Though Nashville was already long established as the country music industry’s capital by the 1960s, attracting dreamers from all over the American south in pursuit of a well-polished piece of studio time-turned-radio hit, there had long existed a world apart in Texas. Unburdened by corporate pleasantries or the pressure of universal pop appeal, Texas country developed as a more plainspoken strain, ultimately evolving into outlaw country and the “Red Dirt music” at the turn of the ’70s. Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson — these are the names the world knows.
But in a state where heavy touring of barely-there towns was the norm, not everyone made it even semi-famously on the backs of local lore or trending sounds. Here is where the private press…
320 kbps | 94 MB UL | MC ** FLAC
…obscurities that comprise Orion Read’s Small Town Country, vol. 1 begin to paint a broader picture.
The forces behind its release are worth noting. First, this has to be Orion Read’s most accomplished release yet. Though they were responsible for the ambitious, seven-volume post-war pop compilation No Time Left to Start Again in 2012, releases have also run the gamut from stuff by Tim Heidecker (of Tim and Eric fame) to, most recently, a live Wolf Eyes release from 2001.
The work of actually scouring through material worth listening to more than once was conducted by ex-Voxtrot and current Tele Novella member Jason Chronis. It’s not clear how long it took him to put these 14 songs together, but the liner notes detail trips to far-flung Texan outposts in search of the little-known and underappreciated from west of the Mississippi. What Small Town Country does nicely is highlight a significant gulf between star-studded Nashville and the best-known roughneck Oklahoma and Texas outlaw sounds. These are where many a musical dream went to die.
Your girl left you? Dog kicked the bucket? Truck broke down? Had to pour out the moonshine? If that’s your idea of a bad time, brace yourself for Ron McFarlin, who cuts straight to the ultimate tragedy on the opening track, “Death of Bobby Darin.” The famed singer’s 1973 passing (following failed heart surgery) makes for awfully good country music, as it turns out, as McFarlin’s somber ode sucks the wind out of you immediately.
It doesn’t get much cheerier. “Angel with a Broken Heart,” “Sinner’s Fate,” “Lonely Side Walks” — it’s all rather downcast. Because these songs are more or less unknowns culled from beaten-up or poorly kept 45s, it’s also tough to peg a time frame from song to song, but you get the impression that something like Harold Crosby’s more traditional-sounding “The Old Man and the Burro” runs closer to the turn of the 1960s while Andy Johnston’s smooth bass-led “Good Times” (about as close to an actual good time as you’ll find here) suggest sounds from the turn of the 1970s.
Though largely male-centric, there are a few female appearances as relief (Kathy Williams is barely audible next to Buddy Jack on “Angel with a Broken Heart,” it sounds like a female backing vocal for Earl Pettijohn’s “Sinner’s Fate,” and Donna Harris turns in a wonderful performance on comp highlight “Shadows of You”). We’re a long way from Soul Jazz’s Country Soul Sisters or the world of Lavender Country, but this is only the first volume. There may yet be different moods and perspectives in store.
To me, country music’s greatest asset has always been its realism — at the heart of the modern bro movement’s relentless pursuit of every last iteration of pick-ups, cut-off jeans, hooch, and Friday nights is a desire to show what things are really like out on the farms or down the dirt paths you don’t tread. They’re supposed to be the opposite of dreams, which comes out as a bizarre perversion by the time it reaches your radio, of course (and which is why I think so many people latched onto the comparatively identifiable Kacey Musgraves earlier this year). Listening to Small Town Country, you can’t help but think that the gulf between the dreams of Luke Bryant and the broken dreams of Lefty Bachelor aren’t so far apart, even if they sound that way. And if there’s nothing realer than country, then surely there is nothing realer in country than the obscurity of the private press.