Longtime NYC rock drummer Christian Rutledge has traded his skins for strings. After years keeping heavy time in hard-riffing outfits like Vagina Panther, Space Merchants and Freaky Wilderness, Rutledge is stepping to the mic for his solo debut, An Inch of This New York Mile. The spare, lyric-driven tunes here draw on Americana influences like Woody Guthrie and Gillian Welch, with strains of songwriter-led indie acts like The Replacements and Billy Bragg.
Production, engineering and mixing were handled by Matt Shane (Rosanne Cash, Elvis Costello), and Fred Kevorkian mastered the record. The backing band includes two more Rosanne Cash regulars in drummer Dan Rieser and vocalist Misty Boyce, as well as bassist Rich Hammond (Joan Osborne, Joe Jackson) and Chris Tarrow on guitar, mandolin and lap and pedal steel. Rieser and Hammond’s deft support, Boyce’s harmonies and Tarrow’s melodic flourishes add texture and filigree, but it’s Rutledge’s deeply humane songs and haunted delivery that form the heart of a record both warm in its comforts and spiky in its worldview.
Steeped in country’s narrative tradition, Rutledge carves his own path on urban tales like opener Jesus Bushwick, a whimsical breakup song about his former Brooklyn ‘hood. Coal Miner Songs is a work ballad set in the underground gloom of the city’s subways. On My Bodega, Rutledge deftly assumes the voice of an New York shop owner asserting his place — “I’m an inch of this New York mile” — after decades behind the counter. Delicate and devastating, Little Family Secret drapes a tale of abuse over gorgeous descending arpeggios and Chris Tarrow’s mournful mandolin. What I’d Been Waiting For is a redemption song with a world-weary beauty worthy of the late, great John Prine: “Sometimes certain turns out wrong/and always might not last that long/ … I looked up and there you were/a promise I could keep for sure.” While Fundraising Drive transposes the sardonic satire of country legends like Townes Van Zandt and David Allan Coe to Brooklyn enclaves where your tote bag says everything. And closer Where the Meadow Meets the Mountain is a hazy elegy, threaded through with Tarrow’s shimmering pedal steel.