A “best of” collection
The Bean Pickers Union – Greatest Picks
Format: CD – Digital
Label: Independent
Release: 2021
Release date: September 17, 2021
Chuck Melchin has been making music with his “loose collective” of musicians he calls the Bean Pickers Union since 2006. In that time he has released three full length CDs and a four song EP, as well as a further EP with side project Los Brujos, to critical acclaim from reviewers, bloggers and DJs across the US and Europe.
Americana-UK called 2007’s Potlatch a “masterclass in Americana music”. Twangville said of 2012’s Better the Devil, “if music is at its finest when it paints a picture, this album is the aural equivalent of a Hopper painting”, while American Roots UK said that Chuck writes “beautifully poetic songs of despair, hope and redemption”. Red Line Roots called 2017’s EP Caterwaul “an orchestra of rootsy strings swirling in tandem, Chuck’s voice and lyrics as the centerpiece to a dusty and worn arrangement of gorgeous tones and special intimacy that draw you in”.
Now Chuck and his mates deliver a “best of” collection – the Bean Pickers Union Greatest Picks, 14 songs from across the catalogue plus four bonus tracks written and recorded in just the last few months. Covering the whole of Americana’s wide umbrella, the album takes the scenic route – alt. country rockers with searing telecasters, beautiful ballads with violin and cello, bluegrass stompers with banjo and mandolins – as it winds through the last 15 years of recordings.
Tracks:
01. 16 Pounds of Mary (4:12)
02. Burning Sky (4:45)
03. Reaper (3:25)
04. Strange (3:45)
05. I’m So Sorry (3:14) (EXPLICIT)
06. Photograph (3:20)
07. Tranquility (2:50)
08. Philemon (3:18)
09. Independence Day (3:19)
10. Down (3:57)
11. Warrior (4:41)
12. Sometimes I Just Sits (5:17) (EXPLICIT)
13. Glory (5:12)
14. Broken (3:53)
Bonus Tracks
15. Bulletproof Man (3:13)
16. I Am James (4:01)
17. Amy Jean (3:24)
18. She (4:36)
All songs by Chuck Melchin
Tracks 3, 5, 6, 9 & 11 from Potlatch © 2007
Tracks 2, 7, 10 & 12 from Better the Devil © 2012
Track 14 from Caterwaul © 2017
Tracks 1, 4, 8 & 13 from Archaeology © 2019
Tracks 15, 16, 17 & 18 all previously unreleased