Customer Reviews

Music Town

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The late lamented leader of Uncle Walt's Band (he died in the 1997 ValuJet crash in Florida) offers music from what his good friend Lyle Lovett calls "the sophisticated South." Hyatt's music veers between country, jazz, and unclassifiable offbeat acoustic rock, but this album has a nice straight classic country instrumentation, with lots of fiddle and dance rhythms. The discipline of writing pure country does wonders for Hyatt's songwriting, and I personally slightly prefer this to the "King Tears" album. Check out the very first track, co-written with Alice Randall of "XXXs and OOOs" and the Gone with the Wind parody fame. It's basicallly a straightforward honky-tonk tune, but the artistry in the lyrics will blow you away. There's a lot of pure country poetry here.

I stumbled upon Walter looking to hear older music by David Ball. I can't seem to "type" Walter's music. My favorites seem to have a honky tonk flare to the lyrics, but the others draw me in also, even if the music is not something I would have chosen before.

Walter's music can not really be pigeonholed into one genre of music. He was very talented, he will be missed. I am sorry I was not among the fortunate that did know him.

Walter Hyatt wrote classic and timeliess songs. Most of this album is clear and clean - there are only two less than very to outstanding songs. The rest stand up to repeated listenings and take you where he wanted you to go.