INDY'S WEEKLY ALTERNATIVE NEWSPAPER HIGHLIGHTING ARTS, ENTERTAINMENT AND SOCIAL JUSTICE
Show preview: Del McCoury Band
Saturday, July 12, 9 p.m., $18, 21+
“Moneyland,” the single from the Del McCoury Band’s new album by the same name, has to be one of the finest populist statements against economic inequality in a Southern mode since Randy Newman’s “Mr. President (Have Pity on the Working Man).” The tune’s not breaking any new ground musically or lyrically, but it’s heart-warming to hear McCoury howl and chant “money, money, money, money” while inveighing against unpunished corporate crime. Bookended by excerpts from FDR’s Fireside Chats, Moneyland hearkens back to a time when the South was firmly in the hand of the Democratic Party, and urges some of those long-lost Southern Dems back to the polls. The call for political change runs throughout the material, but is explicit towards the close: “2008, won’t be long / When you place your vote, don’t vote wrong,” McCoury sings on “Breadline Blues 2008,” an update of the 1931 tune that opens the album. Moneyland also works as a lovely collection of bluegrass, with contributions by Gillian Welch, David Rawlings and Merle Haggard.
The band performed four songs live on last week’s A Prairie Home Companion — prairiehome.publicradio.org — and will roll into Bloomington’s Bluebird with much more material July 12.