| The Bourbon Dynasty - The Bourbon Dynasty |
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| Written by Bob Townsend | |
 The Bourbon DynastyThe Bourbon Dynasty [Night World] As the old joke goes, The Bourbon Dynasty plays both kinds of music -- country and western. But the terrific debut album from this Washington D.C. band also works in a whole lot of what used to be called blue-eyed soul. That's mainly due to the designs of singer/songwriter Charles Walston, whose sly and wounded tunes, and disarming vocals were first heard when he lived in Atlanta and fronted The Vidalias -- a rockin' combo that recorded two discs on Rounder sub-label, Upstart, back around the time of the '96 Olympics. Ten years on, Walston is still making music that leans on the legacy of greats like George Jones, Gram Parsons, Sticky Fingers-era Stones, and those Muscle Shoals guys, Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham. That means fat saxophone, trumpet and organ figure in the mix, alongside twangy guitars, dobro and pedal steel. The opening track, "Habit of Doing Wrong," with its swoon of horns and slide guitar, sets the tone, as Walston warbles a tale about a Southern road trip that becomes a metaphor for good lovin' gone bad. His lyrics, chock full of little details about staying in a crummy motel, are the stuff of existential fiction -- getting downright cinematic (think Five Easy Pieces) after the drifter makes his inevitable escape, then looks back to "wonder how she felt, when she woke up all alone/ maybe she was sorry/ but maybe she was glad I'd gone." But beyond ornery, lonesome and alienated, Walston runs through plenty more moods in the course of the next eleven songs, from funny to sad to wistful. Honky-tonk piano-driven "Girl in the Checkout Line" is clever in a way that recalls vintage Chuck Berry, with a haplessly horny dude who gets all lost in the supermarket, while closely observing some pulchritudinous assets: "She's puttin' the ‘wiggle' in the Piggly Wiggly." But is finally too shy to step up and score the digits: "I got a question, but I ain't got the nerve to ask it." On the slow blues "Low Tolerance for High Maintenance," Walston gathers his normally keening voice into a low growl to deliver the manifesto of a redneck who doesn't much care for any sort of fancy bullshit -- most especially the kind of women who spend too much time on makeup and hair. "On Faith Alone," and "There's A Whisper" are pain songs with a gospel feel, while "Not the Crying Kind" is bitterness bent into irony by a sweet melody. And "Behind Closed Doors" wraps its lamentations around the funereal sounds of a New Orleans brass band. But "Pay the Price" ends things on an upbeat note, gleefully powered by swaggering R&B-style horns and backup singers. |
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