Hank Shizzoe

2001, CrossCut Records CCD 12002
Also available on High Quality Vinyl:
LP CCA 2002 (1 LP 180 gram + 45rpm Single)

His fourth album has the same name as he does: «Hank Shizzoe». Why? Because it’s a solo album. Literally. All Hank, solo. But not just him with a folk guitar and a good mood. No, no. With all kinds of toys and, mostly, lots of guitars. Red ones, black ones, white ones and even wooden ones. So, it’s not another House album. But you can still dance to a lot of these songs.«Hank Shizzoe» offers 14 songs. 13 of them were written specially by Thomas Erb. He did the producing again, too. If you can call that «producing». Anyway, along with all those Erb tunes there’s the fantastic «Do Not Forsake Me».That’s the beautiful song from the film «High Noon», written by Dimitri Tiomkin and Ned Washington.

The album spans Folkblues to Rockpop. The songs tell stories about bad smelling stockbrokers, lost cowboys, third class ghosts, US presidents, uptight rappers and Hanks in love. And we meet Sally again in a sequel to «Joe Went To The Water» («Walk», 1996). She moved away from the swamps. She’s doing OK again. The album «Hank Shizzoe» is homemade. With all the advantages that go along with it. Like the excellent catering, for example. And the lounge was presentable, too. After «Plenty Of Time» (1998) there were about two possibilities: either another band album, recorded in nice, big houses; or something really small, private. Bought a microphone here, installed eight recording heads there. Small amplifiers, big sounds. And lots of room for the vocals.

Download audio samples, info on the album and the author's commentary on the songs in PDF-format in the download-box to your right.

Shizzoe plays American music with a capital A, songs that evoke the windswept prairies of the Dakotas, the small towns of Mississippi and the rural routes off the main highways, as only a foreigner could. The mostly self-penned compositions recall what Allen Ginsberg once called "the lost America of love", that time of mystery and romance in the imagination and myth of our national consciousness. - Icon Weekly (USA)

Shizzoe's guitar work is aweinspiring and his sense of vocal phrasing is uncanny. - Totallyadult (USA)