One Ton Trolley’s Anthony Zack, Bill Arnold, Chris Brown and Jon Johnson celebrate the ’70s rock album era on “Sunday Morning Cigarettes.” Photo courtesy of One Ton Trolley
One Ton Trolley charges full steam ahead into the album era.
The Clarkston, Michigan roots-rock quartet pays homage to the days of listening to a record in its entirety and becoming immersed in the experience on Sunday Morning Cigarettes.
“I wanted to make a 1970s rock album where you got in on the first song and you rode the thing all the way to the end,” said Bill Arnold, One Ton Trolley’s lead vocalist, guitarist and dobroist, about the band’s latest album.
“I was thinking of pre-car keys Bill laying on the floor of his bedroom reading the liner notes to a record. I wanted it to flow … I’m pretty pleased with the order.”
ForSunday Morning Cigarettes, One Ton Trolley arrives in good order, but not without revisiting old routes to the past. The album’s dozen tracks reflect on previous relationships, choices and lessons from a wiser, clearer perspective.
“I don’t really write about personal experiences as much as I try to write about things that I see or hear,” Arnold said. “I’m like an observer that tries to put them … more in first person.”
Nick Juno combines introspective stories and acoustic-rich folk in metro Detroit. Photo – Andrea Wingard Photography
Nick Juno never imagined he’d collaborate with Bob Dylan.
The metro Detroit folk singer-songwriter took an unfinished, unreleased and unrecorded Dylan song, “Dope Fiend Robber,” from 1961 and added lyrics and original music to it. Juno learned about the song through Untold Dylan, an online curator of more than 600 Dylan songs.
“I tried to make it in the feel of the 1960s Bob Dylan kind of folky way as well as Woody Guthrie. I didn’t want to sing it like Dylan; I wanted sing it in my own way,” he said.
A tragic sonic tale, “Dope Fiend Robber” highlights a World War II vet who becomes addicted to morphine after recovering from a combat-related injury. His growing addiction escalates into robbery and murder as well as his eventual execution.
As a gifted storyteller, Juno eloquently honors Dylan on “Dope Fiend Robber” as down-home swift acoustic strums seamlessly glide alongside his nimble vocals, “They found me guilty at the trial/The Judge condemned me to die/Been on that morphine quite a while/But once I was somebody’s child.”
“It doesn’t really mean anything in the greater scheme, but it’s pretty amazing to see my name next to Bob Dylan,” said Juno, who grew up in Flushing.
Juno developed a deep appreciation for Dylan and folk music while serving in the U.S. Marine Corps in San Diego and Honolulu. By the early ‘80s, he was a high school graduate who casually learned guitar from his friends on base.
“The guys would show each other three cowboy chord songs, and the first guitar I had was this little old one. I had to take it to a buddy of mine to tune it every week or so because I didn’t know how to tune it. He said, ‘If you’re going to learn how to play this thing, at some point, you’re going to have to learn how to tune it,’” Juno said.
“I handled that, but that’s when I started playing, and my big love back then was Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, Jim Glover, Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clark. It was always a story first and then the music. I’m not terribly fancy; I’m a strummer, finger-picker folkie, but I know my role, and I want to tell a story, and I put the two together.”
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