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Chris Wall Just Another Place |
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Track List
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(Cold Spring) It's been a while since his
last album, 1999's collaboration with Reckless Kelly, Tainted Angel,
but Chris Wall is finally back with his latest effort, Just
Another Place. As if to make up for his long absence, Chris doesn't
skimp and packs the album with 16 outstanding tracks. This hardscrabble
cowboy/poet/honky tonker is the real deal, and he's earned the respect
of countless of his peers, and several lined up to work with Chris on
this project. Along with Chris' regular band Cowboy Nation, Bruce
Robison, Paul Cotton, Dale Watson & the Lonestars and The South Austin
Jug Band show up to lend a helping hand.
Though Chris is best known for his shuffling
honky tonkers and barroom weepers that fill up the dance floor, this
album is a far more reflective, introspective and autobiographical look
at his own life, with it's struggles and heartbreaks, failures and
triumphs. Just Another Place began as a project of muted and
mostly acoustic songs that bared his soul. Although that part still
makes up the bulk of the album, as it progressed, he eventually tossed
in a couple of his trademark honky tonkers, perhaps so as to not
disappoint his hardcore following after such a long wait between albums.
Rest assured though, the more upbeat melodies haven't effected the
overall feel or flow of the album.
The songs Chris has written for Just
Another Place pretty much fall into two categories, those
about love: heartbreak, lost love and the search for love, and those
about the trials and tribulations of being a troubadour in the music
business, and sometimes those themes even intersect.
There's the mournful, gut-wrenching ache of
unreturned love as in "Old Broken Record," and the fiddle driven,
acoustic "Still In The Dark." In "Just Another Place," with it's Spanish
guitar, he sings of being used by a heartbreaker vwhere he "feels like
just another place you've been." "Raining In Atlanta" is a
mid-tempo lament about the relationship of a couple whose outlooks are
very different, and though they're no good together, they're no good
apart. Backed by Dale Watson & the Lonestars, "Love Is Just A Place" is
a classic, aching weeper, about an aimless drifter wanting desperately
to connect emotionally with the woman he's found that could be
his "anchor." "I Just Got Used To Loving You" is a mid-tempo honky
tonk reflection of a man who's realized how he's messed up his life.
"Color It Blue" with it's bouncy, shuffling melody, relays a man's lost
love with a twist of humor, defiance and bitterness. On the truly
stellar "Ten Cents On The Dollar," Chris delivers the album's most
heartbreaking and emotionally aching vocals in this tale of a man's
true regret over a divorce about to be granted, with lyrics like "we
spent half our lives being in love, in an hour we'll no longer be
friends," that'll surely rip your heart out.
Just Another Place opens on an
outstanding note, that zings the Nashville machine. "The Poet Is Not In
Today" addresses the assembly line songwriting approach that Nashville
takes, but Chris gives it a whole new twist by getting inside the head
of one of these writers, one who once had much to say but is now
restrained by the limits Nashville has put on his writing, and the
character ultimately decides he no longer wants any part of it, and
would sooner walk away than continue to write songs that had nothing to
say. Covering the opposite spectrum, the disc closes with perhaps it's
strongest song, the untitled track "Haunted Old Pawn Shop Guitar," on
which just about everyone involved on the album gets a vocal
turn. Though there aren't any rules for songwriting, Chris isn't shy
about giving some hints about all the things that should go
into writing a good song, as well as those things to avoid.
Dale & the Lonestars help out again on "Hank
Williams' Cadillac," about a musician's life of fast living, hard
playing, and paying dues the hard way in the name of chasing the dream,
eventually losing sight of the reason why he started in the first place,
realizing the toll, and wondering if it was time to just pack it in and
go back home before he winds up "crucified on a treble clef made of
gold." The South Austin Jug Band provides the backing on "The Jagged
Edge," giving a rootsy sound to this perspective of a honky tonky hero
who was once on top and is now living in a shattered dream. "Somewhere
Between Forty and Fallin' Apart" finds a middle aged man pondering
over his aches and grey hairs, and wondering where the years have gone,
has he made the right decisions, where does he go from here, as well
as his own mortality. "Canadian Rockies" with it's breathtaking melody
and Chris' passionate vocals, searches for salvation.
"Five Piece Band" is straight a straight up
honky tonker that instantly brings Waylon to mind, about the ups and the
downs of playing in a band and making their music, but they do what they
do because that's just what they do. Which brings us to the
standout cut, "The Outlaw Blues," Chris' heartfelt tribute to
Waylon, which proves Chris knew exactly who and what his idol, and
eventual friend, was really all about. The melody is classic Waylon,
complete with guitar riffs and pulsating bass line. The lyrics
incorporate some of Waylon's words of wisdom, his take on life and the
music business, and on the song's bridge, Chris manages to come eerily
close to Waylon's own vocal sound. Ol' Hoss is most probably grinnin'
down in approval on this one.
Just Another Place is a
somewhat mellower Chris Wall than many people are accustomed to,
however, while his songs have always come from personal experiences,
he's gotten much more personal on this one. Personally, I don't think
he's sounded stronger or better than on this disc. Just Another
Place with Chris Wall's brand of western mixed country music, is
a string of 16 songs, each as well written, passionate and honest as the
next. Just Another Place belongs in your collection if you're
a true believer in three chords and the truth.
www.chriswallmusic.com
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AnnMarie Harrington Take Country Back January 2003