Amid Nashville’s vile ’90s hat-act era, where artificial, radio-friendly slop routinely went multi-platinum, Texan Lee Roy Parnell had a level of substance often impervious to the Fashion Über Alles mindset then driving Music Row. Bucking trends, he accrued several excellent Arista albums (including Love Without Mercy) and seven top-10 singles featuring gritty, soulful vocals, honest, evocative original songs, and first-rate slide guitar that flipped seamlessly between traditional country, R&B and gutbucket blues perfect for roadhouses. Inevitably, he fell below the radar, though he invoked a more individual voice on his little-noticed 2001 Vanguard album Tell The Truth.
Universal South is in some ways a better fit for Parnell. Back To The Well extends the ideas on Tell The Truth. Using a core band of sidemen, and with his soulful voice and guitar and writing skills intact, he explores deliverance on the title track, resiliency with “Just Lucky That Way”, honesty on “Don’t Water It Down”, optimism on “You Can’t Lose ‘Em All”, and premature adulthood with “Old Soul” (which Patty Loveless covered masterfully on her Dreamin’ My Dreams album).
Parnell’s slide guitar, interacting with Hammond B3 organ, sometimes evokes the feel of the original Allman Brothers. At the end, he and the band tear loose on “Cool Breeze”, a jazzy original organ-guitar instrumental jam that evokes the classic Jimmy Smith and Brother Jack McDuff albums of the 1960s. It affirms that Parnell has found a far more comfortable, if modest, niche.
