Joseph Turner & The Dudes of Hazard – “Missouri”: Turning Grief Into Powerful Roots-Rock
Life can be utterly brutal especially when you experience it ups and downs at a very young age, in a way it alters how you see things from different perspectives from others. It’s ain’t easy to navigate life after a major heartbreak or loss, these painful experiences makes life feel a lot like trying to fix a flat tire on a gravel road while it starts to pour rain. It’s crazy, painful and sad, but it also shapes you to who you are today. Indie-alternative outfit Joseph Turner & The Dudes of Hazard handles that messy journey with their powerful single, “Missouri”.
The track released today was crafted to make sense of early loss, grief, and the struggle to find your footing when plans fall apart. But the painful thing is sometimes you may not even be in those people’s plan, but in it all it changes how you see things and how you approach things. It’s a song that carries a deeply personal, evolving message, our perspectives on life and death shift as we grow, and finding a way forward means balancing the pain of the past with the urge to keep moving. Life can change a lot in seconds, it can put you in a very dark corner where if you don’t put in much effort you may never come back from it. This happens to many, there may be family members or people we know that we look up to or even our parents, yet life can alter our fate in just a twist.
Loosing them sometimes means, loosing all your plans. And this means you have to change all your plans, plan again, and begin the journey anew. Experiencing this and someone who has got it all smooth makes it difficult to even relate well with them, because when your think about it then it’s like you’ve been cursed or something. Making you wish to meet someone who can release you off those pains, the memories that won’t go away and your perspectives that won’t change. Joseph Turner and his crew always know how to make you feel every inch of their tracks. They create music that feels like sitting on a dusty porch in the Dutch delta with an acoustic guitar, surrounded by close friends who know how to turn hard life lessons into great stories.
“Missouri” is a fascinating journey built in two distinct halves. And this is what makes the track unique, it feels like two tracks put together. The first half of it is a slow ballad that doesn’t rush, anchored by Joseph Turner’s intimate, one-take acoustic guitar and the weeping, beautiful pedal steel work of Keenan Schuck. It feels more fragile, spacious, and intensely personal. It’s that part that can make you just sit in one dark corner, weep and wish you never had to experience this much pain and sadness. Then getting to the latter parts of the song, the song dramatically shifts gears into a driving, Southern-tinged roots-rock groove.
Wes “the Weasel” van Werkhoven steps in with a gritty blues harmonica, adding a layer of grit and forward motion that shakes off the melancholy. All weaving the same themes but in different atmospheres. It’s a such a thoughtful beautifully crafted masterpiece. It’s not easy seeing the face of a demon and surviving, and that’s how much deep you can sink with Soo much pain and weight in your heart. It can shatter dreams, it can make you wish you never existed, where you want to return to where you came from!
I like how they allow you to feel every bit of the production, it’s raw, natural and unpolished in the best way possible, capturing the raw character of contributors from both the USA and the Netherlands before being mastered by Sam Moses in Nashville. It’s also great how they crafted the song, allowing the tempo to change right along with the emotional narrative, starting slow and thoughtful before picking up a head of steam that keeps your foot tapping. Now that’s how you create music to put your listeners attentive and in their feels.
Missouri is a masterpiece that many of you will love and relate, especially if you’ve ever lost someone you depended on for everything. They create a hole in your heart that may have be filled or healed, and still give leave you enough memories from them to keep going and keep fighting. It’s a brilliant twist on the traditional roots-rock formula, telling a deeply human story that evolves right before your ears. It delivers top-tier musicianship, a brilliant stylistic shift, and a comforting reminder that we can always find a way through the storm. Go ahead and stream “Missouri” and let it wash you down through the journey!
Go check Joseph Turner & The Dudes of Hazard out on the links below;
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