Ken Woods and The Old Blue Gang
Lily White
Credit: Barry Morris
Ken Woods and the Old Blue Gang aren’t in a hurry on “Lily White.” This one doesn’t shout to get your attention, it just creeps in and stays with you. The sound is bare bones, mostly fingerpicked guitar, upright bass, and some soft, dusty percussion. Everything feels like it’s happening in a room you’ve just walked into by accident.
The song pulls from a story, one of those half-remembered American legends, about a group of Chinese miners in Oregon who might’ve died in a mine collapse. Or maybe they were killed. No one really knows. The bodies were never found, and the story slipped into local ghost tales.
The song pulls from a story, one of those half-remembered American legends, about a group of Chinese miners in Oregon who might’ve died in a mine collapse. Or maybe they were killed. No one really knows. The bodies were never found, and the story slipped into local ghost tales.
Woods isn’t trying to solve the mystery. He just asks the kind of questions you might if you were standing near that place at night, wondering what happened and why nobody ever really talked about it. The band shifts into a slow, strange rhythm halfway through, almost like a dream. There’s a nylon-string solo near the end that doesn’t feel showy, and really adds to the emotion that has built up throughout the track.
“Lily White” is quiet, but it’s not gentle. It digs into something that’s hard to name, and it doesn’t rush to explain. It’s the sound of a band willing to sit with ghosts, even if they never speak back.
“Lily White” is quiet, but it’s not gentle. It digs into something that’s hard to name, and it doesn’t rush to explain. It’s the sound of a band willing to sit with ghosts, even if they never speak back.