The Ballad of Dood & Juanita

Following two volumes of roots renditions of his own songs, the shapeshifting country musician returns with a bluegrass concept album about love among the legends of the Kentucky frontier.

The premise of Dood and Juanita is a stock tale of hardscrabble settlers, as familiar as any classic Western. A half-Shawnee toughie, Dood is a wild child of Eastern Kentucky who delights in domesticity after meeting Juanita, “a good woman” who “calmed down the rage.” When she is abducted by the outlaw Seamus McClure, Dood (already shot by the hooligan) saddles up his mule and pursues Juanita, sights set on mortal vengeance.

During the quest, his towering and steadfast mule, Shamrock, gets tired, while his trusty hound, Sam, dies. Saved by a band of Cherokees, Dood finally finds Juanita, gets her home, and kills McClure with a single shot (and then a tomahawk chop) from his Martin Meylin rifle, a gun so tied to the United States’ westward advance that Daniel Boone helped make it famous. Dood and Juanita is unequal parts love story, history lesson, and action-adventure tale, a cross as classic as the sounds around it.

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Pitchfork
The Ballad of Dood & Juanita - Sturgill Simpson Review