Canadian Dean Brody’s third album sees him building on his past work with a few moves in new directions. He wrote all the songs, with pretty good results, but his main strength is his voice, which has a quite delicious tone which can elevate mediocre material and make it listenable.
For instance, the title track, a co-write with Nashville-based songwriters Marty Dodson and Jimmy Yeary, is a pleasant sounding but lyrically unmemorable about the joys of mud, from childhood to romance with a female rodeo rider, and ending with an oddly cheery anticipation of the grave. The vocal, however, makes it far more enjoyable than most country living songs. ‘Rural Route #3’ is an affectionately delivered tribute to rural living which is better than most of its kind because it is detailed enough to feel real, and deeply rooted in personal experience, and once more a beautiful sounding vocal. ‘Canadian Girls’, while not particularly interesting, is similarly precise, with his portrait in the verses of a specific girl who grew up watching hockey and playing winter sports before veering off in the chorus into something more general.
Dean’s voice sounds lovely on the pretty ‘Underneath The Apple Trees’, a wistfully sweet invocation to an undiscovered future love, which is one of my favorites. ‘Flowers In Her Hands’ is also charming, a story song with a delicate arrangement about a childhood friendship which grows into love (although he has trouble saying the words) and eventually tragic loss. ‘Nowhere USA’ is a more mysterious and dramatic story song with an armed woman who picks up a man on the highway.
In the mildly amusing ‘That’s Your Cousin’, a potential new romance is thwarted when a young courting couple find out they are distantly related. An alarmed father warns them,
You don’t wanna go swimmin’ in the same gene pool
Don’t be touching
That’s your cousin
The shock news “broke the law of attraction almost instantly”. In the coda, the girl ends up deciding international online dating is the safest option.
‘Losing My Balance’ is an attractive sounding but somewhat fillerish contemporary country love song. The conversational ‘The Sleeping Bag Song’ sets up a weekend campout to revive a tired romance, and is okay. ‘Bob Marley’ is less successful, with a meandering melody and uninteresting lyric about bonding with a grandmother.
‘It’s Friday’ is a cheerful Celtic drinking song featuring rough-edged fellow-Canadian folk rock band Great Big Sea, about partying at the end of the working week, which is fun and an unexpected change of pace.
The songs are good, but Brody’s voice is what really sets this album apart.
Marty Stuart’s second release for MCA was released in January 1991. Like its predecessor, Tempted was produced by Richard Bennett and Tony Brown, and contained a balance of some of Marty’s original compositions and some well-chosen covers that paid homage to country music’s past. It is a little less rockabilly-oriented than Hillbilly Rock, with more emphasis on harmonies and more prominent use of the steel guitar.
The first single “Little Things” was written by Marty and Paul Kennerley. It follows the same template as “Hillbilly Rock” and matched that song’s chart performance, peaking at #8. It was, in fact, Marty’s first Top 10 since “Hillbilly Rock” and his second Top 10 overall. He stumbled slightly with the next release, the ballad “Till I Found You”, which was written by Paul Kennerley and Hank DeVito. It just missed the Top 10, peaking at #12. I’ve always found the song a bit lacking in energy and it’s my least favorite track on the album. Much better is the title track, another Stuart-Kennerley composition, which reached #5, becoming Marty’s highest charting single as a solo artist. It is my favorite of all of Marty’s mainstream singles. “Burn Me Down”, a rockabilly number written by Eddie Miller was the album’s fourth and final single. It too reached the Top 10, topping out at #7.
With the exception of the title track, the real meat of this collection is in the album cuts. Most Stuart albums include a Johnny Cash tune, and Tempted is no exception. This time he chose to cover “Blue Train”. It is a decent performance but even those unfamiliar with the original will instantly recognize it as a Johnny Cash song. It just underscores how difficult it can be to put one’s own mark on an iconic figure’s song, though the intent seems to be to pay tribute to Cash, rather than to reinterpret his work. “I’m Blue, I’m Lonesome” which opens the album was written by Bill Monroe and Hank Williams and serves as notice to the listener that Marty Stuart was more than just a mere hillbilly rocker, with a deep respect for country music’s heritage. “Paint The Town Tonight” with its heavy emphasis on the Telecaster and steel guitar is a Stuart original composition that is reminiscent of Buck Owens. It really should have been released as a single. “Half a Heart” is a straightforward country number that is one of two tunes on which Marty collaborated with the then very popular songwriter Kostas. It too should have been released as a single. The album closes with the fiddle-led hoedown number “Get Back To The Country”, which surprisingly was written by Neil Young, a name not normally associated with traditional country music.
Tempted is the best of Marty’s major label efforts, with nine excellent tracks (“Till I Found You” is the only one that falls a bit short) and marks the peak of commercial success. It was his second gold album and the most well received by country radio. It is his only album to contain more than one Top 10 hit. Unfortunately, after “Burn Me Down” he would never again reach the Top 10 as a solo artist, although two collaborations with Travis Tritt did chart inside the Top 10. Tempted is easy to find and worthy of inclusion in any country music fan’s collection.
Grade: A
Back in 2001 90s star Mark Collie recorded a live album at Brushy Mountain Penitentiary in Tennessee for MCA. But Mark hadn’t managed a top 20 hit since 1994, and the departure from the label of its boss Tony Brown (who co-produced) meant this record was shelved for more than a decade. The artist has now regained control of the masters, and the album has been released – some years after the prison itself closed its doors. Production and sound engineering values are more or less studio-quality, and the band play well and enthusiastically.
There is a deliberate attempt to emulate Cash’s seminal prison albums, starting with the opening statement “Hello, I’m Mark Collie”, before the singer launches into rocking opener ‘One More Second Chance’ (co-written with 80s star T Graham Brown). Later on he throws in a cover of ‘Folsom Prison Blues’, talking about a then-ailing Cash. Collie is not as distinctive or compelling a vocalist as Cash, but his rough-edged voice works well on the material he chooses here, most of it calculated to appeal to the audience in terms of the overarching theme of prison and criminality, and the devil-may-care but occasionally God-fearing attitude. Most of the songs were written by Mark especially for the project.
I liked the unrepentant prisoner’s confession ‘I Could’ve Gone Right’. The very good and rather amusing ‘Maybe Mexico’, written by the late Harley Allen with Deborah Nims, has the protagonist a fugitive from Memphis calling his lover while on the run and on his way south of the border.
‘Dead Man Runs Before He Walks’, written by Mark with the always interesting Shawn Camp (who also plays fiddle in the band), is a cheery piece about escaping from a not very secure sounding Death Row. The pretty sounding bluegrass ballad ‘Rose Covered Garden’, written by Mark with Roger Cook, is the story of a prisoner in Mexico who romances the gaoler’s daughter to get away, but ends up recaptured and alone. Collie revived this song for an obscure independent release in 2006, which is now hard to find.
The chugging ‘Do As I Say’ is a father’s wry advice not to copy his bad example in life.
Kelly Willis sings lead on the okay ‘Heaven Bound’ and the loungy ‘Got A Feelin’ For Ya’. I like her quirky voice (and she was clearly well received by the audience), but these songs are not particularly memorable. She also sings an effective harmony on a cover of Krisofferson’s ‘Why Me, Lord?’, which is very good.
‘On The Day I Die’ is a killer’s frank confession of his multitudinous past sins and his present faith, acknowledging before his execution,
I ran from the light like I ran from the law
But you know the wages of sin catches up with us all
This is a real highlight.
Not everything here is country. Blues legend Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown guests on his own ‘Someday My Luck Will Change’, while ‘Reckless Companions’ marries a folk feel to the lyrics with a rock sound, a combination which doesn’t quite work for me. They end with ‘Gospel Train’, a bluesy gospel number backed by the prison choir.
The thematic unity of this record is part of what makes it work but at times it all feels a little like pandering to the audience and trying too hard to copy Cash. Overall, though, the interesting songs and effective performances make it a worthwhile experience, and I am pleased it has made its belated way out of the vaults.
The major label phase of Marty Stuart’s career is considered to have begun in earnest with the release of 1989′s Hillbilly Rock, following a brief and somewhat inauspicious stint with Columbia. Now signed to MCA, Marty finally began to enjoy some commercial success, primarily thanks to the album’s catchy but lyrically light Paul Kennerley-penned title track, which would become his first Top 10 hit.
Produced by Richard Bennett and Tony Brown, Hillbilly Rock, as its title suggests, has got a distinct rockabilly flavor and the influence of Marty’s mentor Johnny Cash is readily apparent. In fact, Marty’s first single release for MCA was a cover of Cash’s 1955 hit “Cry! Cry! Cry!” It was an odd choice to launch the career of a relatively unknown artist, especially since it occurred during a period when Johnny Cash was decidedly out of vogue in Nashville. Not surprisingly, Marty’s faithful-to-the-original version was not a huge hit, though it did crack the Top 40, making it his highest charting single (at #32) since 1985′s “Arlene”, which was his only Top 20 hit up to that time. The next single, “Don’t Leave Her Lonely Too Long”, is my favorite track on the album. It was written by Marty and Kostas and sounds a lot like the music The Mavericks were doing around that time. Unfortunately, it was met by a big yawn at country radio and it stalled at #42. The tune was revived by Gary Allan almost a decade later when he included it on his It Would Be You album.
Marty’s commercial fortunes began to change with the release of the album’s title track as the third single. Fueled by a video that was in heavy rotation on TNN and CMT, “Hillbilly Rock” allowed Marty to crack the Top 10 for the first time. Peaking at #8, it was not a smash hit, but it was a significant and hard fought milestone for an artist who had enjoyed a fair share of critical acclaim but seemed to be in danger of failing to catch on in the marketplace.
Mainstream country music in the early 1990s was obsessed with “hat acts”. Marty didn’t fit the mold and that may have made his music more difficult to market, though he eventually turned this to his advantage a few years later when he teamed up with Travis Tritt for the highly successful “No Hats” tour. It became apparent that he still faced an uphill climb at country radio when Hillbilly Rock’s fourth and final single, “Western Girls” disappointingly peaked at #20, though it deserved to chart much higher.
I was somewhat surprised at the time to learn of Marty’s bluegrass background and his vast knowledge and devotion to traditional country music because his music that was getting radio airplay at the time was anything but traditional. But after looking past the radio hits and delving more deeply into the album cuts, another side of his musical personality can be heard. “When The Sun Goes Down” is the album’s most traditional cut, sounding a lot like the Merle Haggard classic “The Bottle Let Me Down”, and the beautiful and understated closing track “Since I Don’t Have You” would be right at home on Ghost Train or Marty’s most recent album. Both tunes were written by Marty and Mark Collie.
Although Hillbilly Rock was only moderately successful, it earned a lot of critical acclaim and introduced Marty Stuart to mainstream audiences. It also stands as an example of how much more diversity was on country radio twenty years ago, before things became too homogenized, as it is quite different from most of the music on the charts at the time. It was a particular favorite of then-President George H.W. Bush, who requested and received a copy of Hillbilly Rock to listen to on Air Force One. It is still easy to find and is worth seeking out.
Grade: A-
New Arista artist Kristen Kelly’s debut single for the label is making waves for the Texan, who is also soon to embark on a support slot on the new Brad Paisley tour, which should bring her to the attention of a mass audience.
Kristen’s piercing, throaty voice is quite distinctive and has plenty of attack as she bewails the ex who cheated on her with the “sly” best friend she trusted. Now this dual betrayal has been uncovered, she declares defiantly,
I’ve got an ex-old man and an ex best girlfriend
Good riddance to ‘em both, I really don’t need them
Kristen’s confident vocal portrays a resilient woman temporarily hit by heartbreak and walking wounded; you get the impression she’s going to be okay eventually, even if right now she’s
Got a damn good reason for this drink in my hand
Eventually the guy tires of his new love and is back hitting on his ex, who is satisfied the cheaters are getting what they deserve – and unimpressed when he tries to get back with her. She dismisses him with a scornful,
How sleazy can you be?!
The hooky song itself, written by Kristen herself with veteran songwriter Paul Overstreet, is apparently inspired by the end of Kristen’s own marriage, and it is very well constructed (as one would expect from something Overstreet has had a hand in).
Overstreet and Tony Brown produce, and the arrangement is interesting, and sounds a bit different from everything else out there. The catchy but unusual rhythms are backed up by slightly too-busy and occasionally dated sounding (but not unpleasant) instrumentation. Kristen isn’t a traditionalist, but her brand of contemporary music is more palatable than a lot of what’s out there. She is still someone who puts the song at the heart of the music, and I really like her strong vocal. I’m definitely interested in hearing the full length album.
After the breakup of hitmaking duo Brooks & Dunn, Ronnie Dunn’s solo career was greeted with considerable interest. It is fair to say that there was less anticipation for partner Kix Brooks’ solo endeavours. Kix Brooks was definitely the member of Brooks & Dunn held in less regard even by fans of the duo. He rarely sang lead on one of the duo’s singles, but he sang his share of album tracks, and often provided the more interesting moments.
Conversationally drawling his way through the song, Kix presents a man stuck in the same small town his ex lives and wistfully wondering what it would be like not to be surrounded by memories, or the fear of running into her around every corner. The picture painted is full enough to be convincing.
Production is reasonably contemporary without completely overwhelming the song’s essential sadness in a complete wall of sound, and although there is an extended guitar solo (courtesy of the Eagles’ Joe Walsh, who gets a special credit), it doesn’t take over the song. The melody is simple, allowing the lyrics center stage.
Kix wrote the song with frequent collaborator Terry McBride and Marv Green. It sounds very like a good B&D album cut, which makes its substantially more interesting than most radio playlists. It would probably be a more memorable record sung by a better singer, but Kix’s vocals, while limited, work on this song. He imbues it with a resigned regret which is very efefctive.
Marty’s mainstream debut, on Columbia in 1986, was an inauspicious one. Originally released as a budget-priced eight-track “mini-album” (increased to none when the CD version came out in 1992), none of the songs is particularly memorable, Marty’s vocals were not very distinctive, and the production, courtesy of Curtis Allen, is largely dated country rock.
His debut single was the rockabilly ‘Arlene’, written by Allen, which featured Vince Gill on electric guitar. It crept into the top 20 and is quite entertaining, and similar to the music Steve Earle was making at that time. This promising start turned out to be Marty’s biggest hit on Columbia.
The rockier ‘Honky Tonker’, written by folk rocker Steve Forbert, then flopped – unsurprisingly in my opinion as it is boring and yelly. The mid-tempo ‘All Because Of You’ is a mid-tempo love song also from Forbert’s pen which is a bit better. It crept into the top 40, but it is lyrically very repetitive and the instrumentation and production now sound very dated (and very pop). There is a guitar cameo by rock guitar legend Duane Eddy.
Final single ‘Do You Really Want My Lovin’’ was another chart failure, although it is quite a catchy mid-tempo country rocker. It is one of three tunes co-written by Marty, in this case with Steve Goodman. The blaring saxophone sounds a bit out of place but the track is otherwise enjoyable, and I wonder if it might have done a little better if it had immediately followed ‘Arlene’ while Marty had some momentum.
Marty’s other co-writes here were with his producer Curtis Allen. ‘Heart Of Stone’ is another pretty good country-rock number, which sounds like a slightly over-produced version of something the Desert Rose Band might have recorded, and has Kathie Baillie (of Baillie & The Boys) on harmonies. ‘Maria (Love To See You Again)’ is a pleasant sounding Western themed ballad and story song, with one of the more country-styled productions on the record, with Marty playing mandolin for the only time on the album as a well as electric guitar, but the vocals are uninspired. It is also one of only two tracks to feature a fiddle, the other being the song added to the CD reissue. This is the slow ‘Beyond The Great Divide, written by Jack Wesley Routh and J C Crowley, and it features the instantly recognisable harmonies of Emmylou Harris. I don’t know if it was recorded at the sessions for this album and rejected, or if it was intended for the follow-up which never materialized.
In contrast, Marty’s cover of The Band’s ‘The Shape I’m In’ is too far in the rock direction for me.
‘Hometown Heroes’ is a fine song written by David Mallett, and it is one of the better tracks although the production is uninspired and the tune strains Marty’s voice beyond its limits. The interesting song deals with the wild side of life in a small town and the tragedy of a wannabe rebel who ends up dying young.
Overall there seems to be a lack of artistic identity with Marty not sounding as though he really knew what kind of music he wanted to make and trying out various personae. In the liner notes for his new album, he talks about this period of his career, saying he “tried to play country music, but it felt like rock & roll”, and that is rather what it sounds like. He was lucky to get another chance, but luckily he was to prove he was worthy of one. The CD is available, but not particularly cheaply.
Having been beaten to the punch by Bradley Gaskin with ‘Diamonds Make Babies’, in my opinion the second best song on Dierks Bentley’s latest album (after his #1 hit ‘Home’), Dierks has turned for his own new single to the unusually titled ‘5-1-5-0’, written by the artist with regular collaborators Brett and Jim Beavers. The record is rapidly making its way up the charts and well on its way to becoming the third straight #1 hit from Home.
Lyrically, it uses the California Police Code for an insane person to symbolise the intensity of the protagonist’s obsessive feelings for his new love. It isn’t as effective as past songs comparing the madness of love to clinical insanity, such as John Conlee’s unforgettable ‘I Don’t Remember Loving You’, Dolly’s ‘Daddy Come And Get Me’, or Porter Wagoner’s controversial ‘Rubber Room’. Partly that’s because the mood is more frivolous, and Dierks doesn’t really seem to take it seriously – this comes across as the excuse for a fun song. The lightweight atmosphere is underlined by the odd reference to the police as “po-po”.
On the plus side, the record sounds very good with engaging vocals and attractive instrumentation despite a rather limited melody. There is a breezy carefree feel to the bluegrass-influenced arrangement which suit Dierks’s voice and may make this work across the summer airwaves. It’s also a refreshing change from radio’s usual fare, musically. But lyrically, it falls well short of Dierks’ better material, and this is a disappointing choice of single for me, and a disconcerting sequel to the far superior ‘Home’.
It’s common to hear today’s singers speak about their country roots, but it’s relatively rare to come across an artist who not only talks the talk but walks the walk as Marty Stuart has done. He was already a seasoned veteran at the age of 24 when his second solo album, 1982′s Busy Bee Cafe, was released. Instead of using the album as a platform to propel himself to stardom, he seems to content to share the spotlight with the many guest artists — Johnny Cash, Earl Scruggs, Doc Watson, Merle Watson, Carl Jackson and Jerry Douglas — who contributed to the project. It perhaps should have been billed as an album by “Marty Stuart and Friends”. An acoustic and heavily bluegrass-flavored collection, it seems like an odd choice for a young artist trying to make his breakthrough. Instead, it appears to be one of those rare projects made for the love of the music, without much regard for commercial considerations.
The album contains a few traditional numbers, a few written by Marty himself, and a few more written by his musical mentors Lester Flatt, Earl Scruggs and Johnny Cash. Cash lends his vocals to three tracks — the album opener “One More Ride”, Lester Flatt’s “Get In Line Brother” and a remake of Cash’s 1954 hit “Hey Porter”. All three songs are billed as duets, but Cash’s vocal is much more prominent than Marty’s on “One More Ride”. “Hey Porter” is strictly a Cash vehicle; Stuart’s voice can only be heard occasionally as he gives shout-outs to the other musicians playing on the track. “Get In Line Brother” is arranged more as a vocal quartet, with Cash again dominating. Marty’s voice can be heard, but it is overwhelmed by Cash and the other two uncredited singers. Marty’s singing is more prominent on tracks like “Blue Railroad Train”, “Busy Bee Cafe”, and “Down The Road” — which features the unmistakable banjo-picking of Earl Scruggs — but he sounds very little like the singer we’re familiar with today. His voice is not as strong, nor his style as distinct. The only glimpse of the singer who would one day break through with “Hillbilly Rock” is the album’s closing track, the rockabilly-flavored “Long Train Gone.”
Though Stuart was yet to fully blossom as vocalist at the time of this album’s release, this project is more noteworthy for the picking than the singing, as evidenced in its several instrumental tracks such as “I Don’t Love Nobody”, “Watson’s Blues”, “Soldier’s Joy”, and “Boogie For Clarence”. The entire project has a feel of a bunch of friends sitting around the living room and just letting the music happen. It won’t appeal to those who don’t like bluegrass or instrumental music, but it will be very much enjoyed by those who do.
Canadian Dean Brody’s third album sees him building on his past work with a few moves in new directions. He wrote all the songs, with pretty good results, but his main strength is his voice, which has a quite delicious tone which can elevate mediocre material and make it listenable.
