"Farm Report" Goes to Austin, Gets in Trouble

Farm Report Goes to Austin Glen Rock, PA ? So a couple weeks ago, me and the lovely though "complicated" Wanda went to Austin, TX, for a big old John Deere thresher convention. I bought me a brand-spankin'-new bush hog and we decided to ditch and do some relaxin'. She was flirting with women in the lobby of the great San Jose Hotel, as is her wont, when I decided to take a stroll. I headed across the street to an upscale cowboy vintage store called Under the Sun. Lefty Frizzell was playing on the stereo, and I began to see that this was my kind of place.

Well it was all perfectly innocent: I had the feeling that Lisa wasn't really into 300-pounders wearing overalls and drooling Skoal juice (though many women have a weakness for grand spectacle), and yet when Wanda pried her lips off the girls and walked into the store, she was visibly huffified: a veritable hissy fit. Actually, don't tell her this, but it was the bush hog I was into. It was just a damn sweet piece of equipment. I'd like to get twisted up in that PTO, baby.

But pretty soon we were in a nasty fight, and because Wanda and Austin, like Berkeley and Pyongyang, free my inner Republican, I ended up spending the evening arguing against the girls that John McCain isn't "deeply evil," a "psychopath," a "liar" or an "idiot." The argument was almost too easy, but now Wanda's "friends" hate me. All in all a total disaster. And yet when I got home and jammed those CDs in, it seemed worth it. I had emerged from the thrift store with some unbelievably cool shit.

Roger Wallace's Hillbilly Heights (Texas Round-Up Records: www.texasmusicroundup.com) for one. See, we were like right next door to the Continental Club, where Wallace plays Mondays. Okay, the voice sounds like the outcome of the mating of George Strait and Tracy Byrd: Texas as hell and just as big. But there's also something a bit eccentric about it. Maybe a bit sharp or maybe with even more drawl. And the songs: classic originals. Really, there's a steaming heap of groat clusters, like "The Runaround" and "Wine by Wine." "You have to meet me more than once to meet me sober": that line made me think about how far Nashville has come from the drinking and sinking song: it's all about working in cubicles now, and cubicle country just ain't working.

The musicianship is excellent, though the production isn't up to Nashville standards. But that itself is refreshing. At least it appears that the whole band has been in the same building from time to time. There are some rough edges on this record?more or less exactly what distinguishes Austin from Nashville anyway.

Lisa also turned me on to an album by Marti Brom and her Barnshakers, Snake Ranch (Goofin' Records, www.goofinrecords.com). Marti is described in the liner notes as the queen of Central Texas rockabilly, though it turns out she doesn't play out all that often because she, like me and Wanda, is busy breeding. (We gonna name our new daughter Jane X. Sartwell, cause whitey can't keep her down.) But to me Marti oughtta be annexing a much bigger region, maybe like the world or something. She's the Napoleon of rockabilly, the Genghis Khan of rockabilly, the Benito Mussolini of rockabilly.

Marti has the best voice I've heard in a long time, whether she's rippin' it up or crooning an old-style country song. In fact, though I love rockabilly and Marti's rendition of it, I'm even more into the old-style country. You might compare her to Patsy, only Marti's got this complicated timbre that doesn't sound like anyone else, and a perfect sense of time: on the country material she's right where you want her, just behind the beat. The first song, "Blue Tattoo," is probably the best country song you'll hear this year, but the thing comes with 13 others and not a clunker 'mongst them.

All right, enough People's Republic of Texas. Now I'm gonna talk about Wynonna, who seems just about as far from Nashville as does Marti Brom. New Day Dawning (Curb/Mercury) is a great bluesy pop album with hardly a trace of country at all. Really, it's probably best at this point to compare Wynonna to someone like Bonnie Raitt, except that Wynonna seems to retain a little of the nasty attitude Bonnie was famous for in the 70s but discarded along the way.

I know. Wynonna. You're embarrassed to buy the album. You can't get over the 2-inch crust of makeup on her face or like that hair and shit. You think the Judds are weird anyway, especially Naomi, what with her plastic surgery, savior, and miracle cures for mortality. In fact there's a bonus four-song Judds CD with New Day Dawning, raising the fearsome specter of a Judds tour, a Judds album, a Judds tv special.

But much as you may hate looking at the Judds or listening to them talk, you gotta admit they've made some amazing records, from Why Not Me to the songs on this disc. Somewhere along the line I realized that they rocked, literally, and that Wynonna was the female reply to Elvis Presley: she looked like him, and sang with an audible sneer. Anyway you can't really distinguish the Judds recordings here from the Wynonna material, except that presumably somewhere way back in the mix Naomi is singing harmony. And Wy, as always, gives great attitude. She can handle anything: gospel, country, soul, pop, rock, blues, folk. Anything.

It's been quite a while since she had any interest in mainstream country, and here she doesn't even try. But anyone smart enough to cover Joni Mitchell's "Help Me" (and good enough to sing it like Joni herself) and the T-Birds' "Tuff Enuff" (complete with Kim Wilson on harp) is hipper than Wy appears to be. This is the kind of album that you can put on at (almost) any kind of party and no one will hate it, not even you.

But maybe you're looking for something recognizably rural. I always am. So let's talk Rhonda Vincent, a master of the mandolin and a fine singer. Back Home Again (Rounder) is a sweet divot of bluegrass and features probably the first country song about child sexual abuse, "Little Angels." I guess I can deal with the topic, although the fact that country is more about 12-step programs than sin and addiction themselves is getting to be kind of a bummer. Also "Little Angels" is extremely didactic. Also it's unrepresentative, since it prays for strangers to stop doing what they do with little angels, whereas most little angels, at least here at Whoa-o-rama, are polluted by Uncle Festus.

However, if you ignore the lyric, the song, like every one on this disc, is lovely. Think the first few Alison Krauss and Union Station albums: recognizably bluegrass, but gentle, slower than average, with fewer wild banjo breakdowns, and arrangements in which fiddle and mandolin are emphasized. Vincent's voice does not have the sheer beauty of Krauss', but it is supple and expressive. "Passing of the Train" is a vocal tour de force as she sings like a train and also delivers the nostalgia the song is about with a nifty wistfulness.

The Elect and the Damned: Eternal (or monthlong) Bliss to...    Lorrie Morgan, Greatest Hits Collection (BNA): Lorrie has the impeccable pedigree: daughter of Opry star George Morgan, wife of the late Keith Whitley. Since Keith died of alcohol poisoning, she's been kind of dating everyone, from Sen. Fred Thompson to Troy Aikman to (rumor has it) Bill Clinton. As Janie Fricke once argued, it ain't easy being easy. But Lorrie's had some great songs. This disc scores points for including her first hit, "Trainwreck of Emotion." That was the first video I ever saw on CMT. But where the hell is "What Part of No (Don't You Understand)?" Huh?

Slaid Cleaves, Broke Down (Philo/Rounder): Austin folkie is excellent songwriter. Why I leaving out articles? Eep! Now verbs. There are a bunch of lovely original songs here and they are beautifully rendered. I wish Slaid's voice had just a touch more edge. But what the hell.

Wylie and the Wild West, Ridin' the Hi-Line (Rounder): All right. Here's the thing. The thing is, I come from Alabama, not Montana, and I hate Westerns and cowboys and shit like that. And this really is a tribute to Roy and Gene, etc., out on the trail with Cookie and their faithful steeds. But if you like that sort of stuff, you gonna love this: the man yodels like he's adolescing.

Alecia Elliott, I'm Diggin' It (MCA): It was only a matter of time before country launched its reply to Britney: cute teenybopper, pop as Pepsi. But they could have done worse than this: Alecia has a voice that's much more interesting than it needs to be. I would have preferred a lower tripe quotient, but Alecia can express some passion in a pinch.

An All-Expense Paid Vacation in Satan's Frying Pan to...

Jennifer Day, The Fun of Your Love (BNA): It was only a matter of time before country launched yet another reply to Britney. But the material and performance here are so utterly banal that I swear you'll seek solace in Britney I.

Jimmie Dale Gilmore, One Endless Night (Windcharger/Rounder): I like Jimmie Dale. I like his look. I like his attitude. I like his history. I like his hair. I like his ass. I just wish I liked the way he sounds.

So anyway: thanks, Lisa. Thanks for your innocence and purity. Thanks for those petals fallin' apart. But most of all, thanks for giving me that Roger Wallace CD. Stay just the way you are.