John Anderson – Takin’ The Country Back

John David Anderson is usually placed with a loose group of “new traditionalists,” including Ricky Skaggs, George Strait and Randy Travis, all of whom produced a string of commercially successful and surprisingly deep country-grounded records during the early ’80s. Anderson’s Wild And Blue, a 1982 release featuring the session work of Nashville legends (even banjo by Bobby Thompson), is an homage to Columbia’s Studio B — indeed, it was the last record cut in that storied space, and is a masterpiece from start to finish. Seminole Wind (1992) is nearly as good and offered even more adventurous material. Anderson learned early on from country’s deepest vocalists, especially Haggard and Frizzell. He hasn’t lost that distinctive timbre, an end-of-the-line moan with a range that’s simply crushing in its emotional power.

But Anderson’s first band as a teenager played pure ’60s rock ‘n’ roll, and Takin’ The Country Back points toward those roots as much as it conforms to country radio’s aversion to its own stylistic sources. The opening track, “Somebody Slap Me”, starts off with a rock guitar’s bullwhip crack and regresses to vapid juvenility, a parody of a music that’s already self-parody — the stuff to which country radio owes its wretched reputation.

Fortunately that single isn’t indicative of this record’s pleasures. “Small Town” (co-written with Gary Scruggs) is like a reprise of the lovely, nostalgic hit “1959”, with a gorgeously simple melody, exquisite steel guitar from Paul Franklin, and bits of poetry like, “That rich young widow keeps talking to the preacher/Lord help their souls be saved.” It’s hobbled only by a pat chorus, though some up-front mandolin and Anderson’s searching baritone are redeeming. “South Moon Under” has a stronger though equally simple romantic sweep. The title track pitches toward passion and conviction, only to be satisfied with sloganeering and glib referencing: “Headed down to Texas way/Where the honkytonk hereos play/Gonna find the lost highway /That’s where I’ll make my stand.” Another line is more revealing: “We’re taking the country back/We’re not sure where it’s at.”

Precisely. Anderson is clearly aware of tradition, yet after ending his contract with BNA to sign with Mercury and work with producer Keith Stegall, he sounds rootless and tamed. His cover of “Brown Eyed Girl” lacks imagination and nerve; the cinch-for-a-single ballad “Sarah” is given the dry-ice guitar-god treatment, and in no real lyrical direction. Indeed, Anderson only rarely locates the gutty, no-bullshit material that made hits such as “Straight Tequila Night” and “Black Sheep” so cutting. Still, when he finds the country he once owned — however intermittently on these 11 songs — he remains a master.