“Four fried chickens and a Coke. And some dry, white toast, please.” She goes back to the kitchen and says to the dishwasher, “We got a honky out there that looks a Hasidic diamond merchant, like he’s from the CIA or something.”
“What’s he want to eat?”
“Four whole fried chickens and a Coke… and some white bread, dry, with nothing on it.”
“Shiyittt, it’s Frank Black!”
OK. So maybe the former Pixies frontman is still a little too bizzaro-macabre to be a Blues Brother, but—just like Belushi and Aykroyd—he’s enlisted a legendary crew of Memphis/Muscle Shoals session all-stars to back him up: Spooner Oldham, David Hood and (former Blues Brothers sideman) Steve Cropper, plus Nashville guitarist/songwriter Buddy Miller. And for good measure Honeycomb was produced by Jon Tiven (Wilson Pickett, B.B. King). So what we’ve got here is a real-deal country, soul and rock ’n’ roll album from a pioneer of freaked-out, left-of-the-dial ’80s/’90s alternative.
At first listen, I was skeptical, but man if that Black Francis doesn’t have a velvet-sweet croon. Which, after hearing some of his work with the Catholics, isn’t totally unexpected. But Honeycomb goes a step further with some of Black’s most mature songwriting to date and a chilled-out sound that plays like the cure to a hangover after a night of Pixies-soundtracked debauchery.
