Burbank local Frank Fairfield is a man out of time and a man stuck in time, specifically the era from the mid-1920s through the Great Depression. Fairfield’s self-titled solo debut deftly, if curiously, replicates the sounds, tones and attitudes of pre-war folk, blues, bluegrass and country music once only found on brittle 78 RPM records and associated with Leadbelly, Woody Guthrie, the Carter Family and others.

Fairfield plays guitar, scratchy fiddle and banjo and warbles his nasally way through traditional material about westward expansion (banjo ballad “Cumberland Gap”), murder (outlaw chronicle “John Hardy”) and vengeance from the grave (paranormal parable “Fair Margaret and Sweet William”). Listening to Fairfield is like falling through a fissure into an age long before iPods, space shuttles, nuclear bombs and pacemakers: No telling who might embrace Fairfield’s old-timey music, but his delivery is sincere and unhesitatingly craggy.

Grade: B



Frank Fairfield is currently available.