Reviews
Porter Wagoner
Wagon Master
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Add to del.ico.us.Review Date: 2007-07-30
It’s been more than 50 years since this spook-country patriarch started recording music. Between now and then, this tall, blond crooner from Montana has had a handful of top-ten singles, a television show that defined the look and feel of country music for American’s in the sixties in addition to launching and subsequently trying to inhibit the career of the lovely Ms. Dolly Parton, the latter people are still giving him shit for. Wagoner’s career, however, went a little flaccid post-Dolly, which led the rhinestoned-one to focus on producing records for his own label, and taking up a hosting gig for a time at the Grand Ol’ Opry. Dude is important. Therefore, it’s needless to say that it’s hard not to let the legend eclipse the record. Especially with country/bluegrass go-to guy for backing bands Marty Stuart (who has played with the likes of Lester Flatt and none other than Johnny Cash). There’s no excuse for this record to not be amazing.
That being said, “Wagonmaster Pt.1” gets the party started right with his highness bluegrassin’ it up, telling us that “Wagonmaster’s comin’, to sing a country song.” It’s got the same urgency and charm as Porter’s first big hit, “Company’s Coming.” A great way for Wagoner to introduce himself to the new fans who caught wind of him via last year’s compilation, “The Rubber Room: The Haunting Poetic Songs of Porter Wagoner 1966-1977,” a stunning (if not skewed) set that rounded up Porter’s spookiest numbers, omitting some of the cheese that came out during his stint on T.V.
Wagoner’s smooth-as-a-baby’s-bottom croon hasn’t lost even a bit of power. He sings just like he did on old favourites, which is a definite bonus, especially for those who were disappointed to hear that Johnny Cash’s later America recordings had him sounding a bit windy. Don’t get me wrong, he sounded wise . . . but windy.
“Be a Little Quieter” brings us back to familiar Wagoner territory with his sweet croon amidst cascading pedal steels. More so than musically, the lyrics in this one remind us of how wonderfully dark this man can be. He’s asking his dead lover to keep it down while she’s haunting his hallways at night. It makes me think it would do Wagoner some good to fall in love a woman with a pulse for once. He captures loss so easily in his dark poetry, with an ass-shaking blues-country arrangement.
“Who Knows Right from Wrong” harkens back to Wagoner’s fantastic early balladry (see “Satisfied Mind,” possibly his best ever). This is Wagoner in his fatherly, life lesson mode, singing sadly, “Nothing is colder than a heart that’s gone wrong. For when you lose someone, who knows right from wrong?”
Throughout this record, the songwriting proves that this now 80 year-old man has still got it. But something big and important to Porter’s hipster crowd is missing. It’s his crazy dramatics and experimental side. Gone are the echoes bouncing from speaker to speaker we once heard on “the Rubber Room”, or the Indian chanting that made us fall in love with “George Leroy Chickashea.” The record becomes top-heavy with the variety missing. It’s clean-cut country from a master with near-flawless lyrics, but without Porter’s dramatic flare, it starts to sound a bit monotonous.
Spoken word from Wagoner, talking about why he wrote a song, or just random banter break a couple of songs on Wagonmaster, like when he tells us about his time spent at the infamous Nashville psychiatric hospital before the Johnny Cash-penned “Committed to Parkview.” It’s a heartbreaker talking about various personalities inhabiting the hospital from drug-addicts to failed country stars gone crazy. This is the kind of song that makes you wish Wagoner and Cash had spent more time creating together.
“Hot-Wired” is a great little concoction from Wagoner’s cauldron with some long awaiting sexual undertones. It would be easy to make a Viagra joke here, but it’d be so easy. Wagoner warns us about a dangerous young lady with the ability to hot-wire everything from cows, to cop-cars to Porter’s heart. The funky organ mixes well with the fiddles to creating a surprising sexiness.
Wagonmaster is a great album, especially considering that it’s basically posthumous. To think that a man of 80 years (and I hate to dwell on the dudes age) has put out a better and more poignant record than anything that today’s more popular alt-countriers have given us in a long time is proof that this man is a genius. This record felt cooler and more now to me than Ryan Adams and Justin Rutledge’s output combined over the past few years. And that’s not even considering that fact that Wagonmaster mops the floor with anything recent from Willie, Merle or even Johnny. A little reverb and eccentricity never hurt anyone, especially not Wagoner. But I guess I was expecting both from him this time around, so in that light, he surprised me.
Score: 7.9
- Scott Harwood