Published on Jun 11, 2001
Lee Roy Parnell is fast becoming a legend in Texas music. He
started his career singing with his “uncle” Bob Wills and the
Texas
Playboys and has played with such luminaries as Stevie Ray
Vaughan, Joe Ely, Kinky Friedman, and Delbert McClinton. He’s
a
three-time CMA nominee, a two-time Grammy nominee, and a past
winner of the Orville H. Gibson Award for Country Male
Guitarist of the year. He’s played with everyone from Mary Chapin
Carpenter to Bob Seger. This guy has the resume to be considered
one of the luminaries of instrumental country music.
So maybe the first question is why a Texas blues album?
Because that’s what
Tell The Truth is; a tasty, tasty collection of
tunes straight out of a Lone Star State roadhouse. Seems
Parnell had an urge to get back to his roots, to play the music he
first played in Austin in the mid-seventies where he backed up
people like Vaughan, McClinton, and Ely.
Tell The Truth is a sort of homecoming for Parnell, and it’s
plain to see that he’s awful comfortable there.
Truth was even recorded with several of Parnell’s closest
and longest friends, including Gary Nicholson and Dan Penn, and the
tracks were laid down at Muscle Shoals, the same studio Parnell
began his professional recording career in 26 years earlier.
A standard aphorism gets shattered on
Tell The Truth: you
can
go home again. Every track on this album gleams with skill,
style, and a certain comfortable feeling, like a broken-in pair of
boots. Artists are at their best when they’re having fun, and
Parnell sure seems to be.
Some tracks of note: “Right Where It Hurts”, the coming of age
tune “Crossin’ Over”, “South By Southwest” with Delbert
McClinton, and the only cover on the CD, Gretchen Peters’s “Love’s
Been Rough On Me”. The three gospel tinged tracks in the middle of
the CD, “I Declare” (with Keb’ Mo’), “Brand New Feeling” (with the
Mississippi Mass Choir of Jackson), and “Guardian Angel,” are also
excellent. The production on the CD is smooth and even, presenting
the music in an accessible and listenable light. In short, this is
just a good, good CD.
Lee Roy Parnell proves Thomas Wolfe wrong on
Tell The Truth; not only can you go home again, but you can
record quite the CD while you’re doing it. This comes heartily
recommended.