Americana Music Reviews

 

Lonnie Spiker
My Future Ain't What It Used to Be
L-Passo Music Group
by David Pilot

Sometimes the music business throws a curveball that leaves you stunned and gasping for air, wondering where you possibly could have been that kept you from hearing what's coming from the speakers any sooner. This isn't one of those times, at least not right off the bat. Rather, this new record from Lonnie Spiker punches in as the sort of pleasant surprise that can bring a smile and make you glad you're a country music fan. Unexpected, considering the artist's deep roots in Uniontown, PA.

While Pennsylvania (literally, "Penn's Woods") still ranks as one of the most rural states in the USA, it's not exactly the hotbed of pedal steel demigods that leaps to mind when someone mentions what Hank hath wrought. And Uniontown, out there on the west side of the state near Pittsburgh, is more readily associated with the steelworker mentality Tom Russell vividly painted in songs like "U.S. Steel" than with anything resembling a honky tonk angel. So where does Lonnie Spiker get off touting himself as an adopted Texan equally at home in PA, Nashville or the Lone Star state? Probably the same place I do, because my childhood in Greencastle, PA and high school years in the hellhole Wyoming Valley that smothers the greater Wilkes-Barre/Scranton metropolitan slag heap taught me one irrevocable truth: country music and the people who love and live it are a universal breed. And not all of them gear up in Stetsons and starched jeans throughout adulthood wishing they coulda been a cowboy. Spiker appears to have learned that as well, and with his early band L-Passo toured around Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia cutting his teeth at local beer joints then moving on to festivals with artists like Marty Robbins, Loretta Lynn, Bill Anderson and Reba McEntire pre-glam. One thing's true about the coal mining regions between northern Appalachia and New England, the people there have a pride and sense of place not often rivaled anywhere.

None of that, however, makes a cynic like me optimistic about any country offering from the north. I've seen too many polka bands in Chambersburg, too many "Proud to be Polish" bumper stickers in Nanticoke, and been served kielbasa at Thanksgiving dinner one damn time too many. Worthwhile people? Sure. Music and lifestyle I want to be associated with? No. But thanks anyway.

My righteous cynicism seemed justified as soon as My Future Ain't What It Used To Be (hereafter referenced as MFAWIUTB or "the record") started spinning. Second-rate Nashville formula was stamped all over "Making You An Old Flame." Nothing appeared to change the diagnosis in "Somebody Oughtta Write A Song About That," a song full of lines Joe Diffie already sang. They're capably delivered and Spiker's voice is extremely warm and listenable, but there's just nothing in the lyrics worth delivering. Well, at least not in the trite way they're laid out here. All of which makes "Hurt Always Begins With Her" a surprise. Part Western swing waltz, part piano lounge at the Holiday Inn in Intercourse, PA, it's a familiar song with enough of a twist to tweak the interest. The feel, string arrangement and subject matter would fit well on Dale Watson's Every Song I Write Is For You, and suddenly Spiker and Co. are coming out of the lethargy with something of their own to say. The next track stays in the same vein, with a plunking honky tonk piano added in the background and a decidedly more optimistic take on love. Still sounds more like a hybrid bastard child of country and polka than anything, but it's refreshing in its originality.

And that, folks, makes the transition to "Fort Worth" damn near unsettling. In a good way, if that's possible. This song, laced thoroughly with a beautiful pedal steel and a slow shuffle beat, examines lives and loves past revived in a brief airport meeting and memories of Cowtown. The atmosphere, pain and longing are palpable, and the recollections that can only be made down on Exchange Avenue are given the treatment they deserve.

We both know we left forever somewhere in Ft. Worth
We let it slip right through our hands
And if we never meet again here upon this earth
We'll always have Ft. Worth

It's the sort of song Ray Price would sing, with the same understated approach and ultimate result. Spiker's got a long way to go before his pipes reach the status Price's have earned, but the way he delivers this melody says the man can flat out sing. To prove it's not a fluke, tracks like "The Cows Are Coming Home" and "You're Dancing Around Love Tonight" made the track list on this debut. This is not what you expect to hear from a Yankee. Sure not like anything I ever heard in Pennsylvania or West Virginia. (remember Billy Ray Cyrus?) In fact, the latter song noted above is a waltz in the old George Strait or Clint Black vein, with one of the prettiest pedal steels crying in the night you'll ever hear. Karen Pendley's duet adds vivid depth to the conversation held slowly swaying in the middle of a crowded dance floor, and you'll smell the sawdust and perfume from all the good times clear as day.

It's been proven thus far that Lonnie Spiker remembers his childhood roots and can write a song for Texas, so he fittingly covers the Nashville angle with "Let Me Drink This Over." Yeah, you already know, just from the title. It's an example of what passes for cunning wordplay in Music City these days. It's the age old story of the good timing man and the change-demanding woman, and the response covers territory familiar to any of us who've ever had the discussion where the law gets laid down with a rolling pin.

Well my honky tonk composure
Is wearing mighty thin
But I'll get back to you
When I drink this over

Palatable radio fare, I suppose, but not much more. Maybe that's why up-and-Nashville-comer Barry Lee White's got this tune all over mainstream radio.

At the end of the day, Lonnie Spiker has turned out a listenable and at times exceedingly good record. As debuts go, this one won't hurt him. A quick radio tour through Texas earlier this year garnered support and airplay from the big (KSCS in Arlington) and little (KACQ in Lampasas) alike. It's tough to meld influences as disparate as the North, South and Texas into a sound. Spiker gets credit for trying. Plenty of work ahead if he wants to make something lasting out of this career, but at worst right now he stands to clock a radio hit and make some dancehall hearts flutter before he's through. This record makes it sound like he's also capable of much more. I reckon we'll see.

Lonnie's online at www.lonniespiker.com. Not much touring going on now, but you can get your copy of MFAWIUTB if you like and decide for yourself whether this is a career you want to follow. If not, you'll still have three or four songs from this disc you'll be glad to add to the jukebox in your head.

Contact David Pilot at: tailgunner-at-rockzilla.net

 
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