If you are a reader of Rock & Roll Rehab you'll know my feelings regarding Country Music. If not, you can find out HERE. If not, then I'll assume you either are never going to read this anyway or won't care one way or another how I feel about Country Music. It should suffice to say that this is the ROCK & ROLL Rehab blog and if I mention any other kind of music here it's because I've been asked very nicely to mention it or I feel it has some merits that may give it some appeal outside of its base audience, Thus is the case with the new CD from Free Willy, an Americana / Alt Country / Bluegrass group from Texas. It is titled Remember The Alamo which is about as unoriginal a title as a band from Texas could conceivably conceive of.
Hearing that phrase, "remember the Alamo", always makes me feel bad, not for the men who died in that battle, but for the Texans who fought and actually beat Santa Ana and won independence for Texas from Mexico. Why aren't they remembered? They actually won! I'm also wondering why the band named itself "Free Willy". It couldn't be because of a movie about a killer whale could it? I don't think Orcas travel as far south as the Gulf of Mexico. Or could it possibly be a plea to free Willy Nelson? I didn't know he was in prison but that does seem more likely than the whale theory. Maybe the band's lead vocalist, songwriter and guitarist, W. B. Jones is named William and Free Willy refers to him. That's possible.
But I digress...
From what I gather from Free Willy's press materials, the album is a collection of songs written over the past forty years by W. B. Jones. W. B. therefore, is no kid and that's a big reason I don't mind talking about him. You see, I feel that with age comes authenticity and in this age of computers, samples and beats, good old fashion old fashion-ness seems new and refreshing.
Free Willy may not be an actual band in the sense that they've played together for years (they first got together in Nacogdohes in 2016 at The Mixing Room recording studio), but they're real people who have been actually playing actual instruments for years, decades. Real people such as Spence Peppard on lead guitar, drums and harmonies, Kevin Carter on fiddle (that's a Country violin for you Rockers), and mandolin, and Steve DeVries on banjo and harmonica. That's a pretty Country sounding instrumentation lineup. According to old W. B. what gives Free Willy its unique sound is that the soloists play "over the top of each other" rather than "taking turns". Sounds like my High School band when we did Cream covers. I've been a fan of dueling and duo guitar solos since Cream's Politician and Buffalo Springfield's great Bluebird.
An accomplished audio engineer who started his career after college as the sound tech for Don Williams, Jim Taylor, produced Remember The Alamo, sings harmonies and plays bass on the album. A fine job of producing it is too, showcasing the excellent musicianship and W. B.'s fine vocals with pristine, textured and layered sounds. I'm always leery of the term "Alt", as in this case "Alt-Country", as it implies not really the real thing. Like Country-Punk is not really country, it's really Punk. but in this case Remember The Alamo doesn't sound like an alternative Country, it sounds like Country. Modern Country maybe? Then again, I'm a ROCKER, so what do I know about Country. It sounds like it to me.
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