(Click picture for complete series album listing, and sample tracks)
Ah, the home stretch. With only two more records in the series, looking back, there's been a pretty good selection. We've had punk, rock, folk, alt, and ska. Now it's time to toss some country in there. The eighth entry into the series features Austin Lucas covering Dolly Parton's "To Daddy" and Frank Turner covering the Springsteen classic "Thunder Road." I'll toss out the mystery right away and say that this is a very good record by two surprisingly good artists.
Austin Lucas begins with "To Daddy." I never really liked Dolly Parton, be it her music or legacy. I dislike her glitzy, sugary take on country music, and dislike how it transformed the top Nashville acts to follow suit with mostly soulless, mindless drivel. Still, her earlier, simpler-sounding tracks are at least tolerable to my ears, and "To Daddy" is among the handful of songs of hers that I can get some sort of enjoyment out of. Up until now, though, I've preferred the Emmylou Harris version. It's a little less poppy and glitzy, embracing the simplicity of country music that I enjoy. I guess it only makes sense that a metal singer from Czech now does my favorite rendition of the song.
Austin Lucas does an amazing job with this song. Over the past several years, I've grown very weary of the coffeehouse acoustic acts. If you've seen one hipster torturing Bob Dylan on his Takamine, barely holding onto the key with each passing wail, you've seen most of the scene. With such a simple act, featuring one person playing two parts, it's important to play each to the best of one's ability. Each note, each strum, and every beat needs to be considered if a solo acoustic act wishes to stand out. This not only applies to straight musical theory, but also in presentation. A vocalist/musician needs to invest themselves emotionally into every second of a song. Hearing someone sing each note right versus hearing that person sing the right notes with the best of their emotional conviction is the difference between night and day, or the difference between Neutral Milk Hotel and Andrew Jackson Jihad (sorry, but it's true and a comparison that anyone who's read my blog up until now can get). Unfortunately, most acts I've heard, whether local or radio-played, don't really do it for me. It makes you forget how powerful a talented singer with an acoustic guitar can be.
Lucas has a beautiful voice, doing everything right and beyond to make his version of "To Daddy" to be, in my eyes, the definitive recording of the track. There's no glitz, yet no crust in this cover, just Austin and his guitar. He intertwines the vocals and instrumentals wonderfully, and if you listen just enough, you get the impression that he considers the balance between his voice and his guitar down to the very second, because each swell and each drawing back of either of the dual tracks seems perfectly timed and performed, creating a great synergy between the two that really makes Lucas' version of "To Daddy" to be not just one of my favorite versions of the song, but one of my favorite country songs, period. It's a wonderful, relaxed track that makes me wish that I could just go campfire jam with the man on my banjo.
Lucas' first track set the bar pretty damned high, but Frank Turner seems to jump over it with an impressive ease and grace. Another example of me disliking the original source material pretty much from the get-go, I've never been a large fan of Bruce Springsteen, or his song "Thunder Road" though I certainly like it more. Bruce and E-Street are talented, but I could never get over the corniness of their music, cringing at each obnoxious recording trick like the bells during volume swells or Bruce's self-pleasing, close-eyed, housewife-fainting, air-humped vocal blast, which is a shame because everything else about the band is pretty great. Frank Turner tosses out any complaint I've ever had about Bruce's work and just plays the goddamned song, and Jesus does he play it well.
Featuring nothing but acoustic guitar strums and Frank's impressive, English-inflected vocals, the cover of "Thunder Road" retains Springsteen's soulfulness and rock roots and drops the corny arena rock, and the results are awesome. I kind of get a chill every time Frank Turner busts his voice out and slams on his guitar at the start of each chorus and verse. It's fun to hear a genuinely talented vocalist these days that doesn't try to emulate Whitney Houston or Marvin Gaye (See about 90% of contestants on American Idol), and just sing in their own unique way, unaided by any voice synthesizers or pitch correctors. It helps create an imagery that somebody is creating an art through sound, and makes a much more pleasing experience than hearing another lame modern soul singer try to do the Aretha Franklin pitch bend every few seconds just as a way to impress the average non-musical fan.
This is a great album with two great songs that can appeal to most anyone, including fans of Dolly and Springsteen fans. It's also the most parent-friendly album, helping prove to your folks once and for all that there are artists today that can top out the most cherished acts of their day, while still giving enjoyment to any listener. I really do recommend it to anyone growing weary of acoustic acts these days, because if it doesn't alleviate your boredom of the medium, then there's a problem with you. It also makes me wonder why, between Whiskey & Co., Drag the River, and Austin Lucas, a traditionally punk label can put out better country artists than anything Nashville's smeared all over Wal-Mart discount stands for the past 20 years.
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