Artist
Bill Kirchen

Release Date
02/10/10

Rating

Bill Kirchen WORD TO THE WISE Proper PRPCD053  Guitar great joined by a truckload of star chums

Lanky, bespectacled and wellspoken, Bill Kirchen has always been the antithesis of the truck-driving, diesel-belching character he portrays on his records. Here he points his Telecaster down a different road and comes up with a Mustang of an album. The twangy, bassy lead that’s faster than a speeding state patrol car is still here, but there’s clever variety, not to mention a starstudded cast. Kirchen has sought out a bunch of chums he’s worked with down the years and got them on the running board for a helter-skelter drive through myriad musical styles. The concept is not unlike Martin Belmont’s GUEST LIST album last year, with the guitarist playing alongside top vocalists.

So we’ve got Nick Lowe and Paul Carrack on Everlys-style harmony on Merle Haggard’s gentle Shelly’s Winter Love (with appropriate country licks), followed by Elvis Costello on Kirchen’s own Man In The Bottom Of The Well (with growling guitar wouldn’t find itself on a truckstop jukebox), followed by the jolly rocker I Don’t Work That Cheap, with Commander (George Frayne) Cody on honky-tonk piano, the pair’s first recorded work since the 80s.

Asleep At The Wheel’s Chris O’Connell sings a gorgeously country Husbands And Wives (the Roger Miller Tune) while Dan Hicks joins in on a duet with Kirchen on the swinging title track. There are also appearances by Maria Muldaur and former Lost Planet Airmen Blackie Farrell and the late Norton Buffalo, along with bass, vocals and production (on both sides of the Atlantic) by Brit country-rock veteran Paul Riley.

That’s not to say the album relies on guests; there’s also a decent serving of Kirchen-only tracks, such as the opening rocker Bump Wood and the mandolin-led Arkansas Diamond. Great stuff and, despite the famous names, still a guitar album through and through. ND www.maverick-country.com   www.properuk.com