Unless something sensational happened on the music front; as in one ground-moving album every other week come the end of the year, this record will be among my albums of the year! It is that good, great songs and a voice steeped in character, a little rustic, knotty and whisky stained his rich vein of story telling comes from the bottom of his heart.
Iowa City raised, Bell is very much a man of the people. A man of the world his cinematic like imagery grabs hold of the listener from the off, and with some sensational guitar work from Ethan Ballinger; Jarrod Walker’s mandolin, Johnny Upton’s sitar, Cody Martin, drums, Missy Raines, bass and harmony vocals of Craig Bickhardt to go with his acoustic guitar and vocals “Stamping Metal (Strike)” not for the one and only time sees magic fill the air. With a gritty, never-say-die determination Bell opens the album with the title-track “I Don’t Do This For Love, I Do This For Love” and the earthy reflective theme continues on through “Dust”; plus with a bluegrassy feel (such the picking of mandolin and acoustic guitar) coal-mining song “At The Bottom Of Kentucky” is drenched with history.
On the record Bell also has lead, harmony vocals from Annie Mosher, bluegrass harmony vocalists Claire Lynch (she has sung with the best!), Don Rigsby and Leslie Bell who all produce fine performances. Mosher singing lead on ”Dust”, and with his voice possessing hints of Bob Neuwirth and other singer-songwriters as he winkles the best from them to go with his own, incredibly innovative prowess as a writer and arranger too his work of the kind to be richly savoured. On the likes of “Jesus Of Gary, Indiana” and others Bell reflects on the demise of the blue-collar, manual labour jobs, on the factory floor, mines, and the steel plants of the North. With a feverish passion “Walking Boss (Ghost’s PFC Draft Day Blues)” has him speak of having to go to war (and become another human sacrifice) and how he would never be the walking boss. Bell’s songs may be peppered with darkness, but such is life, like the turn of a coin there is always hope in his songs, albeit sometimes more pride than hope.
Waxed in harmonica (Bell) he speaks, melancholy fashion of driving into a nickel moon through the Georgia Hills as he questions the meaning of life, work and growing older with Mosher providing bittersweet harmonies a stately time for reflection is obtain. Bell’s travels aren’t confined to Indiana, Detroit, Kentucky or Georgia either, because “King Of The North” with an extra, sharper, rootsy driven (if it were possible) edge “King Of The North” has him cross the border over into Canada. To close he eases through “Unforgiven” and a heart-moving song about a Vietnam veteran “Stan”. Of a man who’s life slipped away as from a pillar of a man he became a broke down guy they just called Stan. It is the type of song Bruce Springsteen could have written (Rod Picott too), such the subject working as a hot metal man and based in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania it’s steeped in Northern grit and hard blue collar soul.
Maurice Hope