Jack Rose: Luck in the Valley

Label: Thrill Jockey

This is our last earthly transmission from Jack Rose, a master of the guitar who’d been granted access to the instrument’s ancient book of secrets, only to be taken from us — all of us, everyone who makes the effort to get up every day because of music like his — this past December, far too young by any standard. There are no fateful messages on Luck in the Valley, of course — just the jaw-dropping, land-swapping power and versatility of his acoustic guitaring, which has taken in every lesson set down by Fahey and Bull and Basho, and Dock Boggs and Mississippi John Hurt, every last note spun between Appalachia and the Delta and from there to India and back. And he’d only just begun untangling it all for himself, and for us. Given the time he should’ve had, there’s no telling what doors he could have unlocked with the key already in his hands. All of them, maybe. You cannot hear Luck in the Valley, its commingling of nerve-tweaking ragas (“Tree in the Valley”), back-porch revelations (“Lick Mountain Ramble”) and the places where they intersect (“Moon in the Gutter”), all bound together by incredible joy, and think otherwise. For willing initiates, this is also a fine place to begin exploring the music of Jack Rose. There’s no time like right now. (M.L. Thrope)