79 year old Porter Wagoner has a fine new album, Wagonmaster. It's produced by Marty Stuart, an excellent new addition to Porter Wagoner's illustrious catalog. Frankly, my expectations for him this late in the game were pretty low, but this is actually, surprisingly enough, an outstanding record. I've been listening to it for a month. It started out good with me, and has only gotten better with repeated listening.
I've got at least four or five favorites here, but I might start with "Satan's River," the closing track. For starters, this moralistic country waltz may be the most purely catchy tune on the album. A lot of these songs have good visual images in the lyrics, and I especially like the "big yachts sailing on the warm smooth tide." I've found myself repeatedly singing this song acapella walking the hills, or doing dishes and such.
I also have to give a good shout out to "Be a Little Quieter." This opening track is a good vintage style Porter jam, with ever lovin' Buck Trent and the boys dressing this up with good old fashioned fiddle and steel, and basic honky-tonk country rhythm. Then there's poor bedeviled Porter himself, still hearing the long gone ex rattling the pots and pans in his imagination.
Most of these songs are quite good, and Porter wrote or co-wrote all but three of the songs, with a couple of instrumental bits credited to Stuart. Also, he performs a couple of Hank Williams songs in the extended bonus track chatting with Stuart. I've been a bit bedeviled figuring out just when he wrote some of these, though.
"Albert Erving" is a haunting song about a lonely old man he knew in childhood. From his description of having written a song about him 25 years later, that would seem to make it a 40 year old song. "My Many Hurried Southern Trips" was co-written with Dolly Parton somewhere in the 1970s. This song details a bus driver's observations of people in trouble, most strikingly an unwed pregnant woman.
Article comments
1 - Glen Boyd
In fairness to Porter, Johnny Cash's voice sounded a bit weathered in his latter years too. But to me that always added character to the songs, and gravity to the experience conveyed in the lyrics -- even though in Cash's case the lyrics weren't always his own. There was just the sense of so much life having been lived with the way Cash interpeted the songs he sang.
I haven't actually heard this record, but I'm sure thats equally true with Porter. Based on this review, I sure intend to find out.
-Glen
2 - Al Barger
Glen, I'm sure you'll dig this the most. Also, anyone who digs real country music - not this Garth Brooks/Dixie Chicks crap - will likely be well pleased with this.
I'll note that this would also be a really good gift item for an old country music loving grandpa or a crazy old uncle.
The deterioration of Porter or Johnny's voice with age works almost as much for as against them. They lose some technically, but like you said, get a new artistic effect from it.
3 - JC Mosquito
If Marty Stuart produced it, you can bet it's authentic & done out a sense of reverence. Marty & his band the Fabulous Superlatives are the last of the true hillbilly cats left - they can play bluegrass as well as they play the twang thang.