Jeremy McComb

Red Tunic Troll

posted on Tue, 05 Feb 2008 14:50:01

Nashville country with a few sparks

McComb's a newcomer whose journey from Eastern Washington to Nashville followed an unusual path. The son of a working musician, McComb found country music early, toured the northwest as a teenager and worked as a radio station DJ. It was at his radio gig that he met comedian Larry the Cable Guy, was offered a job as a tour manager, and chanced into an audition for Parallel Entertainment CEO J.P. Williams while hanging out on tour at Tootsie's Orchid Lounge in Nashville. Parallel is best known for managing comedians (including Larry the Cable Guy, Jeff Foxworthy, Bill Engvall and dozens more), but Williams signed McComb, found him a booking agent and set up with a recording session produced by Marshall Tucker Band founder Paul Riddle.

This adds up to mainstream Nashville country music, with themes of loving, losing, and leaving, and twangy inflections fleshed out by production that's often more pop and rock than roots. What makes this album distinct is McComb's slightly reedy voice, which sounds a bit like Bruce Robison's, and the killer lead-off single, "Wagon Wheel." Co-written by Bob Dylan and Old Medicine Crow's Ketcham Secor, the former's chorus sat unused for 30 years until the latter picked it up and finished the song. McComb's version turns Old Crow's string-band original into a catchy electric honky-tonker. The album's second single, McComb's "This Town Needs a Bar," is a weeper whose protagonist wanders the streets looking for the solace of drink and finding only stinging memories of broken romance.

The rest of the album isn't quite as earthy, with the most heartfelt songs exploring familiar themes. There's a revitalizing return to a small town in "Slow Me Down," a nostalgic look at love's first bloom in "We Were Something," and a fleeting South-of-the-border romance in "Miss Mexico." More original are "Next Time I Leave" which cleverly declares its lifelong commitment, "Day One" with its funky, percussive sounds of self-recovery, and McComb's "You're Killin' Me," which turns the table on Brad Paisley's "Alcohol." The album's arrangements and accompaniment are Nashville-by-the-numbers, which may not provoke fans outside the mainstream, but bodes well for McComb's chances on radio and TV, and with fans of Dierks Bentley, Luke Bryan and other modern country singer-songwriters. 3-1/2 stars, if allowed fractional ratings. [©2008 redtunictroll at hotmail dot com]