Reviews
Artist:JD Clayton Album: Long Way From Home
Label: Self Released
Tracks: 10
Website: https://www.jdclaytonofficial.com/
Originally from Fort Smith in Arkansas where he first started singing in the church his father founded, Clayton's now based in Nashville where he recorded this, his second album. He eases you in with bird song and the brief 'Hello, Good Morning' before getting down to business with the foot stomp intro to the steady rhythm Southern rock groove 'American Millionaire', a song about trying to make it in Nashville as a singer-songwriter, grafting for a living ("Monday mornin' round 6 am/I'm scoopin' them grounds out the coffee can/Up all night probably be here late") and hoping to connect with audiences ("Really hope these people like the sound/Of my guitar strings comin' out of the speakers/Gotta show em all I ain't just a dreamer"), always believing that "I'll be back home someday/And we'll be laughing 'bout the way things used to be", but for now "I guess it's all up in the air".
That's followed by a brace of love songs, 'Beauty Queen' a jogging country barroom mix of electric and acoustic guitars coloured by piano about finding someone who makes the narrator want to put down roots ("Yeah, I used to wanna be a wanderin' man/The last rollin' stone in a one-man band/But now I kick my boots off and leave 'em at your door/'Cause you're home to me"), while the more shuffling, pedal steel tinted honky tonk 'Goldmine' is about giving up hoping the right one will eventually come along and going out looking in all the wrong places, oblivious to what's been in front of him all the time ("call me a blind man 'cause your love I couldn't see/But you rescued me and pointed me in your direction/And when you opened my eyes I saw you the goldmine").
The title track shows the pace down for an aching ballad that finds the swagger of 'American Millionaire' replaced by insecurity ("They said they like my songs but keep writin'/If I lost more weight they might like what they see") and disillusion ("Maybe dad was right when he said, It ain't what it's cracked up to be… If I'd known it'd be this hard I would've stayed home a little bit longer"), asking his mother "Will you buy me a plane ticket out there?"
The downbeat mood continues, albeit in a rockier mid-temp Skynyrd balladry vein, with the 'Heartaches After Heartbreak' where love leaves "bloodstains on my old t-shirt/That never seem to wash away" and sorrows drowned in a bottle ("I was lost in a fairytale/Goin' around a carousel under a lover's spell/And now, I sit here and drink my mind away") as a bluesy electric guitar solo takes it to the close.
'Cotton Candy Clouds' keeps a bluesy undercurrent but shades it with 60s pop colours in another song reflecting on love lost ("I still pass by your street when I'm on the side of town/We always said that we might try again/That was yesterday and yesterday is gone") before it kicks into the sole cover, the traditional 'Midnight Special', here taking his cue from the choogling version by Creedence Clearwater Revival.
As it closes, the dreamy twang and keys 'Different Kind Of Simple Life' has him having a conversation with himself as it returns to the theme of choosing between staying put and secure in Fort Smith ("Your daddy is a workin' man/Building houses out of 2x4s/You live just over the bridge/Your mama is a quiet girl/Taking calls at the salvage yard/She brings home happy meals for the kids"), just "burning through your gasoline in this tiny town/Run by all of those good ole boys" and putting music aside for raising a family, or taking risks and following the dream ("Wind down the tore up road/And make your own way to freedom/'Cause no one's gonna pull your boots up for ya/And fly with both your arms out wide/Through that sweet by and by/And don't look back/'Cause we'll all be here when you get home").
Then, after opening in the morning, it ends with a 'Sleepy Night in Nashville', opening with a cowboy campfire strum spoken vignette ("Ole Jack Miller/Lightin' some grass on his back porch/And starin' through the trees/Up that thing they call the blue moon/Way over there in Kentucky/Well, the smokey breeze slowly starts to get cold/And the fancy cars roll it on back to the park/His landlord has an early start/So he tries to keep his music down at night") before the banjo kicks and turning into a decidedly John Prine like number.
Nashville has chewed up and spat out many an aspiring songwriter, sending the back home licking their wounds and settling for a quiet, anonymous life, their music and dreams forgotten. This album suggests Clayton won't be one of them.
Mike Davies
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