The Ashes were a Tampa Bay area blues band that enjoyed a brief celebrity before completely fizzling out around the start of the new millenium.
I’m very particular about music, and while some people assume I’m sticking to established genres or some other ignorant elitism, that’s simply not true. I like what I like, and it crosses all genres. The Ashes of Grisum is a great example of that. I don’t generally find a lot of blues that resonates with me, but the Ashes, with that mournful instrumentation and those wild, despairing vocals, really did it for me.
Listening to later works, recently made available by sometime-bandmate Vinnie Saletto, it seems obvious that the spark had died out even before the band did. The raw earnestness had faded into self-made clichés of Biblical references, emotional hardships, and lamentations of all kinds.
But for a short while they were the real deal, and that shouldn’t be forgotten.
3 Responses to “The Ashes of Grisum”
On September 26th, 2006 at 1:56 pm jason Said:
On September 26th, 2006 at 4:11 pm Autopsy IV Said:
On September 27th, 2006 at 1:05 pm Trevor Said:
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