Terry Allen - Bloodlines - CD

1 Cd

On his manifold fourth album, acclaimed songwriter and visual artist Terry Allen contemplates kinship - the ways sex and violence stitch and sever the ties of family, faith, and society - with skewering satire and affection alike.

1983's "Bloodlines" compiles thematically related but disparate recordings from miscellaneous sources both theatrical and historical: two songs written for plays; two full-band reprises of selections from "Juarez"; the irreverent hellfire-hitchhiker-on-highway ballad "Gimme a Ride to Heaven Boy" (featuring Joe Ely); and the poignant eponymous ode to the arteries of ancestry and landscape (the debut recording of eight-year-old Natalie Maines, later covered by Lucinda Williams).