It’s pretty common for a classic or even alternative country musician to make an occasional (or even permanent) foray into bluegrass. Think of Dolly Parton on the one hand and Robert Earl Keen on the other. But it’s a little more unusual for a musician to go the other way, from the ranks of bluegrass into a classic country sound. That’s what Todd Grebe has done with Citizen. For the past few years he and his wife and musical partner Angela Oudean, have been making bluegrass music in Alaska. But this time they rolled into Nashville with their band Cold Country and put together an electrified country band for a hard-hitting honky-tonk record, and a fine one it is.
Grebe has a perfect voice for this kind of music, a warm and supple twangy tenor with a little bit of sandpaper to it, and it’s complemented by Oudean’s harmonies. She’s no slouch on the fiddle either, and Nathan May, who usually plays mandolin with them, pulls lots of twangy licks out of his Telecaster, while guest Steve Hinson hits all the right notes on pedal steel. Put them all together (plus Mike Bub on bass and Larry Atamanuik on drums) and you’ve got one hot honky-tonk combo.
Citizen has a dozen tracks, all but a couple written by Grebe. He comes out of the gate at a gallop with “Criminal Style,” a plonking two-step with lots of tongue-in-cheek lyrics about how he loves this woman enough to break the law for her: “Like Adam and Eve, Thelma and Louise, we’re livin’ in a criminal style,” he drawls. If that one reminds me a bit of Todd Snider, the follow-up “Box of Wine” has a bit of a Robert Earl Keen vibe; it’s a fast shuffle about a lover who’s maybe a little fond of wine, and not the real fancy stuff, either. Hinson’s pedal steel fills nicely complement Oudean’s fiddle work on this one, giving it a kind of a countrypolitan feel.
At times you can hear the ghost of bluegrass in these tunes, including the upbeat shuffle “Luckiest Man Here On Earth,” whose melody bears a passing resemblance to the old Beverly Hillbillies theme. See if you don’t hear it too, on the instrumental breaks especially.
Every honky-tonk record needs a couple of tear-in-your-beer ballads, and this one has a slow sad one called “More Than A Love Song” that’s more than a little self-referential, and a lovely weepy waltz called (what else) “Living A Lie.” The title track is a satiric look at the conflation of consumerism and patriotism, with the refrain of “all I need is what I want, and I want it all for free.”
The cover songs are “Brown Hair” (by Travis Zuber), a poignant song of love found and then lost out on the road; and “Ain’t That Fine” by the great first-generation rockabilly Dorsey Burnette. I had to look twice to make sure “Nothing Left To Lose” wasn’t a Roger Miller cover, with its fast patter and clever (but not too clever) lyrics. Oh, and “Let’s Make Love For Christmas,” which is basically a fast bluegrass song in a honky-tonk arrangement, would’ve fit right in with Buck Owens’s repertoire. Finally, Grebe and Co. go out with guns blazing on “You’ll Never Find Me” a folksy country song with some bluegrass-style picking and fiddling but also with a little bit of “Ring Of Fire”-style mariachi trumpets on the intro and some uptown B-3 organ from Nashville session player Jimmy Wallace.
So there you have it. I’d say Todd Grebe & Cold Country have successfully made the transition from bluegrass to hardcore country. Citizen has my vote.
(self-released, 2015)
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