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Houston Marchman & The Contraband Live! |
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(Blind Nello Records) Houston Marchman hails from Meridian TX, and
spent 6 long years in the trenches of Nashville, before having his fill
and heading home to Texas.
Since returning home, he has two stellar studio albums under his belt: Leavin' Dallas and Tryin' For Home, which have established Houston as one of the finest songwriters and performers around.
Live! covers 17 tracks from his two studio
albums, and was recorded during two separate shows at the Cheatham
Street Warehouse in San Marco, and the White Elephant Saloon in Ft.
Worth. Houston, backed by the incredible Contraband (with Ace In The
Hole's Mike Daily pulling impeccable steel duty this time out), is
really in his element "live", and both he and the songs never sounded
better.
17 "not a bad track on the whole CD" is a
lot to get through, so we'll tackle the best of the best. On the opening
track, "Down The Road", the band cuts loose on this driving rocker
that's reigned back over to the honky tonk side by Mike Daily's
brilliant, front and center steel playing. "Caleb" visits a tragic life
in a rough small Texas town. Caleb is 18 and going nowhere. He falls in
with a wild crowd, gets involved with drugs, big money, and guns. There
are no good guys and the story doesn't end "happily ever after".
"Hank's Angel" is a a goosebump raising work of art. Despite the title, it has nothing really to do with Hank himself. The song is about a street hardened "Nashville wannabe", who's seen the worst the industry has to offer, and here Houston makes you feel the pain. "Adios Baby" is a driving kiss off song, that Houston and the band burn the place down with- "my mama always taught me it was better to be pissed off, than to be pissed on..." How can you argue with that? Then it's on to "VietNashville", Houston's comical tale of his years in Nashville. He breaks halfway through the song to tell the very funny saga of his and "pony-tail John's" adventures.
The second set opens with "South Texas Rain"
and Hoston's voice perfectly projects the weariness of a man standing in
the rain waiting for that ride that will take him far away. "Witchita
Falls" is sung from inside prison walls by a small town boy who leaves
home, heads for the big city and winds up in big trouble. The pure honky
tonk weeper, "Buses In The Rain" is about a love gone wrong but neither
one knows just why. "Leavin' Dallas" tells about a man who follows his
former lover to Dallas, where she's erased everything that would tie her
to her former life, winds up marrying a wealthy man and lives in a house
where there's a high fence all around it. The man wonders if the husband
built the fence to "keep her from slippin' out or me from slippin' in".
"Bill Longley" is a masterpiece of a gunfighter outlaw song. Bill Longley, a distant ancestor of Houston's, was a Texas outlaw at the time of reconstruction in Texas, and killed 32 men in several states, before he was caught and finally hanged. Houston doesn't glamorize this outlaw, but powerfully paints a portrait of the viciousness and coldbloodedness of this man without even one redeeming quality. "Del Rio" is a clever song about a married man in San Antonio who makes trips to "the wrong side of Del Rio" for, as they say, the occasional "gringo honeymoon".
The minute you put this CD in the
player, you're instantly transported to 74 minutes of a perfect honky
tonk Saturday night in Texas. This one's as close to being
right there, as most people will ever get.
For more on Houston visit:
www.houstonmarchman.com
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Harrington Take Country Back April 2002