Robert Thurman – Are We There Yet?

Self-release

www.robertthurman.bandcamp.com

15 songs – 40 minutes

Robert Thurman is an artist, musician and poet from East Tennessee. Are We There Yet? follows the blueprint of his 2025 release, Burning Daylight, with Thurman accompanying himself on acoustic guitar on 13 self-penned folk-blues tracks together with covers of Son House’s “John The Revelator” and Bukka White’s “Fixin’ To Die Blues”.

The CD liner notes state that Are We There Yet? attempts “to express the intangible through tangible means. These are songs stripped down to their bare bones with just a voice and a heavily weathered Washburn guitar. As the southern gothic writer Harry Crews puts it ‘getting naked’.” The notes do not however provide any information about where or how the album was recorded, although the quality of the recording is good throughout. Thurman also has a evocative way with words, for example on “Unmarked Grave” where he sings “Spider webs and tripwires, glistenin’ with dew. Times change and rearrange, ain’t nothin’ you can. Hear the cicadas screamin’ and doves’ lonely coo. A hoot owl whispers destiny then calls out to you.” On the folky “Whose Appalachia”, his striking line that “the rain falls like twilight” is a beautifully evocative simile, capturing a poetic, transitional moment where the world softens, dims, and hushes. The spoken word closing track, “The Old House”, is quietly haunting.

Thurman’s guitar accompaniment is primarily based around simple strumming patterns on the likes of “Borrowed Time”, “Outer Darkness” and “Shagri-la” with the occasional picked single note lines, such as on “I Got Mine”.

There is a raw intimacy to Thurman’s performances and I have no doubt that he would be thrilling to hear live. The issue with Are We There Yet? is that the commitment of his renditions is unfortunately not always matched by his musicality. His voice often fails to hit the notes he is aiming for, which can give a weathered, intimate depth to a song, but can also be discordant and distracting, particularly when it recurs so frequently. Likewise, his guitar playing would sound better if the guitar were in tune.

No doubt there is a potential market for releases like Are We There Yet? but I suspect most casual listeners will need to proceed with caution.