And also a great fucking record
Initially, I wanted to title this review An Album that’s the Spiritual Successor to that Time Kris Kristofferson Almost Beat the Shit Out of Toby Keith at Willie Nelson’s Birthday which, of course, led me to learning that the famous story was made up whole cloth, and by actor Ethan Hawke, of all people.
And, honestly, that might be the most perfect introduction to a record that’s about so much of country music(and southern culture)(and American Christianity)’s tendency to tell tall tales rather than face up to a reality. Heirloom is a record that wants us to remember that this is a genre as rooted in the history of enslavement (how else do we get the banjo?) as it is in the ideological capture of rural America by a conservative institution that is utterly uninterested in its welfare, even as they were abandoned by the left and derided as backward and unimportant.
Country music is a genre that owes so many of its primary musical qualities to black musicians and innovators, and yet has only three black artists in its hall of fame. It is hard to fathom bluegrass or country music without bouncing 5ths, which many credit to Elizabeth Cotten’s fingerpicking. Still, she’s nowhere on the big lists, and every conversation I drag people into to talk about her music generally requires an entire biography.
Before I get to preaching a sermon about our need to reclaim country music as a work of the people, on to the record: guys, it fucking rules. I hope you didn’t set out hoping for a Pitchfork-style bit of evenhanded music journalism because I am going to, as the kids used to say, stan the hell out of this man.
The label-happy weirdos at Spotify or big music journals would probably insist that we call this alt-country, indie-country, or singer-songwriter-country. Still, Nathan would probably agree with me when I say that that sort of genre-mandering bullshit is why we should stop all the fiddling with ingredient-list style sub-sub-subgenres, because this is a record about heartbreak, trucks, dirt roads, and dogs.
Everything from “Nathan” through “bullshit is” was supposed to be strikethrough text, if possible. If not, can we just cut down so the sentence is “We should stop all the fiddling with ingredient-list style sub-sub-subgenres because this is a record about heartbreak, trucks, dirt roads, and dogs.”?
There’s an embodiment of Fox’s political and social ethos in his music, a refusal to concede rural life to the hard right, an embracing of everything beautiful about this genre of music, and the people who are the ground from which it springs.
I’m scared that you won’t get an accent
well honey we live in the city
you’ve gotta talk how you talk
I just miss how my grandma did it
The first track from Heirloom is Lots of Beginnings, and it’s a damn near perfect opener for a record. Groovy and fun, catchy as all hell, it’s a reflection on being a new father and an attempt to both embody a new and open approach to raising kids (we gave you your name cause we don’t say it the same way) and a yearning to recreate the parts of childhood that were beautiful for us (I just miss how my grandma did it).
Musically, the record is masterfully sparse. Not a note out of place, a command of texture and space that gives the songs exactly what they need to deliver exactly what each piece calls for. Sevindust has that Noah Gundersen Jesus-is-he-inside-the-microphone closeness, Hillbilly Hymn feels like it wasn’t recorded in a little country church” should say “feels like if it wasn’t recorded in a little country church.
Fans of the above-mentioned Gundersen, Phoebe Bridgers, or Tyler Childers will find a ton to love here. But there’s George Jones and John Prine to find here, too.
There’s a near pop-country flirtation to Little Bit of Shine, some 2000s angry-rock to Racecar, and the latter contains probably my single favorite lyric on the album.
Everywhere I’m looking
Somebody is cookin some poison they’re gona feed
The same ones complaining ‘bout the government
Crying for the cops on the TV
I read my books and all they teach
Is what my grandma taught to me:
There’s a seat at the table
Don’t matter where you’re from
Everybody got a right to eat
There’s a collectivism inherent to rural and southern culture, at its best. There’s plenty of sin in the marrow of the heartland, but there’s also a real no, fuck you, we’re family that goes beyond borders of all kinds. It’s the kind of thing that’s easy to forget, mostly because of the powers that profit off of our forgetting, but it breaks through with records like this, or with moments like Tracy Chapman and Luke Combs at the CMAs. Let the corporate shills try to feed us shit takes about it, but that song wouldn’t have become a massive hit again if the lyrics didn’t remind us that the left-right distinction matters way less than the up-down.
Two more quotes from the lyrics of this record to close the review, but first, I’ll just say: seriously, put the damn thing on. And if he’s playing nearby, you’d better go.
The first of two closing quotes genuinely made me laugh out loud the first time I heard it, in that classic mode of country song I affectionately call The Shit Talker, from the song Landlords, Bill Lee, Etc.:
I hope all your children grow up
to call you by your first name
And from the opening track:
and that’s an ending
Written by Willow Stonebeck
