The tragic 2007 shooting death of New Bohemians guitarist/keyboardist Carter Albrecht rocked the Dallas music scene. Albrecht was a well-liked and valued member of several bands, including the indie-pop outfit Sorta and the locally popular Sparrows. Playing alongside him in both groups was bassist Danny Balis, who recorded his solo debut, Too Much Living (self-released), in the wake of his friend’s passing. Though he’s likely better known in the Dallas area as the producer of the talk radio sports show The Hardline, for those who are familiar with only his indie-rock side, this album comes as a surprise: It’s a straight-up country and western recording. Far from being a genre dabbler, Balis is an uncanny natural. He pours his heart into these pitch-perfect melancholy weepers, which he sings in a deep baritone with just the right amount of twang. The sound is retro yet never derivative or saccharine; nothing here rings false. This modest CD may be destined for obscurity, but the songs, nine originals and one Townes Van Zandt cover, are real gems. In a perfect world, all of Nashville would be lining up to sing them.
It was the kind of thing that Austin nurtures so well: A chance assemblage of unknown songwriters began sharing the stage and then evolved into something larger than the sum of its parts. The Band of Heathens became a hometown favorite and released a couple live albums. Their lineup solidified (songwriters Ed Jurdi, Gordy Quist, and Colin Brooks, along with rhythm section Seth Whitney and John Chipman), and they logged so many hours performing together that they started finishing one another’s sentences. Then the genial, easy-to-digest roots rock of their eponymous 2008 studio debut took Americana radio by storm, gaining the band legions of new admirers across the country. The follow-up, One Foot in the Ether (BOH), is easily their most accomplished work to date. Like any act that hones its craft onstage, there are elements of pandering: Rhymes sometimes feel too obvious, licks and melodies a bit too familiar. But there’s no denying the appeal of the group’s soulful rocking swagger and lock-tight arrangements. These guys won’t change your life, but for a while they might give it a real groove.
Miranda Lambert
Revolution
Columbia
Like many contemporary Nashville recordings, Revolution (Columbia), the third album from Lindale fireball Miranda Lambert, is a country record in attitude only. Pedal steels are fleeting, and you’ve heard less electric guitar grunge on a Nirvana CD. The sound is edgy, compressed—and fatiguing. Which is a shame. Talent like Lambert’s deserves more than assembly-line production work. Catty lines like “I’m just like you, only prettier” or elegant ones like “Light us up and then throw us down” (in “Me and Your Cigarettes”) are buried under studio gimmickry. Lambert has changed a bit since her last recording—it takes her thirteen songs to confront a cheating boyfriend—but despite the title, this shift seems more organic than dramatic. She is older (25), with wistful material like “The House That Built Me” and songs that show some real hurt (“Maintain the Pain,” “Dead Flowers”). Though her success has paled next to that of more-
traditional newcomers like Taylor Swift, Lambert is too savvy to compensate by playing up her vulnerabilities. If this is holding her back, it’s also what makes her so refreshing.
Tom Russell
Tom Russell
Photograph by Colin Young Wolff
Born in Los Angeles, the 56-year-old songwriter has lived everywhere from Austin and Brooklyn to Vancouver and war-torn Nigeria, but he now calls El Paso home. His ambitious, literary-minded writing has resulted in more than twenty albums; the latest, Blood and Candle Smoke (Shout Factory), was just released.
You set out to be a sociologist, then got a master’s degree in criminology. How did you get to where you are today? I was about to drop out of the University of California when I met this radical, left-wing criminologist. He ended up getting a gig in Nigeria to teach and asked me to go as a student teacher. He wanted a black American, but nobody wanted to go over there. I didn’t even know where it was! My eyes were opened in a lot of ways. I ended up reading more Graham Greene and playing guitar than I did getting into sociology. I couldn’t see myself in a university system the rest of my life, and when I came back, I ended up in Vancouver. I was walking by a bar when I heard somebody singing a Hank Williams song, and I thought, “Hell, I’ve always wanted to do that.” It took me six or eight months, but that’s eventually what I did. I was approaching thirty by the time I got into showbiz, as they say. But it’s worked well, because I’ve had a long, slow rise as a songwriter.
Are you a disciplined writer? I have to be. It’s rewarding, and I don’t have much else. I married a beautiful Swiss gal a year ago, and I told her, “The only way this is gonna survive is if you allow me to write for three or four hours. I don’t want to talk in the morning. I want to have a cup of coffee and get at it.” That’s what happened, and it allowed me to get this record written and work on a couple books.
Has the approach improved your work? Definitely. This record is by far the best thing I’ve done. I’ve never worked this way, where I wrote fifteen songs and discarded seven or eight and started over, or lived with a song for a year before deciding. To be honest, since I sort of have a rap as the best songwriter you never heard of, I knew the only way I was gonna inch up a little—if just to play to a larger audience—was to write a killer record. I also wanted to work in a new environment, in Tucson, with Craig Schumacher, who did a lot of stuff with Calexico and Iron and Wine. I really feel it’s a step up.
Are there other people doing what you do? I’ll be honest. I feel the art of songwriting is dying, as far as what makes the hair rise up off my skin. I get tired of telling people I haven’t heard anything I like out there, so I’ve been researching, listening to a lot of stuff. I really liked a lot of what Calexico did, or Iron and Wine, or Neko Case, and that led me to the studio in Tucson. Sonically I think things are real interesting, but I don’t hear any songs.
What influenced these new songs of yours? The record is sort of a cross between Orson Welles’s Touch of Evil and several Graham Greene novels, with some true crime and a lot of autobiography.
“Guadalupe” is full of sadness and longing. You seem to be looking for faith. Yes. I went to Catholic school for twelve years, and then I walked away from it forever. But there’s no walking away from the deeper mystical thing. I spent a lonely Christmas in Mexico City about six years ago; I was between relationships and drowning in self-pity. I ended up at midnight mass, where I saw two or three hundred poor Indians and Mexicans, their faces shining, being led past the shrine of the Virgin of Guadalupe. And I don’t know how to put my finger on it, except the song ends by saying, “Although they look the most needy, I’m the most needy here. I wish I had the hope that they had.” And I think I’ll leave it like that.
My Library
