Ronny Elliott - Poisonville Blue Heart Records

By William Michael Smith

	He woke up in a blood-soaked bed, struggled through a mess in his mind Rubbed his eyes and staggered to his feet, he prayed that he wasn't gonna find The pretty dagger from a Times Square gyp joint, stickin' from a gash in her side --- 'Room 101,' Ronny Elliott I could tell before the first verse of the first song was finished why Ronny Elliott, with 35 years in this crazy business under his belt, isn't a star. He's the real deal. With a voice somewhere between Johnny Cash, Butch Hancock, and Bruce Springsteen and some song stories that go where the nice folks who always play it safe don't, Ronny Elliott hasn't got a chance at stardom. Nobody is going to offer him the Big Bucks. The record company limo is going to pass by and leave him on the curb. So why can't I get his CD out of my player? Ronny Elliott is a real life Cool Hand Luke. He just isn't going to play by the rules because even though he understands how the rules got to be the rules, he just doesn't buy it. And he damn sure doesn't understand why the ruled put up with the rules or how they ever let themselves get in the position of being subject to the rules. But if going his own way and being a fairly unknown, widely ignored musician from Tampa, Florida is what it takes to keep from playing by the rules, then he's going to be a fairly unknown, widely ignored musician from Tampa, Florida and like it. To hell with anybody who doesn't. In 35 years Elliott has seen it all, seen the whole thing develop, change, mutate, decay. He's toured with Chuck Berry, Bill Haley, Bo Diddley, Gene Vincent, opened for Jimi Hendrix, played on bills with Van Morrison, Blood, Sweat and Tears - and Tiny Tim. But not long after all that happened, something came over Ronny Elliott. He didn't continue chasing the rock and roll dream. Not many people know it or acknowledge it, but Ronny Elliott became one of the true father's of insurgent country. Or alt-country. Or whatever you want to call it. He doesn't get much credit for it - that's usually reserved for Gram Parsons or The Byrds or The Burrito Brothers. But Ronny Elliott was doing insurgent country so far back, no one knew what to call it. Or what to make of it. His latest release, "Poisonville," is the usual Elliott mixture of sardonic wit, outlaw poet intellect, history lessons they don't teach in school, and even the occasional sermon. It is filled with bohemian images and fatalistic darkness and is delivered so matter-of-factly, without any contrived sense of artifice, that it undoubtedly scares hell out of radio executives and radio advertisers and the music establishments of New York, Los Angeles, and especially Nashville. This guy makes Steve Earle and other crop of "neo-outlaws" look like mere posers. Elliott is backed by The Nationals, and unless you are a trivia bug who goes around memorizing the players on highly obscure records, you won't recognize any of the names - Walt Bucklin on bass, guitar, and harmonica; Steve Connelly on guitar, lap steel, Oahu lap guitar, mandolin and organ; Harry Hayward on drums and National tenor guitar; Jim McNealon on pedal steel, lap steel, and Oahu lap guitar; and Natty Moss-Bond on backup vocals. But can The Nationals ever play, and play unlike any band you can call to mind. They have wonderful pacing, playing with lots of finesse and leaving considerable open space rather than just hammering away, filling every silence. The drummer is prone to military beats that give an added dramatic somberness to the songs. And if you like twang or those big open chords like David Grissom filled Joe Ely's records with, these pickers can bring it in spades. Elliott writes in his liner notes: "I love The Nationals. They're all badasses. They don't play like other people." 'Nuff said. But it is Elliott's lyrics and voice that make this record one I can't take out of my CD player and consign to the in-waiting rack. 'Room 101,' quoted in part above, is about Sex Pistol Sid Vicious and his lover, Nancy Spungen, who he was accused of stabbing to death in a New York hotel room October 12, 1978. Vicious died of a heroin overdose in February of 1979. While Vicious' death wasn't ruled a suicide by the coroner, it is believed by those close to him that he deliberately overdosed. 'Room 101' is a black tale of desperate love, codependency, drug abuse and the perils of the music game, and Elliott delivers nothing but the naked truth. And in typical ironic Elliott literary style, we have the juxtaposition of an insurgent country song that is about a punk rocker accused of murdering his lover. All the dope and the fame and the sex and the money meant nothing in the February snow He knew in his heart the light was gone, he stuck a needle in his arm for the show 'Burn, Burn, Burn' ("I only want to be with the ones who burn, burn, burn/Ones in love with the night, they light up like a cigarette") is pure existentialism of the best sort, an edgy twanger filled with the kinds of lines Springsteen wrote early in his career. Elliott says he wrote this song after reading Kerouac late one night "worrying I might miss something." It is an exquisite lyric. I want a romance, I'm feedin' the fire I'm looking for poetry, searching for desire I'm praying for God, beggin' for gin, I'm lookin' for goodness, livin' for sin I'm walkin' around Heaven, diamond dust on my shoes, All the angels are naked, singin' the blues I've got a copy of "Lolita" just in case I need it A monkey on my back, try not to feed it Elliott describes the title track as "just a bunch of dark images and depressing thoughts" and credits the crime novelist Dashiel Hammett as the inspiration. Like several of Elliott's songs, 'Poisonville' reminds me of the quiet yet brilliant work of Butch Hancock. As with any Elliott song, the lyrics are excellent, and this track has some particularly nice steel guitar work. Maybe in this lyric we get a true glimpse of why Elliott will never be a "big star." There's a long road behind me, long road as far as I can see My compass and my road map are the lines in my brow and my palm The road that's straight is never the road that's free Elliott's band shines on the countrified blues, 'When Mr. Blues Comes to Town.' Assisted by harmonica player Rock Bottom, this track reminds us of Johnny Cash in the Sun Records days, back before all the division lines had been drawn in music. Elliott, who was born and raised in Birmingham, Alabama is nothing if not political. His 'Letter From a Birmingham Jail' is a tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr., who was jailed in Birmingham in 1963. The song is delivered much like the protest songs of the '60's. Elliott calls this number "one of my tacky, heavy-handed songs that U.S. critics don't think I should do." He delivers it with sincerity and utter integrity. He was there and he doesn't pull any punches with his imagery. Bo Connor's dogs were chasing people down and freedom seemed far away Loving your enemy, a rough sermon to preach But bless them that curse you and pray for the ones who despise you Let the waters of justice roll on was his message to teach Elliott expounds on his version of the history of rock and roll in 'Born in 1947.' Elliott notes a litany of major musical events that happened in 1947 in making a very strong case for 1947 being the year that both he and rock and roll were born: Hank Williams cut his first record that year; Howlin' Wolf met Junior Parker and they formed a band; Roy Brown cut 'Good Rockin' Tonight;' Wynonie Harris signed with King Records; twelve year old Elvis Aaron Presley started taking his guitar to school everyday; Louis Jordan cut 'Reet, Petite, and Gone', "a real rocker"; Ahmet Ertugen and Herb Abramson started Atlantic Records; Johnny Otis cut down the size of his big band and moved home to L.A.; the Shelton Brothers cut a hillbilly version of Blind Lemon Jefferson's 'Matchbox Blues' "that would pass through Carl Perkins' hands before we got it back from The Beatles;" Leonard and Phil Chess started Aristocrat Records; it cost a dollar to get into the Apollo Theater; Jimmy Liggons recorded 'Cadillac Boogie,' "maybe the first rock and roll record." But what's the point of knowing all this history if you don't know what to make of it? Elliott knows. Now the radio has gone to hell Hank Williams has gone to heaven They ask you when rock and roll was born You tell 'em 1947 The rest of the record is filled with equally telling songs, each with its own peculiar twist or point of view or point that makes it a cut above the usual material on records of all genres today. There's 'Bluer Than You,' one seriously sad song; 'Bitter Breeze,' a history of how the sugar barons stole Hawaii from the gentle Queen Liliokelani while the lame-duck Harding government cowered in the shadows; Terry Clarke's 'Irish Rockabilly Blues,' another boozy Johnny Cash foot stomper; the folky 'I Watched Her Tango' ("Around midnight some years ago, three friends and I took some bad advice from a guy pouring drinks in a bar in Bahia Blanca/If you don't speak the language, buy your own booze"), a foreign adventure gone wrong. But there are two songs in the last half of the record that to me exemplify and personify Mr. Ronny Elliott, that fit him to a Tee. 'Dirty Dreams' is one of those lonely-man-in-a-foreign-land-where-the-rules-are-different songs that would fit perfectly as the theme song for the Robert Boswell novel of gringo decadence in Latin America, "The Geography of Desire." This is not a frat-boy coming-of-age trip across the Rio Grande. The best of well laid plans have a way of sinkin' I should know by now that love can't really conquer all This girl in the yellow dress has got me thinkin' For a night of romance, I'm ready to crawl I'll sign our name Senor and Senorita for the desk clerk Got this bottle and this orchid and this trinket for the girl of my dreams I'm needin' affection and Consuela is lookin' for a night's work Nothing's ever as complicated as it seems The other song that cuts to the deepest recesses of Elliott is 'Bury Him Like a Prince.' It tells of three famous "artists of living," the artist Modigliani, the obscure rockabilly legend Benny Joy ("he had a spirit and a soul too raw for Dick Clark"), and Grand Prix racer Count von Trips, who died in a crash at Monza that took 14 lives, including his own. Elliott paints each man as a burning flame, a hedonist bon vivant, a prince among men. Modigliani came to Paris in 1906, he never looked back He traded drawings for absinthe and hashish, sculpture and oils for the finest cognac Picasso, Brecht, and Rousseau, they all painted from a fire in the soul The Prince of Montparnasse never noticed, he never wavered from his role And he painted real pretty and he partied real hard, There's never been another one before or since Modigliani died and his brother wrote a letter Said, "Boys, bury him like a prince." Elliott closes the record by reprising Stephen Foster's 'Oh, Susanna,' to which he has "restored the dreaded second verse to remind us that maybe society does inch along." No one who was giving any consideration to record executives or financial payback would ever have done so. In my position with Rockzillaworld I get to hear a lot of good records, even some great records occasionally. Finding a record like "Poisonville" by a relatively anonymous artist with the kind of integrity and intellect that Ronny Elliott possesses is like finding a perfect diamond buried in the compost pile. It is so full of artistic beauty and edge-of-the-blade realism, it is, like the subjects of 'Bury Him Like a Prince,' too hot to handle. Ronny Elliott sings and writes with the heart of a sailor, an explorer, a world traveler, like the kind of guy who reads Kerouac and fears that he's missing something. If you don't hear "Poisonville," you've missed something too. * Visit 'Poisonville" at www.ronnyelliott.com You can't trust the water, but at least the history books are true. Contact William Michael Smith at: wms-at-rockzilla.net

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