Album Review: Randy Travis – ‘Heroes and Friends’

In the late Summer of 1990, Randy Travis’ fifth Warner Brothers album was released, and like its predecessors, it hit the top spot of the Country Albums chart and landed inside the top 40 on the Billboard 200. Heroes and Friends was a collection of duets with the stars of country music’s first golden age. Two singles from the album would place inside the top 10 and it would be a platinum-selling success. However, this was Travis’ first album not to yield a chart-topper and also not to earn the multi-platinum label. Clearly, the best of his glory days were behind him, yet the quality of his music endured.

Leading off with the contemplative and positive-looking “A Few Ol’ Country Boys”, a duet with George Jones, earned the “fast train from Caroline” his 15th top hit, and the Possum his umpteenth dozen. Travis and Jones trade bits of mutual admiration here, with the younger singer citing the legend as inspiration during the days “when dreams weren’t coming true”, and Jones proclaiming his affection for the traditional sound of the New Traditionalists. A soft steady rhythm keeps the pace while a bit of honky-tonk piano-playing and touches of fiddle all mix to create the reminiscent effect the lyrics call for. The track peaked at #8 in 1990.

Even better is the easy-flowing title track, with its folksy wisdom and drawing melody. This was the album’s biggest hit – reaching #3 – and is also the only solo track contained. (Though it’s reprised at the end with a litany of fellow singers.) Amidst a stone-country backdrop of steel and fiddle, Travis espouses the virtues and staying power of two of life’s greatest treasures:

Your heroes will help you find good in yourself, your friends won’t forsake you for somebody else
They’ll both stand beside you through thick and through thin
That’s how it goes with heroes and friends

No other singles were released, though there were many worthy candidates to choose from here. As I said above, the bulk of duet partners Travis chose were the stars of country music in the 1960s and ’70s. Willie Nelson joins on the slow-burning country waltz “Birth of the Blues” while Merle Haggard adds flavor to the western swing barn-burner “All Night Long”, and Dolly Parton pairs her vibrato with Travis’ baritone on a faithful cover of her own “Do I Ever Cross Your Mind?”. Also noteworthy is the Conway Twitty-penned “Come See About Me”, which of course is a vocal collaboration with Twitty.

While it didn’t restore his somewhat waning commercial status, on its release Heroes and Friends stood as the best Randy Travis album since Storms of Life – a distinction it still holds for me – and is a must-have addition to any Randy Travis fan’s collection.

Grade: A

Buy it at amazon.

Classic Rewind: Randy Travis – ‘Diggin’ Up Bones’

Album Review: Larry Cordle – ‘Pud Marcum’s Hanging’

Larry Cordle’s new album was supposedly released a few months back, but, perhaps because it is on the artist’s own label, distribution had been limited, and it has taken some time for me to track down. I’m glad I took the trouble to do so, because this is an excellent album full of memorable songs.

A brilliant songwriter and an emotive singer, Cordle wrote all the songs with a small band of collaborators, most frequently Larry Shell (with whom he wrote ‘Murder On Music Row’) and Connie Leigh. This record contains elements of bluegrass, country and acoustic Americana, in roughly that order. Cordle also produced the record, in dobro player Randy Kohrs’ studio.

Almost all the material consist of absorbing story songs rooted in Kentucky, three of them dealing with murders. The pure bluegrass title song tells us of a young man hanged for murdering a hated relative despite having found God in jail, bolstered by strong harmonies from bluegrass legend Del McCoury. It is based on a true story, which took place in Kentucky in 1886-1887; the unfortunate Pud was the last man ever hanged in eastern Kentucky and the very public occasion seems to have made a lasting impression on locals.

‘Justice For Willy’ tells the very modern story of a man murdered by his wife, planning to spend the insurance payout on Botox and lipo and a trip to Europe with the grocery boy – but satisfyingly, she is arrested at the funeral. As she poisoned him I’m not quite sure how she was trapped by DNA evidence as the song states, but I’m prepared to accept the resolution.

A third murder tale comes with ‘The Death Of Bad Burch Wilson’, in which the killer (most likely the narrator, whose wife was having an affair with the deceased) gets away with it:

I don’t believe he slipped and fell
I don’t believe he drowned
Nobody mourned his passing when they laid him in the ground
Things happen in the mountains that the mountains only know
Some secrets are as dark and deep as any seam of coal

The delightfully effervescent ‘Uncle Bob Got Religion’ has an appropriate old-time gospel feel with a wailing Pentecostal chorus. Fat, lazy uncle Bob is a counterfeiter and general bad lot but eventually comes to regret his sins and gets baptised in the river. The Oak Ridge Boys Richard Sterban sings bass, while Carl Jackson adds tenor and Jerry Salley baritone harmonies.

The religious ‘Gone On Before’ is pretty and soulful, and features harrnonies from its co-writer Ronnie Bowman and his wife Garnet. Ronnie and Garnet also contribute suitably angelic harmonies to ‘Angel On His Shoulder’, which portrays the internal battle faced by one man with a restrained passion:

There’s an angel on his shoulder and the devil by his side
One’s trying hard to save him
One wants to take his life
And there’s a war that’s raging down in his soul tonight
Between the angel on his shoulder and the devil by his side

Steel guitar adds a touch of melancholy.

On a similar note, Larry also gives us his own version of his song ‘Sometimes A Man Takes A Drink’, with Randy Kohrs on harmony. This was an instant classic when it was recorded a couple of years ago by Trace Adkins. I think Trace’s version is just a little better, but this is still very well done, and the song packs a massive emotional punch as it unsparingly shows up the power alcohol can gain over its victims.

The sole love song included has a dark undercurrent as the protagonist makes advances to ‘Molly’, whose husband is off somewhere cheating on her.

On a more light-hearted note, ‘Shade Tree Mechanic’ paints a fond portrait of the kind of guy who is a natural with machinery and whose home looks like his own junkyard. The sardonic ‘Brown Check’ is the story of “sorry sot” Delbert Meeks/Biggs, “too dang lazy to hold down a job”, who decide to become a welfare fraudster claiming to be too sick to work (unless he gets paid cash under the table, of course).

Coal has been a mixed blessing for the people of Kentucky and West Virginia, providing work for generations but also bringing death. The atmospheric ‘Hello My Name Is Coal’, sung as a duet with co-writer Jenee Fleenor (who has a strong voice and also plays fiddle on the track) anthropomorphises the substance and illustrates some of the things it means to the people of the Appalachians.

The only mis-step (and one which will still appeal to many listeners) is the clumsy closing track, which has Larry plaintively wondering ‘America Where Have You Gone’. It sounds good aurally, but the (conservative) sentiments are expressed surprisingly unimaginatively – not a criticism I would give to anything else on offer here.

Overall, this is an excellent record which I highly recommend.

Grade: A

You can listen on Larry Cordle’s website. The CD can be purchased there or from CDBaby, while Amazon has it as a digital download only.