THE GUARDIAN (London) – May 21, 2002

Alt-country could be going mainstream, thanks to Ryan Adams and Lambchop. Meanwhile, smaller acts like Nashvillian Doug Hoekstra are finding the UK ever more receptive to the flipside of established country.

David Prudame and Stephen Dowling -- Guardian Unlimited

US alt-country rising star Doug Hoekstra has travelled a long way to get his music in front of a sympathetic audience – from Nashville to Brighton in fact.

In Sunday night's gig he was joined by the city's rising daughter Rachel Innes, wrapping her soulful vocals around his simple yet perfectly constructed songs, which provided eloquent evidence for why Hoekstra's already bagged three Grammy nominations.

Innes has a voice that fits neatly between Aretha Franklin and Portishead's Beth Gibbons, while Hoekstra takes his cues from a long-line of country-ish confessors, from Hank Williams to Bruce Springsteen. And he's not the only one. Everywhere, it seems, the country credos of the dog done and died are being dressed up for the urban consumer in a
way that's more NewYork City than Nashville.

The pair were teamed up through local online magazine Virtual Brighton. Hoekstra's internet-posted songs brought him to the attention of the magazine's Mike Cobley who, already well aware of Rachel, brought them together. Their first meeting taking
place three hours before they took the stage.

Hoekstra's recent visit comes as alt-country scene threatens to spill into the mainstream in a way credible country music hasn't managed to do since the days of Keith Richards and Gram Parsons. While pedal steels have cropped up through rock since the early 70s, rock's embraces with its country cousin has been an intermittant -and usually terminally
uncool - affair.

The new breed came from the mid-West of the US in the late 80s - young bands who'd grown up with Black Flag and Johnny Cash, the Clash and the Carter Family. Uncle Tupelo, a four-piece from Bellesville, Illinois, created a whole new movement with their 1990 album No Depression, which married the intensity of punk with the sprawling, languid discontent of the best country songs. From their ashes rose Son Volt and Wilco, fronted by respectively songwriters Jay Farrar and Jeff Tweedy. At the same time, critical darling Beck was starting to meld countryish vibes with beats and samples, and fellow Americans Sparklehorse were making creaky, curious country songs utterly at odds with the glitzy Nashville scene. From Nashville itself hailed Lambchop, a 17-strong collective who sounded like a soul orchestra playing along to some mythical
1940s Jimmie Stewart movie - a few weeks ago they played the Albert Hall. Former Whiskeytown singer Ryan Adams is arguably alt-country's first star, and not just because Elton John is a fan. And let's not forget Madonna donning cowboy hats and boots; she wouldn't have done that when Billy Ray Cyrus was all we knew of the country scene.

Hoekstra might not be achieving the recognition that fellow rural revolutionaries Lambchop and Ryan Adams are finding, the UK's a rewarding proposition nonetheless. "In every town in England, there's a group of people really into the singer,
songwriter thing. In America crowds that know you will allow you maybe six songs, but over here audiences are different, they come and they wait to listen to what you are doing," he says.

Hoekstra's career has brought him from band Bucket Number Six and their two albums for Butch Vig's Madison-based Boat label, through four critically-acclaimed solo albums, including last year's delicate classic, Around The Margins.

He's keen to point out that burgeoning fortunes of the alt-country on this side of the Atlantic are richer than back home. "Lambchop's singer Kurt lives in Nashville and only quit his day job because of money made in England and Ryan
Adams was big over here first. I think the British audience ismore drawn to quirky, rough-hewn stuff. I'm not sure why and part of me wonders how will it continue to succeed, but ask me in a year or two."

With a BA and Masters in English and creative writing, there is more to Hoekstra than just music. A recently completed study of the acceptance of pop-culture into academia is awaiting publication, while the many short stories on his website show he
doesn't just need a guitar in hand to pen a tale.

Alt-country's latest blinding talent's ridden into town.  Like the rest of the pack, he's not planning on leaving town just yet.

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