Greetings, gentle readers! A quick
public service announcement but for the next couple of weeks there will be a
lot less entries than usual due to some other writing commitments I’ve got on
the go.
Never fear however – the CD
Odyssey will continue until we’re done. This is just a temporary slowdown. Check
back in a fortnight and we’ll be back at it in earnest.
In the meantime, here’s a review to
tide you over.
Disc 819 is….Texas Cookin’
Artist: Guy Clark
Year of Release: 1975
What’s up with the Cover? A very young Guy Clark sporting a
haircut from before he went grey, but also from before hair products were
available. Guy’s looking pretty sweaty here. It could be just hot out, but I
think it might be a bit too much barbecue.
How I Came To Know It: This is another one of those
albums I listened to online on Guy Clark’s homepage and decided to buy it.
How It Stacks Up: I have six Guy Clark albums. “Texas Cookin’” is
somewhere in the middle – I’ll put it third.
Ratings: 3 stars
“Texas Cookin’”
is a mix of what makes Guy Clark great and also what makes him maddening.
Clark is a songwriter’s songwriter, and you’ll find
his songs remade my all kinds of more famous artists like Lyle Lovett, Emmylou
Harris and Steve Earle. There is even an amazing double album tribute to him
that is stacked with great material (It is called “This One’s For Him” (reviewed
back at Disc 677).
Clark understand how to spin a tale, how to turn a
phrase and how to make pretty basic chord progressions in country music new and
interesting.
The pretty little love song “Anyhow, I Love You” shows the turn of phrase well, opening with:
“I wish I had a dime for every
bad time
But the bad times always seem to
keep the change.”
It sounds depressing, but (to bring in the other two
points) Clark uses a chord progression that evokes an upbeat quality that
showcases the song’s real theme: finding love despite life’s uncertainties. Although
it is more directly about knockin’ boots, “It’s
About Time” has a similar feel to it and even “Broken Hearted People” – the most depressing of the lot – still has
a core of resilience and ‘makin’ do’ to it.
Sorry about that dropped ‘g’ in ‘making’; Guy Clark
just inspires you to talk in a down-home kinda way. I guess you should expect
that from an album called “Texas Cookin’”.
Unfortunately, this homespun wisdom also holds this
record back. At times Clark feels like he’s got a bit too much hokum in his
blood. The title track, “Texas Cookin’,”
is literally about nothing more than how good barbecue food is. Hey, I love
barbecue as much as the next guy, but a song about it should just be about…more.
Also, I know it was 1975 and everybody was filled
with freedom and feelin’, but sometimes these songs mosey when they should just
get to the point. Clark’s “Broken Hearted
People” need to be a little more broken hearted. That element is helped
quite a bit by backing vocals from Emmylou Harris, who lends her quavering
gravitas to this song and quite a few others.
As for Clark’s vocals, he wouldn’t win any singing
competitions they put on cable TV these days, but he knows how to make what he
does have work for him. He writes songs to fit into his relatively limited
range, and he sings with honesty to the subject matter.
The best song on the album is “The Last Gunfighter Ballad” which tells the tale of an old
gunslinger, living in a world that has passed him by. The lyrics of this song
are chilling and brilliant and alongside “Dublin
Blues” and “The Cape,” are Clark’s
finest hour. The song is the character study of a gunfighter sitting at a bar, drunkenly
recalling his days of glory:
“Now the burn of a bullet is only
a scar
And he's back in his chair in
front of the bar
And the streets are empty and the
blood's all dried
And the dead are dust and the
whiskey's inside
So buy him a drink and lend him
an ear
He's nobody's fool and the only
one here
“That remembers the smell of the
black powder smoke
And the stand in the street at
the turn of a joke
Oh remember the smell of the
black powder smoke
And the stand in the street at
the turn of a joke”
Clark’s delivery on this song is strong and
heartfelt, but sadly, once you’ve heard Steve Earle’s cover of this song it spoils
you for any other version. That’s not a criticism of Clark so much as it is a
recognition of how good Earle’s version is.
Guy Clark is not for everyone, but if you put a
premium on good songwriting, and don’t mind a little hokum, you’ll find this
album right agreeable, y’hear?
Best
tracks: Anyhow I Love You, Broken Hearted People, The
Last Gunfighter Ballad
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