This is a portion of Peter Margasak's column in this week's Chicago
Reader <http://www.chireader.com/hitsville/990416.html>. Margasak also
notes that Thrill Jockey (label of Freakwater, Tortoise, Sue Garner &
others) will put out the next album by Chicago jazz combo 8 Bold Souls.
Carl Z.
Nashville in the Rearview
"You can be too country for country radio," declares Hal Ketchum, and
while that may not be a revelation outside Nashville city limits, it's a
pretty bold statement from a guy who scored seven top-ten country hits
in the first half of this decade. "A year ago I was afraid of stepping
on toes with a comment like that because it was my bread and butter," he
says, "but I'm not looking to change the world anymore." Ketchum, who
moved to Chicago in the fall, isn't getting played on the radio anymore
either, at least not like he used to: his label, Curb, culled only two
singles from his 1998 album, I Saw the Light, and only the title track,
a faithful cover of the Todd Rundgren pop hit with a fiddle graft, even
got on the charts, where it stalled at number 36.
That was just one downer on a roller coaster Ketchum's been riding for
the last few years. In January 1998 he emerged from the Betty Ford
Center free from the booze and heroin habits he'd developed since his
first Nashville album, Past the Point of Rescue, scored big in 1991. The
next month he married his third wife, hair and makeup stylist Gina
Giglio, but that spring he was diagnosed with transverse myelitis, a
rare spinal-cord disorder that caused his arms to become temporarily
paralyzed. "They're still not, and may never be, 100 percent," he says,
"but I'm really fortunate that I didn't lose my left hand to it
entirely. It was really challenging to have to relearn to tie my shoes
again. When I played my first C chord I was elated."
After all that, Ketchum found himself in the mood for a change of
scenery. "I've always loved Chicago," he says. "My first show here was
with George Jones in Grant Park. We were on the road last fall and we
were tossing ideas around. I said, 'How about Chicago?' and my wife
said, 'Sure, let's go.'" Now he's gearing up to tour behind a new album,
Awaiting Redemption, which was actually recorded before I Saw the Light
and before he hit rehab. Originally titled "Hal Yes"--"I was fucked-up
and I thought that title was hilarious," says Ketchum--the
blues-flavored album is darker and more raw, both lyrically and
musically, than anything he's done since his debut album, Threadbare
Alibis, recorded for Watermelon in 1989.
In fact Awaiting Redemption, produced in Nashville by Austin mainstay
Stephen Bruton, was so gritty and emotional that just weeks before its
original scheduled release--some advance copies had already been sent
out to critics--Ketchum's former Curb A & R rep, producer Chuck Howard,
told him the label didn't think it could get radio to support it. He
persuaded Ketchum to recut two of the songs and record six new ones that
were more radio friendly. That collection, plus three of the Bruton
tracks, became I Saw the Light.
The Bruton recordings stand in high contrast to the Howard cuts, a few
of which blur the line between country and adult contemporary. But
Ketchum doesn't regret his decision. "I Saw the Light was an attempt to
play ball in the marketplace, and I think it succeeded in its own
right," he says. "Being an instinctive person and a pretty good
businessman, my relationship with the label was enhanced by the
experience."
This seems a diplomatic way to say that his cooperation earned him the
right to do it his way this time. Awaiting Redemption, which comes out
in May, will be released exactly as recorded and sequenced by Bruton,
including the three songs that made it onto I Saw the Light. Ketchum is
playing material from the album, as well as songs he's written since
moving to Chicago, during a four-day acoustic stint at Schubas that ends
on Sunday. These are Ketchum's first local shows since 1995; he's
accompanied by guitarist Rob Gjersoe, a former Milwaukeean who's played
with Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Robbie Fulks. A portion of the proceeds
benefits Gilda's Club, a nonprofit center that offers emotional support
to cancer patients.
