Lee Roy Parnell
Tell the Truth
Vanguard Records 79589-2


by William Michael Smith

They can teach you life's lessons you think I don't know
But you just can't live in Texas if you don't have a lot of soul
---Doug Sahm, "Crossroads"

It's obvious Lee Roy Parnell hasn't been hanging out on Music Row much these days because his new album Tell The Truth presents a beefy mix of Parnell's virtuoso blues guitar, first class songs delivered with Parnell's distinct white boy blues vocal style, and a choice selection of guest players and singers (Keb' Mo', Delbert McClinton, Bonnie Bramlett, The Mississippi Mass Choir, Jay Boy Adams, and old friend Jack Pearson from the Allman Brothers) who have little or no association with country music. With the artist-friendly Vanguard label supporting his first independent effort, Parnell leaves Nashville behind for Tell The Truth, opting to record in the place where he did some of his earliest session work, the legendary Muscle Shoals, Alabama studios. Combining great songwriting with white-hot blues and soul arrangements, Parnell has recorded a rich, near-perfect album that will likely be a watershed in his career, vaulting him in a single leap from the country music box to the broader freedom of Americana.

One thing Parnell's Nashville stardom cost him was the freedom to use and explore his massive roadhouse blues guitar talent. On Tell The Truth, Parnell is finally free of the restrictions and does he ever deliver. Guitar lovers will be mesmerized by Parnell's solo work on this album. On stellar tracks like "Right Where It Hurts," the searing West Texas coming of age song "Crossin' Over," or the soulful ballad with Bonnie Bramlett "Breaking Down Slow," it is no stretch of the imagination or an exercise in flippant hyperbole to compare Parnell's guitar work to the Allmans (who Parnell was frequently invited to sit in with early in his career) or to Stax soul-master Steve Cropper. Parnell can hold his own with any blues player on the scene today and he shows it throughout Tell The Truth.

Another pleasant surprise is Parnell's rediscovery of the horns that mysteriously vanished from his recordings after his debut album. Horns have long been a part of the great Muscle Shoals sound, and the horn tracks on Tell The Truth have the vintage sound of the classic Otis Redding and Aretha Franklin Muscle Shoals tracks from the late '60s and early '70s. The tracks with horns also show the obvious historic link between Parnell and McClinton.

Parnell also explores the gospel sounds of the Southern black church with the joyous uptempo "Brand New Feeling," where he is backed by The Mississippi Mass Choir. Kevin McKendree's church house keyboards are particularly notable on this raise-the-roof track.

Granted freedom from Top 40 commercial considerations, Parnell stretches out in several bluesy directions on Tell The Truth. With acoustic bluesman Keb' Mo' on "I Declare," Parnell plays acoustic lead and rhythm guitar opposite Keb's National steel slide work on a jazzy country blues. Parnell shows off his own skills with the National on the reflective and somber title track that, presented in another way with a cheesy arrangement, could fit the Nashville hit mold.

With no need for re-creating
Things that never occurred
No posturing and masquerading
Just a lie in other words
As simple as it seems
It's the hardest thing to do
Why don't we just tell
Just tell
Tell the truth

Parnell has always been unusually adept at putting over a heartfelt ballad and on the philosophical and spiritual "Guardian Angel" and on Gretchen Peters' quiet, reflective "Love's Been Rough On Me" which was originally recorded by blues great Etta James, Parnell pulls all the vocal heartstrings like the seasoned professional balladeer that he is.

"Takes What It Takes" sees Parnell in a jazzy blues-funk groove. The track progresses from icy coolness to a house ablaze as Parnell again shows why the Allmans let him sit in with the top blues jam band ever assembled. Parnell shows off a staggering number of choice licks and melodic figures from his bag of guitar tricks.

But the tracks that bring the house down, the tracks Texans are punching their radio dials in search of are Parnell's raucous roadhouse duet with Delbert McClinton, the tongue in cheek homesick Texo-centric "South By Southwest," and the blistering blues rocker "Crossin' Over." Written with songwriting giants Dan Penn and Texan Gary Nicholson, "South By Southwest" lays out clearly where Parnell is at with his music and his career at this juncture.

Money and music can work both ways
I'll get it figured out one of these days
When a country boy sings the lonesome blues
The Music Row mob gets a little confused
I guess I've got a few things to get off my chest, headin'
South by Southwest

Also written with Nicholson, "Crossin' Over" is the monster guitar scorcher on this guitar-centered album. A tale of a West Texas boy "crossin' over" the border for a night of illicit fun, it has all the authentic detail that Robert Earl Keen, Jr. fills his songs with, but Parnell and Nicholson achieve a gritty reality that Keen's "Gringo Honeymoon" avoids or chooses to overlook.

She took my hand in that little cantina
Whispered her name was Angelina
Boys from San Angelo never seen a
Woman put together that way
She laughed a little, she could tell I was shy
But with a little more tequila I was ready to try
But when I heard a little baby cry
I laid my money down and walked away

In this time when even in music-rich Texas we are being bombarded with our own brand of cookie cutter acts all loudly trumpeting themselves to be anti-Nashville and true to the spirit of Texas music as they slavishly imitate each other and chase the same frat boy audience, we can only hope that some of them are paying attention to Parnell because his "Crossin' Over" shows one of the many ways "Texas music" can go other than the "I-wanna-be-the-next-Pat-Green" mode that many of our young players currently seem to be pursuing. Parnell shows what ear-pleasing possibilities there are in this thing we call Texas music.

Forget Lee Roy Parnell's string of hits in the '90s. One listen to Tell The Truth and it's like the Nashville Parnell never existed, like Lee Roy never left the roadhouses and Texas bars where his career began. Just as his mentor and former boss Delbert McClinton has found his niche in bluesy roadhouse funk, with Tell The Truth Abilene-born Lee Roy Parnell has a great opportunity to shed the limits Nashville placed on his music and evolve into an Americana radio staple just as McClinton has.

* If Delbert McClinton is your musical cup of tea, you can't go wrong with Lee Roy Parnell's Tell The Truth. It's bluesy, it's funky, it's sassy, and it's Texan to the core.
Check him out at www.leeroyparnell.com and www.vanguardrecords.com



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

 
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