By now you’ve probably seen the hype about this Nashville band, everywhere from CMJ (College Music Journal) to JCM (Journal Of Country Music). When I heard Live At Robert’s, an EP the band released earlier this year, I was a little put off: They had that great Johnny Horton honky-tonk sound down cold, but the novelty songs and unimpressive originals had me troubled that these guys were going to be just a honky-tonk Run C&W. This, I wondered, is the band being heralded as the savior of Nashville’s soul?
You better believe it, as they’ve made clear on their full-length debut. These guys still have that old-school sound down, and on faithful versions of Webb Pierce’s “Honky Tonk Song” and Ray Price’s “Crazy Arms”, they make the long-overdue point (for major-label Nashville, anyway) that there’s a lost tradition of country classics out there.
More significantly, BR5-49 doesn’t suddenly turn lame when they stop covering standards and start playing their own stuff. Singer Gary Bennett contributes “Even If It’s Wrong” and “Are You Gettin’ Tired Of Me”, a couple of uptempo honky-tonkers every bit as good as most of the Horton and Faron Young songs they sound like. Co-frontman Chuck Mead’s “Chains Of This Town” (a leftover from Mead’s 1980s days in the Lawrence, Kansas, band Homestead Grays) has a melody and final verse Marty Robbins would’ve been proud to record.
It doesn’t hurt that these songs also sound great. Producers Mike Janas (a Gray himself for a time) and Jozef Nuyens have flawlessly captured the twang of those old records. Just as importantly, they’ve nailed the hard edge of the best live hillbilly performances.
These boys aren’t just copying their fave 45s, though. This disc suggests a possible future for country music. This is partly in the album’s great rocking sound (which, unlike contemporary Nashville, is able to rock the country without simply ripping off the lamest rock), and it’s also partly in the way the band makes connections between Hank Williams’ legacy and all of those folks since Hank who recognized that legacy as their own, even as Nashville looked the other way. The band’s version of Gram Parsons’ “Hickory Wind”, for example, is flat-out beautiful, and Mead’s “Little Ramona (Gone Hillbilly Nuts)” connects the dots from punk back to Hank and, by extension, ahead to Tupelo and Earle.
Perhaps best of all is Mead’s “Lifetime To Prove”, a song that fits perfectly into the honky-tonk tradition but has a slightly pop-rock melody and a completely contemporary point of view. In a just world, this song would top the charts, and this album would begin the overthrow of mainstream country radio. If that seems too much to ask, we can at least be thankful BR5-49 lives up to the hype. And then some.