SLCene Suggests: Son Volt at The State Room

SON VOLT, THE STATE ROOM, Friday, July 19, 9 p.m., Sold Out

I fell in love with Jay Farrar’s voice what seems like a million years ago, when he and Jeff Tweedy split songwriting duties in Midwestern alt-country upstarts Uncle Tupelo. Seeing that band live in a sparsely attended Monday night show at the Zephyr Club sealed the deal, and I stuck with Farrar after Uncle Tupelo split and he started Son Volt while Tweedy went on to form Wilco. Son Volt has remained the most steadfastly twangy in the intervening years; even as Farrar explored some sonic experimentation via soundtracks and solo albums, there’s no way to hear that voice and not think of classic country. That is certainly true on the band’s latest, Honky Tonk, an homage of sorts to the country sounds of the ’50s and ’60s, slathered in pedal-steel and fiddle, that is a natural follow-up to the band’s 2009 effort, American Central Dust. Colonel Ford, featuring some of Farrar’s bandmates, opens the show.