Milton’s roots music, ruddy and real, doesn’t sound anything like his bio: New York City-based singer-songwriter.
Instead, we have this sweetly gruff record, “Grand Hotel,” which stands flat-footed in the middle of the four-way intersection of folk-rock, country, blues and pop.
Milton, turns out, comes by this honestly: His grandmother, a pianist, taught music. His great-uncle was a folk singer in the 1940s. He had a cousin who picked. His dad followed bluegrass music, too, even taking him to see a Doc and Merle Watson show.
Still, you imagine Marc Rosenthal (who later renamed himself, and his band, Milton) in a cluttered Manhattan apartment, a swirl of traffic and humanity echoing from the streets below, banging out story ideas on a guitar or keyboard — and you wonder where this well of deep-fried soul comes from.
He gets a powerful assist from Bo Ramsey — a producer with Louisiana roots who adds the same graceful sway, and meaningful use of space, that defined Lucinda Williams’ “Essence.”
There are shades of the Band’s doomed romantic Richard Manuel (“Grand Hotel,” “A Whole Lotta Pain”), the masterful storytelling of Warren Zevon (Pale Moonlight”), the striking melancholy of “Tumbleweed Connection”-era Elton John (“Into the Blue”), a tribute to piano-playing jazz legend James Booker (“Booker”), the scuffed-up pop poetry of Nick Lowe (“Night Driving”), the groovy R&B grit of Van Morrison (“Everybody Loves You”). Imagine a banjoed-up version of Sly and the Family Stone — literally, on “All The Time.”
It’s hammered together through the natural character of Milton’s charmingly gnarled voice — which sounds like a big rig downshifting when the highway curves into a small town.
In this way, “Grand Hotel” brilliantly builds on the college-radio hit “In the City,” from Milton’s 2003 indie debut “Scenes from the Interior” (and the unjustly overlooked self-titled follow up from 2006) because of an open-hearted appreciation for all of the rough-hewn joys of roots music, whatever its derivation.
And whatever its hometown.
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