My Honky Tonk History (CD - 2004)

Personnel: Travis Tritt (background vocals); Travis Tritt (vocals, guitar); John Mellencamp (vocals); Reggie Young (electric guitar, sitar, electric sitar); Larry Franklin (mandolin, fiddle); Connie Ellisor, Kristin Wilkinson, Mary Kathryn Vanosdale, Carl Gorodetzky, Pamela Sixfin, David Davidson , Alan Umstead, Gary VanOsdale (violin); Bob Mason , Carole Rabinowitz-Neuen (cello); John Jarvis (piano, Hammond b-3 organ, synthesizer); Hargus "Pig" Robbins (piano, synthesizer); Eddie Kilgallon, Ralph Richardson, John Wesley Ryles, Joy Lynn White, Neil Thrasher, Wes Hightower, Hurshel Wiginton, Amber Dotson (background vocals); Billy Joe Walker, Jr. (acoustic guitar, electric guitar, gut-string guitar); Biff Watson (acoustic guitar); Pat Buchanan, Tom Bukovac, Brent Mason (electric guitar); Dan Dugmore, Robby Turner (steel guitar, dobro); Béla Fleck, Jonathan Yudkin (banjo); Rob Hajacos (fiddle); Jim Hoke (harmonica); Eric Darken (vibraphone, cowbells, percussion); Mike Brignardello (bass guitar); Greg Morrow (drums, tambourine, percussion); Gretchen Wilson, John Cowan, Lisa Cochran, Melodie Crittenden, Tammy Cochran (background vocals).

Audio Mixer: Chuck Ainlay.

Recording information: Emerald ENtertainment, Nashville, TN; Our Place Studio, Nashville, TN.

Photographer: Frank Ockenfels.

It's difficult to believe that Travis Tritt has been kicking it from Nash Vegas for nearly 15 years. For most of that time, Tritt has been remarkably consistent. He has espoused his own vision of outlaw country since the beginning. While marketed as one of the first "new traditionalists" and then refashioned as a progenitor of "young country," Tritt has followed his own redneck way throughout and for the most part made the records he wanted to make. My Honky Tonk History, is another chapter, though this one rocks pretty hard. Co-produced with Billy Joe Walker, Tritt assembled a stellar cast of pickers -- including Reggie Young, Pat Buchanan, Brent Mason, Pig Robbins, and Eric Darken in a very large cast for this date -- as well as some special guests. The title track opens the set with a rollicking firebrand and burning electric guitars all but covering a lone banjo that stands in for tradition. It's a juxtaposition that works, since Tritt's celebration of a hungry life of hustling is timeless. "Too Far to Turn Around," is a bluesy dobro-fueled ballad that is lean and mean, with Gretchen Wilson (one of the song's three writers) guesting on backing vocals. The intro to "What Say You," feels like a track off John Mellencamp's Lonesome Jubilee, but perhaps that's because Mellencamp duets with Tritt here on this working-class anthem. It's easily the best cut on the set, and the two singers are particularly suited to one another as electric guitars, mandolins, fiddles, a B-3, and Béla Fleck's banjo crisscross in a swirl of rocking country-soul. Honky tonk music proper enters the fray in Philip Claypool's "Circus Leaving Town," a modern take on the music that made the careers of George Jones and Ray Price. Texas R&B meets the country bar's sawdust floor in "Monkey Around," written by Delbert McClinton, Benmont Tench, and Gary Nicholson. It's greasy, raucous, and freewheeling with killer piano lines by Robbins. Of the ballads, slick as it is, Tritt and Marty Stuart's "We've Had It All," works well. Tritt brings the emotion in the tune right upfront and sings with conviction and grace, but the whining pedal steel in "Small Doses" makes the slow step of this low-down country tearjerker really stand out. Tritt's protagonist is a man on a barstool talking to himself, trying to buoy his courage to face the empty space left by a long-gone lover. In all, My Honky Tonk History is a solid, sure-voiced outing from an enduring and committed artist. Bravo. ~ Thom Jurek

In the early 1990s, Travis Tritt proved that post-Garth country could still be cool. With his rebellious, rocking style he came off as the heir to Waylon Jennings's Outlaw Country throne. More than a decade later, Tritt's blend of mainstream country and rock had become a given, but his descendents were merely watered-down imitations. 2004's MY HONKY TONK HISTORY proved that Tritt was still the master of the sound he popularized years before.

The country icon's rock & roll credentials are made clear by a duet with John Mellencamp ("What Say You"), but the finest moments are Tritt's alone. The Stones-tinged bar-room romp "Monkey Around" (co-penned by Benmont Tench of Tom Petty's Heartbreakers and Delbert McClinton) and the melancholy ballad "Circus Leaving Town" show two different sides of the singer's skills, and the bluesy, menacing "When Good Ol' Boys Go Bad" proves that unlike his contemporaries, he's not compelled to put a happy face on everything. In 2004, Nashville was in dire need of some HONKY TONK HISTORY, as amply supplied here. minimize