Reared on a rural farm in North Carolina, Ray Scott spent his youth soaking up
his daddy’s music and his adolescent years pining for a Nashville career of his
own. Far from an overnight success, Scott toiled over compositions written for
others, endured various relocations throughout the southeastern U.S., and
eventually hooked up with Buddy Cannon, who had already produced masterpieces
for Kenny Chesney. At last, the ram-rodding, big attitude grit of “Plowboy” got
heads to turn at Warner Brothers Nashville, and landed Scott a record deal.
With Dierks Bentley’s boyish good looks and Toby Keith’s resounding baritone
pipes, Scott’s debut, My Kind of Music, is a welcome left field surprise. Here
are 14 original tracks (“A superstitious man would never make a record with 13
tracks on it,” tells Scott at album’s end) that don’t try to reinvent country
music as much as revitalize it. “Yeah, I’m a plowboy, I ain’t no city boy, I was
born with dirty hands,” he declares on “Plowboy”, an authentic account of the
blue collar, everyman movement that fits Scott to a tee. Influences like Kris
Kristofferson and Merle Haggard come shining through on bona fide hillbilly
anthems like “Dirty Shirt” and the single “My Kind of Music.” “Then I asked her
if she’d heard of Alan Jackson, and she said ‘Didn’t he sing that song called
‘Where Were You?’ / I said ‘Yeah, but girl that man’s a living legend.’ She
said, ‘Really, I thought he was new?’” is one of several jovial pokes at those
who don’t see eye to eye with the current country music faction.
Tender ballads find their place on My Kind of Music, and they do so without
stripping the overall project of its grungy edge and saloon-like appeal. “I
Didn’t Come Here to Talk” and “Fly with an Angel” drench plainspoken poetry with
swooning steel guitar that screams, “It’s an all-skate!” As much as anything new
being spun out of Nashville today, Ray Scott’s debut stands a good chance of
lasting. If a career can still be forged by one album alone, then My Kind of
Music is that kind of venture. Scott no longer should be looking up to Willie,
Waylon, Alan, and Toby, but instead should start thinking about standing among
them.
~Red
Rocker
redrocker@bullz-eye.com
|
|
|