Jeff Griffith – If It Ain’t One Thing It’s Another
If you’ve been suffering from a paucity of fresh hard honky-tonk lately, you’re not alone. This collection from talented San Antonio singer Jeff Griffith is bound to help. The man has a way, particularly, with love songs, of both the enthusiastic and doleful varieties. The sounds are hard-core traditional country, yet contemporary; the singer and the band (fiddle and steel included) know their George Jones and their “Family Tradition”-style Hank Jr., but also their George Strait. The single is a new turn on Gary Stewart’s hit “Drinkin’ Thing” that manages somehow to sound more trapped and hurtful still. The songs don’t break much new ground thematically — they’re about relations with whiskey, women, and fishin’ — but listeners may well find that good news. The disc was produced by the veteran rowdy, soulful and funny honky-tonker Joe Stampley, and it shows off all three of those traits. Stampley’s son Tony co-wrote five of the songs with a variety of others, including his dad.