Chris Knight
A Pretty Good Guy
Dualtone

by Al Kunz

Chris Knight attracted lots of attention with his 1998 self-titled release when it spent six weeks at the top of the Americana charts. Critics compared him to Steve Earle, John Prine, and even Bruce Springsteen. Decca, his label at the time, promoted "It Ain't Easy Being Me" as a single to country radio and produced a video for TV. But then Decca played the all-too-common reshuffling and restructuring game. When they were done rearranging, Knight found himself without a record deal.

While looking for a new label Knight continued to write new songs, both alone and with some of the better mainstream and alternative country songsmiths. He wrote "A Pretty Good Guy" with Fred Eaglesmith. They had collaborated on "Love and a .45" on Knight's debut release. Eaglesmith started including "A Pretty Good Guy" in his performances and recorded it as part of Ralph's Last Show, his live double disc released in May 2001. Knight and Eaglesmith also teamed-up on "Blame Me," another of the cuts on this disc. Knight also wrote "She Couldn't Change Me" with Gary Nicholson, a mid-2001 mainstream country radio hit for Montgomery Gentry. But three years after the release of his first album, his fans were still waiting for a second.

During these years a series of potential arrangements with other labels failed to happen. The long wait finally ended when he came to terms with Dualtone, a new label that has had success signing established acts such as Jim Lauderdale and David Ball. While not a major label, Dualtone has demonstrated their ability to make inroads commercially. Ball's comeback album, Amigo, has sold well, with its single, "Riding With Private Malone" being played to death on country radio. "Texas in 1880," a duet with Pat Green from Radney Foster's Dualtone distributed Are You Ready for the Big Show has received wide radio play and heavy video rotation on CMT. Finally on September 11th Chris Knight's fans got their wish when Dualtone released A Pretty Good Guy.

Well before release, the promotion juggernaut was in high gear. Then the critics voiced their opinions. No Depression gave Knight the full treatment with a glowing extended feature in its September-October issue. A review in the All Music Guide, although only awarding A Pretty Good Guy four stars, gave it a five-star narrative, painting Knight as a potential savior of country music, if only the idiots at country radio would pay attention. Knight hit the road in support of the new disc and the hype continued to build. Unless you're a hermit or this just isn't your kind of music, you should have heard of Chris Knight by now.

Produced by ex-Georgia Satellite Dan Baird, A Pretty Good Guy is filled with down-on-luck, alcohol-fueled, death-murder-and-mayhem alt-country. Starting with the opening line "empty beer bottles / rattle on my pistol / on the seat of my Chevy pickup truck" on first cut "Becky's Bible," the disc seldom strays far from these themes.

Baird and Knight hand-picked the musicians they wanted to work on this project, most notably choosing Tammy Rogers for mandolin and strings with Rusty Young of Poco playing banjo and lap steel. Ty Tyler (mandolin, guitar), keyboardist Tony Harrell, and drummer Greg Morrow were some of the other contributors, along with Baird and Knight on guitar.

Dallas songwriter Jay Johnson recently cited Chris Knight's "If I Were You" as a fine example of songwriting, saying that first Knight "sets you up" with these verses:

If I were you
Then I would gladly loan to me a dollar or two
So I could eat
And maybe get just one good night of sleep

But I'm not
And I'm stranded like a castaway in this town
You seem so unwilling to help a fellow when he's down
If I were you, that's what I'd do

After building sympathy for the "hero" of the story, leading listeners to believe he is a homeless beggar, Johnson says Knight then, "knocks you down" with:

Sir it's not my way to take from you
The things I haven't earned
I wish I could go back
And heed the lessons I have learned
But I can't, so if you'll gladly
Put your money in this sack
Yes, sir, this thing is loaded
And I have the hammer back
If I were you, that's what I'd do

Johnson's assessment is correct; this is a powerful song. Like some of the best songwriters around, Knight has the talent to paint a lyrical picture of common folk in common situations. He sings about the Friday night routine of teenagers in an "Oil Patch Town." Like any small, rural town, the options for weekend entertainment are rather limited. They pool their money for beer, hang out in the cemetery, or drive around looking for some action, hoping for something unusual to talk about in school on Monday. In the end, it turns out the same as every other weekend.

Another Friday night in this oil patch town
Keep the beers out of sight
When the state troopers come around
Now we ain't looking for trouble
We wouldn't mind a fight
What else you gonna do with just another Friday night

"Hard Candy" is a love song about the girl who lives in a holler across the mountain. Candy has to fend for herself during dad's frequent stays in jail for bootlegging, and life on the mountain is hard anyway. But the song's narrator remains persistent, eventually breaking through Candy's shell.

One night on the mountain, back in the pine trees
Candy let down her guard, she said she loved me
We left the holler when her old man got put back in jail
And she told all her brothers to go straight to hell

Hard Candy, so sweet
That I could never get enough
Hard Candy, so easy
For me to love

Knight paints a sympathetic picture in all his songs, sometimes of people who have brought troubles upon themselves, other times those who haven't, like the series of characters who are barely hanging on that inhabit the song "Send a Boat." An aging widow, a young alcoholic, and an abused child -- all in need of some help, as espoused in the chorus.

Someone's crying in the hole
Good Lord, help us all
While we try to stay afloat
If you would Lord, send a boat

Knight's prolific output provided him with a large backlog of tunes to consider for inclusion on this disc. He'd recorded several of these songs as demos prior to his debut release that didn't fit on that project. "Highway Junkie" is another of the songs he pulled from his stockpile. In '96 both the Yayhoos and Randy Travis recorded versions of this heart-broken trucker's lament.

One hundred cups of coffee
And five hundred cigarettes
A thousand miles of highway
And I ain't forgot her yet

But I keep on movin'
Keep a movin' on down the line

Ain't nothin' in my mirror
Just a cloud of dust and smoke
What do you expect when some old trucker's heart gets broke
Yeah, trucker's hearts get broke

Bluegrass and country music have a long history of murder ballads and "killin' songs." No one who has heard Johnny Cash sing "I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die" would argue the powerful impact that murder or death can bring to a song. A Pretty Good Guy has its share, arguably more than it is share, of these songs. From the shooting that ends the "all night card game" in "Becky's Bible" to the two, soon to be three, killings in "Down the River," shooting, murder, and death permeate the songs on this disc. Even the non-violent "North Dakota" ends with the body of a wife who had disappeared being discovered frozen to death after the spring thaw. But the disc ends with a sliver of hope in "The Lord's Highway," a hymn of religious redemption.

I used to burn the devil's gasoline
On the backstreets of this town
I did not have no road map
Til Jesus flagged me down

I'm on the Lord's highway
The Lord's highway
The Lord's highway
Comin' home

I used to pack a switchblade
And a pistol in my coat
Now all I've gots this Good Book
The only weapon that I tote

A few years ago one of those big square states out west had an ad campaign with the slogan "A Pretty Great State." Residents thought the tourism bureau needed a motto with a little more pizzazz. They felt that one of the potential interpretations of the slogan denigrated their state, damning it with faint praise. The title of this disc reminded me of that ad campaign and paraphrased my thoughts, that it's "a pretty good album."

Analyzing my lukewarm reaction I realized that taken individually I'd consider each of these songs as good to great, which would seem to indicate a much better opinion of the disc as a whole. Knight told No Depression, "I'm not sure that was the eleven best songs I had but I liked the way they fit together; they all kind of come from the same place." And therein is my problem. I knew that I preferred Fred Eaglesmith's version of "A Pretty Good Guy" and "Highway Junkie" as done by the Yayhoos to Knight's interpretation of these same songs on A Pretty Good Guy. When I compared them I realized that Knight's take on these songs seem significantly darker, less optimistic, than the alternative versions. The songs do all come from the same place, and this place is almost unrelentingly dark. Since the Beatles recorded Sgt. Pepper, albums have been judged not just as a collection of songs, but also by how well the songs fit together. The songs on A Pretty Good Guy do fit together; they just take me to a place where I don't want to stay that long. While I think the buzz surrounding this disc overstates its importance, it's still well worth the price. Just don't buy into the hype. I'd also advise alternating the playing of A Pretty Good Guy with a more upbeat CD from your collection.

* Browse to www.chrisknight.net for more news and Knight's latest tour information.



Contact Al Kunz at kunz-at-rockzilla.net

 
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