Is Neil Mooney a genuine honky-tonk hero, carrying the true flame passed on to him by his hillbilly forbears? Is he just a clever curator reconstructing the sounds of an era gone by? Or is he a winking trickster poking fun of the music he plays so well?
That last question comes up because of two songs on Ranchstyle. There’s “Blazing Trailer of Love”, in which Mooney assumes the role of white trash Casanova, bragging about his Farrah Fawcett posters and Tom Jones 8-tracks. And there’s “Hot Rod Women”, which could be an outtake from Southern Culture On The Skids’ Dirt Track Date.
But even when Mooney digs into this well-mined humor quarry, he does so with style. Only the most uptight politically-correct would fail to smile at images like “grease-stained jeans and painted eyes.” Junior Brown probably wishes he’d written that line.
Mooney — a Californian whose sweet, sometimes warbling tenor might call to mind Chris Issak — has mastered the basics of old-time, sawdust-floor stompin’ music. The opening cut, “Start The Music Without Me”, and the irresistible “Back To The Wild Side” sound like they could have come from the 1950s.
He also shows he’s a smart songwriter. “Devil #2″ is about a religious woman who “still lived with mom and dad, though 27″ who falls prey to a guy just like one in “Blazing Trailer of Love”: “He was a lady’s man, knew how to pick ‘em/He’d been breaking hearts since he was 17/He had a lot of wounds/No time to lick ‘em/There were brave new girls to conquer every day.” And on “Swanee”, Mooney shows Nick Cave ain’t the only one who can breathe new death into a murder ballad. With a melody born in the “St. James Infirmary,” the guilty narrator returns to the scene of the crime every night and gets down on his knees — to forgive his victim.
Mooney tips his hand to show that he’s not completely farm fresh by covering a song by the late left-wing folkie Phil Ochs, someone whose songs aren’t covered a lot on the chickenwire circuit. “Chords of Fame” is an indictment of music industry greed and temptation, which probably is more relevant today than it was when Ochs wrote it. “Play the chords of love, my friend, play the chords of pain/But if you want to keep your soul/Don’t don’t don’t don’t play the chords of fame.”
Truth is, it doesn’t really matter whether Mooney is the reincarnation of Lefty Frizzell, suckled on scratched-up Ray Price records since infancy, or if he came to country music by way of the Supersuckers. This guy is good, and Ranchstyle is as refreshing as when they turn on the fans at a hot, stuffy bar.
