Jerry Jeff Walker – Cowboy Boots & Bathin’ Suits

Lathered in a sunscreeny slather (SPF 25 or 6 to 4), Claire O. is all deck-chaired out in a pair not a peach of Wide-Load Jackie O’s, flippety-flappety trip-hop flip-flops, and a curvalicious little two-piece tootsie dipper cut for strut and high-five-fashioned from a frothy fabric in the snakiest shade of green this side of envy, designed live in concert by my faithful Maximile (Tailor to Televangelists) and the man responsible for reconfiguring a number of Claire’s corporeal components, the discreet and dutiful Dr. Peelgood — Dr. Tucker Peelgood, to be exact, and I assure you he is. YMCA the beachwear? Because, cuz, Claire is a methodic-not-methodic critic, and the disc at risk was recorded in the clef of Jerry Jeff seasideways in Belize keys. So, spread like cocoa butter with a trinkety trowel your terry towel as Claire goes here-a-track-there-a-track with reactions of satisfaction or detraction but never-no-never retraction.

“Come Away To Belize With Me”: A steel drummy (Casio, not really-o) expatiation on expatriation in wicked witch Jerry Jeff rhymey-rhymes water with colada and proves that if you keel-haul a long song out a short dock you might snag a snapper or bone a bonefish but you can’t tuna tuneless tunesmith singing off Ambergris Caye.

“Barefootin'”: “A rave-up!” revelates the racket in the publicity packet. Ixnay, I say. A lightful romp, not a frightful stomp. Leave the hyperbole to mebole. Please press release me.

“Gringo In Belize”: Jimmy not Warren Buffettesque not Buttafuocoesque doo-wah-ditty detailing the hale tale of a sun-baked-like-a-hash-ish-not-ick-brownie stoner loner.

“Champagne Don’t Hurt Me Baby”: Unplug the phone and roll your own, it’s a sing-along for the bong throng. “Mind Your Own Business” for the chemical crowd. Jerry Jeff strings the harp with hemp, plays “while my guitar gently spliffs.” Someone phone Nancy Reagan and just say OH!

“Wanted For Love”: Jerry Jeff reaches for high notes like a DWI guy trying to touch his nose on his eyes-closed tippy-toes.

“Boats To Build”: Nice and like driftwood weathered.

Hidden track: Joyfully and good-old-boyfully gonzos bluegrass backward 100 years. Best song on the album.

As one is the loneliest number who not whom harbors like a loaded boat deep respect for Walker, Texas Arranger, I am like Paula Jones unsettled that like sand in my dandies, this album leaves me uncomfy in the end. It’s pleasy like the breeze, but passes like the wind. In the penultimate like-a-tippy-ship listed song, Jerry Jeff purrs a paean to “the warmth and love of the people here, no crime no hate no fear.” No, but keep touting it with touristy toubadoodling, and they will come. Further or farthermore, Claire’s precociously peripatetic pedestrial perambulations have taken her through Belize, and it is like Mom or Dad apparent that she and Jerry Jeff have been bivouacking in bipolar Belizian boroughs, as Claire’s Belize tunelets will be titled, “Likkered Up Hookers Ain’t Nothin’ But A Heartache”, and that-a-rat-tat’s a snickerly snarly song the old Jerry Jeff woulda writ, to wit not nit, not “Cowboy Boots And Bathin’ Suits”.

Jerry Jeff has earned the right to go off on a suntangent, and Claire doesn’t mean and nasty to get all ultraviolet, but methinks like a maid with a yearn for the churn, he can do butter.