Deryl Dodd Makes Music For True Country Fans
When it comes to recording artists in Nashville these days, you’ve got your young, your not-so-young and your long-in-the-tooth.
This month, the not-so-old stands above the rest, with one of the oldsters not far behind.
Deryl Dodd
“Deryl Dodd” (Columbia) ****
A man with an album or two already under his belt, the fashionably unshaven and coolly bespectacled Dodd looks, on the cover of this one, a bit like macho actor Ken Wahl, but don’t let the Hollywood similarity put you off: This is a country singer with a vengeance - maybe literally.
Out of the box he comes at you with a Buck-ish, resentful, all-but-retro track titled “It’s Only ‘Cause You’re Lonely.” That one is immediately followed by the stirring weeper “Best I Ever Had,” which comes equipped with squalling fiddles and a haunting female backup vocal. He then makes it three winners in a row with the hot and bitter “Bad For Good.”
Dodd’s isn’t always the greatest nor the strongest voice, but here he consistently captures the essence of emotion either heartfelt or humorous, and he has a pronounced taste for distinctive points of view and the authentic and roots-influenced side of country music. These lyrics - and he wrote or co-wrote six of these particular 10 - differ from the run of the radio mill in that they almost utterly avoid the mind-numbing blandly “positive.”
For instance, “John Roland Wood” wittily concerns the conversion of a small town’s most prodigious sinner; “30-30” is a murderously embittered little lost-love song; “I Thought I’d Heard It All” is a soaring ballad of loss; and “Good Idea Tomorrow” is in unabashed praise of procrastination.
To whom it may concern: This guy has made the kind of record that genuine country fans tend to hunger and thirst for.
Don Williams
“I Turn the Page” (Giant) ***-1/2
Here’s an old dog whose teeth are still sharp.
Williams, who in his heyday championed the cause of singing about life’s positives without reducing them to annoying cliches, here offers another batch of material in that vein.
A lot of the songs have to do in one way or another with family, from “Her Perfect Memory,” concerning a husband’s wonderment at his wife’s rose-colored view of him, to “Ride On,” about kids mentally fleeing their parents’ marital strife, to “Harry And Joe,” a cameo of two old widowers in Florida whiling away the ends of their lives.
There’s a lot of variety, too. “Something ‘Bout You” is a skillful song about love’s intrusion on an intentionally solitary life. “Cracker Jack Diamond” concerns young love. “From Now On” is a perceptive one about how the taking of a long-term lover entails taking on all the other lovers they’ve had (and this is not about AIDS). Yet again, Williams imparts it all with heart and understated dignity.
South Sixty Five
“South Sixty Five” (Atlantic) ***
This is a new, contemporary-oriented, young (early to mid-20s) band with heavy harmonies and light lyrical messages aimed at radio.
For example, the opening track, “Baby’s Got My Number,” is a happy track featuring touches of deep bass reminiscent of Richard Sterban of the Oak Ridge Boys. “Climbing Mount Everest” is a ballad blessed with a more interesting lyrical concept and featuring an adept and modernistic vocal sound perhaps inspired by Restless Heart.
Those two cuts pretty well define all the others except “Uncle Hickory’s General Store,” which is considerably countrier and a story song that unites youth, this band’s most obvious orientation and audience, with adulthood, which historically has been the backbone of the country genre.
The prevailing viewpoint here, though, is the cloying kind of sunny one you might see exuded by a candidate for a high school’s sophomore class president. It seems typified by the closing track, “A Random Act of Senseless Kindness,” a bumper-sticker thought that nevertheless has merit and is deserving of deeper lyrical treatment than it gets here.
At the same time, this band’s vocal blends are superior, their production is excellent, and they obviously have a lot of time to mature.