B.B. Palmer: Krishna Country Gold
What is Consciousness?
What is Godliness?
What is the Eternal Living Soul?
What is Heaven or Nirvana; Salvation or the Brahma?
Is it All Just Lies That We Are Told?
This could be a lesson plan for a college-level course in Existentialism or the topics for a really deep intellectual conversation among religious scholars. Could be. But what they really are is the opening verse of the song “God Consciousness” from B.B. Palmer’s new EP Krishna Country Gold, released August 19. There’s a lot going on here lyrically and musically. The words continue to explore some of the basic questions man has been asking about his existence for centuries, set in ¾ time with honky-tonk instrumentation, including a fiddle break which shifts into an electric guitar-driven groove with actual sitar melodies and all sung in Palmer’s unique voice, which has been best described as a “barroom tenor.” That’s a lot to take in for a song that clocks in at just under three minutes.
Photo by Macie Bowden
Palmer tells the story of the incident that begat Krishna Country Gold: ”It was about five or six years ago now. I was living in a small room in Opelika, Alabama. I had squirrels living with me; it was an interesting time. For some reason, I found a copy of the Bhagavad Gita at that point in my life. I fell in head-first to it and became obsessed with it. That led to more texts and led down the whole rabbit hole of ancient texts.” I asked him if he had thought about how that text had come to appear in rural Alabama. He believes it’s all part of the cosmic nature of things. “I found it in a closet, and it wasn’t in that closet at first. I think it just kind of materialized to be honest. I don’t remember it being there and then I opened it up one day and it was there. Beyond that, the past five years have been beyond any rational understanding,”
“The Great Cosmic Motion Picture Show” was inspired by the audio CD featuring several lecture tracks that accompanies “The Autobiography of a Yogi” by Paramahansa Yogananda (look it up, it’s been in print for over 70 years and is considered one of the most important spiritual books of the 20th century). Palmer relates one of the stories told which involved the yogi meditating in Bangladesh then finding himself in the body of a French naval officer during WWII who is suddenly seriously wounded. He feels himself at the point of death only to reawaken in Bangladesh in a meditative state. He asks which is the reality and is told “neither” by a voice in his head. I tried to get B.B. to give us insight on how we should interpret the lyrics but he wasn’t having any of it, “As a listener, there’s different meanings for everybody. I can only tell you what was going on with me when I decided to put them into song form.”
The “Queen of Alabama,” Taylor Hunnicutt joins Palmer on “Why Do You.” B.B. took over the bass guitar spot in Taylor’s band a short time ago and he credits working with her for giving him so many vocal opportunities. She reciprocates by being a part of his band and they share guitarist Josh McKenzie who has been a part of Palmer’s band since the beginning (he’s also Hunnicutt’s husband). It’s a big family on the road with Palmer often opening up for Taylor with Hunnicutt on backing vocals, then Palmer sitting in on bass during Taylor’s set. On this track, Taylor only contributes a couple of lines but those are lyrics contributed by Early James, another Birmingham artist (those lyrics are uncredited, by the way, so he is getting that recognition here). Musically the song serves as a bridge between the first two songs of the record and the last two. Palmer says it’s more like his earlier work. “It gravitates more to the style of our first two records rather than this record. It’s got more of your basic instruments on it; fiddle, steel, four-piece band, Telecasters. It’s very in line with the old way of thinking with the style of country that we all like.”
“Simulation Theory” and “Many Worlds Theory” were the first songs written for the Krishna Country project before it even became a thing. Palmer says, “Those two were cut as singles before we had any idea that we were gonna make an EP. Initially they were just going to be the two singles that have been released for the past year and then we decided to go ahead and finish the record. Those two live together kind of like brother and sister, ‘Many Worlds Theory’ actually came first, it’s like the older, wiser sister. They’re meant to be opposite tracks. ‘Many Worlds’ was inspired by the god Kali, the female, nurturing side but also the Mother Nature side which can be very visceral in nature. ‘Simulation’ is more of the contemporary, modern Western type of brain, like ‘oh, this doesn’t make sense so it’s a conspiracy theory.’”
The “Cosmic Cowboys” of Austin back in the 60s have got nothing on B.B. Palmer. All they did was blend Texas tradition with hippie counterculture. Palmer has brought up an entire collection of Indian-based music with lyrics inspired by Hindu scripture and done it all in Alabama with people from the state. From engineer JP Molus at Seven Bridges Recording Studio in Montgomery and engineer Wade Allen who picked up the project midway through and finished things up (Allen also produced Palmer’s Lee County’s Finest record) to all of the players including the sitar player; “another divine happenstance,” says Palmer. Davis Little of the Birmingham-based Little Raine Band had just purchased a sitar about six months before Palmer had even begun planning for the Krishna Country project (the two had been part of a bluegrass band in Auburn nearly 10 years ago).
I asked Palmer if all of his reading and studying of the ancient texts leading to his revelation has given him any deeper insight. “The point is nobody knows what the fuck is going on, if we’re gonna be honest. I just have past signs and points of beauty in my life that I appreciate.” Spoken like a man still looking for the answers but is confident he has the right questions.
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