Album review: Bill Kirchen, Seeds and Stems (Proper)

Kirchen put the Telecaster sheen on Commander Cody’s spliffabilly Americana in the early 1970s.

Here he is revisiting his greatest “hits” with a hot augmented trio: “Too Much Fun”, “Mama Hated Diesels”, “Swing Fever”, “Truck Stop at the End of the World”, a seven-minute “Hot-Rod Lincoln” and an exquisitely sad meditation upon Dylan’s “It Takes a Lot to Laugh …”. Funny, warm, eloquent, dynamic, oddly soulful and technically delicious. An unremitting joy.