A
MYSTERY ISLAND
REVIEW
Tom Russell is at it again. Up to no good and that's usually all right. Tom's new album Hotwalker from Hightone Records is the kind of recording that we want to hear but usually doesn't get made. And why? It's loose, creative, and cut from real American bone that rattles in the face of the corporate hogwash that passes for musical art these days. How many times have you bought a CD for that one good song you thought you heard on the radio and when you get home the rest of the record sucks and you realize you didn't like the single from the airwaves all that much either?
Right. Me too.
So what do you do?
You've got to look beyond the illusion and glitz of the used car salesmen of MTV hawking off the latest version of Dave Matthews or Garth Brooks. Wasn't it bad enough that Matthews and Brooks made all that money the first time around? Okay, maybe there are worse examples. I'm sure you can fill in the blanks with music purchases that pissed you off or your own story of frustration as to why the artist you do like never gets the proper recognition. What it comes down to is a split between music for money and music for art and when the two meet, well, that's just fine, but all too often they don't.
So, back to this Hotwalker, which I learned by the way is a guy who walks hot horses in a circle to sort of cool them off. Hotwalker the album is like that, a wild horse galloping out of the gate, circling around your head creating visions of 50's and 60's Americana; of Charles Bukowski and Little Jack Horton accidentally stealing a freight train, and Jack Kerouac reading poetry with Steve Allen on piano, a visit to the streets of New York with a tale of the Pope of Greenwich Village: Dave Van Ronk, and the Los Angeles of Question Mark and the Mysterians “96 Tears” and the Pachuco boogie, of laughter with Lenny Bruce telling it true, Bukowski in his own words, wandering, wondering if he's in Nebraska, Illinois, or Ohio, and Tom Russell himself always ready to take us to the border and beyond by reading his own poetry and some letters written to him by Bukowski from his forthcoming book Tough Company, and as Little Jack Horton finally gets that horse to cool Gretchen Peters gives us a version of “America the Beautiful” that's worth the price of admission á la carte. Hell, listen to that voice on the radio.
Any artist willing to showcase other voices on an album is okay with me. Tom could easily have just read his own poetry with some cool guitar licks from Andrew Hardin and Hotwalker would still be a damn fine recording, but there's a concept here damnit! America isn't found in the latest trendy invention of the business class. America is a vast wonderland of truly interesting people and places, sometimes a freak show, a carnival after midnight, or two drunks walking across the border into Tijuana with the best or worst of intentions. America is the workingman. Charles Bukowski. America is the poet rambling from soul. Jack Kerouac. America is the divorced guy trying to get a Chinese dinner without apologizing. Lenny Bruce. America is both the written voice and the voice that cries out at the moon like the lonely coyote. The blood lines of words and melody of Tom Russell, “because the only truth is music.”
This concept of bringing the listener into an “experience” rather than just another play-list is exactly what Paul McCartney was shooting for with Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Paul would love this album, Hotwalker, and so will you.
Bradley Mason Hamlin
Sacramento, California (December 14, 2004)
"Tom Russell's Hotwalker" article by Bradley Mason Hamlin
© 2004 Mystery Island Publications. All rights reserved.
TOUGH COMPANY