Chris Wall Any Saturday Night in Texas Cold Spring Records by David Pilot
	Iconoclastic and eccentric, brilliant and angry, kindhearted and cold. To some, Chris Wall is one or more of these things. To those who care to listen and truly hear, he is capable of being all of them. Without him, many of the Texas music anthems we crank up in our beat up trucks wouldn't be here. From Montana to Texas, Wall understands the cowboy way better than most and doesn't apologize for being who he is, no matter who begs to differ or wish he was different. There are certainly those who take that as reason to ignore him and his music. Ignoring the man because of personal bias can be excused, but ignoring the music is a different story. At times Wall can be formulaic, his arrangements too spare, his lyrics too easy. But the vast majority of the time he is a cowboy storyteller of the first order whose songs and the lessons they spring from can weave gold from the spider web of Texas music. Wall isn't often heard from where new CDs are concerned, partly because of personality and partly for reasons stemming from a label agreement we won't touch on here, other than to say we think it's a robbery and needs to be rectified. Soon. But for today, let's step out of the current of new releases and revisit a night where Wall touched greatness and held it softly with the help of some friends. Back in 1996, Chris played Gruene Hall on the evening of March 2nd. Pure Texas music in a pure Texas dancehall on Texas Independence Day. In Chris' words, I have found fertile ground here in Texas. It's where the ghosts and the stories live. They haunt these old dancehalls and they can be found frolicking on any Saturday night. The trick is to catch a few, like fireflies in a jar, and light up the night. At Gruene we made a few sparks fly. Come on in and listen. Chris Wall October, 1996 In true cowboy style, Chris understated the results of that evening in Gruene. Just a couple hundred yards up the hill from the babbling waters of the Guadalupe, Wall and the boys-along with some friends you'll recognize-did Travis and Bowie proud. Men once bled and died for a free Texas where a man could be a man, and Chris Wall sings songs about the men who live out the realization of that dream every day. Any Saturday Night In Texas is five years old, and I'll bet you've heard most of the songs by now one way or the other. It just might be time to revisit 'em one by one. From "I Feel Like Singin' Along" and its heartfelt tribute to Hank Williams and tip of the hat to every young starry-eyed songwriter since, to "Damn Good Time" and its story of beer and pistols and the highway patrol, this is mythical Texas lived out in the neon and sweat of honkytonks and beat up trucks and lost highways. In some south Austin music store A kid buys a guitar He only knows one thing for sure He's gonna be a star. And you wanna scream "Kid don't do it, You can't stop it once it starts." But something old inside your soul Says "God bless your precious heart." There's "Wild Bill and the Montana Kid," a tale you and I can get lost in thinking about a father or an uncle or a granddad who taught us how to be a man with simple things like a straight razor and a straighter spine. "Independence Day," about them good old boys who took to the wall, raised that Lone Star flag so tall, Santa Anna killed 'em, to the very last man, but that bastard's gone and Texas still stands. "The Lines On My Forehead" is every relationship we look back on. Good, bad, indifferent, flat out ugly, flat out broke. All of 'em. Stories from all of our lives are here, and some from the lives we wish we'd lived. Universal truths, steeped in steel guitars. Old friends are everywhere on this disc as well. There's Kelly Willis adding understated and soulful heartfelt loss in her harmony vocals on "Miles Of Rodeo." Kelly and Chris are joined on this cut by Bruce Robison, whose marriage to Kelly proves he didn't make the same mistakes as the cowboy in this song. Lucky bastard. On the back nine there's Mary Cutrufello riffing like mad on "Damn Good Time," thanks to Jimmy Dale Gilmore --who cut his own show short that night so Mary could play with Chris at Gruene Hall. Let's see Tim McGraw do THAT for Kenny Chesney. Then there's the song Django Walker could easily have drawn inspiration from when penning his current Pat Green hit, "Texas On My Mind." The tune is called "Ship Me Back to Texas," and Wall co-wrote it with the inimitable Dale Watson, who showed up to perform it as a duet this particular evening. Pour me a glass of Jim Beam, Pour me back on a plane, And ship me back to Texas- I'm goin' insane. Nashville's such a lonely town, But they say that it's the only town Where you can lay your music down And lay your soul upon the line. But where are all the hats and boots And who are all these 3-piece suits? Like tumbleweeds without roots They're just blowin' in the wind. The wide-ranging tastes and styles of Chris Wall's guests that evening say a lot about the man, but they say more about this thing we call Texas music. From stone cold traditional country to cowboy music to alt.country to serious rock and roll, these musicians cover the bases extraordinarily well. All are recognized and respected widely in the music industry, though none have garnered serious commercial success in the States. In this setting, around the centerpiece of Wall's simple storytelling, they weave a tapestry that cannot be fully appreciated or understood on the first listen. This is not a beer drinking honky tonk album, although "Damn Good Time" would fit on one. It's not a sorrowful narrative on loves lost and chances missed, but "Miles Of Rodeo" does bring home memories of the worst of those. It's not a rowdy good-timing who-needs-her-anyway compilation of manly kiss-off songs, though "33 Reasons to Say Goodbye" might be the best one of that genre you've ever heard. Instead, it's a compilation of thoughts and dreams and pains and fears and hungers and joys that can do nothing else but make one stop and think. It has songs about Texas, and songs about beer, (none about Luckenbach, though), but at its soul it's an album that cleanly ties those ideas and activities to the things that truly make being a Texan something worth being proud of. It does so without ever clearly saying what or how-which is part of the whole point. Some things that matter are to be understood and shared and realized in silence, not voiced through the frailty of human language that cannot always convey higher meanings as it should. At its core, Any Saturday Night In Texas is a simple journey through the land this reviewer loves, and a showcase of the lives and dreams that make that land special. In Chris' simple words, tying it all together in gratitude for the chance to touch some lives, ". . .and last but not least, our thanks and the blame for many a bad hangover go to James White at the Broken Spoke, Karin Barnes at Blanco's, Joe Dulle at the White Elephant, Steve Laughlin at Floore's Country Store, Willie Bennett at the Dixie Theatre and all the others who keep the honky-tonks open any Saturday night in Texas." If you don't have it already, get yourself a copy of Any Saturday Night In Texas. It's Texas, pure and simple, hard knocks and lessons learned, loves won and lost, bare knuckles and cold longnecks, old dogs and trusted horses, family and friends and life worth living. And Chris, wherever you are out there on that cold blue highway, it's time for more. The cowboy nation misses you more than you know. You can contact David Pilot at: tailgunner-at-rockzilla.net

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