| Texas Road Trip - Various Artists | |
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Reviewed by Jennifer Webb
Texas Road Trip: Songs From the Texas Roadside was Compadre Records' first release composed of well-known Texas Country musicians and singer/songwriters coming together to put their great highway/road related songs together.
There are four previously unreleased songs on this album: "Runaway Cadillac" by Jack Ingram, "Heartbreak Highway" by Clay Blaker, "Heartaches and Highways" by Rodney Hayden, and "Road Song Medley" by Kevin Fowler. Some other artists included are: Ed Burleson ("Goin' Home To Texas"), Dub Miller ("Miles and Memories"), Luke Olson ("Panhandle Sunset"), and many others.
Gary P. Nunn starts off the album with the aptly titled, "Road Trip," a song about going to Lukenbach that sets the whole feel of cruising down the highways with the top down and visiting clubs and having a great time.
"Swervin' In My Lane," by Robert Earl Keen, is a road-themed song that is really about life's highway instead of the blacktop. When it comes to women, he says that you need to realize what you are doing to a person when you leave them, "when you're swervin' off life's highway, you're running someone off the road," in other words, you are breaking their heart.
Roger Creager has, I think, one of the nicest voices in Country Music, and including "Fun All Wrong" on this album was an excellent choice. After the woman leaves, he starts seeing what she saw of him and he is out there seeing the beauty of the bluebonnets, where he decides he loves the country and wants to see it all. Cranking up the truck and going on to a concert performed by one of his heroes, and then following Robert Earl Keen from Dallas on to Corpus Christi, "the sparkling city by the sea" is Roger's way of getting some therapy. But, after all of that trouble, he still ends up back where he started, all alone in Canyon Lake, though at least he did have some fun on his trip around Texas.
Jason Boland & The Stragglers sing about wanting to break loose from the monotony of life in the roll-along tune, "Travelin' Jones." Jason says that once you experience the open road you never really want to do anything else and you become addicted to the free feeling you get while traveling.
You can't have a Texas road trip, without a song about the greatest interstate of all, "I-35." Max Stalling sings about saying hello to the cities along this stretch of road as he makes his way to his next unknown destination. He starts out in Dallas, says hello to Austin and that it looks fine, as he passes San Marcos he states that he cannot stay there long because of a storm, and then he says "Hola" to San Antonio. A great line in the song, and my favorite part, is, "There's a piece of mind in the straightaway, and there's comfort in the curve."
Another song that mentions the famous city of Lukenbach, is Tommy Alverson's mellow "Hill Country Here I Come." Even though it is December, it feels like a spring day and Tommy is tired of being cooped up, so when he gets an invitation to sing at a party in Lukenbach, he decides to take off. While watching those white lines pass by, he wonders if he will ever go back to the life he used to live, because he starts thinking about playing at Gruene Hall and then possibly Bandera; all places that are in the Hill Country that he loves so much.
The last song, "Road Song Medley," is performed by none other than Mr. Kevin Fowler, a guy that you can tell always has a good time when he sings any song. This medley is such a flawless combination of "Truck Drivin' Man," and "East Bound & Down," that you cannot even tell there are two completely different songs contained in only one.
With the temperatures starting to warm up a little bit, people might be getting the urge to take a road trip with some good music playing and the warm sun shining down upon the countryside, so why not listen to songs specifically about road trips? It seems like a perfect combination and this album would certainly fill the bill.
Song List:
Sound clips courtesy of Barnes & Noble
Album cover, used with permission of Curb.
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