Petunia & the Vipers play the Folk Alliance Conference (February 20-24) at the Delta Chelsea Hotel. See listings. Rating: NNNN
Petunia, aka Vancouver’s Ron Fortugno, continues to evolve on this nostalgic, exploratory self-titled debut with his new band, the Vipers.
In the first half, they try on various musical hats, starting with a beautiful, slow western swing tune, moving to ragtime on Mercy (Petunia drops Tom Waits’s name here), followed by frenetic rockabilly and psych-mariachi.
Unlike a lot of albums, this one improves around the halfway mark thanks to instant country classic Yes Baby Yes (Cold Heart Breaker), some excellent covers from the 20s and 60s (Hoagy Carmichael’s Stardust, and Forbidden Lovers, made famous by Lefty Frizzell) and atmospheric material that would work well as film soundtracks.
And Petunia & the Vipers don’t take themselves too seriously. The album closes with Kinksesque vocals and a kazoo solo.
Top track: Yes Baby Yes (Cold Heart Breaker)
