Corb Lund – El Viejo (2024) [Official Digital Download 24bit/48kHz]

Corb Lund – El Viejo (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 36:47 minutes | 444 MB | Genre: Country
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © New West Records, LLC

“I’ve been wanting to make a record like this for a long time. The band, Franny and I produced it ourselves in my living room with no adults present. It’s all acoustic, not an electric lick on the album…banjos and mandos and string basses and stripped-down drums. I put a ton of work into the tunes and I’m pretty proud of this batch. Had a little help from my old co-writing pal Jaida Dreyer on a couple, also wrote a good one with my screenwriter buddy, Brian Koppelman. Lots of gambling songs and lots of minor keys. And my band guys absolutely killed it too, they’re all badasses. I’m dedicating the record to my old compadre, Ian Tyson, who passed away a few months back. I’ve named the album for him as well. ‘El Viejo’, or ‘the old one’ is what our mutual friend Tom Russell took to calling him in later years. The title track is a pretty special one for us. We had a blast making this thing, and we hope you enjoy it too.” – Corb Lund

Since forming his own band in 1995, Canadian singer-songwriter Corb Lund has built a career that leans cowboy but lets you know there’s more to him than simple songs of the Old West. Part of a cowboy music movement that included pals Ramblin’ Jack Elliott and the late Ian Tyson, Lund also played bass in a metal band The Smalls. His diverse tastes account for the opening track “The Cardplayers,” which mixes bluegrass instrumentation with a klezmer beat and arrangement. Its lyrics have a decidedly urban edge: “Complaints have been lodged by respectable locals/ We’ve poisoned their usual grind/ A more noble group dressed in hoodies and sunglasses/ You would be hard pressed to find.” His talents as a lyricist are notable in “I Had it All,” where he sketches a colorful autobiographical portrait in four lines: “A cowboy past and speed metal future/ Have a nice night and a good day to you, sir/ Got an education, took some graduate courses/ On the insides of bars and the outsides of horses.”

Wisely mindful that he also needs to make some effort to attract mainstream country fans, there’s “Redneck Rehab” which takes the mind-altering specifics a step further than the usual pickup trucks and whiskey move: “Didn’t waste none of my time on liquor/ I climbed on a pony a whole lot quicker/ Stepped on coke and bathtub crank/ Prescription pills and purple drank.” Lund is ably supported by his veteran trio of guitarist Grant Siemens (who fills “The Cardplayers” with convincing mandolin work), bassist Sean Burns and drummer Lyle Molzan. The tunes are simple and sturdy and he is expert at singing his own clever lyrics, like those of closer “Old Familiar Drunken Feeling.” With vocal support from The Southern Alberta Community Singers, he again makes clear that while he may be country, he’s also a citizen of the modern world who, in this case, has altered his consciousness with marijuana edibles: “It’s only noon, I’ll be fine, showtime ain’t till nine, I chewed and I told myself/ But as the day wore on and on and on it all went rapidly to hell.” In the film Urban Cowboy John Travolta once asserted, “All cowboys ain’t dumb. Some of ’em got smarts real good.” Corb Lund is living proof. – Robert Baird

Tracklist:
1-1. Corb Lund – The Cardplayers (03:19)
1-2. Corb Lund – I Had It All (03:21)
1-3. Corb Lund – Was Fort Worth Worth It? (03:11)
1-4. Corb Lund – Out On a Win (02:27)
1-5. Corb Lund – Redneck Rehab (03:09)
1-6. Corb Lund – El Viejo (for Ian) (04:11)
1-7. Corb Lund – When the Game Gets Hot (02:38)
1-8. Corb Lund – Girl With the Stratocaster (02:57)
1-9. Corb Lund – It Takes Practice (02:38)
1-10. Corb Lund – Insha’Allah (03:42)
1-11. Corb Lund – Old Familiar Drunken Feeling (05:08)

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