After the intro numbers set the stage, the album gets rockin’ when U.S. Grant goes to Cairo to secure the border states of Kentucky and Missouri for the Union. Since Cairo is located further south than Paducah, Kentucky, it is not surprising that the North-South conflict did not end with the Civil War. Matters of race have dominated the life and times of this city. As the first stop on the northern migration of African Americans from the old South, the town’s black population grew...with resultant conflict, chronicled here in upbeat tunes that keep the facts from being oppressive. The sinister tone of “Far From the Tree” captures the building force of generational prejudice and segues nicely into the outbreak of violence as Cairo’s “White Hats” became a focal point in the Civil Rights Movement, sung here with a good ol’ boy swagger.

Then, as if to emphasize the variety of forces at play, the music dramatically changes to horns and a falsetto voice in “Jesse’s Comin’ To Town”. The album winds down with vote-buying scandals that outdo Chicago and the “Prosperity Train” leaving town.

 

In the final cut, racial turmoil gives way to political turmoil, although the two are deftly bridged by using the Rodney King lament...”Can’t We All Get Along”.

 

Unless these final words of advice are heeded, Cairo, Illinois - “Where Southern Hospitality Meets Northern Enterprise” - will wind up with neither.