The Tractors › Farmers in a Changing World

The Tractors: Steve Ripley (vocals, acoustic & electric guitars); Walt Richmond (vocals, accordion, piano, Fender Rhodes piano, Hammond B-3 organ, bass drum, feet); Ron Getman (acoustic & electric, steel & lap steel guitars, dobro, mandolin, trumpet, background vocals); Casey Van Beek (tenor saxophone, bass, background vocals); Jamie Oldaker (drums, percussion).

Additional personnel: Leon Russell (vocals); Eldon Shamblin (spoken vocals, electric guitar); Elvis Ripley (guitar, piano); Scotty Moore, James Burton (electric guitar); Bonnie Raitt (slide guitar); Fats Kaplin (steel guitar, fiddle); Curley Lewis (fiddle); D.J. Fontana (drums).

Principally recorded at The Church Studio, Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Three years after their second album, the Tractors finally return with FARMERS IN A CHANGING WORLD. The Tractors' music combines country, rock, boogie-woogie, shuffle and New Orleans groove, serving it up via singer Steve Ripley's distinctive growl. Like their previous albums, FARMERS is a raw, loose-limbed collection of songs custom-made for grooving on the dance floor. Quite a few of the tracks recall the band's super-cool 1994 debut single "Baby Likes To Rock It," including "Poor Boy Shuffle" and "Linda Lou" (both with Bonnie Raitt on slide guitar) and "Foot Stomp Stompin'" (with Leon Russell).

A standout is "The Elvis Thing," a song explaining how Elvis changed America, featuring the King's real-life band--Scotty Moore, D.J. Fontana and James Burton. The song that best sums up the Tractors' view of the world, though, is a hidden track buried three minutes after the end of the "last" song on the CD. It's a cool little number about the Heaven's Gate Cult called "The Hale-Bopp Boogie." For the Tractors, nothing is so serious that you can't dance to it.

Genre:

• Country & Bluegrass

Music Categories:

• Rock & Pop: Country Rock