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Rodney Hayden
Living the Good Life
Audium
By David Pilot
 It's
November the 5th, 2003, and the latest support your local porn
star edition of the Country Music Awards has shuffled merrily
off to stage left, self-satisfied and sated on the afterglow
of a tribute to the late Johnny Cash that featured a performance
by fabled hardscrabble backwoods chanteuse Sheryl Crow. Rascal
Flatts paid homage/scored media points by handing their vocal
group of the year award over to the dear departed minions of
Randy Owen. Allan Jackson made a speech out of the idea that
after all these years it's really just about the pickin' and
the singin', the touching folks' hearts that really makes this
music thing go. Toby Keith flashed that toothy grin and applauded
like he knew what the fuck Allan meant. George Strait just
sat around looking bemused.
Now the television's flickering light haunts minds in a room
around the corner and down the hall. The evening's entertainment
has left me feeling scuffed and dusted, and an old Jewish refrain
keeps sidling through my brain: Everyone's been sold American/Don't
let me catch you laughing when the jukebox cries
Thank God, Yahweh, Jehovah, whatever you call him, that there's
more out there to fill life's soundtrack than the drivel on the
jukebox down at the yuppie pool hall. The one where you can't
help but laugh when the sawed-off bald kid warbles some pseudo-pithy
sap about "The Good Stuff." You know what I mean,
because your wife likes it and that means you have to listen
to it sometimes too. Brother, get her a new record to spin.
Maybe this one I'm writing about in a desperate effort to cleanse
my auditory palate. Because the truth is, at a whopping 23
years of age, Rodney Hayden appears more than ready to answer
the Possum's call from '75 and fill some shoes. And when this
kid makes the jukebox cry, you'll find yourself safe from the
Kinkster's warnings as well.
Hayden's one of a select few up and comers in Texas who's
making music for something more than free beer and those tight
T-shirt girls at the River Road Ice House. Two significant mentors
with a substantial background in the Lone Star college crowd
scene ensure that Hayden's music will resonate in those circles,
but when Robert Earl Keen and Bill Whitbeck are on board, there's
also a guarantee that substance isn't just a real long trot away.
And although money talks, it's not every youngster who gets
to count Redd Volkaert and the legendary Earl Poole Ball on his
album credits. There's something here, and if you haven't heard
it yet you just need to go ahead on and fix that.
Rodney Hayden, simply put, is an accomplished country singer.
Not a vocalist, that term becoming so en vogue in these Pro
Tool days; certainly not in the bastardized sense so many of
Keen's half-witted musical offspring seem to trumpet. The title
track and leadoff cut on Living the Good Life will tell
you that much. The kid can sing a good thirty years beyond his
age. The lyric won't make you smarter, but the sound'll fill
your soul. And almost as if to apologize for the meatless intro,
Hayden follows up beautifully with a hardwood take on Slaid Cleaves'
searing chestnut "Broke Down." Then he and Whitbeck,
a consistent contributor, offer up their co-penned "Goodbye
To My Hometown" and remind for the record that small town
and simple can be significant and complex in ways that only those
comfortable enough with themselves to be quiet can understand.
Three songs in, so long for the sophomore jinx. Rodney Hayden
is the real deal.
Influences abound, the most obvious of them taking a bow at
the request of "Get On Your Mule and Ride." This one
Hayden, Whitbeck and Keen put to paper together, and REK's stamp
is evident throughout - - but Hayden makes the track his own.
"Mr. Mockingbird," on the other hand, goes where
a certain Ace In the Hole band used to head when their frontman
was still a believer in pure country music. Think "Lefty's
Gone" and "Haven't You Heard (Daddy's Gone Crazy)".
The standout track here may be Howard Russell's vintage "Della's
Long Brown Hair." No other offering on Living the Good
Life provides such an astounding playground and backdrop
for the power of Hayden's delivery. Nuance? Check. That
little catch in the phrasing that rips your soul? Check.
The sort of smoothness normally reserved for the inside heel
of an old baseball glove? Yeah. Good gawd.
The superlatives could flow for a while. Or you could just
go listen. www.rodneyhayden.com gives you the rundown. I
haven't scratched the surface of the gold mine here. And clocking
in at two years shy of his first quarter century, neither has
Rodney Hayden. This, boys, is the truth. In a world where
Dierks Bentley wears a Cross Canadian Ragweed shirt in an effort
to grab street cred while stinking it up at the CMAs, a young
Texan's caught a glimpse of the light Luke the Drifter saw.
Here's hoping this one shines bright, and maybe a bit longer
too.
Contact David Pilot at: editor-at-rockzilla.net
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