Eric Brace and Peter Cooper are a couple of the people who make music from the other side of Nashville. The part of Nashville that’s populated by the likes of Kris Kristofferson and Emmylou Harris and Todd Snider, folks like that who write and play honest songs in the American tradition. I’ve written reviews of discs by Brace’s band Last Train Home, and other GMR reviewers have been saying good things about Cooper’s recent debut disc Mission Door on Brace’s Red Beet label. Now the two have teamed up on the humorously titled You Don’t Have to Like Them Both, an excellent album of great songs, superbly performed and recorded.
The album’s 12 songs include some written or co-written by Brace or Cooper and a bunch of choice covers. They’re backed by a band of some of Nashville’s absolute finest musicians, including Jen Gunderman on keyboards, Lloyd Green on pedal steel, Tim O’Brien on strings and guitarists Richard Bennett, Tim Carroll and Kenny Vaughan.
Brace sings lead in a craggy baritone which is complemented by Cooper’s tenor harmonies on many of the tracks, including the opener, Brace’s “I Know A Bird.” It’s a lovely love song, a mid-tempo shuffle, its pensive lyrics underlaid by gently strummed banjo, with occasional touches of pedal steel and accordion.
Others on which Brace takes the lead and Cooper backs with harmony vocals include David Olney’s “Omar’s Blues #2,” which has lots of looping pedal steel lines and some soaring organ on the choruses; “Drinking From a Swimming Pool,” a mid-tempo country shuffle by Karl Straub, whose songs are frequently recorded by Last Train Home; Jim Lauderdale’s “Lucky Bones” and Kris Kristofferson’s “Just the Other Side of Nowhere.” Brace sings lead in a slightly higher key than usual on the beautiful traditional sea shanty “Her Bright Smile Haunts Me Still,” featuring Tim O’Brien on octave mandolin — just a beautiful folk song. And the two tackle an Everly Brothers song, Paul Kennerley’s “The First In Line.”
Cooper sings the lead on Kevin Gordon’s powerful “Down To The Well,” as well as another Lauderdale song, the honky-tonk weeper “I Know Better Now” and the album closer, Todd Snider’s “Yesterdays and Used to Be’s.” Some comic relief comes in one Cooper and Snider co-wrote, about how when you’re in Alaska you should refer to that big mountain as “Denali, Not McKinley.” And there’s some trenchant commentary on the current state of polarized politics on Cooper’s own “The Man Who Loves to Hate,” with some terrific jazzy bass from Dave Roe.
Separately Brace and Cooper are fine singer-songwriters. Together, they make musical alchemy that turns earthy Americana into gold.
(Red Beet, 2009)
