Ronnie Mack – Born to Rock

If you’ve spent time in Southern California and you like to go out and see a good country music show, chances are you already know a thing or two about Ronnie Mack. He’s the keeper of the flame at Ronnie Mack’s Barn Dance, a venerable Tuesday night institution that started more than seven years ago at the Palomino and swung on over to Jack’s Sugar Shack a couple of seasons back. Over the years, the Barn Dance has featured Dave Alvin, Rosie Flores, Big Sandy, Dwight Yoakam, the Collins Kids, Dave & Deke, and about a million more.

On this record, Mack steps in front of the mike himself. “Born to Rock” collects a whopping 27 tracks recorded in a series of sessions spanning from 1981 to 1994. A quick count reveals that Mack wrote or co-wrote 16 of these tracks; his wide-ranging cover choices include songs by Felice & Boudleaux Bryant, Marshall Crenshaw, Merle Travis, John Hiatt and James Intveld. All of these are delivered in rockabilly style that mines the sweet, pop-inflected territory originally staked out by Mack’s two primary influences, Buddy Holly and Ricky Nelson.

In its higher moments, the record successfully evokes the sounds and memories of these giants. The Buddy Holly connection is most direct in “Cindy Lou” (the original title of “Peggy Sue”), but he echoes through many tracks, including “You Make Me Wanna Rock” and “I Wanna Dance with You”. The Ricky Nelson influence comes through most sweetly and clearly on “Everybody but Me” and the cover of Marshall Crenshaw”s “The Usual Things.”

I’ve had a lot of fine evenings at the Ronnie Mack Barn Dance, so I must admit to bringing a real rooting interest to this record — I wanted it to be great. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Many of the songs are too flatly produced and feature punchless guitar and drums which fail to jump-start the old ticker the way great rockabilly can. In spite of nice melodies and some pretty darn good songs, the record gets repetitive and only breaks out with a handful of truly winning tracks.