An energetic addition to Foster’s tuneful folk/country/pop canon.
Radney Foster (12 and 6 acoustic/electric guitar, vocals, backing vocals) is supported on his first release to feature new material since Revival (2009), by the core band of Joe Stark (electric guitar, backing vocals), Mike Zito (slide guitar), John Lancaster (B3, Wulitzer and Wersi Entertainer organs, piano, harmonium), Justin Tocket (bass, cello) and Keith Brogdon (drums, percussion). Co-produced by Foster and Tocket – Justin played bass on, and engineered, Lloyd’s 2009 disc – and released on the former’s Devil’s River Records, the sessions took place on the banks of the Vermilion Bayou at Dockside Studios in Maurice, Louisiana.
Foster penned five Everything I Should Have Said songs on his own, and, elsewhere, is reunited with some Revival collaborators – a pair were co-written with Jay Clementi, and one each with Darden Smith and Darrell Brown. Hit songwriter Allen Shamblin pitched in on one, while Nashville based writers, Nova Scotian Gordie Sampson and New Orleans bred Jim McCormick, share the credit on two tunes.
On album opener Whose Heart You Wreck (Ode To The Muse), following a short melodic acoustic guitar riff, electric and slide guitar, bass and drums weigh in joined subsequently by a B3 organ, as Radney delivers a personification rich ode to the dark art of writing songs. The first Clementi co-write Hard Light Of Day, is a love song, and that theme pervades the ensuing California – “Two half-broken people heading West, Shared a motel room and killed a little emptiness, Morning came too soon, on the way, To California.” The latter features additional support from Lousiana bred Richard Comeaux (steel guitar) and Texan songwriter/recording artist Kacey Musgraves (backing vocals). Penned with Messrs. Sampson & McCormick, Talk Myself Out of Falling finds the narrator, literally, frozen to the spot when his woman up and walks away.
Spending the hours between dusk and dawn with a woman features prominently in the lyrics of this disc, Mine Until The Morning being a prime example. Co-written with Darden Smith, Comeaux adds steel guitar and Patty Griffin supplies a duet vocal. Songwriter/recording artist Sarah Buxton adds her gruff vocal tones to the rhythmic and raunchy Unh, Unh, Unh. Four selections feature a Brian Marshal backing vocal, the first Not In My House, co-written with Shamblin, shines the spotlight on a number of contentious issues – bigotry, abused women and the gay community. The narrator of The Man You Want admits at the outset “I’ve been a cowboy all my life, A rock star once or twice, A preacher and a poet, An son of a bitch and I know it,” and in closing reveals “Baby, I love being the man you want.”
Lie About Loving Me, the second Clementi co-write, possesses a self-explanatory title wherein the guilty narrator relates “I’m tired of running with the shadows, Just to lay my head on your pillow.” Marshal adds his voice to Holding Back and the ensuing Sampson/McCormick/Foster collaboration Noise. In the former the narrator admits to being “a fool” when it comes to love, while the latter is founded on the contention “If it isn’t you it’s noise.” Regret underlines the narrator’s thoughts in album closer Everything I Should Have Said – “Robbed you of your dreams, So I could steal mine.” Co-written with Darrell Brown, the sonic backdrop to the latter includes Jackson Foster (handbells) and another Marshal support vocal.
Photo Credits:
Radney Foster on the porch (Credit: Cyndi Hoelzle)
Radney Foster on the couch (Credit: Cyndi Hoelzle)
Brought to you from the desk of the Folk Villager.
