Somewhere in Texas, there's a honky-tonk where the twangy electric guitars have a liquid sound, like the magic fluid inside a Lone Star longneck. Where stately fiddles rule, where Dwight Yoakam channels the ghost of a country gentleman singing through one of those big chrome microphones, and the swingin' big band is anything but asleep. Where there's a passel of blondes out in the audience that looks like the Dixie Chicks and a redhead who's just gotta be Reba McEntire. Where the lonesome plaint "I ain't got nobody" simply means everybody dance now, and the boys on stage take solos that run the pants off those gimcrack jazz players up north. Where Merle Haggard wanders around menacingly, crying with Clint Black and Tim McGraw before happily remembering that he never had no use for women with store-bought blonde hair anyway. It's an innocent place where "stay all night, stay a little longer" simply means "dance all night, dance a little longer," but nobody can be responsible for whatever might happen in the hot, black humidity out behind the shed. Where a couple of young'uns like Shawn Colvin and Lyle Lovett sing a duet called "Faded Love," which everyone knows, and the folks out in the glittery darkness slow dance reverently in a circle around the worn-down, sawdust-covered planks of the dance floor -- their arms are around their honey-pies, but their minds are on that silky, excited "Ah ha," the one that made this music bigger than their whole damn state. They know it don't matter if the Squirrel Nut Zippers or Manhattan Transfer are in Texas. Bob Wills is still the king. -- C.J. Janovy
Sally Timms
Cowboy Sally's Twilight Laments...For Lost Buckaroos
(Bloodshot)
Mark Brooks
Asleep at the Wheel
Ride With Bob: A Tribute to Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys
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If Twilight Laments were judged strictly in terms of authenticity, it would deserve a slagging. You see, Timms, the "Cowboy Sally" of the title above, has made the majority of her career hay as a vocalist for the Mekons, a merrily uncategorizable punk/art band formed in Leeds, a city in Great Britain not exactly renowned as the Nashville of Europe. Moreover, the cover shot suggests a level of self-consciousness that can be fatal in a style that lives and dies on sincerity. But while Timms has no objection to tinkering with the rudiments of the genre, she'd never dream of sneering at them -- and that makes all the difference.
"The Sad Milkman" is an early test; its cryptic lyrics (by Rennie Sparks) about a young man eager to jump off a roof into the arms of the moon seem to invite a loopy, superficial interpretation. Instead, Timms and her fellows (including her husband, fellow Mekon Jon Langford) take the tune at a mournful pace, and her rich, full-bodied vocals, swathed in plenty of atmospheric studio echo, drift over the melody like a wisp of smoke. She also shines on "Dark Sun," a Timms-Langford composition that mates snappy imagery ("When the first one falls/We'll be crawling up walls") with an appropriately arid arrangement, and her transformation of y'allternative icon Robbie Fulks's "In Bristol Town One Bright Day" into English folk lament suggests that the distance between American C&W and the musical traditions of merry old England isn't as far as it might seem. Likewise, the Carter Family affectations heard throughout "Snowbird" and the south-of-the-border balladry of "Canción Para Mi Padre" seem like a loving and logical merger of musical influences, not the cheeky affectations of people whose fondness for John Wayne movies is rooted in irony.
To put it another way, Timms doesn't seem to be winking as she sings these songs, and while the closer, "Rock Me to Sleep" (penned by onetime Denverite Jill Sobule and ex-Bongos frontman Richard Barone), isn't really a country song at all, Timms's caressing delivery makes the point moot. The saddest thing about Twilight Laments is that it isn't longer. -- Roberts
Robbie Fulks
The Very Best of Robbie Fulks
(Bloodshot)
As he mentions in his disc's liner notes, Robbie Fulks's new The Very Best of Robbie Fulks is "the cream of the last ten years of my exciting and multi-dimensional recording career, or at least that portion we could get licensing on." This winking admission gives the lucky listener who purchases this disc (it's available only through Fulks's Web site, at www.RobbieFulks.com) an idea of what the singer's career has been like. After earning cult-hero alt-country status in Chicago, Fulks took a stab at Nashville and the big leagues of mainstream country. As he points out in "Fuck This Town," from his killer previous disc, South Mouth, the experience proved pointless: "I shook a lot of hands, ate a lot of lunch, wrote a lot of dumbass songs." The truth is, though, that Fulks couldn't write a dumb song to save his life, as the depth of the outtakes and one-offs here quickly prove. "Jean Arthur" is irresistible twang -- sunny and tender in the lyrics, steel guitars, and hooks as big as the Sears Tower. But while Fulks inks heartfelt numbers as well as anyone, it's when he sharpens his pen that he really shines. "Roots Rock Weirdoes" is a scathing stab at the vintage-obsessed whose aesthetic requirements include fishnet stockings on every woman, unfiltered Camels rolled under every sleeve and "for every man a tattoo, a Chevy and a dumb nickname." Ouch! "Love Ain't Nothin'" is just as sharp, a typical Fulks composition that wraps conventional Western swing arrangements around brand-new lyrical terrain. In the snide vignette, perpetually glum couples dream of new lovers, and Music City boys use romance to sell records to the "bubbas" who want to appear sensitive. "There's nothing wrong with humpin', but look before you jump in," Fulks sings while a tasty combo stately vamps behind him. Fulks's straight-razor wit also sharpens his weepers. "Parallel Bars" recounts how the singer and his ex now kill time in separate drinking universes, washing down the ugly truth. "I Just Want to Meet the Man" is a tearjerker of a different sort: The singer stands on the driveway of his former lover's home and begs to be introduced to the man who pampers his children "and left his poison inside of you." If all of this weren't enough value for your entertainment dollar, "Very Best" includes kooky anthems that stretch from a tribute to Susanna Hoffs ("That Bangle Girl") to a tale of insect love ("Wedding of the Bugs"). There are more word-rich country standards, too, like "Sleepin' on the Job of Love" and "You Break It -- You Pay," the ultimate don't-play-with-my-emotions number. Alt-country, indeed. -- Jones
