songs:illinois

There’s just one record I’ve really been looking forward to this year. If you’ve heard that from me before about some other band I may have been lying, because the new record from Hayes Carll is the one I’ve been dying to hear.

See, I think Hayes Carll put out the best americana record of the last half decade or so with 2005’s Little Rock and I was sure he’d have a great follow-up. Thankfully I was not wrong. Trouble In Mind, out April 8th on Lost Highway, continues to follow the formula of Little Rock. That winning formula consists of a mix of rockers and acoustic ballads about the themes and places Hayes knows best, namely Texas and Arkansas, and everything that takes place in those two distinctive locales (like drinking, romancing, and bbq).

Hayes has kept things pretty much the same lyrically on Trouble In Mind, name checking Beaumont, Arkansas, weed, burnt fried chicken, Lone Star Beer, a bare foot shrimper with a pistol up his sleeve, and blood on the strings (hell and that’s just on one song). This record reeks of Texas, and no, not the metropolitan smells of Austin, but the swampy odor of the panhandle where Texas meets Louisiana. On this record he’s also enlisted the help of Darrell Scott, Will Kimbrough, Dan Baird and Al Perkins and he was afforded the luxury of spending a month in the studio to get everything just so.

There’s 14 great racks on Trouble In Mind including ones with song titles like “Drunken Poets Dream”, “Bad Liver and a Broken Heart”, “Knockin’ Over Whiskey’s”, and the hilarious “She Left me for Jesus”. I think I’m goin’ to love them all, but for now, here’s the song that’s filled with the most interesting characters and best describes the time that Hayes spent in Crystal Beach, Tx. This is sort of one of those songs about how hard life is on the road except that Hayes loves it.

I Got A Gig

Here’s a great (near hi-def) video of Hayes’ annual End Of Year Rock & Roll Jamboree and Toga Party

And “Crimson Dragon Tattoo” live at Hayes’ weekly residence at Saxon’s Pub (also near hi-def and letterbox)

“It’s A Shame” (same venue/show/videographer as above)

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 7th, 2008 at 9:19 am and is filed under Americana. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.