Mike Ireland and Holler: Try Again

Mike Ireland and Holler
Try Again
Ashmont
2002-05-21

When the world was a little younger, alternative and country went together like milk and whiskey. The Alternative Country label came later, and got stuck to any young artist who used a pedal steel player, recorded below the Mason-Dixon line (or in Chicago), and pledged allegiance to Gram Parsons. Decades before Uncle Tupelo got roped, tied up, and branded with that genre label, country musicians had hit upon successful ways of taking their unique sound in different directions from its brilliant Hank Williams heyday. The fusion of country with elements of pop that flourished in the ’70s was one of many significant innovations in country music history. Stemming from that tradition, Mike Ireland and Holler prove that country doesn’t have to be played by young hipsters to be relevant these days.

Early musicians like Hank, Lefty Frizzell, and Patsy Cline set the bar so high, later country music couldn’t help but lack the raw soul of its early days. But country music as a whole never went down, never lacked for innovative artists. Marketable crooners like Kenny Rogers and Garth Brooks may have joined the ranks, but artists like Willie Nelson and Loretta Lynn have ensured a consistently solid country music base.

The sheer volume of country music put out in the ’70s paved the road for today’s rabid mass market. By and large, the best of today’s country artists, such as Dwight Yoakam and Steve Earle, hardly ever receive airplay on commercial country stations. As with any commercially successful musical genre, there is an influx of dull, sentimental schmaltz sung by people who look like models and have the interior dialogues of a cow at feeding time. Consequently, buying country albums by artists you’ve never heard of can be risky business these days. When Hank sang that his baby changed the locks so he had to sleep in the doghouse, I believed him. But I was left scraping regurgitated Budweiser off my neo-cowboy boots after being subjected to Garth Brooks singing about that one time when he roped the wind. For that legion of people who “like all music except country and rap,” I’ll be willing to bet that it’s Travis Tritt and Garth on their minds, not Merle and Lefty.

Artists like Merle Haggard, Loretta Lynn, George Jones, and Waylon Jennings saved country music from drowning in its self-indugence. These artists found out how to imbue the slick, newer, Nashville version of country with its same old soul. It is from this ’70s version of country that Mike Ireland hath sprung.

Ireland sums his musical approach up in the opening track of Try Again: “Welcome back to the place / You couldn’t wait to get away from / You could hide it / And deny it / But it was always where you came from”. Ireland is a product of ’70s country in a world that doesn’t care about crooners. He is honest about the pop in his country and doesn’t try to intellectualize it. In “Mr. Rain”, Ireland sounds like a male Dolly Parton, a tender survivalist who’s received one too many emotional beat-downs from the opposite sex.

Mike Ireland and Holler stay close to their roots in ’70s country. They stick right to the teardrops and lonely hearts, forgo the hip literacy of so much of their alternative country brethren, and show the urban ten-gallon-hat crowd that pop country got soul. The result, at times, can be refreshing. At other times, the profusion of teardrops can be stifling as well. As a songwriter, Ireland is neither flashy nor abstract, but an honest lyricist not afraid of his own sappiness. “Thank you Mr. Rain / I sincerely appreciate / Your willingness to demonstrate / Exactly how I feel”.

Like an overgrown, corrupt toddler organizing its toys, the music business puts bands in little boxes by labeling them. For the business end, it makes selling albums much easier, but for bands it can be damning. Ashmont Records, which put out Try Again, is co-owned by the exquisite songwriter Joe Pernice, who, as leader of the Scud Mountain Boys, is often credited as being an early alternative country innovator. This association alone could doom Ireland by marketing him to an audience too jaded and literate to swallow lines like “Love’s the hardest thing you’ll ever do / It makes you brave, it makes you foolish”. Perhaps Ireland’s contemporary take on ’70s country could be labeled “indie country” by overzealous music execs looking for a nice fit.

Ireland’s attachment to the early days when pop and country were first wed could also lose him some fans as well. Personally, I’d prefer Johnny Cash’s Live at Folsom Prison and a bottle of whiskey as a cure for heartbreak, but Mike Ireland successfully creates his own niche as a contemporary country musician. Just remember that country didn’t stop after Hank, Johnny et al. By coming across as so damned sensitive, Ireland lacks the edge of his elders who walked a more self-destructive line. Ireland’s music is soft around the edges. Try Again is certainly worth a listen, but it doesn’t have the bite and rawness that makes classic country so appealing to many modern listeners.