Tim McGraw
Southern Voice
Curb Records
“Southern Voice,” Mr. McGraw’s 10th studio album, is a mix of old-fashioned weepers, love songs and tales of lost children, with a few up-tempo numbers thrown in to keep things spinning.
It’s a middling effort from the Nashville hit-maker — which is to say it’s pretty good.
Mr. McGraw is a great song-picker, and he knows how to play to his own strengths as a singer. He’s got a flair for reining in the movie-of the-week histrionics that attends much contemporary country music.
Case in point: the album’s ballad “Good Girls,” about two friends, Jessie and Jenny, who are involved with the same man. The song begins with the pair gearing up to share a bottle of Boone’s Farm wine and ends with their deaths in a murder-suicide. Mr. McGraw comes across as the restrained, reluctant witness to the tragedy, adding to the impact of the song’s gory outcome.
What you won’t find on “Southern Voice,” is anything like “Red, White and Pink Slip Blues” by Hank Williams Jr. or “Shuttin’ Detroit Down” by John Rich. Country artists, more than their rock and pop counterparts, have been meeting the economic downturn head on, with songs about layoffs and fears of decline that are more topical than the typical “lost job” country standard. If this is an omission, it’s not one that can be blamed on the artist, who recorded the tracks for “Southern Voice” in fall 2006.
By all accounts Mr. McGraw is an astute marketer: He’s got a men’s fragrance line called Southern Blend timed to this album’s release, and he’s been quoted in the media criticizing his record label for holding up the album’s debut release.
One of the album’s singles, “It’s a Business Doing Pleasure with You,” smacks of bubble-era excess. Driven by a guitar part reminiscent of Bachmann-Turner Overdrive, the song is a comedic riff on the woes of a free-spending wife, with references to a $1,500 dog collar and custom rims. Mr. McGraw’s albums typically spawn multiple No. 1 country singles, but this enjoyable, if out-of step track, peaked at number 13 on the country charts when it was released in June.
“Southern Voice” feels like a country take on Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire”- a grinding litany of country mythology, that’s interesting for its mention of Rosa Parks and Michael Jordan alongside Tom Petty and Billy Graham in its pantheon of icons. The song kicks off with a deep, soulful Allman Brothers-inspired groove that burns through the song, as Mr. McGraw ticks off notable names.
Mr. McGraw also has a few songs cautioning absentee fathers. “You Had to Be There” depicts a father meeting his wayward son for the first time across the windows of a jailhouse visiting room. “Love You Goodbye” is about a son coming to terms with his drug- and alcohol-addicted father, who is seeking forgiveness.
While Mr. McGraw doesn’t write his own material, the songs resonate with the singer’s well-known personal history as the offspring of a brief liaison between his mother and Major League Baseball relief pitcher Tug McGraw.
The raw emotion in these tracks comes across as especially honest and hard-won. But after a year’s delay since its anticipated release, fans will be forgiven for wondering what exactly they were waiting for.
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