Jeb Loy Nichols
Lovers Knot
Capitol Records
Release Date: October, 1997
If country music were a shape, it would probably be a square. Square like a checked shirt, or a box step, or a square dance. And its squareness served it well, so well that when Joe Henry released Trampoline, breathless critics strained vertebrae trying to find new ways to describe his limber, supple, sexy take on country sounds. Henry put voluptuous curves into country music, and made it okay for a whole crop of rock-n-roll kids to go public with their love affair.
Jeb Loy Nichols has the spellbinding presence and practiced craftsmanship to expand this cult into a movement. Not that Nichols and his band are wide-eyed newbies taken with the latest trend. Although this is his debut solo effort, Nichols has released three indie albums with his last band, the Fellow Travelers. His bio paints him as a musician's musician who has traveled in the same circles as the Pogues and Neneh Cherry, among others, and he recruited an 18-member ensemble that includes former Living Color bassist Doug Wimbish, The Holmes Brothers and John Medeski of Medeski, Martin & Wood.
Maybe if Lyle Lovett had discovered Wurlitzers and Motown instead of gospel choirs and swing bands, he might have ended up sounding something like Nichols. Both are rebels without a format who somehow convinced major labels that they could make money off an artist that offends country diehards and twangs too much for most of the rock and soul crowds. And both write quirky, original songs that many listeners find eminently accessible -- once they give the music a chance.
"As The Rain" is my last-minute vote for song of the year. Built around a chorus of muted brass, it sounds like a big band trying to push its music through a room so choked with smoke that all you can hear is its shadow. The result is a woozy, dark number, lightened by a patient banjo that carries the rhythm. "Dark Hollow" plays with the same musical outline, only with a little more spring in its step. Here the banjo is more skittish, the bass more assertive, the mood more hopeful. Still, this is hope in the face of utter blackness, and the effect is eerie: a lost traveler gritting his teeth against the cold and snow.
The rest of the album doesn't achieve quite the same heights as those two tracks, but that would clearly be asking too much. There are certainly other good songs on Lovers Knot. The soulful "Our Good Good Thing (Just Gets Better)," for example, is delightfully tender without crossing the line into mushy. It soars on the strength of pure, joyous performances. But Nichols' music is at its best when its at its curviest, and a few tracks instead stand out for their straightforwardness -- jarringly ordinary against his best material. Still, Nichols has revealed himself to the world as a formidable talent, and his first solo outing shows an artist stepping with a confidence that makes any wobbles seem inconsequential.
-- Chris Schwartz
schwartz@outersound.com
