| Coming Home - Kyle Hutton | |
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Reviewed by Jennifer Webb
Kyle Hutton is someone that I had not had the chance to listen to until I received this album, but even after only one listen I knew that he had something special - something unexplainable that drew me in even deeper to the words and music.
Produced by Lloyd Maines, Coming Home, has twelve songs that were either written or co-written by Kyle. Other well-known Texas Country artists helped put their unique touch to the background vocals (Terri Hendrix) and harmonica (Roger Creager).
Starting off the album with a great up-tempo song about how every night and every mile he misses his wife even more, in "Coming Home." Once he finally gets home, he plans on staying up late watching television and kissing her until the sun comes up, just to make up for lost time.
In "Livin' Here With You," Kyle would rather stay at home in Texas and enjoy the company of his wife, instead of jetting off to foreign cities and going to fancy restaurants. Acting rich and spending money is not what gives you happiness, it should be all about family and good times.
"Boy Down Here in Texas" is so perfect for the radio that it makes me wonder why I have not heard it there yet. Sitting on the porch and listening to Grandpa's old stories is something that he misses doing and he wants to go back to his childhood days when going camping was a regular event during the weekends and he would daydream about having a pretty Texas girl as a wife. In the end, though, he says he has two little boys now and a beautiful wife and he gets to take them camping and have a good time so he is passing on the childhood memories to his sons.
My favorite from Coming Home, is the haunting-sounding, "Old Screen Door," a song that tells us the tale of a father-son relationship in three and ten year spans of time starting with the age of three. The three-year-old boy loves to hear the screen door squeak because he missed his daddy, but at age sixteen it is a whole different story. The teenage son's favorite part of the day is when he gets to walk out the door and never come back. At twenty-six, he comes back through the same screen door and he and his father are the best of friends, like it should be. Then the father drifts away from the son as we hear Kyle sing: "Ain't life funny that way, how we all drift away."
Hearing the beginning of the "Star Spangled Banner" gets the listener ready to hear an emotional song about the man's young son coming home and saying the Pledge of Allegiance and misspeaking by saying, "One Nation Over God." He realizes that his son, sadly, is right about what the state of our country is, and how we need to make God a priority again. We also need leaders with values and traditions and he prays that the President can help change the tide.
The spiritual song, "Until We Meet Again," is a great way to close out a release that is full of heartfelt songs that focus on loving your family and having faith. With his easy to listen to voice, and awesome songwriting ability, Kyle Hutton is bound to be even more of a success than he already is because I could listen to his music all day and every day of the week.
Song List:
Song clips courtesy of Kyle Hutton (Official)
Album cover, used with permission of River Bend Recordings.