Everyone has their demons. There are many people who have turned those demons into musical artistry. Unfortunately, that doesn’t always mean the story ends well. For British Columbian Bob Sumner, it seems like maybe it will. A genetic heart disease diagnosis became the catalyst for him to overcome alcoholism and turn his energy more toward his music and celebrating every new day. Sadly, some of his co-travelers on the darker part of the journey didn’t make it. They became the inspiration for several songs and the title of his new album, Someplace To Rest Easy.
The CD begins with Bridges. It’s one of the songs written for a now-lost friend, and as the piece builds to the end you can hear the fervent hope that “maybe the bridges you burn might light your way back home.” Next up is Motel Room. With its dobro, fiddle, and steel guitar highlights this is a fine, twangy, country song. “Now ya got your 2.6 of bourbon and your party of one” is a reminder that while things might have started as a fun excursion, the harsh reality of the disease is anything but a good time. The record finishes with Is It Really Any Wonder. It’s basically a folk song, but with some surprising synth parts that uplift what is otherwise a story of drinking to dull the pain and shut out the world.
Sumner is clearly an aficionado of the glory days of Nashville’s countrypolitan sound. Baby I Know is a Charlie Rich-smooth waltz where a lonesome harmonica provides a counterpoint to the majestic strings and hope that love will overcome all the mean bits that life throws at you. Don’t We Though has a similar arrangement. Lonesome Sound is the most uptempo tune on the track list. Classic strings and pedal steel duel it out to portray the notion that there’s nothing more lonesome than the sound of a city at night. The sonic outlier on the album is Forty Years on the Floor. It has a serious groove like having the top down on a sunny day and no particular place you have to be.
It takes a deft hand to put out a good, sad record. Go a little too far in one direction and it borders on the tragic. A little excess in the other way and it’s a self-pitying, woe-is-me tale no one wants to hear. But if you nail it, it’s a crying-in-your-beer sound to make Hank Williams or George Jones fans question their allegiance. Bob Sumner nails it on Someplace To Rest Easy.
About the author: I've actually driven from Tehatchapee to Tonopah. And I've seen Dallas from a DC-9 at night.