Somewhere around the middle of the Natchez Trace Parkway, halfway between the (in)famous crossroads of Clarksdale, MS, and Nashville, home of The Grand Old Opry and the Ryman, lays the spiritual home of The Nouveaux Honkies. Â That’s where you’re halfway between blues and country. Â Those two genres aren’t always too related, but Hank Williams, for one, knew they were kinfolk. Â I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry practically defines twangy blues. Â The Honkies sophomore album explores that relationship a little more fully.
Starting with the title track where they lament they’re “too blues for country, and too country for the blues”, the duo of Tim O’Donnell and Rebecca Hawkins does a masterful job of blending and bending styles. Â Life Ain’t Easy is about the hard life on the road where “booker man laying on a beach somewhere, I spent 5 days in the same underwear” is as apt an assessment of paying dues as I’ve heard. Â Whiskey’s Gettin’ Harder To Drink is a bona fide picture of the travails of getting old, even if the authors are old enough by half to have experienced it. Â And it hits home a little closer than I’d like to admit.
A few of the songs on the record are a little more light-hearted. Â I Know Things You Read About is maybe the ultimate blue collar song with a honky tonk current to one’s self-worth being about life experiences more than bank balances. Â Velvet is a love song about, well, I don’t know what. Â At first I thought it was about a car due to a line about the junkyard, but maybe it’s just a metaphor. Â Either way, it has a nice head-bobbing quality to it, as does Two Doors Down From Paradise.
The Nouveaux Honkies represent so much of what’s good about Americana music today. Â They’re a regional band out of Florida who travels around the south and live in their pimped out RV. Â They clearly have so much respect for all the types of music that have been born in the region. Â Then they take all of those styles and make them into their own. Â The result, in this case Blues For Country, is something any true music fan will really enjoy.
About the author: I've actually driven from Tehatchapee to Tonopah. And I've seen Dallas from a DC-9 at night.