Listening to, or reading about, someone’s journey of personal discovery can be, well, a slog. The constants tend to be emotionally draining feelings of fear, uncertainty, doubt, hatred, oppression, repression. Uplifting things like that. So imagine my surprise upon discovering Elliah Heifetz’ first full length album, First Generation American, is actually pretty joyful. Heifetz, son of refugees from the Soviet Union, clearly experienced all the discrimination, distrust, antipathy, and stereotyping that you would imagine a kid who’s “not from here” would live through. The lyrics throughout the record touch on all those subjects, yet by the end of it you just know it’s all turning out OK. Maybe that’s because part of Heifetz’ discovery was his love for good, old-fashioned, country music.
That realization, and the doubt about whether he was “qualified” to be country, sets the tone for the title track. It’s a dancehall, two-stepping number filled with a list of various trepidations, from not knowing about bourbon to having never played football or seen the Swanee River. Speaking of dancehall, Buzzin‘ is a real honky-tonk number with a brilliant idea. Imagine if your party-hearty, responsibility-shirking life was turned into a dive bar anthem, well, you might just have another drink or toke to celebrate. Country Harmony is a duet with life partner Janet Bruce and gives shout-outs to many famous country music duos, from June and Johnny to Emmylou and Rodney.
Heifetz also got a pretty big slug of inspiration from John Prine. Written just a few days after his death, Keep the Grass In the Ground is an imagined conversation with the legend, but couched in the kind of father-son talk that Prine would have described. There’s also a little Prine in The Last Great American Cameleer. It’s a story of an aging immigrant who’s not just from another country, but from another era. Juxtaposed against that is Molly Margarita, a slow rocker, bar band song about a child who has no sense of her heritage.
Applied to his own life experiences, Elliah Heifetz took Harlan Howard’s country music sub-title of “three chords and the truth” and elevated it with stories of an immigrant making his way in America. If you had any doubt being able to make great country music without having grown up living in the country, First Generation American will wipe it away and you’ll get to listen to some damn fine music in the process.
About the author: I've actually driven from Tehatchapee to Tonopah. And I've seen Dallas from a DC-9 at night.