by Amity Hereweard
Country music has long drawn from American folk and blues, sharing their storytelling instincts, rhythmic vocabulary, and ability to turn everyday experience into song. Margo Price explores those connections on Days of Unrest, a collection of protest songs, reinterpretations, and original material that moves comfortably between musical traditions. Produced by Matt Ross-Spang, the album finds its continuity in Price’s distinctive singing and the instrumental choices that give each performance its own personality. The songs carry social and historical themes, but the music provides more than a setting for their messages.
“Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)” brings together the storytelling of Woody Guthrie and Martin Hoffman’s folk composition with the colors of Mexican musical tradition. Joined by Joan Baez and Memphis Mariachi, Price presents the account of the 1948 California airplane crash that killed 28 Mexican migrant workers being deported to Mexico, along with four crew members. A bright trumpet melody opens the arrangement, followed by warm violin lines that answer the vocal phrases over strummed acoustic guitar. The lilting, waltz-like pulse creates an almost festive atmosphere, an unexpected contrast to the tragedy unfolding in the lyrics. Price and Baez bring complementary vocal colors to the storytelling, their harmonized passages adding warmth without forcing the drama. The violin responses become increasingly animated as the performance develops, and a mariachi-styled trumpet solo extends the melodic conversation. A rubato closing phrase leads into a resonant final chord. Rather than attempting to resolve the contrast between musical warmth and lyrical sorrow, the arrangement allows both to speak.
Blaze Foley’s “Oval Room” builds its momentum through repetition and the gradual expansion of a simple musical idea. An acoustic guitar arpeggio establishes a gentle rocking motion, supported by understated bass figures before the drums and backing voices join. The melody returns to a small collection of phrases, but Price gives each repetition a slightly different inflection through dynamics, articulation, and rhythmic placement. Her delivery feels conversational, finding variety within the song’s deliberately narrow melodic framework. Clean electric guitar fills begin answering the vocal lines, while a steady backbeat and lightly swinging eighth notes establish the groove. As the performance progresses, syncopated accents and additional instrumental voices create increasing rhythmic activity. Near the conclusion, the tempo briefly relaxes into rubato before the ensemble returns to its established pulse. The final refrain brings overlapping vocal and instrumental melodies into a multipart conversation, with each line contributing to the movement toward a gradual fade. The arrangement demonstrates how much development can emerge from repetition when the musicians continually reshape the surrounding texture.
A bluesier side of Price’s musical personality comes forward on “Can’t Stand Still.” A rotating guitar figure gives way to acoustic strumming and a lively country-blues shuffle, with harmonica, dobro, and fiddle contributing to the tune’s earthy sound. Price leans into the blues vocabulary of her singing, sliding into pitches, stretching the ends of phrases, and letting notes fall away with an easy rhythmic looseness. The harmonica responds with short melodic answers, while a nimble dobro solo brings a touch of newgrass energy to the instrumental interplay. Handclaps and increasingly prominent vocal harmonies lift the latter half of the performance without disturbing its relaxed groove. The melody follows a rising contour that responds to the chord changes, climbing with the harmonic movement before settling back and beginning another ascent. Price emphasizes that shape through her accents and dynamic shading, turning a straightforward melodic idea into a lively expression of the song’s restless spirit.
These three performances reveal different aspects of Price’s musicianship. On “Deportee,” the instrumental colors create an emotional contrast with the narrative. “Oval Room” depends on the subtle transformation of recurring melodic material, while “Can’t Stand Still” draws its energy from rhythmic interplay and blues-inflected vocal phrasing. Ross-Spang’s production gives those differences room to register, allowing instrumental responses, contrasting textures, and individual performances to remain audible within the ensemble.
Days of Unrest belongs to a lineage of American music that uses song to confront the concerns of its time. Price’s choice of material shows she understands how the placement of a trumpet phrase, the timing of a vocal accent, or the interaction between musicians can give a familiar musical form fresh purpose. The songs speak through their words, but they also speak through the way they are played. That musical conviction gives Days of Unrest its appeal.
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