Consumer Guide Album

Mark Rubin Jew of Oklahoma: Southern Discomfort [Rubinchik, 2015]
A full-time folkie and part-time violin salesman who plays half a dozen instruments and gigs with more bands than that, Rubin sings and sometimes jokes about the kind of marginality he knows too well. "No More for You" and "Key Chain Blues" sum up the new poverty in new ways. Klezmer sex tips join a jolly Gil Scott-Heron singalong and a "Murder of Leo Frank" that specifies Fiddlin' John Carson's role in that anti-Semitic lynching. "Why Am I Trying to Kill Myself?" and "Seriously aka Too Much Weed" take Mark Rubin himself to task. Opener and closer go out and have a good time anyway. A-