Titles:

1. On The River
2. Mud
3. Lightning Bugs And Rain
4. Deep Down In The South
5. Stone
6. Trailer We Call Home
7. Some Of Your Love
8. Frogman
9. Hank
10. Good Ol' Days (featuring Brent Cobb)

For Whiskey Myers guys, a lot of things have happened since the issue of their last album. “Early Morning Shakes” got the Country Charts Top Ten, and they could play as opening guest for Lynyrd Skynyrd or hank Williams Junior. Now a violinist (that also plays the piano) has arrived and also a percussionist that give a new coloration to their new album. This new record is really interesting and deserves a real listening. “On the River” begins with music from the Appalaches (violin and acoustic guitar) and then rhythm rises until a country race with a really good guitar solo at the end. Tempo changes on “Mud”, a slower song and very Southern rock with chorus talking about war against the business jungle. So, hero of that song talks about his home that a banker wants to take and threats him to push him in the mud. A social song in fact. A guitar solo is just missing on that song. A country-rock touch, horns and female voices make “Lightning Bugs and Rain” a real swamp song, just like Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Swamp Music”, slower with a discreet guitar on a clear sound.

Then this record becomes harder with its three best songs. First “Deep down in the South”, a Southern Rock song in a medium tempo that evocates Doc Holliday’s “Redneck Rock n’ Roll Band”. This song talks about all the good things that can be found in the South (Muscle Shoals studios, home-made alcohol, Blues and Rock on the radios). A good Southern guitar illuminates that song. Then arrives “Stone”, a very nice ballad on piano and a good guitars final. And the real best song, “Trailer we call Home”, another acoustic ballad even better that the one before with an acoustic guitar, a melodic dobro and a piano. This song is just about the story of a family living in a mobile-home that pretends there no shame to be poor (“Ain’t no shame in being poor”) and, even in the hard times, love is still present in that “trailer we call home” (« Times get tough but love is here in this trailer that we call home »). A very beautiful moment! It’s important to note that the great Texan writer Darrell Scott has co-written that song. Band is still at its top and plays “Some of your Love”, a rock-song in the Southern way with excellent electric guitars moments, a kind of mix between Wet Willie and .38 Special at its beginning. The end of that album shows a lack of intensity. “Frogman” solo (a heavy Blues-Rock song in a medium tempo written with Back Crowes’ Rich Robinson) is pretty good and “Hank” is a tribute to Country music on violin. Last song of this album is “Good ole days”, a melting pot of Gospel and Honky Tonk with a mandolin, an acoustic guitar and an acoustic guitar solo. It ends on laughs.

It seems that Whiskey Myers guys did enjoy to record that album… and we do have the same pleasure to listen to it!

Olivier Aubry