired by Ambrose Bierce’s “Incident at the Owl Creek Bridge.” A young man at the end of his life, coming to terms with dying, asks “this leather pouch, this string of pearls, take this letter to my girl.” Halford performs the live slide track at the end of the song.

Black Gold
Set in the San Joaquin Valley of California, an area once more plentiful with resources than anywhere in the world, now filled with prisons and barren fields, “the windswept towns just can’t conceal the emptiness of a time that’s come and gone.” Black Gold was recorded with members of the Grammy Award-winning The Gospel Hummingbirds and Myron Dove (Santana) on bass.

St. Vincent de Paul
The past is fighting a battle with the present, but it’s the vestiges of the old that ultimately give a town its character.

Lost and Found
A story of love gone wrong, love gone bad, love so broken it can no longer be fixed. Claim it at the lost and found.

Memphis
A rock ‘n roll song, gospel style, dedicated, with a touch of irony, to the great city of Memphis — some would call
it world class. The song features the Oakland-based, Grammy Award-winning Gospel Hummingbirds, raging Chuck Berry-style guitar by Halford, and a nice Memphis guitar riff by Goldie Goldstein.

.44
Let’s just say that the NRA and Charlton Heston might not make this their theme song.

Small Craft Advisory
A lovely, small tale of the hypnotic power of the ocean and the lure of its siren song.

Crazy Horse
An elegy to the legend of Crazy Horse, who remains one of our last American heroes. Check out the crazy guitar exchange between Halford’s acoustic versus Chuck Prophet’s electric.

Satchel’s Fastball
A young player in the minor leagues is determined to prove those naysayers wrong and hit one of Satchel’s fastballs. A treatise on perseverance and a subtle look at race relations in the South.

Straight Razor
One man’s story of carving out his place in society, even if in the marginalized world of the hobo. Social climbing of a different sort, told from two different voices.