“Allow me,” said my friend.
When I finally got it up and running on
the home stereo, I wished I'd reciprocated and given my
friend the new Chuck Mead disc, Back At The Quonset Hut, with his
Grassy Knoll Boys. Both discs capture veteran acts nailing down an
Old-Timey Country set.
As Country Club played on, however, I
began to wonder how Chuck Mead's material would have been received.
Mead, the former front-man for BR5-49, has an ear for the
foot-stompin', hand-clappin' songs that appealed to the straw hat and
hankie-wearin' Friday Night crowd of the Dirty Thirties and Post-War
Forties. The Quonset Hut in the title is probably a reference to one
of Music Row's old studios, many of which were set up in these
decommissioned military structures, but it could just as easily evoke
the bedside pow-wow singalongs that off-duty WWII grunts resorted to
in their barracks. Either way, Quonset Hut ably houses the
cheer-inducing music that fed the spirits of blue-collar nation
builders from days gone by. One hopes the music might still offer
some much-needed uplift for a nation whose anxieties and social
conflicts are not so far removed from the past.
So, yes: lots of Old-Timey uplift,
slowed down a bit by a couple of hurtin' songs. What you won't find
much of in the Quonset Hut is regret, dismay, irony or introspection
— qualities more readily at hand in John Doe & The Sadies'
Country Club. These bulk of these songs are also pulled from the
past, albeit one not quite so distant: Kris Kristofferson, Johnny
Cash, Merle Haggard — an era of singer-songwriters more closely
associated with Khe Sanh and Nixon than to Normandy and Roosevelt.
The subjects in these songs all seem to
be nursing hangovers and waking up beside people they're not married
to — perfect material for the nicotine-cured voice of John Doe, in
other words. It probably won't shock anyone if I admit this sort of
thing has an easier time getting past my defences and resting close
to my heart.
Any way you look at it, neither Chuck
nor John fit the current “Country” mode (people dressed up like
rock stars pretending to be country singers). And nobody's putting me in the
ridiculous position of choosing between these two discs, so I am
happily playing them both — a great deal.
There's a
post-Record Store Day follow-up pencilled in on my calendar: I think
I'll be making that gift in kind after all.
Links: John Doe And The Sadies - Stop The World And Let Me Off - Live At Sonic Boom Records In Toronto from Graeme Phillips on Vimeo. Chuck Mead & His Grassy Knoll Boys - On The Honky Tonk Hardwood Floor, Back At The Quonset Hut.
Links: John Doe And The Sadies - Stop The World And Let Me Off - Live At Sonic Boom Records In Toronto from Graeme Phillips on Vimeo. Chuck Mead & His Grassy Knoll Boys - On The Honky Tonk Hardwood Floor, Back At The Quonset Hut.
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