Pauline Reese
Trail to Monterey
Parador Records

by William Michael Smith

Trail to Monterey is kinda like a new John Deere tractor. It may be plowing familiar ground, but it plows it right. Other than the title track, the album is a honky-tonked mixture of covers that Austin's Pauline Reese delivers in a torch-barroom style with the more-than-able assistance of producer Clay Blaker's band.

Reese fares well on the sounds-like-the-single title track, the only song here she wrote (with Marcus David Kennedy). It stands out lyrically and stylistically from the other tracks, with a more modern folk-story sound with some nice Joe Ely style Spanish guitar accents. We'll need more original material to truly gauge Reese's writing talent, but "Trail to Monterey" is an interesting cowboy-legend tale about one of the fallen from the Alamo whose ghost can be encountered along the trail between El Paso and Mexico.

Here's a story known to many about a road to Mexico
It's told to every cowboy riding out of El Paso
If you go below the border you take the road by day
But don't get caught at sundown on the trail to Monterey

Otherwise, except for a swingabilly jump version of Monte Warden's "Black Vinyl Car Seat," most of the tracks are mid-tempo country or slow-dance tunes with lots of Texas fiddle and weeping steel. A regular act at Poodie's Hilltop Grill outside Austin (owned by Poodie Locke, longtime Willie Nelson business associate), Reese's musical tastes tend toward the jazzy guitar sounds of Western swing and the torch singer moves of Patsy Kline and other early day female western singers. She not only covers Nelson's "Night Life," but also delivers "No Dancing" and "Texas and Oklahoma," written by Seminole, Texas native, Willie Nelson songwriter /producer, and Merle Haggard collaborator, Freddy Powers.

Reese also does an interesting rendition of Kate Bush's wistful, sultry "Green Eyes," and her take on Blaker's "Love Me" is sultry and smooth, something for late at night. Tommy Dettamore's Lloyd Green-ish steel work sets this track off.

There's nothing new here, but there's nothing bad either. Reese hasn't arrived yet as a writer, so she sticks with solid, sturdy material like the honky tonkin' "Don't Leave Me Standing Here" that is more than serviceable for any Texas gig. This is Texas barroom music, made for boot-scooting and good times. Except for the title track, it makes no pretense to be anything else. It will be interesting to follow Reese as her voice matures and life hands her a few scars and lessons, because she certainly has the vocal tools to become a force in the Texas tonk scene as she matures. She has good instincts. All she needs now is to find her own thing.

*Word reaching us from "the field" is that Ms. Reese has a crackerjack honky tonk band and a lively show worth taking in. She plays Broken Spoke in Austin quite a bit, always a good indication of a band's danceability. www.paulinereese.com


Contact William Michael Smith at: wms-at-rockzilla.net

 
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