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25 Essential Texas-Related CDs of 2006
By Tom Geddie
In a hurry-up iPod age where songs seem more important
than albums and where radio stations play the same songs over and over,
there is satisfaction in getting to know and appreciate an artist through a
whole series of songs. The 2006, ninth annual list of favorite Texas-related
CDs is an eclectic mix of blues, folk, country, rock, gospel, jazz, Tex-Mex
mixes, miscellanea, and even some pop.
“Texas-related” means the CDs are by people born or
raised in Texas, who live here now, or lived here for some meaningful time
in the past. “Favorite” means just that; it doesn’t mean “best” because
who’s really qualified to call one piece of good art better than another
piece of good art.
Once again, showing that the best art is not created by
corporations, independent artists and small-label releases far outnumber
major-label releases. Columbia released the Dixie Chicks’ CD. MCA Nashville
released George Strait’s CD. A handful of big labels slip in the back door
with “pseudonyms:” Big Machine Records with Jack Ingram and Or Music with
Los Lonely Boys. Lost Highway with Willie Nelson. Alejandro Escovedo with
EMI/Backporch if you want to count Virgin as a major player.
These are the Texas-related CDs on my 2006 list:
1. Ray Wylie Hubbard, Snake Farm, Sustain: Producer
Gurf Morlix calls it Hubbard’s “Exile on Main Street” for what he hears as
similarities to the Rolling Stones’ straight-ahead, attitude-filled classic
rock album. Don’t take that comparison too literally. If one word were to
describe the CD, it would be “blues.” Four words? “Deep-fried Southern
blues.”
2. Dixie Chicks, Taking the Long Way, Columbia: a
beautiful album both as art and as commercial product. Topical. Real.
Intelligent.
3. Eric Taylor, The Great Divide, Blue Ruby: A great
songwriter with an intense, quiet stage presence that commands attention.
The Great Divide, subtitled “lyrics, lies, softshoe, fried pies,” is his
first new CD since Scuffletown in 2001. It’s filled with long, lingering
embraces with the blues.
4. Tom Russell, Love & Fear, HighTone: Russell is as
much a poet as a songwriter, with lingering ties to the influence of the
Beats. On Love & Fear, which continually crosses the lines between folk,
rock, and country, Russell approaches the aches and rewards of aging from a
fighter’s point of view – a little bit out on the edge – as someone who’s
still young enough to care and old enough to know it won’t last forever.
5. Kris Kristofferson, This Old Road, New West:
Kristofferson would never make the cut on American Idol, but if his songs
were required singing then that show would be much more listenable. This Old
Road is the three-time Grammy winner’s first CD of new songs in 11 years.
6. Kristy Kruger, Songs from a Dead Man’s Couch, Just
Like Freddy Music: A CD to caress for its intelligence and its tiny bits of
quirkiness, and for the good songs and good music and good performances.
It’s lyrically dark, but often musically upbeat and always intriguing.
7. Guy Clark, Workbench Songs, Dualtone: Filled with
co-writes like his 2002 release, The Dark, Clark’s CDs always come out
sounding like a Guy Clark folk-country CD with lyrics filled with details
rather than generalizations and with acoustic music that fits the songs like
rosin on a fiddle’s bow.
8. Sarah Fox & Joel Guzman, Latinology, Guzman Fox:
Singer-composer Sarah Fox, accordionist Joel Guzman, and friends deliver one
of the year’s intriguing albums by reaching deep into the ocean of Latin and
other influences. The
cumbia-rumba-tejano-conjunto-soul-funk-blues-gospel-rock sound is as
seamless as water.
9. Carrie Rodriguez, Seven Angels on a Bicycle, Train
Wreck: Mixes jazz, bluegrass, country, traditional folk, and more.
Co-produced by Rodriguez and Chip Taylor, the live-in-the-studio,
more-organic-than-manufactured CD includes banjo, upright bass, drums,
fiddle, electric and acoustic guitars, lap and pedal steel guitars, tenor
and soprano sax, and Rodriguez’ voice, which simultaneously sounds modern
and like it came from an earlier, more honest era.
10. Slaid Cleaves, Unsung, Rounder: tribute to some of
the writers Cleaves admires, a thoughtful, somewhat melancholy album, as
much for Cleaves’ hoarse delivery as for the material he chose.
11. James Hand, The Truth Will Set You Free, Rounder: a
breakthrough, real country CD for somebody who’s written and played in
obscurity most of his 50-something years.
12. Michael O’Neal, Soul Shine, self-released: The
music here is country rock; the whole of Soul Shine is a well done,
tastefully played (especially on the acoustic songs), layered seduction to
the charms of honest music.
13. Jack Ingram, Live Wherever You Are, Big Machine:
This one, recorded at Gruene Hall, has a 2005 copyright and most of the
songs are older than that; but it made its impact in 2006.
14. Willie Nelson, You Don’t Know Me: The Songs of
Cindy Walker, Lost Highway: One Texas icon sharing a handful of the songs of
another.
15. Jon Dee Graham, Full, Freedom: the rawness of Full,
recorded in three days at Austin’s Top Hat Studios in January 2006, comes
from the very personal – sometimes intriguingly enigmatically so – songs.
Full doesn’t rock as much as some of Graham’s earlier works or his live
performances; it’s closer to a quiet, inner journey without losing the
energy.
16. McKay Brothers, Cold Beer & Hot Tamales,
self-released: While Noel and Hollin McKay can do the “yeehah bubba” songs,
they can also create art. “Spirit Bird” is the imagery-filled story of a man
on a desert journey who finds a “bruised and bloodied Jesus.” “Acompańeme”
is a bilingual wish for a lover who “must touch me like you touch the beads
of a rosary.”
17. Ben Bowen King, Sidewalk Saints: Roots Gospel
Guitar, Talking Taco Music: mostly instrumental, mostly solo resonator
guitar, filled with King’s interpretations of mostly familiar, mostly gospel
songs including “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” “In the Sweet By & By,” “Some
Fine Morning,” “Shall We Gather at the River,” and “Amazing Grace.”
18. Scott H. Biram, Graveyard Shift, Bloodshot: Biram
creates a world based in the acoustic blues of another time, but dragged
into the electric age where life’s just a little twisted when the sun goes
down, and when the sun goes down is the only time that matters.
19. Los Lonely Boys, Sacred, Or Music/Epic: More of the
same is a good thing in this case. Even with some new rhythms and some
additional instruments tossed into the mix, there’s no mistaking the
Santana-meets-Stevie Ray Vaughan sounds.
20. Seth Walker, Seth Walker, Pacific Blues: With his
roots deep into Jimmy Reed, B.B. King, T-Bone Walker, etc., Walker’s
self-titled CD is filled with music for the jukebox after midnight when life
slows down in some dark, nearly-empty bar.
21. George Strait, Somewhere Down in Texas, MCA
Nashville: Consistently fine singer who picks consistently good, sometimes
great, songs.
22. Alejandro Escovedo, The Boxing Mirror, EMI/Backporch:
The often poetic-beyond-the-rhyme, sometimes enigmatic lyrics leave the
imagination plenty of room to roam, appealing to emotions rather than logic.
23. Patrice Pike, Unraveling, Tape Slap: Rock CD built
around the concept of “just realizing that when you go through life making
and implementing plans, life happens all around you.”
24. Thrift Store Cowboys, Lay Low While Crawling Or
Creeping, self-released: The feel is, for lack of a better description,
gypsy desert music – the free sound of spacey, heat-induced delirium, if
that makes sense. It’s a sure, confident sound backed by thoughtful vision
and seemingly thoughtful lyrics.
25. Radney Foster, This World We Live In, Dualtone: a
radio-ready collection where Foster “lives” in a soulful, country-blues
world of cotton dresses and beer-can pyramids, of come-on lines and the
price of sin, of mistakes and road maps.
Tom Geddie is a 10-year veteran music critic who writes
for several publications. He is also a poet and essayist who loves all kinds
of music, whether it was made in Texas or not.
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