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Album Review

Larry Jon Wilson
Larry Jon Wilson 1965 Records

Article written by Ged M - Jun 17, 2008

Larry Jon Wilson ran with the country outsider pack - Townes Van Zandt, Kris Kristofferson, Guy Clark - in Nashville in the 1970s. A year short of 30 years since his last record (1979’s Sojourner) he’s returned Johnny Cash-style with 12 unadorned country songs.

They’re mostly just him and acoustic guitar, plus occasional fiddle, all recorded on the first take. The vocals are grizzled and characterful, the music full of stories. The voice and guitar set-up becomes a little one-paced after a while but works best at either end of the record. ‘Losers Trilogy’ goes from personal romantic loss to a tribute to losers everywhere: “bless the losers, God’s lost children, the drunks, the fools, the ones that never will win”. You can imagine an elderly Nick Cave with a similar lament in 20 years. The 11-minute ‘Whore Trilogy’ tells three despairing stories, from the young and doomed Louise to the “Waycross, Georgia farmhand” who loses his health, liberty and mind in pursuit of the hooker Mabel Joy. Finally the record ends with ‘Where From’, which leaves its existential questions unanswered, its last words asking: “where to?”

It’s a storyteller’s album of the sort that is dying out as the old storytellers die off. Like Cash’s last American recordings, it’s got age and authenticity on its side and an individual sound that you otherwise have to go to the archives to hear. “He never chased the money, never took the easy ride” say the sleevenotes, and the idiosyncratic result is burned into these grooves.

Links:
http://www.1965records.com