Americana Music Reviews

 

Billy O'Rourke
Honky Tonk Ballet
Electric Cactus Records
by David Pilot

When a guitar picker spends a decade playing with David Lee Garza y Los Musicales, you gotta figure anything he puts out on his own could be a standout. Since every rule has an exception, though, here's the rundown on Billy O'Rourke's solo debut. It's solid, almost from top to bottom. The musicianship, as you'd expect, is tight, occasionally in the Ace In the Hole band mode. That'll happen when you have veteran players like Randy Reinhard and Bobby Flores (both played with Johnny Bush among others), Jim Kalson (Flaco Jimenez) and Jerrad Green (a phenom at 22, established session man and current house drummer for the Carolina Opry in Myrtle Beach) in the mix.

That's not a group one expects to hear cranking out insipid country clichés in 3/4 time. Then again, Bill Green's fingerprints are all over this project, and his BGM Inc. garnered a BMI award in 1999 for the atrocious Toby Keith effort "Does That Blue Moon Ever Shine On You." Unfortunately for Billy O'Rourke, the first effort on Honky Tonk Ballet screams right past atrocious and dives headfirst into the completely unforgiveable realms of Toby Keith soundalikes. "Country As A City Girl Can Be" is as close to a pristine example of the deconstruction of country music as anything coming from Nashville could be. Too bad this song's coming out of San Antone.

She's got a penthouse view
But her eye's on a doublewide
A rooftop garden
Full of cornrow and ten feet high
She bought a ragtop BMW
And painted it John Deere green
She's as country as a city girl can be

Bet she thinks his tractor's sexy, too. Happily, though, it's almost impossible to get more clichéd than that, so maybe the leadoff track is the stupid drunk closing bell for this dance.

Nope.

If I could just sing these old country songs backwards
My old flame could be my young love
And I could get back
My danged old dog Buster

Christ. Who writes these lines? If they were clearly tongue in cheek, as I suspect might be the case in a live setting, then maybe "Buster" would be a decent or at worst amusing song. But here it comes off like a melting chunk of limburger on an Austin sidewalk in the middle of July.

Those two songs are clearly the worst of the bunch. There are some worthwhile cuts that ease the pain. "All I Have To Be Is Me" makes exactly the sort of self-made, comfortable-in-my-own-damn-boots statement the title suggests. While it's fairly run of the mill, it's eminently listenable. "It Don't Matter To Love" goes where Bon Jovi went with "Livin' On A Prayer," proclaiming the ability of the marriage union to overcome the hard times. This is the sort of up-tempo line-dance number Nashville loves to take to number one, something in the Neal McCoy vein. If that's your taste, you'll like this one a lot; it's extremely well done and O'Rourke has the voice to pull it off.

Much of the remainder goes back and forth between the mid-90s Travis Tritt ballad sound (think "Anymore") and George Strait's Blue Clear Sky phase. "If You Could See You Through My Eyes" is the one from this bunch that stands out. The swelling chorus gets into the most familiar of mainstream radio-ready territory, but the rest of the song is low-key and sweetly punctuated by Flores' terrific fiddle work.

All the middle-aged divorcees with a jones for tight Wranglers are gonna love "She's The Only Honky Tonk I Need." Too bad the odds are against them finding a man who believes it in the honky tonks where they'll go to look. Remember DeWayne Blackwell's song that David Frizell lit up on the same topic?

She said: "I'm gonna' hire a wino to decorate our home,
"So you'll feel more at ease here, and you won't have to roam.
"We'll take out the dining room table, and put a bar along that wall.
"And a neon sign, to point the way, to our bathroom down the hall."

Here's O'Rourke's take on the same:

Yeah she's a whole lot of country
And a little rock and roll
Two step across Texas
To every Haggard song I know
A taste of Southern whiskey
When I want a drink
She's the only honky tonk I need
Lord she's the only honky tonk I need

Those of you who love the neon, you tell me if you're buying that. I'm not. But it sure used to be fun looking for women that do. Wife won't let me anymore, which sorta proves my point.

Honky Tonk Ballet is a listenable record, one with songs that occasionally feature a pedal steel and hardwood feel that sounds a lot like country. But too much of it's too generic to make the effort a standout. It's no failure, but it's also no statement that Billy O'Rourke's arrived.

You can find out for yourself at www.billyorourke.com.

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

 
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