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You can hear the influences in his music. He grew up listening and learning John Prine songs along with Steve Earl. If you haven't heard of Chris Knight, do yourself a favor and pick up anything by him. He's a great singer/songwriter.
I can't wait to hear his back catalogue. At last I've found another artist who writes quality songs that stand out from the formulaic country pop Brooks & Dunn style. At times he sounds a bit like Steve Earle, sometimes I hear a bit of Mellencamp, but the more I listen the better it gets.
Given that Knight practiced his writing for several years before recording his debut, it's unsurprising that in a half-dozen albums his lyrical voice has remained relatively steady. Earle's protagonists sense there's something better but don't know what, while Knight's are taunted by better lives that remain out of reach.Knight opens the disc as a touring musician whose road-warrior fortitude has become a callus ("I ain't home `til I leave you behind") and on "Hell Ain't Half Full" he's a hell-bound meth dealer who thinks God's given up. He exults in the opportunity to rekindle a relationship on the up-tempo "Maria," and takes cold comfort in the scar that's replaced the relationship of "Miles to Memphis."Dan Baird (ex-Georgia Satellites) returns to the producer's seat, having sat out Knight's 2006 release Enough Rope, and the sound returns to the determinedly paced, sinewy Americana the two first crafted for Pretty Good Guy. The few rays of light that penetrate Knight's bleakness are more faith than realization.
Having found himself artistically on 2001's A Pretty Good Guy singer-songwriter Chris Knight shook off the major label production of his 1998 self-titled debut and wallowed in his dark visions of rural life. What's impressive is the wealth of characters and stories he continues to dig up and render in such palpable, three-dimensional emotions. It's a perfect setting for Knight as the tempos match the relentless extinction of hope in his characters. His follow-ups, including a startling album of pre-debut auditions, The Trailer Tapes, have stuck to a similar format of rootsy guitar-based productions backing unblinking chronicles of blue collar America.
He sings of a coal miner's flight from his ancestral home, counting on the belief that "hope runs a straight line down this mountain road" to the ocean. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com] Knight is often likened to Steve Earle, and the hopelessness in his songs brings to mind Earle's Guitar Town-era work; but where Earle wrote of kids trapped by the stilted imaginations of limited experience, Knight writes of adults trapped by circumstance and situation. Knight's characters carry forward the disappointments and failures of broken childhoods, escaping from dysfunctional relationships but unable to erase their scars.
Knight at the Lazy River Festival in Illinois this last summer and found him to be a real down to earth type of guy. I had the opportunity to meet Mr. I can only imagine where he get's the ideas for the stories in his songs. This music is well written and well played as one can always expect from one of Knight's albums. Dan Baird's production adds a nice little kick in the pants.
Chris Knight flys under the radar,but is a gem.This album highlights his style.He is something to see live.He also is very funny.
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