Steam Donkeys – Little Honky Tonks
Merle Haggard didn’t say it first, but he probably said it best when it comes to smoke- and twang-filled homes away from home: “I’ve got swinging doors, a jukebox, and a bar stool.” On the album-opening title track of Little Honky Tonks, songwriter Buck Quigley and the rest of the Steam Donkeys have their say, backed by fiddle, pedal steel and Pig Robbins-style piano: “I saw your neon lights the night she left me flat/I walked in through your swingin’ doors and I let ’em swing right back.” It’s a song that would have kept Merle and his bar stool good company.
The rest of the album continues to demonstrate this Buffalo, New York, band’s breezy way with tunes suitable for two-stepping (“April Fool For You”), waltzing (the reluctantly romantic “Waltz Through The Rubbish”), and swing dancing (“Hannah”). The hardest to categorize is “Dashboard Mary” — originally recorded loudly by Quigley’s old band, a garagey combo named the JackLords — which looks down from atop a wall of roots-pop sound. And the a cappella, bilingual version of Freddy Fender’s “Before The Next Teardrop Falls” that closes the record is pretty swell too.
The album is unofficially dedicated to Club Utica, the now-defunct country & western dance hall pictured on the cover; the back of the CD booklet shows the Steam Donkeys lined up in front of a Club Utica sign that says simply “country music”. This non-flashy but tuneful and always well-played set clears up any doubts about the band deserving to stand there — and alongside other similarly reverent outfits such as the Two Dollar Pistols and Red Meat.