Here are three albums by three country gentlemen: One old-timer singing classic country, another old-timer singing a clutch of his own new and timely tunes, and one relatively young pup who writes and sings in classic country mode.
Willie Nelson has made the perfect album of classic country music, and his timing, as always, is impeccable. His tribute to fellow Texan songwriter Cindy Walker was released to immediate acclaim, just two weeks before Ms. Walker died at the age of 87.
Cindy Walker wrote her first song at the age of 12, and “Dusty Skies” among many others went on to become a staple in the dancehall setlists of Bob Wills’ Texas Playboys. For this tribute Willie enlisted Johnny Gimbel, who played fiddle with Wills for many years, as well as legendary steel guitarist Buddy Emmons. The core ensemble of bass, drums, rhythm guitar and piano are never short of perfect. Nelson’s supple baritone remains a wonder. Add the backing harmonies of the famed Jordanaires, and this baker’s-dozen songs just can’t miss. Whether it’s swinging shuffles like “Bubbles In My Beer,” “Don’t Be Ashamed Of Your Age,” “Sugar Moon,” “It’s All Your Fault” or “Miss Molly”; or slow sad honky-tonkers like the title track, “Not That I Care,” “The Warm Red Wine” or “Just Walkin’ Out The Door,” Willie and crew do them all up just right. After 2005’s curious album of reggae covers, *You Don’t Know Me* is a back-to-his-roots joy to listen to.
Kris Kristofferson was mentored by Nelson and Johnny Cash and a handful of others. But he’s always had a gift for sharp songwriting, since he came out of left field in the early 1970s and helped change the rules of country music-making. On This Old Road he demonstrates why he and his voice still matter.
For this album, Kris, who turns 70 this year, takes a similar livingroom approach to the one Cash used on his final albums. It’s a stripped-down affair engineered by Don Was, using just Kristofferson with his acoustic guitar and his weathered voice, augmented only by minimal contributions from Stephen Bruton on mandolin, guitar and harmony vocals, Jim Keltner on an occasional drum and Was on bass and piano.
Kristofferson doesn’t waste any time or breath here, with just 11 tracks. On the opening title track, he addresses the face in the mirror and wonders how he survived some parts of “This Old Road.” It’s a theme he echoes several times. On “The Last Thing to Go” he pays tribute to friends left behind on that road; on “Wild American” he salutes fellow outlaw singers of yesterday and today with lines like “Heroes happen when you need ’em”; and on “The Show Goes On” he explicitly reminisces about the high life coming up through Nashville in the ’70s, when “the sweetest thing you ever heard / was the singing of the Speckled Bird / and commercial was a dirty word.”
In more pensive moods, he prays, albeit to an indeterminate god, for the strength to shoulder “The Burden of Freedom,” which is the realization that you have to pay for the choices you get to make; and breathes a prayer of thanks to his wife in “Thank You For A Life”; and meditates on the immortality of family in “Holy Creation.”
He retains his feisty political edge in songs like “Pilgrim’s Progress,” in which he says “I want justice, but I’ll settle for some mercy / on this holy road through the universal mind.” And he lays it on the line in “In The News,” which starts out dealing with the madness of a young husband killing his pregnant wife, moves on to “the billion dollar bombing of a nation on its knees,” and then switches to the voice of God Himself, who says “Not in my name, not on my ground / I want nothing but the ending of the war.”
And he closes as he began, with a meditation on the life of an artist in “The Final Attraction,” in which he salutes those who are willing to put their feelings into song and stand up in front of people every night and expose their rawest nerves. “But they love you so badly / for sharing their sorrows / so pick up that guitar / go break a heart.” And with that he sings a litany of singers who have passed, from Hank to Hendrix.
Kristofferson’s is the voice of an elder statesman in song, and we ought to heed it.
Bruce Robison makes country records the way they used to, with an emphasis on strong songwriting and smart storytelling and a lot of heart and soul. The eleven tracks on Eleven Stories cover a lot of stylistic bases, including folk, honky-tonk, western swing and psychedelic country rock.
The three cover songs illustrate this tall Texan’s range of taste: There’s Webb Pierce’s classic swinging honky-tonker “More and More,” a sweet duet with his wife the lovely and talented Kelly Willis; an old western swing standard “Bandera Waltz” and the Grateful Dead’s “Tennessee Jed,” in which Robison bumps his vocals up an octave or so from their usual territory for a passable Jerry Garcia imitation.
The rest are right from Robison’s pen to your heart, the best of which are the quietly devastating opener “Every Once in a While,” the Muscle Shoals-style soul of “All Over But the Cryin’,” the western swing of “You Really Let Yourself Go” and the quiet folk of “Days Go By,” a first-person ballad of a mentally ill homeless man. The arrangements are without exception entirely tasteful, with noteworthy contributions from Al Perkins on pedal steel, Jason Roberts on fiddle, Randy Scruggs on banjo and Chip Dolan on keys.
Robison, who is part of a Texas music dynasty of sorts that includes his brother Charlie, previously mentioned wife Kelly Willis, and sister-in-law Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks. The strength of songwriting he shows yet again on this album demonstrate why his songs have been covered by some of the biggest names in Nashville and Austin. And why you should be listening to Bruce Robison.
(Lost Highway, 2006)
(New West, 2006)
(Sustain, 2006)
