Once you've had a brush with death, it's hard not to throw caution to the wind and do what you want rather than what's expected. In 2022,
Chuck Prophet
was diagnosed with lymphoma, and for a few weeks it was an open question if his doctors would be able to treat his condition and restore him to health. Good luck was on his side, and he recovered sufficiently to return to making music. While he was pondering his mortality,
Prophet
indulged his passion for classic cumbia recordings, reveling in the pleasures of the slinky Latin rhythms. He decided to celebrate his new lease on life by making an album with
¿Qiensave?
, a cumbia band from Salinas, California, that he'd been jamming with, and 2024's
Wake the Dead
certainly puts his work in a new light, though it isn't as radical an experiment as one might imagine. The smart, unpretentiously literate storytelling of
's lyrics mesh well with
's grooves, and the band puts their own stamp on the music without forcing the tunes into a place they don't want to go. The Latin flavors are an integral part of this music, and the musicians (
were joined by members of
's road band
the Mission Express
for these sessions) can shape-shift into
Sir Douglas Quintet
-style Tex-Mex and norteño-infused shuffles with easy grace, with a dash of Farfisa-fueled garage rock for seasoning.
also had the good sense to not try to bend his lyrical voice too far to suit the songs. His knack for social commentary in tracks like "In the Shadows (For Elon)" and "Sally Was a Cop" (which he co-wrote with
Alejandro Escovedo
) works very well in this context, while the open-road tale of "Sugar into Water" and the bittersweet romance of "Give the Boy a Kiss" are less weighty but every bit as effective. And the closing track, "It's a Good Day to Be Alive," is a thoughtful testimony to the small things that make life worthwhile; it's not sugary and is all the more effective for it. It's the sort of thing that might not occur to a songwriter unless he had to seriously consider the prospect of not facing another morning, and along with the Latin flavors, that's what makes
worth hearing -- it's fine work from a great songwriter who is following his passions while he can, and that makes it special. ~ Mark Deming