Chris Richards – Tumblers & Grit
Chris Richards carries a torch for two significant elements of country music: honky-tonk and the 70s troubadours. His dark-hued story-songs, such as Hang On To The Moon, the Hickory Wind-flavored Belly Of Odilla, and the Cold Mountain-inspired One Foot, evoke memories of such singer-songwriters as Guy Clark, Townes Van Zandt and, most particularly, Gordon Light-foot. Listen to melancholic Crazy Too and The Ballad Of The Analog Kid and youll hear a young Lightfoot in Richards laconic vocals. In the latter tune, the laid-back but powerful closer, he incisively observes, One day everything changes/And you have to change with it.
However, Richards tendency to sing the blues doesnt turn Tumblers & Grit into a depressing, downbeat affair. His song To Sing The Blues actually is a chimey country-rocker that opens the album on an uptempo note. The Wisconsin native toasts his new hometown in Nashville Gas, while Hard Livin is a blue-collar lament for a broken heart.
Richards enlisted the dependable R.S. Field (Allison Moorer, Sonny Landreth) to produce, and got musical assistance from guitar whiz Kenny Vaughan, Old Crow Medicine Show fiddler Ketch Secor and pedal steel legend Lloyd Green. Tumblers & Grit is further evidence that there is terrific country music being made in the shadow of Music Row.