Lone Justice – This World Is Not My Home

She wanted to be Patsy Cline and Patti Smith, but by the second and final Lone Justice album, they had turned her into Patty Smyth. She, of course, is Maria McKee; “they” are executives at Geffen Records, producers Jimmy Iovine and Steve Van Zandt, L.A. writers such as Robert Hilburn and Chris Morris who had schoolboy crushes on a pretty teenage girl with incredible pipes, and other well-wishers who fawned, fussed and hyped the innocence and eventually the promise out of the singer and her bandmates.

Lone Justice was born in the early-’80s cowpunk scene centered in Southern California and home to bands such as the Beat Farmers, the Blasters, the Long Ryders, X offshoot the Knitters, and Rank And File. Lone Justice was the most country-leaning of the bunch in 1983, though you wouldn’t know it by listening to the band’s self-titled debut and especially its second album, Shelter. That’s what makes This World Is Not My Home such an unusual career retrospective. By including several early demos and outtakes alongside the best of the band’s released output, we finally have the opportunity — 15 years after the fact — to hear what Lone Justice sounded like before the machine got a hold of it, what got people so excited in the first place.

Of course, as time has passed, so has the context for these pre-Geffen recordings, which explains why original honky-tonk stompers such as “Rattlesnake Mama” and the title track come across as simple and likable, though not revelatory. One must remember, however, that in a city which had hardcore, the Paisley Underground, cowpunk, and surely other movements going on simultaneously, hearing those songs belted out at the Palomino by a 19-year-old girl who could have passed for a high school cheerleader might indeed have been astonishing.

A cover of Merle Haggard’s “Working Man Blues” gets sped up smartly and shows off a bit of tasty guitar playing by Ryan Hedgecock, but the best of the early cuts are “Cottonbelt” and “The Train”, a pair of first-album outtakes from 1984, both of which were staples of Lone Justice’s energetic live sets at the time. The band, sounding much beefier than it does on the 1983 demos, brings an edgy shuffle to the former, with McKee leading the charge. The latter finds McKee and Hedgecock (the band’s founding duo) dueting not unlike X’s John Doe and Exene Cervenka, voices intertwined with bassist Marvin Etzioni and drummer Don Heffington chugging away behind them.

With barely a break, “The Train” speeds into “East Of Eden”, Etzioni’s sparkling songwriting contribution to the debut album and the song that best captures the exuberant promise shown by the young band. The Tom Petty-penned “Ways To Be Wicked” still holds its charms and showcases the sympathetic keyboard support of “fifth” member and longtime Heartbreaker Benmont Tench. The best of the rest of Lone Justice (“Don’t Toss Us Away” and “You Are The Light”) follows, appended by two forgettable guest shots: Bob Dylan’s “Go Away Little Boy”, a U.K. B-side featuring the man himself on rhythm guitar; and an otherwise ordinary 1985 live reading of Lou Reed’s “Sweet Jane” bogged down by an unforgivably self-indulgent appearance by U2’s Bono.

By the time of the second album, Shelter, represented by three cuts here, Heffington and Etzioni were out, Hedgecock was one step from the door, and McKee was co-writing with Steve Van Zandt. And save for her vocals and lyrics, this second edition of Lone Justice sounds like something only the label that created it could love. Four beats into “I Found Love”, any semblance of the rootsy sounds of “Cottonbelt” and “The Train” are lost in a sea of dated ’80s production values and oversweetened drum tracks.

What a shame, as by this time McKee had gained considerably more control of her instrument. Her swaggering and soaring vocal nearly saves “I Found Love”, though “Shelter” is beyond help. The striking ballad and one of her finest lyrics is ruined by cloying keyboard sequences and monstrous synthesized beats. As a solo artist, she performs the song more in the style of “Dixie Storms”, a lovely McKee original from Shelter that points to the musical direction she would take immediately after Lone Justice disbanded.

The disc closes with a pair of 1987 live cuts (“Sweet, Sweet Baby” and “Wheels”) which at least suggest that, out of the studio, the second Lone Justice lineup (featuring guitarist Shane Fontayne and one-time Patti Smith Band keyboardist and later longtime McKee collaborator Bruce Brody) had a few chops.

Compiled primarily by Etzioni with help from the original band members, This World Is Not My Own completes the picture of Lone Justice, providing a far more honest and accurate take on the band than either of its albums ever did.