Ben Atkins
Mabelle
Hightone Records HCD 8160
By Marianne Ebertowski
 Ben
Atkins is a 24-year-old North Texan from the good town of Henrietta
where he grew up with two and a half thousand fellow-Henriettans.
His lawyer father and schoolteacher mother, guitar and fiddle
players themselves, raised the boy on a healthy diet of Hank
Williams, Buck Owens and Emmylou Harris and his grandfather added
some Bob Willis for desert. As a real child of the nineties,
Atkins also developed a taste for Nirvana, played bad grunge
at highschool, then moved on to bluegrass at South Plains College
in Levelland. No wonder that on his first (official) album he
sounds a lot like that other Texan who likes to shock his audiences
through playing Nirvana songs real loud or tagging a bluegass
band around at other occasions, who adores Emmylou Harris and
who appeals to or, at times, appalls country and rock audiences
alike. Even Atkins' voice has the same gritty quality as a certain
Mr Earle's, though he sounds not only younger but also healthier
than the "good ol' boy" and, as I'm sure Mr Earle would
agree, he should keep it that way.
On Mabelle Ben Atkins proves himself a sharp observer
of small town life. With great ease he shuffles and two-steps
and swings and stomps through the streets and barrooms, meets
the people and tells us their tales. Once in a while he thunders
down a highway telling us about himself. Or he quietly sits
down at the porch to share his grandparents' or his uncle's life
stories with us.
Atkins is a good storyteller who is able to hold his audience's
attention for most of the 47 minutes and 38 seconds this album
lasts. To accompany him, he has chosen a very fine crew of Austin
musicians among whom - on steel and dobro - the ubiquitous Lloyd
Maines who also produced Atkins' first label-less album. This
time the production lay in the hands of Australian country star
Kasey Chamber's former sideman, Kym Warner, who also contributes
mandolin, guitars and bouzouki.
The titlesong finds the singer in a smokey bar tapping his
feet to twangy guitars and a B-3 organ watching a girl who had
"washed her hope away" when "Jesus took her child."
Now Mabelle doesn't smile anymore as much as he tries to cheer
her up.
I'm not quite sure what Kasey Chamber's "Last Hard Bible"
is doing on this album, as it somehow interrupts Atkins own line
of storytelling which he continues in "I'm to Blame."
Here a rural boy finds himself in California chasing his long
lost love Sally against his mother's good advice and, consequently,
ends up in deep trouble with only himself to blame. Lloyd Maines
gives the song a nice swing touch with an intermezzo of howling
steel before it switches back into acoustic guitar mode and mood.
Having learned from the fatal pursuit of Sally, Atkins plays
hard to get in the harmonica and fiddle introduced "I'll
Come Around" where he stubbornly ignores a woman's advances.
It gets even more serious in the beautiful "Another Place
and Time" where he reminisces his uncle's experience as
a 17-year-old soldier arriving on the coast of Normandy on D-Day
wishing he was home in Texas.
Another highlight of the album is the nostalgic "The
Same," where the homesick small town boy who was "never
happy with the size of his town" is back home again. Now
he is walking down the same railroadtracks he used to walk as
a kid with "tears rolling down the side of his face like
rain," finally appreciating his native town's authentic
charm. Even those among us whose experience it is rather that
"won't nothin' bring you down like your hometown" will
be able to stomach Atkins' feelings, be it only for the beautiful
harmony vocals provided by KymWarner's partner Carol Young from
Austin based band The Green Cards.
As if for the young Atkins moving from Henrietta to Lubbock,
Texas was a truely unsettling experience, the same topic is tackled
in yet another song, the fiddle-drenched "Every Time You
Turned Around." Here Ben Atkins remembers all the excitement
of his young small town life: the football team that won one
single game the last two years, the old pool house which was
the only place to hang around or the black and white newspaper
that appeared every week with the hottest news - like another
defeat of the local football team, I figure. And the really
cool things you didn't appreciate at the time, like fresh peaches.
Sandwiched between these two odes to small town life is the
story of "Milo Johnson," an unsuccessful escapee from
Rivershack, TX who ends up in more trouble than he could have
possibly imagined when he hit the road. The song has a nice
bluegrassy feel and features more mandolin, banjo, fiddle and
acoustic guitar than you are likely to hear on country radio
during a whole day.
In "Rivers and Pines" Atkins tells his grandparents'
story who grew up at different sides of the river and run off
to the city together. It's a very touching and hopeful tale,
masterfully illustrated by Maines' plaintive steel guitar giving
new meaning to the line "cry me a river."
Maines' steel cuts right into the honkytonky "You Pulled
Me Down," a stomping, hot dancefloor filler, if ever there
was one. The song that really steals the show, however, is the
melancholy road/love song "I Don't Want to Hide." This
time Lloyd Maines sets the tone on very sad dobro, Carol Young
helps Atkins through the refrein and Joel Guzmán adds
a very nice and gentle touch on accordion.
Unfortunately, as often is the case, the closing song is the
weekest. "Ask Me Why" has a certain youthful clumsiness
about it, though Danny Levin gives the song a certain depth
with his solemn cello play that it lacks lyrically. Not a bad
song at all, but one Atkins has to and probably will write a
lot better in just a few years' time.
With Mabel Ben Atkins has delivered an ambitious and
promising album. At 24 he is an astonishingly accomplished songwriter
with enough potential to, one day, belong to the elite of Texan
singer-songwriters. Mabel may not quite beGuitar
Town, but Atkins still has seven years to go to come up
with a classic like that. Maybe he will. I will follow the
tracks of his cowboyboots with interest.
www.hightone.com
Contact Marianne Ebertowski at ebertowski-at-rockzilla.net
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