Here is a timeless, sweeping epic of a song from Wyoming quartet The Two Tracks. ‘Workingman’s Blues’ is already a fine song, but this version of it is particularly special. The band recorded the song at Sheridan College where they were joined by a fabulous horn section arranged by the college’s director of Bands and Jazz Studies, Dr. Eric Richards. When the horn parts are combined with the quartet’s masterful performance, the song is turned into musical cinema, a story of political angst transformed into the soaring, searching soul of Americana. Husband and wife Dave and Julie Huebner demonstrate great musicianship, with Julie’s acoustic driving the song, while Dave’s stirring cello-work is incredible to watch, generating a real emotional response. Dave’s voice is clear and pure, a perfect country vocal that flows on melodic currents, often buoyed by Julie’s harmonies. Taylor Phillips and Fernando Serna deliver powerful bass and drums respectively, creating the foundation from which the cello and horns rise.
Dave Huebner described the song’s themes for AUK: “This is a tune about the struggles of the working class in America, plain and simple. From the ’30s dust bowl to modern times. It gets more relevant, sadly, with every passing day. The heaviness and power of the horn additions to this performance really echo what I feel would be the voices of so many marginalized workers struggling to be heard or acknowledged.” Indeed, it’s as relevant as ever and the band capture this effectively in their lyrics and music.
‘Workingman’s Blues’ featured on The Two Tracks’ fourth album ‘It’s A Complicated Life’, which was released in the summer of 2023. Producer Will Kimbrough (Rodney Crowell), mix engineer Trina Shoemaker (Indigo Girls) and recording engineer Sean Sullivan (Sturgill Simpson) have helped The Two Tracks craft a rich album that covers all it means to be human: world-weary stories that are balanced with hope. Dave says: “This is an album about where we’ve been, where we are, and where we’re going, these are universal stories. We really hope people find themselves wrapped up in this music much the way we’re wrapped up in our complicated mid-forties, family-raising lives.”
The band’s sound comes all the way from the Bighorn Mountains in Wyoming, a blend of country and folk that really is at the heart of American roots music. But the songs they offer are universal reflections of the human experience for us all and this song is a great place to start.
