Jesse Dayton's "Tall Texas Tales" by William Michael Smith

Thank God Jesse Dayton didn't have a mega-budget for his latest project, his first since leaving Justice Records. Working with limited funds and recording for the Austin independent label, Bullet Records, Dayton cut the record in just a few days, producing the cd, writing all but one of the songs, and handling his own guitar work. So there are no hired studio gunslinger pickers, no All-Star cameo appearances or duets that have become the fashion. But it all worked out for the listeners in the end, because Dayton has given us a stripped down, straight forward, what-you-see-is-what-you-get Texas record. A completely hometown effort recorded with local musicians at Ernie Wells Studio in Houston, "Tall Texas Tales" careens from bar ditch to bar ditch along that wide stretch of blacktop between country and rock like a rusted-out, big-engined, Bondo-patched muscle car. Raised on the Texas Gulf Coast with its rich and varied musical influences, Dayton's musical chops come straight from a beer joint jukebox just outside the refinery gates in Port Arthur. "Tall Texas Tales" runs the gamut of genres and sounds that come under the wonderful musical tent that we call Americana or roots music. And it is blue-collar Texan to the core. In less than an hour, Dayton ranges all over the Texas music encyclopedia, much like Doug Sahm did. Dayton's cd covers such a broad range that it is, like other great Texas music, hard to categorize or fit into one of commercial radio's convenient pigeon holes. Dayton's style is at once literate and heady, yet it is undeniably down home and direct. With absolutely no candy-coated sugar plums, no watered down odes of love targeted to the 18-35 year old housewife demographic Nashville obsesses over, no gushy string arrangements or cheesy three-part pop harmonies, most of Dayton's songs look back on relationships gone to hell or on wrong turns that couldn't be foreseen. Dayton's regular road band (former Missile Charlie Sanders on bass, Brian Thomas on steel guitar and electric banjo, and Eric Tucker on drums) augmented with a few of Houston's local heroes delivers a set of original songs filled with little life-altering mistakes, accidents of fate, busted dreams, shattered faith, rotten relationships, dark philosophical understandings learned the hard way, all delivered with a certain "I've seen it all" quality that would make any self-respecting Nashville producer run for cover and hide his checkbook. With Dayton hammering a wicked riff on his acoustic guitar, the record literally jumps out the starting gate with one of several "poison love" tunes on the record, 'Never Turned My Back.On You.' The singer has obviously learned the hard way that no matter what kind of crisis this woman seems to be in ­ and over the course of the song she is swept off her daddy's yacht by a hurricane, poisoned in an assassination attempt, held hostage by bank robbers, and wrongly sentenced to a ten year prison term -- the wisest course of action is not to turn your back on her. Dayton takes the theme further with 'Every Now and Then,' a song in which nothing goes right and there is little expectation it ever will. According to Dayton, "You've got to lose to win." This is one of those "bad things happen to good people" songs that demonstrates Dayton's uncanny ability to coin catchy, stick-in-your-head hooks. 'Jumped Head First' is almost certainly based on Dayton's family history, but it could just as well be the history of any American working class family. Dayton chronicles the last 60 years of American history as he traces the migrations, tragedies, and economic calamities of his extended family. A story about his uncles and his father, it tells how their lives were damaged by war and work, how events have left them so damaged that they have become alcoholics and suffer from depression and hopelessness so much that "they jumped head first into a shallow grave." Fair warning: this is not a happy song -- but it is hard to get it out of your head once you've heard it a few times. In 'Creek Between Heaven and Hell,' Dayton flashes back on his days as a youngster in church, when the preacher would say "Sunday fishin' was a sin to a whole back pew of men." It's a song about life's moral dilemmas -- and suffice it to say that Sunday fishing is the least of Dayton's worries before the song is finished. This is another song with a chorus that just won't let go once you've heard it a few times. Dayton's favorite vintage Telecaster was stolen last year and he lays his feelings out, complete with highly accurate details of the theft, in 'Harris County Blues.' I came in about a quarter 'til 4, they took the hinges off of both truck doors They stole my tele, & my Guy and Townes compilation The neighbors said to call the law, but there ain't nobody that's taking the fall 'Cause Mexico's a little outta their jurisdiction This is the album's roadhouse rocker, and Dayton lets all his anger channel through his guitar on this cut. The playing invites comparison with the early Blasters' records, the more so because of the similarities between Dayton and The Blasters vocalist Phil Alvin's voice and vocal style. My favorite cut is 'Arkansas Chrome,' also known as The Duct Tape Song. An infectious tune about a road musician who drives to his gigs in a junky old "500 horsepower" car that's "all taped up with Arkansas chrome." Dayton lapses into his rockabilly Road Kings mode on this one and again reminds us of early Blasters. He gives a lucid, pithy and comical description of the Southern road musician's life: Well, it's show, blow, get the dough Pop a pill and try to drive back home My leather dash is crackin' fast But I'll stop it with a strip of Arkansas chrome On 'One Year, Three Months, A Week to the Day,' Dayton enters that Old West historical folk song territory reminiscent of some of Mark David Manders' work. Miners who have left family and normal life behind to make the Gold Rush to California wonder if the venture has been worthwhile. If you are from Texas, you've got to love a line like "California ain't no milk and honey, it ain't nothin' but a waste of mules and money". Dayton slips into honky tonk mode extraordinaire on 'Old Faithful,' 'Angel's Touch,' and 'The Room Full of Blues,' all three of which could fit perfectly on any Texas roadhouse jukebox. 'Old Faithful' tells of a musician's accidental encounter with a former lover and is delivered in a classic Ray Price 'Crazy Arms' style. Even though she's with another man now, she asks "Can you spot us a twenty before you run, 'cause times have been tight." Featuring Brian Thomas on steel guitar and the tasteful swing fiddling of Pat Matula, this song would have been airplay friendly in an earlier era, but it's "too country" for the country stations today. 'Angel's Touch,' though written by Dayton, could be mistaken for a Jim Lauderdale composition. Dayton has covered various Lauderdale tunes in his live shows for years and I had to check the liner notes to be certain that Lauderdale hadn't penned 'Angel's Touch.' The only slow tempo ballad on the record, Dayton delivers it in the tradition of the great honky tonk torch songs. With the full Nashville treatment, this love song could easily hit the commercial radio audience, but once again Dayton's delivery is too direct and unadorned -- too country for country radio. If your wife or girlfriend doesn't like this one, perhaps you are with the wrong woman. With that unmistakable bass and drums rhythm from the opening bars of 'The Room Full of Blues,' Dayton and his ensemble summon up memories of Ole Waylon. But the song goes into dark areas of the psyche where Waylon seldom ventured, even in his white powder days. Now on the outside I'm sure I look just fine I look well adjusted to strangers, never showing a sign But there's a band of skeletons playing inside my head, A song of misery and dread, With a melody so sweet, it lingers on If the world was fair or logical, Jesse Dayton would be selling out arenas, traveling in a fleet of buses, or flying his troupe to the capitols of Europe on chartered 747's while Garth Brooks tuned his guitars, Tim McGraw shined his boots, and Faith Hill ironed his gig clothes. But the world isn't fair. So for now at least, Jesse Dayton keeps loading up his van and hitting the road with a crack band of musical gypsies and producing little gems like "Tall Texas Tales."

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