Wednesday, May 2, 2007

There, I Said It - Hail, Hail Tommy Womack!!

I have recovered from the NFL Draft and I'll be merciful and not bore you with any amateur analysis.
I'll get back to the music.
I had been meaning to write and praise Tommy Womack’s new album There I Said It. and since I didn’t get an assignment for it, let me just praise it now. Womack is one of those “other side of Nashville” cats, like Todd Snider or Tim Carroll. Rockin’ witty singer/songwriter who don’t write for Alan Jackson or Shania Twain.
Womack was in the bands Government Cheese and the Bis-quits. They probably don’t ring many bells. He wrote a rock n roll memoir the Cheese Chronicles. It didn’t make the best seller list. He made some dandy solo albums, with sharp, ragged tunes about the Replacements, Cheetah Chrome, getting drunk and women.
Then he disappeared for a while. He had a little breakdown. He got a 9-5 job but couldn’t shake rock n roll.
Earlier this year, he released There, I Said It. It’s another terrific album made all the most powerful by his open grappling with his “troubles.” The album title comes from the tune “I’m Never Gonna Be A Rock Star”, which pretty summarizes his warts-and-all admission about his career. His slice of life tunes range from the bluesy “Too Much Month At The End of the Xanax” to the rather hopeful “Nice Day”, which talks about the joys that his son brings him. Other songs like “Alpha Male & The Canine Mystery Blood” and “A Cockroach After The Bomb” are funny/sad looks at the life he has and the life that he had.
On “25 Years Ago” he draws poignant but unflinching portraits of Nashville’s musical fringe, folks who had 15 seconds of fame or none at all.
Womack hopefully won’t be one of these folks in the future. He’s too talented a guy.
And that’s not just a fellow fortysomething with Womack.
There, I said it.
His website is tommywomack.com and you can find him on youtube at
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=tommy+womack

Michael B

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