Vintage Review: Tommy Womack's There I Said It! (2006)

In a city filled to the brim with musical talent, Tommy Womack often gets overlooked. I first met Womack two decades ago when he was the frontman for late ‘80s cult band Govt. Cheese, a unique hard-rocking outfit that came roaring out of Bowling Green, Kentucky like the ghost of Hank Williams riding astride a Nipponese superbike with flaming tailpipes! The band’s momentary flirtation with stardom inspired Womack’s tale of rock ‘n’ roll woe, The Cheese Chronicles, the best book about life on the road ever written (sorry Jack Kerouac!)

After the demise of Govt. Cheese, Womack immigrated to Nashville to pursue his musical career in earnest. Womack landed a gig as one-third of the Bis-Quits, a groovy little band that included the talented Will Kimbrough and future music retail exec Mike “Grimey” Grimes, the collaboration yielding one great roots-rock album on John Prine’s Oh Boy record label. Womack would then launch his solo career, almost a decade ago, with the brilliant debut album Positively Na Na in 1998.

The life of an indie rocker is a tough one, though, especially when, like Tommy Womack, your main attribute is that you don’t fit in. Womack has always been too country, too rock ‘n’ roll, too serious, not serious enough, too wordy, too stubborn, getting older…just not marketable by today’s “standards.” Never mind that he’s always made brilliant, entertaining music with highly personal lyrics that nevertheless appeal to many people that recognize the characters in the songs from the same streets we all walk together, if separately.

Tommy Womack’s There I Said It!

After 2002’s Circus Town, shortly after his fortieth birthday, Womack hit rock bottom. As he writes in the liner notes to There I Said It!, “one morning in March ’03, God came across my teeth with a skillet of White Light Truth. Whomp! I was toast at forty and destined to die poor.” Womack had a meltdown, of sorts, the sort of life-paralyzing crisis-of-confidence that drops the strongest of men to their knees and into spirals of mind-crippling depression. Months passed by and those close to Womack began to worry; more than one “friend-of-a-friend” got in contact and asked me to talk to Tommy. We swapped emails back and forth, even talked on the phone once or twice, but I doubt that my words of encouragement did little more than add to the chorus of friends and admirers urging Tommy to “feel better.”

Truth is, the personal hell that Womack was going through was something that few people will ever experience. He thought he saw his career circling the drain, his future uncertain, a divine voice saying, as he writes, “you had yer shot, thanks a lot,” leaving him older and broke with a family to support and the kind of dreams that tear one apart. Over the following three years, Womack recovered somewhat, got a crappy job like most of us, hating it like most of us and still, always, playing music. It was the music that, in the end, pulled him through, lending a voice to his fears and emboldening him to carry on.

The result of Womack’s trials and tribulations is There, I Said It!, his fourth studio and fifth album overall, a mind-staggeringly brilliant collection of songs that literally open a window to the artist’s soul. In many ways There, I Said It! reminds me of Joe Grushecky’s equally powerful 2004 album True Companion. At the same time that Womack was living through his crisis, Grushecky was looking into his own abyss. Over fifty, overshadowed by the accomplishments of his peers, Grushecky came to the conclusion that he may never make it big in rock ‘n’ roll but, “I still got a long way to go.”              

This is Tommy Womack’s story, however, and There, I Said It! is his masterpiece. The songs here recount the last several years of his life, biographical tales with great humor and insight and a little sadness. “A Songwriter’s Prayer” is a brilliant lead-off, a somber ode from a wordsmith to a higher power asking for just one good song, something to hang your hat on and build a career around. Delivered with pious vocals, mournful pedal steel and a haunting melody, the song is both tongue-in-cheek and deadly serious, with “we got to get out of this place” urgency.

I’m Never Gonna Be A Rock Star

Written about his son Nathan, “Nice Day” takes a look at life from the high side of 40, a winsome kind of tune that concludes, at the end of the day, that life is good when you have your family around you. The country-flavored “25 Years Ago” is a semi-biographical honky-tonk tale of the search for stardom by three hopefuls, spiced up with twangy steel and Womack’s upbeat vocals, the story of everybody that has ever come to Nashville (or LA or New York) chasing a dream.

“I’m Never Gonna Be A Rock Star,” from which There I Said It! takes its title, is a lilting, jazzy tune with Womack’s soulful, fluid vocals and muted yet lush instrumentation. The song’s reflective self-confession is both cathartic and one last shot at those who would try and bring the artist down. “My hair may go, but the dream remains,” the protagonist sings, getting older every day while his musician friends have forged moderate careers of one form or another, “buddies on tour buses, takin’ that ride, while I’m gettin’ older with an itch inside.” This reflective song parallels Joe Grushecky’s “Strange Days,” a realization that while every artistic effort through the years may not have been for naught, the lack of recognition – if not fame and fortune – is a bitter pill nonetheless.  

The bluesy “Too Much Month At the End Of The Xanax” is a bleak reflection on modern life, its otherworldly, electronically-altered vocals punching their way through a cloud of tortured electric guitars and discordant rhythms. It’s a style that Womack has always excelled at, self-referential talking blues paired with a hard rocking soundtrack that could just as easily been a Govt. Cheese song if it wasn’t so damn personal. By the time you reach “I Couldn’t Care Less,” a rollicking pop-rock rave-up inspired by the tired 9 to 5 that Womack endured during his “blue period,” things are starting to look up. Gigs are coming his way, and Womack delivers a lyrical coup de grace with more attitude and bile than any punk band I’ve been witness too, allaying his friend’s fears with “I feel alright, suicide is overrated, I’ve killed and lied, or at least I’ve mutilated.”

The centerpieces of There I Said It! are the epic stream-of-consciousness masterpiece “Alpha Male & the Canine Mystery Blood” and “A Cockroach After The Bomb.” Both songs evince the sense of humor that has always driven Womack’s best material, but they are also both songs that pack up the past in a box and put it on the shelf, saying goodbye to a time that none of us will ever again enjoy, much less revisit except in memory. “Alpha Male” is a wonderful recollection of a misspent youth and encroaching middle age that many of us can relate to (especially those of us whose age and experience parallels Womack’s). He sees a band poster while walking to work, bringing back memories of the day 20+ years ago when all of us would run out to see a show by any band that sounded even half-intriguing, a poster on a telephone pole an invite to a night of beer, women, and rock ‘n’ roll. Tying the past to the present and facing his own growing obsolescence, Womack admits that “can’t be a has-been when you never was.”    

A Cockroach After the Bomb

“A Cockroach After the Bomb,” a semi-shuffle with lively vocals and spry piano work courtesy of producer John Deaderick, is the yin to the yang of “Alpha Male.” The song begins by expressing an angst that no 20-something-year-old young pup could ever understand, confessing, “I get up every morning and I go to a job where I’ve thrown up on the john. I worry about who’s mad at me and spend a lot of time wishing I was gone.” He remembers his previous life, in a gang with a band, “I used to be somebody, I was a star, it takes a lot of guts to fall this far,” concluding that “I’m a cockroach after the bomb, carrying on…”

It’s with this refrain, however, that Womack touches the album’s truth, that in spite of the darkness, those that feel the muse are compelled to follow, to “carry on” no matter the price, and as Steve Forbert once sang, “you can not win if you do not play the game.” The singer asks, “what if Jimi’s lighter hadn’t lighted, what if Monet was just near-sighted, I’ll go to my grave knowing I took me a chance, I’m a cockroach after the bomb carryin’ on.” The song is a call to arms for all of us last-crop-baby-boomers stuck in a cubicle or middle management with a mortgage and obligations who still harbor delusions of creativity that our parents warned us against pursuing. It’s fitting that the album’s next-to-last song is “Everything’s Coming Up Roses Again;” Womack writing in the liner notes that “this record started with a prayer and ends with its answer.”

The song’s waltz-like demeanor and wistful vocals belie its message – that as long as you’re breathing, you can still follow your dreams. “I may be a 44-year-old office boy,” writes Womack, “but I’m the office boy that did Leno!” You’re never too old to sing that song, write that story, paint that picture, and thus sayeth Springsteen, “throw away the dreams that break your heart.” You’ve got one life to live, and as There Is Said It! slides to a close with the wiry, guitar-driven instrumental “Nice Day (reprise),” you get the sense that Womack, like Grushecky at the end of True Companion, has found some degree of peace in family, friends and, of course, his music.     

In a city filled to the brim with musical talent, Tommy Womack has often been overlooked. Age and experience has broadened his lyrical palette, however, the songs on There, I Said It! among the best he’s ever written. A skilled songwriter and charismatic performer, Womack peppers his songs with musical scraps of roots-rock, Americana, blues, and hard-rock. Ironically, initial acclaim for this album, and the positive response afforded it by nearly everybody that has heard it, could end up reviving a career that Womack thought was on life support. By any measure, There, I Said It! is the work of an artist yet to hit his peak, an emotionally moving song-cycle that defies the industry gatekeepers and rocks with élan, guts, and intelligence. (Cedar Creek Music, released 2006)

Review originally published by the Trademark of Quality (TMQ) blog…

Mark Germino Remembered

Singer, songwriter, and poet Mark Germino passed away this week after a tragic accident. As an artist, he released four critically-acclaimed solo albums circa 1986-95 as well as an acclaimed 1991 album recorded with Nashville rockers the Sluggers. Germino pursued a sound that was part folk, part country, and part rock n’ roll, and although his smallish catalog of music never found a wider audience, he was a well-respected Nashville wordsmith, with songs recorded by artists like Vince Gill, Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn, John Anderson, and Kenny Chesney, among others.

I didn’t know Mark all that well, but we hung out a bit in Nashville in the early ‘90s. Introduced to Germino by the late, great Jack Emerson of Praxis International (Jack managed Jason & the Scorchers and Webb Wilder, among other artists), I saw him perform a couple of times and was suitably impressed. Germino’s handful of albums are criminally underrated, and a recent campaign towards “rediscovery” of this worthy had begun before his death. Below are comments from Mark’s entry in my 2012 book The Other Side of Nashville, a history of the Music City rock scene (in italics) along with current reflections on the artist.

Mark Germino – The Other Side of Nashville

Mark Germino moved to Nashville from North Carolina around 1974 and quickly fell in with the street poetry/alt-songwriter crowd that included talents like Steve Earle, Kevin Welch, John Allingham, Dave Olney, and Tom House. Germino began turning his carefully-constructed and verbose poetry into carefully-constructed and verbose songs, and began playing clubs at night while driving a truck during the day.

Germino scored a publishing deal in 1980 and while few mainstream Music Row hacks had the cajónes to actually record a Germino song, a few visionaries like Johnny Cash, Emmylou Harris, and Vince Gill did so. Germino landed his label deal mid-decade after Earle had opened the door for the first wave of alt-country artists.

Germino’s deal with RCA Records resulted in the release of a pair of pretty decent albums – 1986’s London Moon & Barnyard Remedies and the following year’s Caught In the Act of Being Ourselves. Neither album gained any traction with country radio, mostly because Germino was too original, too eccentric, and too wordy to pen three-minute chart hits. Shunned by Music Row, Germino hooked up with some guys from similar poet Tim Krekel’s band, the Sluggers, and delivered the stunning 1991 album Radartown…  

Radartown is the culmination of Germino’s better than 15 years of hard work, struggle, and flirtations with stardom, a near-perfect collection of working-class blues backed by one of Nashville’s best band of veteran rockers. The original “Rex Bob Lowenstein” from 1987 had earned Germino a European following and a short-lived chart position in the U.K. Here the song takes on a brilliant anarchic quality that appeals to the outlaw mentality, while tunes like “Radartown” and “Unionville” are blue collar odes to hard times. Germino’s smart story-songs, like “Leroy and Bo’s Totalitarian Showdown” display both his talent and wry sense of humor. Altogether, Radartown is one of the best rock ‘n’ roll albums to ever come from the mean streets of the Music City.

Sadly, Radartown fell on deaf ears as major label A&R drones were then hovering over Seattle and the Pacific Northwest looking for the next Nirvana or Soundgarden, not a scrappy pugilist poet from Nashville, of all places. Tom Petty may have written about “The Last DJ,” but Germino’s “Rex Bob Lowenstein” is a more powerful expression of the same theme, something that Mark must have agreed with as he recorded three different versions of the song, all excellent! When Radartown failed to find a greater audience, Germino went back to his roots and recorded 1995’s acoustic Rank & File for Nashville indie label Winter Harvest, part of an impressive roster of artists that included Steve Earle, Mickey Newbury, Mac Gayden, Jonell Mosser, and John Kay (Steppenwolf).  

In between the release of his final RCA album, Caught In the Act of Being Ourselves in ‘87 and the release of the indie label gem Rank & File in 1995, Germino hooked up for a few years with the Sluggers for an album of real poop-punting rock ‘n’ roll music. This one is a fine acoustic set with Germino’s typically well-written, intelligent, and erudite songs that evince more humor than a stage full o’ drunken stand-up comedians. The album also has the third – count ‘em! – third version of Germino’s wonderful “Rex Bob Lowenstein.” After this one, Germino disappeared for over six years, turning his back on music, and writing three novels. He has since come back and is touring with his unique country/rock/folk sound.

Germino returned to the studio in 2021 to record Midnight Carnival for Red Parlor Records, an Americana label which has released wonderful albums by artists like Carla Olson, Dave Olney, Chris Whitley, Charlie Karp, and Eric Lindell, among others. Germino was enlisted by some old friends like guitarist Kenny Vaughan, bassist Tom Comet from the Sluggers, drummer Rick Lonow, and multi-instrumentalist Michael Webb to come down to Southern Grand Studios in Nashville to record Midnight Carnival, and the album is every bit as good as the contributors’ pedigrees suggest it would be.

There’s a long-lost Mark Germino album, recorded sometime during the ‘90s and distributed by the artist to his friends. Credited to “Mark Germino and the Grenade Angels,” the studio line-up included talents like guitarists Will Kimbrough and Rick Plant, bassist Todd Ellsworth, drummers Craig Wright and Willis Bailey (from the Sluggers), and the aforementioned Michael Webb, who co-produced the album with Germino. The resulting album – Atomic Candlestick – never received official release, ‘though there’s still hope as it seems that copies of the long out-of-print Rank & File are being bootlegged and available online.

Mark Germino was a unique and exceptionally gifted songwriter and performer in a vein similar to John Prine and Ray Wylie Hubbard, and although he provided songs and inspiration to a number of country artists in the 1990s and 2000s, he never got the industry attention and accolades he deserved.     

Find out more about Mark Germino & his music at:
https://www.markgermino.com/

Vintage Review: Todd Snider’s Step Right Up (1996)

Todd Snider hit a minor lick on the charts a year or so ago with his debut album, mostly on the strength of a single humorous cut that parodied the parody that the Seattle scene has become. Snider’s band, in the song, was so “hip” and “alternative” that they didn’t even play. It was a marvelous piece of work, hitting closer to the mark than many in the alt-rock world might like.

For Step Right Up, his sophomore effort, he’s put together a solid collection of songs, performed by a fine band that includes Nashville talent Will Kimbrough. I have to wonder aloud, however, if there’s anything here that is going to get heard above the din and hype of current releases by folks like Dave Matthews and that Hootie guy. Not that Step Right Up is a bad, or even mediocre disc. It’s a crackerjack collection, showcasing Snider’s incredible wit and impressive ability to turn a phrase. The music is a healthy mix of country and rock that may be just too much of each and not enough of either to receive significant radio airplay and promotion.

Cuts like “Elmo and Harry,” “Enough,” or the deceptively funny “T.V. Guide” remind me of nothing so much as a more countrified Elliott Murphy. Snider’s lyrics shoot from the hip, but are delivered from the heart and appeal to the intellect. A real talent, Snider has backed himself with an electric and energetic live band in the Nervous Wrecks. Hopefully Step Right Up will find a home somewhere in between the playlists of Triple-A and Americana formats, for it would appeal to fans of both. (Margaritaville Records/MCA, released 1996)

Review originally published by R Squared zine

Vintage Review: Tommy Womack's Stubborn (2000)

After listening steadily to Tommy Womack’s debut album, Positively Ya-Ya, constantly for over a year I’ve finally figured it out, put my finger on Womack’s place in this great rock ‘n’ roll whatsis. The recent arrival of Stubborn, Womack’s brilliant sophomore effort, reinforces my conclusion: Tommy Womack is the new Harry Nielsen! Now, now, stay with me here – much like that maligned and often-overlooked pop genius, Womack is capable of performing in a number of musical genres, from rock and blues to country and everywhere in between.

Both artists write great songs with slightly skewed lyrical perspectives, and both have a keen eye for skilled sidemen. Whereas Nielsen would enter the studio with various Beatles in tow, Womack records with the cream of Nashville’s underrated rock music scene, talents like Will Kimbrough, George Bradfute, Mike Grimes, Ross Rice, and Brad Jones. Womack may have a more southern-fried perspective than Nielsen, but the parallels are obvious.  

Tommy Womack’s Stubborn

Womack’s Stubborn opens with the chaotic “Rubbermaid,” a short stream-of-consciousness rant similar to Captain Beefheart or John Trubee, backed by syncopated drums and flailing harmonica. It jumps from there right into “Up Memphis Blues,” an energetic rocker with a blues edge that includes some tasty slide guitar courtesy of Al Perkins. “Christian Rocker” is a hilarious interlude with fantastic imagery dropped in between songs while “I Don’t Have A Gun” is an angry blues tune featuring appropriately tortured vocals from Womack and some southern rock styled six-string work from Womack and George Bradfute.

“For The Battered,” a song from Womack’s old band and Southeast legends Govt. Cheese, is recycled here as an electric blues with some wicked, dark-hued slide guitar from Will Kimbrough supporting the story. It’s the most powerful musical statement that I’ve heard on domestic violence and I still get chills every time the asshole girlfriend beater’s karma catches up with him. Stubborn’s lone cover is of the Kink’s “Berkeley Mews,” a somewhat obscure Ray Davies gem offered here in a fairly straight-forward rendition that says as much about Womack’s sophisticated musical tastes as it does about his ability to pull the song off on record.

Junkies, Whores, and Ne’er-do-wells…

Most critics, when writing of Womack, praise his songwriting abilities, pointing out the numerous characters that live in his songs. They’re really missing Womack’s strongest skill, however – any hack can people their songs with junkies, whores, and ne’er-do-wells of various stripes (listen to any heavy metal lately?). Womack’s strength is in his composition of memorable lines, clever and intelligent lyrical bombs often thrown into the middle of songs to infect the listener’s consciousness days after hearing a song. Witness some of the poetic explosives hidden in the songs on Stubborn: “I’d crawl back in the womb right now if Jesus would show up and point the way.” “Gonna find me a woman who won’t fall apart on the witness stand.” “I want to be a Christian rocker but the devil’s got all the good drummers.” “She was a Presbyterian in a porno picture, tossing her values aside.” “You can all go straight to hell, you’d better cut and run, get on your knees and thank the lord that I don’t have a gun.”

It’s a skill that separates Womack from the mundane “Music Row” factory writers in Nashville even as it marginalizes him from the whitebread world of radio and mainstream music. It also shows his Southern heritage as religious tradition and rock ‘n’ roll yearnings clash for the soul of the songwriter with the resulting imagery creating some of rock’s best rhymes. Among southern rockers, only Jason & the Scorchers’ Jason Ringenburg and, perhaps, Alex Chilton match Womack word for word.

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

The material and performances on Stubborn sound more confident, Womack’s talents sharply honed by a couple of years of live shows and collaborations with other artists. A gifted storyteller, an amazing songwriter and an energetic performer, Womack is one of Nashville’s best and brightest. Although an indie rocker in style and attitude, Womack’s work deserves the widest audience possible, distribution and promotion that only a major label could provide – if any of the corporate A&R geeks could get their collective heads out of their respective boss’ rear ends long enough to listen. Personally, as long as Womack gets to keep making records like Stubborn, I’ll be happy enough. (Sideburn Records, released 2000)

Review originally published by Alt.Culture.Guide™ zine

Vintage Review: Todd Snider’s East Nashville Skyline (2004)

Todd Snider is one of Nashville’s best-kept secrets, our very own “cult artist” who may be too eccentric, too honest, and too talented to break through to a fickle mainstream weaned on boy bands, American “idols” and Music Row schlock. Snider is too often categorized as a “novelty” act because he infuses his folkish story-songs with humor and wit, reducing funny-cause-they-could-be-true songs like “Beer Run” or the satirical “Talking Seattle Grunge Rock Blues” to comedic status without recognizing the skill it took to weave these tales. The same critics cavalierly dismiss Snider’s more serious efforts without listening to the tears and pain behind such well-crafted tunes as “You Think You Know Somebody” or “Crooked Piece of Time.”

Todd Snider’s East Nashville Skyline

Considering Snider’s entire oeuvre (and I have heard it all), it’s time, perhaps, for a bit of rock critic heresy: Snider is this generation’s Dylan. Snider’s rootsy blend of rock, folk, blues, and country echoes that of rock’s greatest scribe. If Todd’s lyrics fall short of the weighty measure of “Spanish Boots of War” or “Blowin’ In the Wind,” well, those songs have been written. The Viet Nam War and the ‘60s are history (although Iraq may sadly provide inspiration for anti-war songs for years to come) and two generations have passed since Dylan spawned hordes of imitators. The “grunge” generation’s spokesman has attitude, wit and humor to go alongside the pathos and insight, Snider drawing inspiration from other such troubled wordsmiths as Billy Joe Shaver and Kris Kristofferson much as they did from Dylan.

It’s been ten years since the release of Snider’s excellent debut, Songs For the Daily Planet, which spawned a minor hit with the album’s hidden track, “Talkin’ Seattle Grunge Rock Blues.” During that time, Snider has suffered from problems with drugs and alcohol, spent a night or two in jail, and played hundreds of live shows. He’s suffered the deaths of friends and the whims of a (major) label’s attempts to turn him into a rocking, Paul Westerberg-styled singer-songwriter. It’s really after signing with John Prine’s Oh Boy Records that Snider has blossomed as an artist and performer. Even with an enthusiastic support system behind his work, personal demons have continued to plague Snider, landing him in rehab and struggling to overcome his addictions. East Nashville Skyline, Snider’s sixth studio album, reflects these trials and tribulations. It represents Snider’s finest musical effort yet and represents an exciting new chapter in the artist’s life.

As such “Age Like Wine” is an appropriate opening song for this new chapter. Snider pays homage to Billy Joe Shaver’s “old timer, five-and-dimer” while admitting to himself that “it’s too late to die young now.” It’s a reflective piece, the 37-year-old Snider now trying to “age like wine,” stating that “I thought I’d be dead by now,” perhaps sadly concluding “but I’m not.” The following tale of mistaken arrest is biographical, “Tillamook County Jail” recounting an unwanted stay at one of Oregon’s finest institutions. “Play A Train Song” is one of Snider’s best compositions, a tribute to a fallen friend, the kind of rowdy, charming East Nashville born-and-bred scoundrel that you’d have to have known at some time in your life to truly understand. The minimalist “Sunshine” is about suicide and redemption while “Incarcerated” is a Memphis-styled rocker that evokes Jerry Lee in a story of somebody done somebody wrong.

The Ballad of the Kingsmen

Sometimes Snider’s best performances are with some other artist’s songs, such as Fred Eaglesmith’s haunting “Alcohol And Pills.” With guitarist Will Kimbrough’s relentless fretwork behind Snider’s mournful vocals, this tribute to music’s fallen heroes – from Hank and Elvis to Gram Parsons, Jimi and Janis – hits too close to home for Snider, who has barely escaped a similar fate. Eagelsmith’s chorus, “you’d think they might have been happy/with the glory and the fame/but fame don’t take away the pain/it just pays the bills/and you wind up on alcohol and pills” sums up rock music’s tragedies as well as could be done. A cover of Shaver’s “Good News Blues” is a rowdy, bluesy raver that, as Snider writes in his liner notes, should make Shaver “dozens of dollars” in royalties; the song’s true worth is as a tribute to one of country music’s overlooked songwriting geniuses.  

Snider’s “The Ballad of the Kingsmen” is a gem. It starts out with the story of “Louie, Louie” and evolves into an inspired rant on the religious right, Conservative politicians, Marilyn Manson and the doubtful effects of rock music and pop culture on young adults when war is broadcast on TV nightly. A hippie at heart, Snider’s hilariously satirical “Conservative, Christian, Right-Wing Republican, Straight, White, American Males” puts the artist directly at odds with the mainstream zeitgeist and our current, unelected leadership. While Snider pokes fun at both sides of the political equation, he admits that he is “so liberal, I have love for conservatives.”    

The most telling moments on East Nashville Skyline come near the end. “Nashville” is a love song, of sorts, to Snider’s adopted hometown, the “Nashville you don’t hear on the radio” as he says in the liner notes. After wandering the country, from Oregon to California to Texas to Tennessee, Snider landed on the other side of the Cumberland River in historic and often troubled East Nashville. Perhaps his wandering days have come to an end, Snider singing that “there ain’t nothing wrong with Nashville, nothing wrong with picking country songs down in Nashville, Tennessee.” Snider’s reading of the pop classic “Enjoy Yourself” closes the album, perhaps an affirmation of Snider’s own struggles, the singer reminding his listeners (and himself) to “enjoy yourself, it’s later than you think.”

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

Assisted by his long-time partner-in-crime, Will Kimbrough (another of Nashville’s criminally overlooked talents), Snider has produced the most solid and enduring album of his career. If fame and fortune haven’t necessarily followed his efforts during the past decade, Snider can take solace in the fact that he nevertheless has a loyal and growing audience.

Thanks to supporters like radio broadcasters Bob and Tom, who regularly feature Snider on their syndicated morning program, Snider also has a national forum for his lively music and a future that can only get better. East Nashville Skyline represents an important new chapter in Snider’s career that, with a little luck and the artist’s talents, will continue another decade and beyond… (Oh Boy Records, released 2004)

Review originally published by Alt.Culture.Guide™ zine

Vintage Review: Will Hoge’s The America EP (2004)

Will Hoge is cursed to be an artist of some talent in an era where talent is in little demand. Two major label releases and constant touring earned Nashville’s rock ‘n’ roll ambassador a small if loyal following, but did little to break him through to a mainstream audience. I don’t know if Hoge’s major label deal is still in place, but I do know that the label did little or nothing from this scribe’s perspective to promote this promising young artist.

It is no exaggeration to say that Hoge’s The America EP is the most radical, most seditious, and most courageous musical statement that will be made this year. Forget about Steve Earle’s “revolution,” forget about punkvoter.com and Rock Against Bush – the five songs offered here by Hoge are a “state of the union” address delivered straight from the American heartland. That Hoge released the disc himself is no great surprise, considering that multi-national media corporations shy away from independent thought and the sort of artistic freedom represented by The America EP.

Will Hoge’s The America EP

In fact, Hoge did himself and his career no favor by taking a stand with these songs. After spending four years crossing the country in a van and talking to people where they played, Hoge and his band concluded that, “most hard-working Americans don’t feel they have a voice.” This epiphany led to the moment, says Hoge in the EP’s liner notes, “that’s when all of us realized that we had to make this record.” In doing so, Hoge has captured everything that those of us who love rock ‘n’ roll believed about the music in the first place – brash rebellion, the questioning of authority and, most importantly, championing the view of the “little guy.”

“Bible Vs. Gun” kicks off The America EP, a letter home from a soldier caught in the middle of a battle, his religious beliefs put to the test by this ultimate example of man’s inhumanity against man. In the midst of the violence, he sings, “I close my eyes and pull the trigger and kill these people I don’t even know.” He would gladly trade his gun for a Bible and the comfort of his faith. He asks his mother for forgiveness, praying he can still “get into heaven,” but the soldier’s fate is left up in the air as the song closes. Sparse instrumentation builds to a crescendo near the end, Hoge’s bluesy vocals soaring above the mix.

“The Other Side” is a Springsteen-esque tale of despair, an example of the extremes that people will go to when times are tight and there’s no work to be found. “The Other Side” of the song holds a clever double meaning, representing both the poor man’s vision of wealth and the people who enjoy “life on the other side” and the believer’s faith in the afterlife. This might be the best song that Springsteen never wrote, the protagonist a hard working man who makes one mistake, a desperate act committed in an attempt to improve his family’s life. The story is told from the perspective of the man’s son, who holds onto his father’s dream as he sinks into his own black pool of despair. Hoge’s plaintive vocals are accompanied by a martial drumbeat and gentle strings, creating a pastoral setting for an otherwise disturbing story-song.

The Times They Are A Changin’

The comedic “Hey Mr. President (Anyone But You)” is a roots-rock rave-up with tongue only partly in cheek. Addressed to a nameless President, Hoge points out the state of the economy, a war that is fought mainly by the poor and jobs that have gone to Mexico and concludes “anyone but you will do just fine.” Name checking John Kerry, Howard Dean, even Ray Charles, the song’s voice is that of dissatisfaction with the current administration. Hoge’s cover of Dylan’s “The Times They Are A Changin’” is aptly chosen and timely, the singer’s powerful acoustic performance sadly recalling another era and another war. Listening to it in the car the day that I bought this EP, I found Hoge’s passion and commitment to the song to be energizing and inspirational, underlining the need to enact “regime change” in America.

The America EP closes with the powerful “America,” an anthemic rocker with raging guitars and angry vocals. The song tells the story of an American soldier stationed in a nameless land, fighting a battle where “I’m not sure what I believe in, but I do things I can’t take back.” As for his mission, the soldier concludes, “Is it for freedom or oil or money/It makes no difference either way/It’s just my job, I keep my head down/And hope I make it home someday.”

The soldier returns home alive with a Purple Heart but can find no job, he’s lost his family, and the nightmare of war overwhelm his attempts to sleep. “I fight these battles still waging in my head.” The guitars scream and Hoge’s anguished vocals cry “America, oh what can I do/America, I gave it all away for you,” highlighting the sacrifices made by our men and women in uniform. It is a truly transcendent musical moment, proof that you can support our soldiers while still questioning the President’s (dubious) reasons for going to war. Perhaps unconsciously, Hoge’s words seem horribly prescient. Undoubtedly thousands of American soldiers will return home from Iraq during the next few years to find themselves impoverished, homeless and trying to live with the horrors that they have seen and experienced.

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

Hoge’s The America EP is a minor masterpiece, perhaps the most important example of rock ‘n’ roll patriotism that has ever been recorded. It’s unlikely that Hoge could have released these songs under the sponsorship of a major label. The America EP is illustrative of the freedom and potential of taking music out of the hands of focus groups and putting it back in the hands of the artists. That few people may hear this material is beside the point and quite irrelevant. The important thing is that these songs were recorded in the first place, put out there in the world for people to discover. I salute Will Hoge for taking a stand, and you should, too. (self-released, 2004)

Review originally published by Alt.Culture.Guide™ zine

Vintage Review: Daddy's For A Second Time (2009)

Back when you kiddies were still watching Saturday morning cartoons in your spidey PJs and eating chocolate-frosted sugar bombs by the boxful, two nice young men from Kentucky, and another from Alabama, were playing in a critically-acclaimed rock ‘n’ roll band called the Bis-quits. Although these three gents had spun a wonderful collection of intelligent garage-pop with blues-rock overtones and a soupcon of country twang, they were soon forgotten, lost in the enormous commercial shadow of a bunch o’ guys from Seattle named Kurt, Eddie, Chris and their, well, kinda grungy, flannel-clad friends.

Fast forward 16 years, and you’ll find Daddy, which is, really, mathematically two-thirds of the Bis-quits playing with some (talented) friends. Over the past decade-and-a-half or so, the three nice young men – Will Kimbrough, Tommy Womack, and Mike “Grimey” Grimes – have pursued various fates in and out of the music biz. Grimes played for a while with alt-country cut-ups Bare Jr. before escaping the industry’s clutches only to open his much-lauded record store in Nashville (Grimey’s Music – tell ‘em the Reverend sent ya!).

Kimbrough has toyed around with a critically-acclaimed solo career that has yielded four solid albums (and an EP), but his real bread-and-butter has been touring and recording as a guitar-for-hire for folks like Jimmy Buffett, Rodney Crowell, Todd Snider, and others. Womack, on the other hand, has put his experience with the Bis-quits and, previously, the much beloved Kentucky cult band Govt. Cheese, to good use as a whipsmart, slightly neurotic, constantly embattled solo troubadour, also with four acclaimed studio albums (and a live disc) under his belt.

Daddy’s For A Second Time

Daddy began as a one-off between friends and former bandmates, their live 2005 album At The Woman’s Club documenting two nights’ shows in Frankfort, Kentucky. As these things are wont to do, demand for Daddy and the band’s growing popularity has resulted in For A Second Time, the official and righteous Daddy studio debut. A ten-song collection of various Kimbrough and Womack originals and a handful of collaborations between the two (and one excellent total band effort), For A Second Time may well be the best collection of pure music-making that you’ll hear come out of Nashville this year.

As they say in Nashville, it all begins with a song – something forgotten long ago by the industry’s Music Row – and Kimbrough and Womack are two of the best wordsmiths ever snubbed by the biz. Both songwriters have been around the block a time or three and suffered through the indignities and ignorance of men in suits with corporate smiles, and their experience shines through their songs. The semi-biographical “Nobody From Nowhere,” for instance, sounds like a John Hiatt outtake circa Slow Turning, but with Kimbrough’s slinky fretwork and great harmony singing between Kimbrough and Womack. The song perfectly sums up the isolation of growing up in the rural South, where everything is miles away from anything else, and dreams of the big-time are tempered by simple pleasures.

Much of the rest of For A Second Time follows a similar tact, Kimbrough and Womack swapping lead vocals on songs that are built around the former’s tempered optimism and the latter’s wry sense of humor and joyful cynicism. “Early To Bed, Early To Rise” is Womack’s advice to a younger generation, an only-slightly-tongue-in-cheek warning about the rat race from a man that has lived it firsthand. The New Orleans-tinged “Wash & Fold” possesses all the funky soul of the Meters, Kimbrough mouthing a sly come-on to a young lovely that is equal parts Ray Davies and Aaron Neville.

Of course, the Daddy guys also recognize a good song when they hear it, and their loving cover of ‘60s-era folkie Mike Millius’ “The Ballad of Martin Luther King” provides the sort of intricate wordplay that Womack excels at spitting out. The ode to the African-American hero is especially ironic provided the band’s deep-rooted Dixie sound, but these boys have always embraced equality in all things – especially music – and the song’s folkie origins are amped up with squalls of harmonica, bluesy guitarwork, and more than a little introspection.

The full band collaboration “I Went To Heaven In A Dream Last Night” is a syncopated, almost stream-of-consciousness tale of Womack’s brush with the almighty that evinces a dark sense of humor, manic vocals, and more great throwaway lines and imagery than we can recount here (although “a funny thing happened on my way to the grave, I didn’t burn out and I didn’t fade away, my heart kept beating until the end of the ride” is a pretty damn funny line). The band backs it up with a funky-cool, twang-jazz soundtrack with lighter-than-feather cymbal brushing, scraps of honky-tonky piano, and Kimbrough’s piercing six-string notes. “He Ain’t Right” is another semi-autobiographical look back at childhood and what it’s like to be smalltown different, the lyrics pounded home above a muscular rhythm, bee-sting fretwork, and potent, gospel-tinged keyboards.

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

Will Kimbrough and Tommy Womack bring the best out of each other, creatively, and with nearly two decades of friendship and shared musical history to work off of, it should come as no surprise that they’re able to come up with gem after gem. The background guys in Daddy are no slouch, either, but rather talented pros able to cut loose from their day jobs and spin some fun, complex, and satisfying music behind their charismatic frontmen. Altogether, For A Second Time adds up to more than the sum of the individual band member’s talents; Daddy the best band that you’ve never heard (yet). (Cedar Creek Music, released 2009)

Review originally published by Blurt magazine, 2009

Vintage Review: Will Kimbrough’s Americanitis (2006)

Will Kimbrough is one of Nashville’s best-kept secrets. An in-demand guitarist that has worked with folks like Rodney Crowell, Jimmy Buffet, and Todd Snider, among others, the Americana Music Association chose Kimbrough as “2004 Instrumentalist of the Year.” The biggest secret, however, isn’t Kimbrough’s talents as a musician (which are well documented at this point), but rather his little-known skills as a singer, songwriter, and performer. Nowhere is this more apparent than with Americanitis, Kimbrough’s third and most personal solo album yet.

Americanitis is Kimbrough’s reaction to the social and political aftermath of 9-11 and the Iraq War, his politically-charged lyrics delivered with intelligence and humility and an infectious musical mix of Beatlesque pop, roots rock and country twang. Kimbrough tempers the commentary of thoughtful songs like “I Lie,” “Pride” and the brilliantly subversive, Britpop-styled “Less Polite” with explorations of love and human relationships. Whereas “Act Like Nothing’s Wrong” offers some timely advice and the Okie blues of “Wind Blowing Change” heralds stormy weather for America, the spry “Enemy” is a rollicking apology to romance gone wrong while “Another Train” is a raucous showcase of Kimbrough’s six-string mastery.

Kimbrough has delivered his most fully realized album yet with Americanitis, pulling off a tight-wire act that would send lesser artists over the edge: balancing social commentary with romantic observations and making both equally entertaining. (Daphne Records, released 2006)

Review originally published by Country Standard Time magazine