At 5:36 PM -0800 on 3/12/99, Don Yates wrote:
>And here's an interesting contrast to the overly polite and artsy "roots
>rock" types: Terry Allen's an arty Texas singer-songwriter who also just
>happens to be thoroughly immersed in various roots styles. He does more
>than just name-check roots music greats in his publicity sheets (a la
>Bruton) -- his music is identifiably based in country, cajun, tex-mex,
>etc. There's also an edginess to his sound that's noticeably absent from
>that of the polite snooze-rock guys. His new album's definitely gonna
>make some folks uneasy, and others even downright mad. Titled Salivation,
>the album takes dead-aim at religion, skewering its hypocrisies with irony
>and irreverence while also demonstrating that Allen's lost none of his
>ability to tell a powerful tale. Terry Allen doesn't make background
>music, and thank god for that.--don
I dunno, Don, juxtaposing Allen and McMurtry like this doesn't work for
me. I haven't listened to the new Allen at all, not being a weasel <g>,
and I've listened to the new McMurtry just once, yesterday in fact, and
as background music, so there. Seriously, just as Allen's work is not
all prime -- I think more highly of the two albums on the Sugar Hill
twofer than I do of "Rollback," for example -- you can't point to a
weaker McMurtry album and say, "Well, the guy's no Terry Allen." "Too
Long in the Wasteland" is as strong now as it was then. I'd say that,
allowing for Allen's decade-long head start, they've got about the same
track record.
To belabor the obvious just in case, I'm not saying McMurtry's as
strong as Allen. I've traveled hundreds of miles to see Terry Allen; I
catch McMurtry about half the chances I get. But I sure don't lump
McMurtry in with background music or roots music for people without
roots (which his first release addressed kind of critically, after all).
Bob
