Trent Willmon

Trent Willmon | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 12, 2004)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Sony
• ASIN: B00049QNPI
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #150,136 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

West Texas native Willmon doesn't just write most of his material; he does so with few collaborators, applying his smoky, tense baritone to a world he knows firsthand. On this debut, he celebrates icons of rural living such as brown-bottle beer ("Beer Man"), Southern hybrid stores (that mix bait and guns with laundromats), and the simple everyday routine of a working man ("The Good Life"). "The Wishing Well," a finely nuanced musical novelette, chronicles comings and goings in a rural barroom. His reflective, confessional "Every Now and Then" breaks the usual musical and lyrical clichés of most drinking songs. Willmon based the evocative, bittersweet "Medina Daydreaming" on memories of the Texas Hill Country. Can Willmon tear up a stage? He proves it with "All Day Long," a searing Texas fusion of Southern blues-rock and Western swing. Paired with the producer Frank Rogers, who handles Brad Paisley and Josh Turner, Willmon has much in common with both of those singers: 21st Century traditionalism with true staying power. --Rich Kienzle

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ladies and gentlemen: THIS is country music!, October 12, 2004

By 

DanD - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Trent Willmon (Audio CD)

With his rugged downhome voice and darned-good songwriting skills, Trent Willmon's debut CD takes country music back to the old days: when a song was poetry, and a singer was an artist.

If you are put off by the novelty-factor in the first two singles ("Beer Man" and "Dixe Rose Deluxe's..."), have no fear: there is enough heart (and heartbreak) on this album to satisfy the stone-cold country music fan within you. The topics of these songs are the very essence of country music: the working man, beer, home, heartbreak, and happiness. Highlights include the flat-out emotional "Home Sweet Holiday Inn," the rockin "She Don't Love Me" (gives Billy Ray Cyrus's version--TIME FLIES--a run for its money), the autobiographical "Medina Daydreaming," the poetic "Here," and...hell, every other song!

With lyrics that are simple yet profound ("I just do it every now and then/To remind myself why i just do it every now and then", "You oughta hear the stories they don't tell/Down at the wishing well"), and a voice that was destined to sing country songs, Trent Willmon is a treat. Hopefully, he'll become a superstar: he'll get the status he deserves, and he won't soon fade out of sight. And yet, Willmon sums himself up in the first song: "Ya'll, I'm just a beer man." And he is: a working man who sings songs for those of us who are ordinary, blue-collar people. A poet for the common man, in other words.

And no, I'm not exaggerating.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing..., June 11, 2005

A Kid's Review

This review is from: Trent Willmon (Audio CD)

I bought this cd for one song only which is usually a risk. I am so glad that I took it. I only wish that Columbia would start doing something good with Trent's career. They (right now) are doing a horrible job and Trent deserves better.
The first two songs (Beer Man and Dixie Rose Deluxe) are fun songs that will make you feel good.
Home Sweet Holiday Inn- (the song I bought the album for)is superb. It is heartbreaking and I can't help but choke up when I listen to it. The song is remarkably well written.

She Don't Love Me- previously recorded by Billy Ray Cyrus on his publically-ignored album "Time Flies" and I can't decide what version I like more. I'm leaning towards Trent.

The Good Life- it's (to me)about apreciating the little things in life that you'd miss a lot of they weren't there. Great song co-written by Bobby Pinson (who has a great new cd out!) and Trent Willmon.

Population 81- a wonderful song that makes you feel the heartache the guy is going through.

Medina Daydreaming- really hard to describe. You'd have to hear it.

The Wishing Well- fun song to sing along to and is pretty true.

All Day Long- another fun song but definitely worth a listen

Every Now and Then- a slow song about drinking to forget things. Emotions will fly while listening to this song.

Here- one of the best songs EVER written. This song made me actually cry and almost no songs can make me do that these days. The guy in the song is talking to his wife. The twist is the guy is dead. It is hard to explain more than that. You'd have to really hear it to get how it works out.

If you are thinking about getting this cd, do it now!! It will be worth the money.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars ONE OF THE BEST OF 2004, October 29, 2004

By 

Crabby Apple Mick Lee (INDIANAPOLIS, IN USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Trent Willmon (Audio CD)

One of the many winning aspects of Country music is its many "love letters" to the places where we come from. You don't have to be from Alabama while listening to "My Home's In Alabama" or from Tennessee with "Back Where I Come From" to know what the singer is talking about and understand the feeling. Trent Willmon is from West Texas and brings to the floor all the merits we have come to expect from real Texans. A self-admitted "wannabe cowboy" Willmon sings a dusty baritone in songs who's subjects he knows well. "Love Of Place" is not so much overtly stated as running beneath the surface. This kind of music could have come from nowhere else but Texas.

With Willmon's debut, we are treated in varying degrees of humor, sadness and wistfulness with songs about being a regular guy ("Beer Man"), the glories of the small town country store ("Dixie Rose Deluxe"), the guilt of a "weekend Dad" ("Sweet Home Holiday Inn"), bar life ("Wishing Well"), assorted crap sandwiches of lost love ("She Don't Love Me", "Population 81"), memories of romances long gone ("Medina Daydreaming", "Every Now And Then") and the love of a good woman ("Good Life", "All Day Long", "Here"). All done in a variety of Texas twang, country ballad, and Western Swing.

This is one of the better Country CDs to be released this year-a year of an exceptionally good crop of Country records. Certainly an equal to this year's CDs from Alan Jackson, Gretchen Wilson and John Michael Montgomery-better than those from Lone Star, Tim McGraw, or Rascal Flatts. Somewhere Bob Wills is smiling.

If you don't like Country music, I don't know why you're looking here in the first place. But if you do, you can't go wrong getting this album.

NOTE: What is it with the record companies these days? "Beer Man" hit the airwaves all the way back in June but this album only became available in the last half of October. That's quite a long time, gentlemen. I am still waiting for the Kellie Coffey album and Amy Dalley's album is still unscheduled. Why stir up interest and then leave demand unfilled? You may think its all a part of a smart sales strategy; but I think you're being too clever by half.