Light Fuse, Get Away

Performer: Widespread Panic
Artist: Branford Marsalis
Producer: John Keane; Widespread Panic
Distributor: BMG (distributor)

Notes: Widespread Panic: John Bell, Michael Houser (vocals, guitar); John Hermann (vocals, keyboards); David Schools (vocals, bass); Domingo S. Ortiz (vocals, percussion); Todd Nance (drums). Additional personnel: Branford Marsalis (horns). This southern-fried jam-rock machine knows how to crank up a good time. Fans of the Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd, or Little Feat may enjoy this 2 CD offering of Widespread Panic at some of their most rippin' moments in concert. Solid classic rock gives way to extended guitar and percussion jams, only to resurface into the next electrified verse of lyrics. John Hermann's funky clavinet riffs and other key-toys lend a groovy swagger to the whole mix. The first disc opens with "Porch Song," an anthem for "Havin' a good time." As elsewhere on the album, modal rumination gives way to booty-shakin' keyboard funk-ercises. The simply titled "Rock" delivers a familiar Southern rock theme of being homeward bound, with the crescendoing mantra "I'm gonna make it home...piece by piece." While boulder-sized guitar lines abound, these tunes aren't all of the flaming riff-driven kind. Resounding slide work carries the trippy-trailing "Barstools & Dreamers" into a burning double guitar eruption, yielding in turn to a slow-stepping groove that floats the listener out to sea. LIGHT FUSE GET AWAY indeed, this is the closest thing to the real stuff.

Though they started out in the '80s in Athens, GA, Widespread Panic are as far as can be from what was known then as the "Athens scene" (R.E.M, Let's Active, Pylon, etc.). Instead, they were among the first of a new wave of jam bands picking up the baton of '60s psychedelic warriors like the Grateful Dead. Though their improvisational skills earned them a huge following, WP bore an important difference from peers like Phish; they had a distinctly Southern sound that mixed rock, jazz, and a bit of Dixie, much in the manner of key influences the Allman Brothers and the Dregs.

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