Review Roundup: Joe Troop, James McMurtry, and Tim Easton

The schedule of Americana releases has picked up pace in the past few months. My free time appears to have gone in the opposite direction. So this week I've got another review roundup, collecting albums released in the past couple of weeks that deserve your attention; Joe Troop, James McMurtry, and Tim Easton.

Tim Easton- You Don't Really Know Me (8/27)
Tim Easton has been a fixture on the Nashville music scene for years, but hasn't ever gotten the recognition he deserves. Will You Don't Really Know Me change that? I don't know. But I know if any fan of roots music has this as their introduction to Easton, they'll figure out what the rest of us have known for 20 years. The album is a distillation of what we've all experienced during the pandemic; too much free time for our brains to dwell on our life choices. Touching on recovery, divorce, and societal unrest, Easton cuts to the core on each song, but especially the standout track “Son My Son” where Easton is reminded that all of the fears his new life and the world's circumstances have brought him are familiar to minority populations. Afraid of being assaulted by authorities at a protest? Welcome to daily life if you're black. Afraid to walk alone at night? Every woman in the world would like a word. Somehow, even with the serious subjects, Easton manages to infuse the album with joy. “Festival Song” celebrates the kinship festie fans know is just as important as the music to the experience; “Voice on the Radio” is a touching tribute to Americana's titan, John Prine; “Running Down Your Soul” is a Traveling Wilburys-esque jangle pop roller coaster.

James McMurtry- The Horses and the Hounds (8/20)
It's been seven years since James McMurtry's last album, and that's just too damned long. McMurtry is one of Americana's most evocative lyricists, possessed of the ability to hook you with a single line or manipulation your emotions with a four and a half minute journey. McMurtry's first album for New West Records, arguably THE independent label for Americana artists, The Horses and the Hounds has a title worthy of Gillian Welch and a set of songs that hold up to that high bar. The wisdom of age permeates The Horses and the Hounds, both in terms of acknowledging an end point and of seeing the actions of the young (and those who use and manipulate them) with more knowing eyes. Lead single “Canola Fields” details an “almost but not quite” fling of two carefree youth who meet later in life to look back at regrets, and forward to something else. “Cashing in on a thirty year crush... You can't be young and do that.” The albums absolute star is “Operation Never Mind.” It's a look at the military industrial complex worthy of Springsteen, and acknowledgment of the last thirty years of “Operations” in foreign lands that are rough on poor kids who think they're getting to play real-life Black Ops but profitable for old rich men who don't have to worry because “We won't let the camera near the fighting. That way we don't have another Vietnam.” There's no way McMurtry could be prophetic enough to time his release just as footage of the chaotic withdrawal from a 20 year “Operation” in Afghanistan comes to a close, but it soundtracks it like it was custom written.

Joe Troop- Borrowed Time (8/20)
Joe Troop's band Che Apalache was high on my list of favorite roots albums of 2019, a sentiment shared by outlets like NPR and No Depression, as well as the Grammy Awards, where they received a Best Folk Album nomination. After taking some time off for philanthropic work, Troop is back with a solo album that includes many of the elements that made Che Apalache special. There are special guests (Bela Fleck, Abigail Washburn, Tim O'Brien), a mixture of traditional bluegrass with South American folk, and cutting social commentary. As Che Apalache put a human face on immigrant children with the story of Moises Serrano on “The Dreamer”, Troop humanizes the criminal justice system's racial biases with the story of Dreama Caldwell, a black daycare supervisor charged when an employee endangered one of the children. Despite Caldwell not committing the crime and turning herself in willingly, she was hit with a $40,000 bail, a figure so high the court officer, who had expected $4000, had to ask for clarification. Troop also touches on being a queer man in the conservative tradition of bluegrass (“Purdy Little Rainbows”) and takes a winking poke at American Exceptionalism on “Red White and Blues” where his narrator starts off “watching Davy Crockett on TV with a bowl of mac and cheese. More butter, please,” and as an adult notes “life is an unfortunate disease. It rears you up fairy tales, then it clubs you in the knees. Roll up your sleeves. Tinkerbell ain't what she seems.” But, because 'Murica, his narrator also insists “don't hesitate. I hear the afterlife is great!”