I’ve noted before that I’m a fan of concept albums. I have not seen anyone embrace it quite the way Nashville-by-way-of-Mississippi resident Afton Wolfe did on his newest record, Ophiuchus. Each of the 13 songs is associated with one of the 12 well-known signs of the zodiac, plus one for the lesser known Ophiuchus. Then, he released each of them timed with its sign, finishing up with the last one, and the album in its entirety, last week. The music itself is a mixed breed consisting of most of the genres that fit under the Americana label, along with a few other things karma has thrown Afton’s way. It’s all held together by his whiskey-and-cigarettes baritone voice and a richness reflective of the community that played on the album.
At one end of the musical spectrum is Winter Comes For Mary. It’s mostly just Wolfe singing and playing acoustic guitar in a eulogy for Mary Sack, and many of us would agree that “who deserves [more time] if not you.” Another simple arrangement is Crooked Road, written the night before his wife’s brain surgery as a plea for all to go well (it did). As emotional as that song is, Rushing Back is even more so. It’s a bluesy song about trying to write the perfect song for a recently passed friend, and you can practically hear Wolfe’s voice crack in anguish. There’s a little more of a classic Delta sound to Last King of the Blues, where it’s noted that “just because you ain’t in jail, that don’t mean you’re free.”
At the other end of the melodic axis is Forgive Yourself. It’s a rhythm & blues number about the need to forgive yourself, because everyone makes mistakes. Its fraternal twin is I Deserve To Be Forgiven, a gospel country waltz with an extensive list of autobiographically inspired mistakes (I want to hear about Beaumont some time). Rules of War starts as a tango, leading into a diatribe about the absurdity of the concept of having rules for war.
The hardest cut to categorize is Invocation. It’s a prayer to the music gods in sort of an avant garde blend of jazz, folk, and gospel. I also think of it as an introduction to the musical mind of Afton Wolfe. I don’t really know what came first, his wide-ranging involvement in the musical community of Nashville, or the style that came out of having that extensive list of support players (18 different musicians on the album, by my count). Either way, Ophiuchus is a musical journey as varied and magical as the zodiac itself.
About the author: I've actually driven from Tehatchapee to Tonopah. And I've seen Dallas from a DC-9 at night.