The Whisper Sessions are the stripped back acoustic or semi acoustic demos from last year's Million Voices Whisper solo album by Government Mule legend Warren Haynes. These alternate versions and takes were recorded either before or during the sessions for that album, apart from three songs featuring Derek Trucks they are solo.
The album opens with a gentle acoustic strum through Back Where I Started with Warren's lived in vocals wringing out the emotions of why he needs to start again, all his emotions are pouring out.
Till The Sun Starts Shining Through is played back porch delta blues style, like Warren is just figuring out how the tune is going to go, telling his compadres to watch out the storm is coming, sparse reflections for how it's raining in your heart, while the world gets ever darker is poignant and in tune with the tenor of our times.
From Here On Out has the feel of an early 70's neckerchief rock standard being re-imagined for the 21st century, to be used on a sparse outro, at the end of a heartbroken tale of love falling to pieces.
Till I Can Make It On My Own is late night sobbing into your tumbler of bourbon, expressing all your worries and woes at everything that went wrong, how can you ever carry on, when you can barely manage to wring out a tune as heartfelt as this is.
So You Ain't Above Me is easily interpreted as being a screed against the ruling classes, how they try to run all our lives as it is about falling out of love, with a partner who wishes to dominate every part of your existence.
This Life As We Know It is a positive ray of sunshine, for the belief that we should all be thankful for the lives we get to lead, this has a hymnal quality and could easily have a gospel choir swaying and singing along with the chorus.
The final three tracks all feature Derek Trucks on backing guitar, Real, Real Lover has Derek playing slow slide guitar over Warren's super sparse acoustic, allowing Warren to totally open his heart for the unending need for some real love, helping make him feel whole once more.
These Changes has Warren and Derek's guitars dovetailing, adding detail to the careworn vocals, asking why we must survive so many changes and why can't we change more for the better than the worse.
The album closes with a cover of Melissa by The Allman Brothers band that both Derek and Warren also play in, this is the late night, one more for the road campfire version, very laid back and almost ready to stumble off to the land of nod dreaming of sweet Melissa.
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