Boddicker: like a character out of a Steinbeck novel
When I come across a new artist I haven’t heard before, sometimes I like to know as little about them as possible and let my own imagination take hold.Boddicker is such an artist…I envision him almost like a character out of a Steinbeck novel…George from Of Mice and Men, to be precise. And the reason isn’t because he is oafish, but because there is an naive inelegance about him—but what he lacks in finesse, he makes up with Soul…and it’s pure and beautiful and totally genuine.
(OK, the Steinbeck reference is probably due to a song on the record which fascinates me called Pretty Baby I, and if you have read Of Mice and Men, you will totally get what I’m talking about.)
But to broaden my description about what I think about this artist, I also imagine post-Beatles-in-the-doghouse-with-Yoko-era John Lennon, adrift and banished from his home. Boddicker’s ode to his muddy southern stomping ground in Mississippi Beautiful, You Know I Love You is a primal, caterwauling wail and I can’t stop listening to it and the plaintive longing it conveys, despite the bull-in-the-chinashop delivery.
Boddicker won’t be for everyone, but for me it is a rare treat to get so much mileage out of my own imagination upon listening to a young artist like this one.
Boddicker – Mississippi Beautiful, You Know I Love You
Note: Wendy Williams works for Toolshed as an online promoter, Boddicker being one of their clients.