BR5-49
(Arista Nashville)
When half a band’s releases are live recordings, it’s certainly no secret that playing gigs is their strength. Nashville quartet BR5-49 (the phone number for Junior Samples’ used car lot on “Hee Haw”) are indeed one of the best live bands going, but this, their first studio record, might be the most satisfying item in their catalog.
Like their three-hour live sets, the disc strikes a healthy balance between covers and original compositions from guitarists Chuck Mead and Gary Bennett, and brims with subtle pleasures. Mead especially shines, and his tunes “Lifetime to Prove” and “Chains of This Town” are every bit as good as the classic honky-tonkers by Ralph Mooney and Chuck Seals (“Crazy Arms”) and Mel Tillis (“Honky Tonk Song” and “I Ain’t Never”) that the band interprets admirably.
Bennett and Mead are singers who truly grasp honky-tonk inflection and emotion, and they harmonize skillfully. The whipcrack sound of string whiz Don Herron-- who handles steel and acoustic guitar, dobro, fiddle and mandolin chores over the course of the album-- combined with rhythm men Jay McDowell (upright bass) and “Hawk” Shaw Wilson (drums), which one writer likened to “a steel cradle”, is formidable.
Bennett may not be as skilled a writer as Mead, but his two contributions, the opening “Even If It’s Wrong” and “Are You Gettin’ Tired Of Me” might be his best. One of the band’s live staples is here as well, “Little Ramona (Gone Hillbilly Nuts)”, which details an ex-punk girl gone country, and ranks right alongside “Me ‘n’ Opie” in BR5-49’s humorous lore, though the whomping take on Moon Mullican’s “Cherokee Boogie” is actually funnier. Country-rock pioneer Gram Parsons is saluted in a languid version of “Hickory Wind”, which seems too slow at first, but upon repeated playings reveals itself to an astute interpretation.
Sure, nothing can beat experiencing BR5-49 live, but when you’re hankering for a little nip from the “Kings Of Lower Broadway” on your home hi-fi, don’t overlook this little beauty.
Time Out New York, 2000
