Brushing up against death will make you philosophical. Or at least that’s the impact it’s had on songwriter Tommy Womack, whose 2012 recovery from near-fatal addiction and 2015 recovery from a life-threatening car accident has deepened his introspection, magnified his gratitude and optimism, and sharpened his sense of humor. All are on full display in this new collection of songs, essaying everything from wry takes on aging to blunt confrontations of faith and death.
The album opens with hope and wit in “Angel†and “Comb-Over Blues,†before turning to a Lou Reed-styled monotone for “End of the Line.†The latter reflects on the heightened awareness of mortality brought by recovery’s second chance, and segues seamlessly into the Dylan-ish “It’s Been All Over Before.†That second chance is met head on in “I Almost Died,†a harrowing first-person account of a drug-fueled near-death in which Womack recreates an addict’s obstinate dependence on “almost.â€
A modern, deadpan spin on classic country heartache
Dave Insley’s latest album – his fourth – is full of loss and waiting. Waiting for the phone to ring. Waiting for a change of mind. Waiting to feel better. His deadpan delivery is both stalwart and ironic as the boozy night of “Drinking Wine and Staring at the Phone†is as much a songwriter’s document of a protagonist’s lament as as it is the protagonist’s actual lament. Someone else might drown in the heartbreak, but Insley wears his misery as a badge, and the bouncy beat, sliding trombone and barroom piano provide comic ballast. He commiserates with Kelly Willis on the duet “Win-Win Situation for Losers,†but the slightest vocal hiccup offers a crack through which his lack of passion can be seen.
Insley’s pleas are open ended, with the mild protestations of “Call Me If You Ever Change Your Mind†undercut by the title’s second (or likely fifth or sixth) chance. Waiting turns to expectation as “Footprints in the Snow†anticipates memories before they’ve even been made. Memories don’t just linger in Insley’s world, they threaten in advance, and hearts don’t so much break as they ache endlessly. But as much as he describes his pain and loneliness, the wounds are more shellshock than tears. He’s a ghost who can’t bring himself to haunt on “No One to Come Home To,†and the imagined demise of “Dead and Gone,†with a guest vocal tag from Dale Watson, brings forth humor and solace rather than sorrow.
Whatever else he’s done, Chris Robley’s bi-coastal habitation of Portland, Oregon and Portland, Maine positions him as the answer to a singer-songwriter trivia question. It’s the sort of poetic, yet easily consumed detail that also threads through his songwriting. And though his poetry is filled with imagery and symbolism, his lyrics follow more traditional narratives, albeit with the observational details and sensitivity of a poet. Robley’s sixth album was written and recorded amid major life changes – including divorce, relocation and romantic renewal – and though the songs aren’t directly autobiographical, it’s easy to spot a very real path of anxiety, confusion, sadness, depression, weariness, relief and rebirth, sewn together by hints of optimism and a helping of catharsis.
Perhaps the most important musical change from previous releases is Robley’s choice to relinquish most of the instrumental duties to bandmates. Where his earlier albums had been insular, overdubbed studio productions, his latest relies not only on other players, but the dynamism of live recording and the shucking of orchestration and production tricks. Though much of the album draws its melodic tint from Robley’s long-time pop inspirations (i.e., the Beatles), several of the songs are stripped to country-tinged basics, with Paul Brainard’s steel and Bob Dunham’s guitar given prominent placement. Their twang pushes Robley to preach on “Lonely People†and underlines the sort of introspective reflections you’d rather not have staring back at you from the mirror.
Following Justin Townes Earle’s advice to “write what you knowâ€
Nashvillian Brian Ritchey has been something of a chameleon as he’s rambled through Americana (E.P.), garage pop and singer-songwriter crooning (If I Were a Painter), and even an ambitious concept album (No Way Out of This House). It’s a sophisticated. disparate catalog threaded with a Southern sensibility that links to this latest full-length release. His earlier notes of Americana, garage blues, soul and singer-songwriter are here, alongside twangier bits of country and hummable pop-rock, but the arrangements are more straightforward and more quickly ingratiating than his last outing.
A 1990s Nashville artist finds his soul down a rough road
Singer-songwriter Bob Woodruff garnered good notices for his mid-90s major label country albums Dreams & Saturday Nights and Desire Road, and then fell largely out of sight. He finally resurfaced for an indie album in 2011, and recorded and released the original version of this album in Sweden in 2013. Luckily, Woodruff’s soul- and country-tinged rock is timeless, and a 2016 reintroduction to this release is as welcome as the less-widely circulated first blush three years ago. Returning to music after several years of hard living, Woodruff not only sounds seasoned, but full of life experience to funnel into both the words and melodic tone of his songs.
As good as Woodruff’s originals are – and we’ll get to those in a minute – his slow, country-soul crawl through the Supremes’ “Stop in the Name of Love†is revelatory. The song’s opening guitar figure gives no clue as to what’s coming, but as Woodruff launches into the lyric’s plea with a slight hitch in his voice, the guitar turns to chords whose familiarity will provoke the listener’s memory. The tempo is similar to Jonell Mosser’s cover from the film Hope Floats, but underlined by Clas Olofsson’s pedal steel, Woodruff’s vocal mourns a relationship that’s already finished, rather than one that might be saved through confrontation. Among the song’smanyvariedrenditions, this one’s a tour de force.
Woodruff sounds a bit like Bob Delevante, and a bit like Willie Nile, pulling in rock, country, soul and blues influences that range from the Byrdsian “I’m the Train†to the New Orleans funk “Bayou Girl†to the crooned southern soul “There’s Something There.†The opening “I Didn’t Know†strikes a tone of recovery, with happy memories reawakened by a second chance. The title song recounts rougher years, resolving to remember the past without getting stuck in its decaying trajectory. Woodruff longs for connection to others, to a better self, to a past whose fissures were of his own making, and most of all, to the salvation of hope.
This Long Island band just gets better with each release. The early demos of their debut, One More Time, were accomplished and perfectly unpolished, and though the songwriting, playing and production has matured over the course of five years, songwriter Pete Mancini hasn’t lost the emotional wear that makes his singing so appealing. Their last full-length, Destination Blues, explored the realizations and disappointments that set in with age, but this new EP gets up from the couch to seek action. Mancini doesn’t leave his new found knowledge behind, but uses it to prompt forward motion rather than wallow in place.
Socially astute singer-songwriter tours modern-day America
Born in Buffalo, just a few blocks from U.S. Route 62, Peter Case made his way to San Francisco to busk on the streets, then to Los Angeles where he spearheaded the late-70s power pop movement with the Nerves and Plimsouls. He’s since taken a more solitary road, touring with just his songs and guitar, gathering stories for his writing. Though not literally itinerant – he’s still homed in Los Angeles – his travels have traced the trails of those who inspire him. His latest collection of songs is titled after the northeast-to-southwest highway that runs through his hometown, and that his childhood eyes saw as a “connection to the world I wanted to live in, the American Westâ€
The productions step back to a folkier vibe from the electric blues of 2010’s Wig!, but retain the underlying power of drummer D.J. Bonebrake, and add the instrumental voices of guitarist Ben Harper and bassist David Carpenter. The songs wind through a variety of musical landscapes, just as Route 62 winds through Bobby Fuller’s El Paso, Buddy Holly’s Lubbock, Sonny Throckmorton’s Carlsbad, Woody Guthrie’s Okemah, Ronnie Hawkins’ Fayetteville, the Everly Brothers’ Central City, and Phil Ochs’ Columbus. The social consciousness of Guthrie and Ochs’ are evoked in the opening “Pelican Bay,†as Case questions the industrialization of America’s prisons and the particular harshness of solitary confinement.
A broader palette of social injustice is on Case’s mind as “Water From a Stone†segues between the travails of undocumented aliens, corporatism, global warming, the appropriation of Native American lands, rising eviction rates, crushing educational debt and outsourced manufacturing. Justice is called into question again in both “Evicted†and “All Dressed Up (for Trial),†with the latter suggesting that final judgment isn’t necessarily a mortal matter. That same leveling in the afterlife provides redemption for the existential lament “The Long Good Time,†and turns the gravesite of “Bluebells†into a pastoral place to leave behind one’s foibles.
A sad, brilliant gem of early ‘70s singer-songwriter country
Talent and hard work aren’t always enough. They can pave the path, but fame is at the end of a road pockmarked with “timing†and “connections†and “luck.†And though hard luck provides grist for the artistic mill, it can also keep a career from catching fire. Such was the case for Louisville singer-songwriter Denny Lile, whose talent, ambition and artistic brilliance weren’t fully rewarded by the popular recognition they deserved. Other than a song turned into a 1987 Top 10 Waylon Jennings hit (“Fallin’ Outâ€), Lile’s music, including this long-lost 1973 solo album, were consigned to virtual obscurity. His hometown renown brought feelers from New York and Nashville labels, but the sensitivity that made his songwriting so touching also fueled the alcoholism and self-doubt that sabotaged his career.
Lile wended his way through a number of Louisville bands, including Soul Inc. and Elysian Field, before striking a deal for this solo album. At only twenty-two years of age, his voice was decades older, with the weary, wary confidence of someone who’d logged more miles on his soul than his feet. His singing offered elements of Jim Croce’s melancholy, Gram Parsons’ grief, and, unusually in this company, Neil Diamond’s power; but even among those monumental touchstones, it was the candid voice of his lyrics that really stood out. Backed by guitar, fiddle, steel, dobro and a tight rhythm section of bass, drums and piano, Turley Richards’ productions of “Hear the Bang†and “If You Stay on Solid Ground†garnered a well-deserved offer from Hilltop Records; but while Turley was selling the single in New York, Lile signed with the local Bridges label, in a deal that would haunt him to his 1995 death.
Bridges’ distribution agreement with Nashville’s Starday-King did little to help the single or subsequent album gain traction, and both disappeared without much more than local notice. It’s hard to imagine in this hyperconnected, digital age that an album this good could vanish so completely, but Lile’s deal had surrendered both the recordings and his song publishing, and as the accompanying DVD documentary explains, it took more than four decades to untangle the rights and find the tapes. Once revived, the tapes revealed productions that are crisp and spacious – the sort of record that made your mid-70s stereo system shine – and performances that hold listeners in thrall with their confused and wounded heart. And that heart, Lile’s heart, was worn quite visibly on his sleeve as he sings of loving, leaving and being left.
Lile found that fading love doesn’t always fade evenly, and that its slow decay may not even be noticed until realizations are past due and apologies are rejected. Resignation to sad truths permeated Lile’s life, and in turn, his best songs. It led him to recoil from opportunity and sabotage possibilities for success. By the time his solo album was ready he said “Every time I’ve tried to get out of town – with Field, with Soul – something’s gone wrong. Every time I turn around an older musician is telling me his plan for making it. But nothing so far has worked. I think it’s better not to plan.†That feeling of futility suffused his songwriting, even as he spent years honing his lyrics and melodies to perfection.
The productions include many terrific touches, including congas on “If You Stay on Solid Ground†and phased fiddles on “Rag Muffin,†and there are several optimistic songs of love on the horizon (“She’s More to Me Than a Friend†and “After Allâ€) and in full bloom (“Oh Darling†and “Rag Muffinâ€). But it’s the sad songs that will haunt you, especially after you’ve viewed the accompanying biographical documentary. “Will You Hate Me When I’m Gone†offers a prophetic echo as Lile’s daughter speaks of his passing, and “After All†could be a memo from Lile to himself as he sings “so tell me how you’re feeling today, tell me if I got in your way.†As the documentary shows, Lile’s alcoholism often got in his way as the industry tried to help him capitalize on his talent.
Lile had a knack for sabotaging himself, starting with his momentum-killing solo contract, and extending through numerous fumbled opportunities. Worries about his marriage and his duty as a father – a hangover from his parents divorce – kept him from touring, and a chance to play FanFest in 1973 fell prey to one-too-many nerve-calming drinks. Follow-up meetings with Waylon Jennings’ staff also suffered from the rough shape in which his alcoholism often left him. Even an accident that landed him in the hospital with broken bones and a lacerated liver didn’t deter his drinking. His world narrowed to a home studio purchased with the royalties from Jennings’ single, and then to a custom van in which he lived the last few years of his life. He died alone in the van, estranged from his family, at the age of 44.
A songwriter finds his center
