Customer Reviews

Whole Lot of Memories

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Having seen Hank Williams (Sr.!) on the Opry in '52, and having recorded and toured as a guitarist, harmony vocalist and songwriter for Waylon Jennings, one might expect this indie release to be the resurgence of an artist whose solo career stretched throughout the '70s and '80s. But as active as Reynolds has been in country music over the years, penning songs for Johnny Cash, Tanya Tucker, Tompall Glaser and others, his solo recording career never got started... until now.

Luckily, as this album shows across fifteen excellent cuts: better late than never. Reynolds wrote the bulk of the album, drawing on his life in and out of the business. Like other artists who get a late start on their solo careers, his "debut" is an unusually mature work. There's a wisdom in his delivery, informed from not only from writing and singing music for several decades, but from having lived its stories.

The songs are straight-up country, with understated acoustic and electric sounds (featuring some especially fine steel and dobro from Dan Dugmore, and excellent finger-picking from Michael Spriggs and Mike Noble). Reynolds sings of loneliness and a rambler's longing for home ("Tumbleweed" "Saratoga"), as well as deeply emotional love ("It'll Be Her" "Made of Stone" "Love at First Sight") and the anger of a wronged woman ("She's Cleaning the House"). He even gets his passion for civil war history into "Atlanta's Burning Down."

Guest vocals from Merle Haggard and Bonnie Bramlett sweeten a very sweet debut.

3-1/2 stars, if allowed fractional ratings.