Folk-country singer-songwriter John Prine composed Angel From Montgomery, a song about a woman wanting to escape her life’s predicament, for his eponymously named debut album. He wrote from her perspective: “If dreams were thunder / And lightnin’ was desire / This old house would have burnt down / A long time ago”.
An excellent song, and a cover by slide-guitar major Bonnie Raitt in 1974 turned it into a major hit for her and a mainstay of her career.
Before she and her husband Derek Trucks called it quits in their own bands to form the Tedeschi Trucks Band, Susan Tedeschi was one of the hottest new guitarists around, proving that as well as being a lead and rhythm player, she was more than capable as a slide player too.
About 25 years after Raitt’s cover received wide acclaim, Tedeschi took her stylistic cue from Raitt and polished it on her cover of Angel From Montgomery, today’s song. It’s from Tedeschi’s second solo album, Just Won’t Burn, which got its 25th anniversary sound upgrade a few years back.
The arrangement, the warmth and articulation of the slide playing, the understated solo and the strong, slightly gravelly but perfectly modulated vocal all add power and gleam to the track. Combine that with the incidental fills on fiddle by Ian Kennedy and no-frills, pinpoint drumming of Mike Levesque, and you have a fabulous, beautiful version of this song.
If you feel like something a bit more on the raw side, listen to the live, electric outtake of the blues classic Voodoo Woman from the same album, with some scorching guitar playing by Sean Costello, or the harp and slide blues with a full-throttle vocal that is Friar’s Point. Happy weekend!
Listen to Angel From Montgomery on Spotify here and Apple Music here.
I started a music WhatsApp group in 2023. I send one song a week on a Friday, with links to both Apple and Spotify, and an accompanying narrative/capsule piece. If you want to engage about a song, get a playlist or just get in touch, email me on markgrosin@gmail.com.
For more of Mark’s excellent picks, go here.
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