Album Review: The Purple Bird by Bonnie "Prince" Billy

2007's Greatest Palace Music featured highlights from Oldham's formative gothic folk offerings under the Palace Music banner reimagined by some of the sharpest session musicians America's country music capital has to offer. Whereas that project could resemble the outcome of a dare to produce a particularly unlikely addition to endlessly prolific Oldham's sprawling catalogue, The Purple Bird lands like a proper 'Nashville album'. Produced and largely cowritten by David 'Ferg' Ferguson (whom Oldham met when Johnny Cash covered his doom-laden evergreen "I See a Darkness" 20-odd years ago), and featuring a handful of notable country veteran guests (who also pitch in on the songwriting), the album cheerily embraces various stock tropes and scenarios of country songs past and present (tipsily shabby drinking song? Check.

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Another beautifully crafted slice of Americana, albeit with a more collaborative approach this time, still contains the usual Oldham magic Whether it be under the name Palace, Palace Brothers, Palace Music or, most frequently, Bonnie Prince Billy, Will Oldham can lay claim to being one of the most prolific artists of our times. Barely a year goes by when Oldham doesn’t release an album, and The Purple Bird is his 22nd release under the Bonnie Prince Billy moniker. Oldham has always been a particularly single-minded artist, and this record marks just the second time that he’s worked with a producer.

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After spending the first large span of his music career bouncing between monikers, it seems the Bonnie "Prince" Billy name may now be the most consistent thing we can expect from a new Will Oldham release. Part of his charm is that he's so predictably unpredictable, surrounding himself with an ever-rotating cast of musicians and appearing on other artists' recordings nearly as often as his own. His albums often feel like they were recorded off-the-cuff: a prolific songwriter jamming with talented friends whenever or wherever the muse strikes them.

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Will Oldham, usually performing as Bonnie Prince Billy, has spent his prolific career finding new approaches to old styles, frequently by partnering with new collaborators. The Purple Bird suggests that Oldham doesn’t sound restless if he remains busy and curious. The new primary collaborator this time is David “Ferg” Ferguson, a Nashville producer, engineer, and musician noted for his work with Johnny Cash, Sturgill Simpson, and Cowboy Jack Clement.

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"I don't wanna make a country record. Just do your shit, Will." The words from producer David Ferguson to Will Oldham, the man behind the moniker Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, that inspired The Purple Bird. Ferguson's hesitancy at making a country album stems from the fact that this is a Nashville record, conceptualised around a dinner table and born in the most famous country city of them all.

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