The Handsome Family
July 23rd at Bottom of the Hill, San Francisco

From the first guttural notes unleashed by the fairly intimidating Brett Sparks, I knew the Handsome Family was going to give me what I wanted. The night outside was thick and damp with fog, the sort of evening that makes you want to hunker down somewhere dark and protected, a perfect backdrop for the husband and wife duo’s brand of Southern Gothic country music. Brett and Rennie Sparks have played under the Handsome Family moniker since 1993, and are joined onstage by a drummer and a fiddle/bass player. And on this night, they were also joined by Ralph Carney on some songs, a wind instrumentalist best known for his longtime association with Tom Waits, who played, among other things, a very long flute, bringing some ambient, jazzy accents to their Carter Family-influenced tunes. Rennie, who pens the lyrics and trades duties on guitar and banjo, peppered their set with near constant chatter at the audience between songs, at ease up there alongside her husband, directing at Brett quips like, “That’s the first time you’ve touched me in over 20 years,” and receiving subsequent snickers from the audience. Despite the fact that they are from Chicago, which casts their music in a refined, subversive urbanity, it’s also steeped with an Appalachian flavor that guides their darker narrative tales. They tell the sort of stories that live among the natural splendor of a riddled America—think a deserted dirt lane by moonlight, folklore storytelling on a sagging front porch, the beauty and paranoia that resides in a spider spinning its web. Nature, both in its literal and symbolic meaning, is entrenched in this music. They also sing about love, most thoroughly expressed on their latest release, Honey Moon.

Intrigue and mystique cloaks the Handsome Family. Brett has faced the demons of his own mental problems, and that deep, raw feeling resonates in his vocal delivery of the songs. His baritone is an unfurling growl, a tempered twang, and a roar all at once; he has the ability to change his voice to fit the composition, and their best moments are when husband and wife harmonize. They have a unique way of fitting their voices together, trading off on melody and harmony even within the course of one song. For a night that almost beat me down, keeping me alone inside the comfort of my apartment, turns out the deeply authentic American music of the Handsome Family was exactly the kind of company I was craving.

read more