Big Johnny Cash-style baritone singer with guitar, backed by a tremendously versatile, honest-to-goodness country band. Grace’s writing draws from such diverse influences as Merle Haggard, Tom Waits, the aforementioned Mr. Cash and Willie Nelson, but what sets his songs apart from rest of the country or alt-country scene is his laugh-out-loud, absurdist wit. Not only is this a great party album and a great driving album but it’s also very smart and very funny. Humor is a function of intellect anyway.
As can (or maybe should be) expected of a country album, the CD gives off the suspicious odor of alcohol. More specifically, it reeks of whiskey. Four of the songs deal directly with drinking, one — the Commander Cody-inflected "The Grass Is Always Greener (But I Can’t Remember Just Which Grass Is Mine)" — is about what it sounds like it’s about and most of the others make at least one reference to booze. The cajun-spiced, accordion-driven "Ice Cold Beer" would have been #1 on the hit parade in my freshman dorm if the Jack Grace Band had existed at the time, and should be a MAJOR college radio hit unless it’s become just as hard to play drinking songs on college radio these days as it is to sneak a pony keg into your room. The eerie banjo tune "When I Drink Whiskey" sounds like it was written and maybe recorded right at that magically lucid moment where the stuff has kicked in to the point where one more drink would induce a coma, but in the moment everything seems clearer than ever (of course it isn’t, but it sure feels like it). The comfortably swinging "7:30 in the Afternoon" is actually pleasant to wake up to after a long night out, as is the following track, "This Hangover Ain’t Mine". There are also a couple of forlorn, old-school lost-love songs for those who might be inclined to cry into their beer (truth is, nobody cries into their beer. It ruins the taste).
The musicians on the CD – Silos bassist Drew Glackin playing subtly soaring steel guitar, honkytonk multi-keyboardist Neil Thomas, organist Nate Shaw and the inventive rhythm section of jazz cats Poppa J Granelli on bass and Russ Meissner on drums – play with a chemistry and a sense of fun that only comes with the experience of having cranked it up together in one dive after another for months on end. The piano and organ in particular add a fullness and richness absent from many current country albums. The production is superb, vocals and guitars up front, bass and drums in back, comfortably pushing the unit like an old Jeep tooling down Coastal Route 1 with a couple of cases on ice in the back. Put this on the boombox on the seat beside you on the way to the beach, put the vehicle in 2-wheel-drive so it the cd won’t skip, roll the windows down and blast it. Unless the cops are behind you and in that case you should keep it down because of all the drinking songs.
The Jack Grace Band plays a lot of gigs. That shouldn’t dissuade you from seeing them now. Memo to Jack – I once asked a waiter at some fancy shindig what those spinach things in phyllo dough were and he archly replied, "mini spanakopitas." I love those things. I can eat a dozen of them in a single sitting. A handful of those and your stomach is perfectly coated, you can drink all night and not feel a thing til about 1 AM.
— Alan Young
