If not a blessing, for it is not entirely clear that Chris Knight has written or will write another song that good. Or, maybe, having heard that, we now expect it of him and are less receptive to anything else, and can no longer be surprised by the eloquent bleakness of his vision.
Anyhow, Knight had played at the Bluebird and had come to the attention of Frank Liddell, who signed him to a publishing deal, and then Liddell came to have an A&R job at Decca, so he signed Knight, which might have been a mistake for all parties because Chris Knight is one hell of a songwriter, but surely to goodness nobody ever thought he’d be a country star.
At least nobody paying attention. Which included Liddell, but there they both were in the belly of the beast taking the best shot they could aim.
So Decca sent out this four-song cassette to acquaint writers with Chris Knight, whose songs split the difference between John Prine and Steve Earle, and then, in 1998, released a self-titled album which Liddell co-produced but which somehow didn’t include Knight’s best song, “If I Were You.” It didn’t fit, no matter how they recorded it, Liddell told me, and I believed him. Still do. But.
(But…they should have made an album on which that song fit. Only then it would have been too much John Prine and not enough…whatever was selling that season. Ah, well.)
It isn’t a bad album, but it has a jaunty, uptempo beat that is clearly at odds with what the songs are saying, and all the guitars say everything’s going to be OK while the words make it pretty clear that’s not the case.
Apparently they thought Chris Knight could be a country star. They shot a video for the lead single, “It Ain’t Easy Being Me”. They saddled him with a band of strangers, and one night I drove down Nolensville Road to the old Jack’s Guitar Bar to hear that band walk through a bunch of songs that only Chris cared about, and it was clear he was uncomfortable and even more clear that he hadn’t learned yet how to work with a band. Especially a band of strangers.
(I note while fact-checking that Allmusic.com lists a 1994 album, apparently titled Chris Knight And the Midnight Gypsies, on the SPV label, so maybe he had led a band before, maybe he arrived in Nashville a little less rough around the edges than he seemed the day we had lunch at Brown’s Diner.)
Which isn’t to say Knight hasn’t gotten enough country cuts to make it worth keeping a mailbox: Randy Travis, Blake Shelton, Ty Herndon, Montgomery Gentry, and the Great Divide.
Fine.
Knight didn’t make any more albums for Decca, which folded back into MCA. He made two for Dualtone (the first one has a version of “If I Were You” on it), and has made three more (counting the The Trailer Tapes, which I guess was technically made for or at least paid for by Decca) for Drifter’s Church.
