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Fletcher Jowers
Church At The Wagon
Pistol Hill Music
By Marianne Ebertowski
 Reviewing
an album of Cowboy Gospel Music is not an every day experience
for someone who has become a dedicated nonbeliever after a childhood
of severe Bible bashing and whose closest experience with a horse
is watching Mr. Ed on the neighbors' black and white
screen (which we weren't allowed to have at home for religious
reasons). Still, somehow Mr. Ed must have managed to talk me
into wanting to become a cowboy during most of my "carefree
years" till having a crush on talking hoofed animals became
slightly inappropriate. It must have been about the same time
that I lost my religion due to the unpleasant experience that
the Bible had been used as a black jack on my body and soul more
often than I was prepared to take. So what can Fletcher Jower's
Church At The Wagon do for me?
First of all, Jowers is "the real thing." He is
an authentic Texan Cowboy singer and songwriter and ex-cowboy
whose pleasant, slightly vibrating voice takes you back into
a time when being a cowboy was an honorable and hard profession
rather than a Hollywood role or a European term of abuse for
people (politicians or otherwise) behaving recklessly. Secondly,
the album swings in a truly Western way. Not surprising, once
you know that lead guitar playing and production lay in the steady
hands of Tommy Alsop, once Buddy Holly's guitar player. Apart
from being a Cricket, Alsop has spent his life as a Texas Playboy
and as a producer for country giants like Willie Nelson, Johnny
Bush, Hank Thompson, Gene Watson, George Jones and many others.
It's also due to the presence of two fiddlers, Bobby Boatright
and Mark Abbott (bass fiddle), that the album has a very nice
Western swing feel.
Jowels has written nine of the ten songs himself. The honor
of closing the album is given to Marty Robbins' "Master's
Call." Church At The Wagon tells a story that starts with
the title cut, in which the wagon cook, Coosi, buys an old Bible
from a peddler just before leaving out on a trail drive bound
for Abilene promising to "have church at the wagon."
Every song on the album is inspired by a Bible quote. "You're
Never Alone" is about God's promise to "never forsake
you," however lonely you may feel. All songs are songs of
celebration in some way: they celebrate God, of course, community
spirit, (cowboy) life and even death. There's also a great story
("Ol Snake") of a parson making a deal with the cowboys
that he will ride "the meanest bronc on this place"
in return for their church attendance. Needless to tell that
the preacher man tames "Ol Snake" and the cowboys gether
in church on Sunday to praise him and the Lord. The album wouldn't
be perfect without an ode to God's greatest gift to cowboyhood:
the horse. What, indeed, would a cowboy be without his faithfull
companion? A rather sad pedestrian in whose boots I wouldn't
like to walk for a single lonely mile.
Church At The Wagon is an interesting listening experience.
For me, it's like being a little kid again watching one of those
real old Western movies in which the good guys didn't have to
pull their guns all the time in order to prove their goodness.
It makes me want to saddle my pony and take off into the prairie,
but given my geographic and personal circumstances a mountainbike
and the local woods will have to do. I believe that the "true
and everlasting peace" Jowels prays for in his liner notes
can be found anywhere as long as you look for it. Happy trails,
Fletcher Jowels!
www.fletcherjowers.com
www.cowboypoetry.com/feats.htm
Contact Marianne Ebertowski at ebertowski-at-rockzilla.net
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