Heybale: This band gets away with “The Last Country Album”
PERFORMER: Heybale (www.heybale.com)
RECORDING: “The Last Country Album” (Shuffle 5)
While calling your CD “The Last Country Album” may sound a bit lofty (or even pretentious), Heybale can get away with it. Take one listen, and you won’t have a quibble.
If you’re a fan of real country music (sorry, that’s a distinction that must be made), Heybale is as close to the real thing as it gets. Unlike groups that simply imitate or re-create, Heybale, which cites its influences as “those who are dead and near dead,” has effectively embodied the music and spirit of honky-tonk barrooms.
Featuring the hard-to-beat Redd Volkaert, perhaps the most fluent and tasteful guitar twanger today (and an alumni of Merle Haggard’s band), and pianist Earl Poole Ball (who has played for Haggard, Johnny Cash, Buck Owens and Gram Parsons), the musicianship is second to none. And while the band offers inspired covers of Willie Nelson’s “Mr. Record Man” and Tom T. Hall’s “That’s How I Got to Memphis,” the disc’s standouts are the originals. Singer Gary Claxton’s “California Wine” features his smooth, intoxicating vocals and classic fills from Poole and fiddler Eric Hokkanen, as well as some tasty twin leads from Volkaert.
You’ll be searching the liner notes to see which classic singer recorded “Livin’ in a Cheap Motel” (it’s a Poole original). Ditto with the Ray Price-like “House of Secrets” and “Honky Tonk Mood.” With solos all around, the title track, a Hokkanen-penned instrumental, is a Texas swing number that showcases ex-Asleep at the Wheel member Cindy Cashdollar’s steel playing and Volkaert’s country-jazz prowess. For good measure, the disc closes with “Let’s Go to Mexico,” a made-for-dancing Tex-Mex track.
– By Michael Lipton
