Some people collect old vinyl records. Some people collect autographs. As far as I can tell, Ryan Humbert and his bandmates in The Shootouts collect guest stars. They just released their 4th album, Switchback, and it includes appearances from Vince Gill, Rodney Crowell, and Sam Bush, among others. Their previous records have featured Chuck Mead, Ray Benson, Marty Stuart, Raul Malo, Buddy Miller, Jim Lauderdale…you get the picture. And it’s not like they just called in favors from neighbors in Nashville or Austin. The band is based in Akron, Ohio, that bastion of country music.
Like their previous releases, hard-driving honky-tonk features prominently in the set list. I’ll Be Damned was a Pure Prairie League song from back in the day. It gets the full twang treatment here, including PPL member Vince Gill on vocals. The title cut is an instrumental pickathon in the Bakersfield style, with the twist of having Sam Bush on mandolin. Only Good At Goodbye slows things down with a ballad, with Logan Ledger taking a turn on guest vocals. When Humbert sings, “I’ll sell you a lie in the blink of an eye” you know a long-term relationship is not in the cards.
Perhaps a little more than in previous albums, the band pushes into some adjacencies style-wise. Half A World Away features Rodney Crowell and some fine pedal steel work in a more modern sound. The Other Side of My Life is straight-ahead rock and roll with driving electric guitar. Your Love (I’m Afraid Of) also rocks out in a tale of a dysfunctional relationship where Humbert notes “being held’s a little different from being held down.” Just Another Sunday is so 70’s Muscle Shoals you expect Aretha Franklin to come in on vocals. That obviously doesn’t happen, but Mickey Raphael puts in a sweet turn on harmonica. In another shoutout to Pure Prairie League, final cut Dancing With the Distance is classic country rock. And even though they’re “shadowed by the songs that Prine and Haggard made”, it’s clear the band intends to keep up the hard work making the best music they can.
That blue collar attitude was no doubt instilled in The Shootouts member’s Rust Belt upbringing. I think it also gave them a grounding in authenticity that’s sometimes hard to find in today’s “just call it country” bandwagon. I suspect that genuine love for the genre is a big part of what persuaded the guest stars to sit in for a song or two. Either way, if you’re ready for some roots music that starts in your heart and goes all the way down through the soles of your shoes, take a listen to Switchback.
About the author: I've actually driven from Tehatchapee to Tonopah. And I've seen Dallas from a DC-9 at night.