Hillbilly Idol "Town & Country" (Egg Records, 1999)
Although the production is a bit thin, this is a pretty charming indiebilly album from an earnest band hailing from Cleveland, Ohio... Mostly it's the quality of the songwriting that makes this album noteworthy, with strong tunes penned by bandmates Dave Huddleston, Paul Kovac and Al Moss, each skillfully delving into the western swing, honkytonk and country-rock traditions... The actual delivery is kinda clunky, but their hearts are obviously in the right place. Worth checking out, though their later records are much stronger.

Hillbilly Idol "Town & Country" (Slewfoot, 2002)

Chris Hillman "Like A Hurricane" (Sugar Hill, 1998)
Oh, this is okay, I guess... but it doesn't match his work with the Desert Rose Band or, obviously, The Byrds... It's okay, but more often than not rock is a young person's game, and the biggish production doesn't suit Hillman's aging voice well, and a more acoustic approach (which he tried not long after this) would probably have worked a lot better. Still, he does hit some good pop grooves, as on "Sooner Or Later," which kind of sounds like the Jayhawks a bit... (Cast notes: Jay Dee Manness plays steel, Jim Monahan, guitar, and Hillman is all over the map pickin' and plunking with the best of 'em.)

Chris Hillman "The Other Side" (Sovereign Artists, 2005)
For decades, Byrds co-founder Chris Hillman has been dancing along the elusive boundaries between rock and country, and since setting aside his chartmaking career in the country-oriented Desert Rose Band, he's settled into a more modest role as an altie-folkie-bluegrassy old-timer. This album, featuring contributions from longtime collaborator Herb Pedersen and bluegrassers such as Bill Bryson, Sally Van Meter and Gabe Witcher, is one of the best solo albums of his career. It's unhurried and unforced, full of delicate, soulful country flavored heartsongs and hillbilly gospel tunes. Hillman's occasional aesthetic lapses (the whole latter-day folk-rock thing) are nowhere to be heard here, and the record keeps on an even keel, rather than lurching from style to style as he has often done in the past... From start to finish, this is a very listenable album -- rootsy, melodic, and with great emotional depth, the kind of record you can come back to for years to come. Recommended!

Donal Hinely "Midwinter Carols" (The Orchard, 2000)

Donal Hinely "Ghost Fiddle Suite" (The Orchard, 2000)

Donal Hinely "We Built A Fire" (Scuffletown, 2002)
Literate, well-sculpted singer-songwriter Americana; countrified poetics, along the lines of Robert Earl Keene, Jr.'s work, music that may be too mannered for old-school country fans, or a breath of fresh air, for folks looking for the artform to expand. Kim Richey sings on several songs, and one or two erstwhile Wilco members also play throughout. Overall, this is a little too restrained for my tastes, but I'm sure there are plenty of folks out there -- folks who liked Emmylou Harris's Wrecking Ball, for example -- who would love to hear this disc. For an indie album, it's very well realized and thoughtfully made.

Donal Hinely "Glass Stories" (Scuffletown, 2004)

Donal Hinely "Giants" (Scuffletown, 2005)
Singer-songwriter Donal Hinely has a refreshingly naive faith in simple, satisfying melodic hooks, lyrics that rhyme and close up nicely, and words that mean what they say. The album opens with the title track, "Giants," a catchy, heartfelt elegy to the cultural titans of the 'Sixties -- Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Phil Ochs -- and bemoans the vacuum left in today's America, a gap that is filled by small-minded and venal strivers. It's just the kind of subject matter that anti-folkies would love to latch onto and sneer at as stuck-in-the-'Sixties navelgazinf, except that the song is just so damn effective, and the contrast between that era and ours really is so stark and disheartening... It's a great opening to a good album; on the next track, Hinely laments a mythic time "Before Music Was A Product," while on "Shock And Awe" he joins the ranks of modern folkies who condemn the war in Iraq. He also sculpts some nice slice-of-life scenarios, singing of new parents adjusting to an amped-up level of adulthood, and the nostalgia of lost true love ("Adelaide," also one of the album's catchier tunes). Fans of Freedy Johnston will find a similar spirit here, with Hinely's open embrace of soft, melodic electric guitars and clean, catchy couplets. A few songs go adrift, but overall this is a really nice record!

Tish Hinojosa "Sign Of Truth" (Rounder, 2000)
My first exposure to Tish Hinojosa was seeing her live, singing with Peter Rowan at a nice local venue... She kinda bugged me: her approach seemed mannered, and her material was overly-crafted and self-consciously poetical (hearkening to the Texas poet-troubadour tradition of Townes Van Zandt, which I'm still wrestling with...) Anyway, her albums have all hit me the same way... She tends to blend country and soft-rock elements in a way that I find overly controlled and -- for want of a better phrase -- yuppified. Similary, her dips into bilingual multiculturalism is also a little ostentatious for me, like those radio hosts on NPR who overenunciate their Spanish accents, as a way of asserting their ethnic identity. Mostly, it's the presentation that irks me: she just doesn't move me. Her voice, her writing, her delivery, her musical aesthetic simply don't speak to me. This album seems typical, packed with mildly cloying soft-pop arrangements and stilted, blandly produced folkish tunes, with themes that seem buried under too much verbiage. Yet another instance, perhaps, of me being a big old, grumpy curmudgeon... but there you have it. I'll pass.

Tish Hinojosa "The Best Of Tish Hinojosa -- Live" (Rounder, 2003)
She still bugs me. Sorry.

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Hick Music Index

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