Mark Selby
Dirt
Vanguard Records
By William Michael Smith
 You
want a lover who can paint you by numbers
You want a lover who can break you in two
I got you covered but you're makin' me wonder
Is that enough? Hell, I'm only one man
I hate it when my wife hears that lyric and her lip purses
into a knowing smile that just barely crosses the line into smirk
territory.
My wife is Barometer-in-Chief around our musical hacienda.
Never one to cut an artist an inch of slack, at 80 miles per
hour with her air-conditioner on "Arctic" and her cellphone
to her ear she can hit an eject button faster than Jimmy Swaggart
can nail a hooker, faster than Ben Johnson can run to the steroid
cabinet, faster than Jerry Falwell can find a liberal bound for
hell, faster than an alt-country band can clean out the flannel
shirt department at Wal-Mart. So when a disc disappears into
her urban assault vehicle and stays as disappeared as an opponent
of Qusay Hussein or Augusto Pinochet, even with my relatively
weak mental processes I can be fairly sure that she is giving
the album the double thumbs up. Mark Selby's Dirt has
been in her car as long as any of her favorites like Jim Lauderdale,
Bob Dylan, Kevin Gordon, John Hiatt, Chuck Prophet, Buddy Miller,
or Tim Krekel. Around her fiefdom, that's all the thumbs up an
album can get.
So why does a virtually unheard of Oklahoman like Mark Selby
rate such a place in my spouse's musical pantheon? He reminds
her of Storyville. Blues rock with funk and a hacksaw guitar
edge. Deep, driving, wiry grooves. Vocals for big girls who know
their way around. And guys too.
Got a snake in my fist, got an axe in my hand
Goin' downtown and find a rocknroll band
Punchin' my ticket for the carnival ride
Got a sly little smile and two sticks of dynamite
Can I give you a light?
Selby is better known as a top-flight songwriter than as a
performer in his own right. His credits include hits by Kenny
Wayne Sheppard ("Blue on Black") and Dixie Chicks ("There's
Your Trouble"). But it's easy to forget those credits when
Selby kicks the album off with the hard-driven "Reason Enough."
Selby's guitar work is in the Dave Grissom category, snarling
slides, world class chording, long rolling heady leads. His vocals
are Joe Cool blues-rock school, and his convincing lyrics come
from the soul's rock bottom or that little dark spot where wrong
originates in all of us.
I don't wanna stay just so I won't have to leave
Don't wanna play it safe just so I won't ever bleed
I ain't gonna walk just 'cause I don't like to crawl
I ain't gonna talk 'cause my back's against the wall
I'm not gonna love just so I won't be alone
No, that ain't reason, that ain't reason enough
In his uptempo mode, Selby has the power to kick holes in
brick walls. "One Man" features Allison Prestwood's
driving bass line with Selby's guitar providing a tasty, wicked
overlay to match the brooding "I'm willin' to burn"
lyric: "That's the truth but the trouble with the truth
is it doesn't even matter now." On "One Man,"
Selby's guitar finds the old Grissom/Storyville power chord jumpstart
and then just rolls ahead like a steamroller in the best Storyville
style. The track is also reminiscent of some of Doyle Bramhall
Sr.'s edgiest rocking material. "Unforgiven" is another
rocker that finds a funky groove and just lets it build. The
title track is ethereal and twangy as befits a mystical dust-to-dust
Oklahoma farmer's vision.
Got my hands on the plow, got my feet in the clay
Got my eyes on the heavens, got the sun on my face
Feel the dust in my marrow, feel the heat in my veins
Burnin', keep burnin', gonna be dirt someday
When he's not rocking, Selby's softer side combines a country
soul feel with the rhythms and observational powers of artists
like Randy Newman. "Back Door To My Heart" could be
a country hit in Tim McGraw's hands with a Nashvegas arrangement,
but I'd rather hear Ray Charles or Solomon Burke or Clarence
Carter sing it. As delivered by Selby, it's a slow, soulful,
wicked blues like we occasionally hear John Hiatt do when he's
in that dark mood.
This is the backdoor to my heart
Oh, but don't you tell a soul
That I've given you the key
To these rooms inside of me
Don't you let nobody know
"If the World Was Mine" is another tune with just
enough sentiment that it could make a great Nashville commercial
track, but in Selby's hands it is more a Jackson Browne kind
of thing. Randy Newman vibes are all over the blue New Orleans
pop sound of "Moon Over My Shoulder." "You"
finds Selby with an acoustic guitar in his hand, but his performance
is closer to soul than to country or folk, while "Desire"
finds Selby in one of his best modes, the slow, burning, electrified
love song that sounds like another branch from the Storyville
tree.
There isn't a weak track on Dirt, but "Easier
to Lie" is a brilliant piece of lyricism about the final
split that works the same hard relationship ground that John
Hiatt has always explored so well and realistically.
It started out simple, simple enough
Couple of bags filled with some of my stuff
Just a few things for a new beginning
Nobody loses, nobody wins, a simple goodbye
But it would've been easier to lie
No sense beating a dead horse, especially when my Barometer-in-Chief
has already cast such an overwhelming landside vote Mark
Selby is just damned good. He fills a huge blues-rock void left
by the dissolution of Storyville. He's got the chops, the lyrics,
and the voice to fill a void that huge. Why Mark Selby isn't
all over AAA radio is a mystery to me. He's smart, he can be
smooth or rough, he can rock or he can take it down to an easier,
quieter listening level without coming across as limp or lame.
OK, enough said. I've got to get this back to the urban assault
vehicle before the Barometer-in-Chief realizes it's gone.
www.vanguardrecords.com
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