Don Henley CD Review

[TageRyche]

Don Henley

Cass County

Capitol Records – 2015

http://www.donhenley.com

Whether you decide to classify Don Henley’s Cass County album as country music or just Americana, you can be assured that the for the most part, the classic/country rock stylings of The Eagles and the biting commentary of his more pointed solo hits take a back seat to the artist’s more laid back (for the most part) stylistic choices on this disc.

Henley’s collaboration with former Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers drummer Stan Lynch – who co-wrote a number of tracks as well as co-produced and made musical appearances – and Steuart Smith – who co-wrote 3 songs, did the arrangement on another and played guitar throughout the CD – is a supremely deft collection of material that shows off Henley’s still potent writing and voice while also allowing for the artist to give new life to some classic songs he loved from other artists.

The album opens with a cover of the 2002 Tift Merritt song “Bramble Rose”. The overall tempo of the song is slow so it doesn’t give that immediate kick in the pants, but the song itself is both engaging and intriguing. The track also features the first of an amazing collection of guest artists with both Mick Jagger and Miranda Lambert providing a lead vocals along with Henley’s own singing.Jagger and an appearance from ex-David Lee Roth drummer Gregg Bissonette, the remaining guest appearances on Cass County are a veritable Who’s Who of country music. You’ve got lead and harmony vocals from Vince Gill, Trisha Yearwood, Alison Krauss, Martina McBride, Dolly Parton, Martie Maguire & Emily Robison of The Dixie Chicks and more.

Also of note, is the co-lead vocal by Merle Haggard on “The Cost of Living”, a track that comes off as an accurate if slightly depressing tune about living life.

Henley, who co-wrote 11 of the 16 songs on the deluxe version of the album, has some outstanding lyrical turns throughout. This shows me that regardless of age or length of a career, there’s always something worth exploring in any artist worth their salt.

Whether it is the tale of a single mom looking for a way out of her dead end waitressing job in “Waiting Tables” or life and hope amidst an extended drought in “Praying For Rain”, you invariably find yourself drawn into the story based on the strength of the lyrics and the conviction of Henley’s vocals.

The choice of songs covered here are really well handled. Henley’s duet with Dolly Parton on the 1955 track“When I Stop Dreaming” is excellent. Meanwhile, songs like Jesse Lee Kincaid’s “She Sang Hymns Out of Tune” and Jesse Winchester’s “The Brand New Tennessee Waltz” are given a new lease on life. The latter track is particularly noteworthy for its uncanny knack to get the listener to sing along with the chorus. I don’t know if that is the intention, but it sure happened with me.

Now, I wasn’t too crazy about the cover of “Too Far Gone” from Billy Sherill or Henley’s own “Too Much Pride”, but while I feel those are a couple of hiccups in the track listing, there is so much worth exploring on Cass County, you might nearly forget about any perceived weaknesses.

Henley gets a little nostalgic with “Train In The Distance” which is a travelogue of boyhood days. He also manages to mix and match moods with his lyrics for “A Younger Man”. I thought the lyrics were finely honed, but at the same time, a sad and slightly depressing take on things as they are or are may become.

Of course, if you are holding out for either some examples of uptempo material that falls within the ballpark of rocking out or some pointed commentary, you have three of the best tracks you could hope for to look forward to as well.

The album’s closing track features a harmony vocal from Trisha Yearwood as Henley validates his satisfaction of where he is in his life singing “When people say, “Would you go back? / I say, “No way, nohow” and later adds, “I’m making one last victory lap and then I’ll take a bow /Because I like where I am now”.

The song “That Old Flame” is a duet with Martina McBride (hear the audio below) that smokes with finely wrought execution as the two artists unfurl the tale of being contacted by a past love, wondering what the other could want and if it is worth it to make the connection again.

But for me, the best track on the album had to be “No, Thank You”. It has a brilliantly conceived set of lyrics and features Vince Gill on harmony vocals as well as electric guitar. Pointed conversation about life in modern day is the overall theme of the song as Henley adds “and though nostalgia is fine, I respectfully decline / to spend my future living in the past”.

When I first heard that line, it really stuck out to me and upon each successive playing of the song, it just kept getting better and better.

Cass County finds Don Henley in fine artistic form and fans of his music will find the album to be one of the best works of his career. There’s a little bit of something for everyone and it is nearly all outstanding. This is an album that any music fan could enjoy, period.

[Majestic]

Excellent review and I also like this album a lot. In fact, it is probably the best country album to come around in a long time, at least since the time that Nashville stopped making country music.

[yulog]

This cd is too tame , even for Henley.

[TageRyche]

Excellent review and I also like this album a lot. In fact, it is probably the best country album to come around in a long time, at least since the time that Nashville stopped making country music.

Thanks for the feedback, glad you enjoyed the review and like the album.

[TageRyche]

This cd is too tame , even for Henley.

Obviously I disagree but thanks for reading.

[Abitaman]

I really liked the cd, thought it was the second best in his 4 cds that he has done.

[TageRyche]

I really liked the cd, thought it was the second best in his 4 cds that he has done.

It's very different from his previous solo albums, but highly enjoyable.

[tater1977]

Don Henley: My Defining Moment

The singer's independent streak started in junior high

by Don Henley, October/November 2015



Cass County, Don Henley's first solo album in 15 years, comes out this fall. — Danny Clinch



Sometime in the late summer of 1962, I realized that I was not cut out, mentally or physically, to play football. Preseason practice was hell. I wasn't afraid of hard work, but running laps in the 100-plus-degree temperatures of Texas summers until nausea or dizziness set in was not my idea of a good time. Neither was getting flattened by guys twice my size. The junior high coach, fresh out of college, was something of a stereotype: immature, mean and fond of dishing out corporal punishment, which, in those days, was perfectly acceptable. Players who neglected to hang up their practice uniforms would be summoned to a small enclosure in the locker room called the Cage. Once inside, they would be told to bend over and place their hands on their knees.

"Licks" were administered with a wooden paddle about the same length as a baseball bat, with holes drilled in it to cut down on air resistance and increase velocity when being swung. The number of licks a wrongdoer received was arbitrary, the coach's choice. I had always dutifully hung up my uniform, but one day I arrived at the locker room to find my equipment strewn on the floor. I looked around to see some of the older boys smirking, and I knew immediately what had happened. Then I heard a voice say, "Henley, the coach wants to see you in the Cage." I had a decision to make. I could go in and take a beating for something I didn't do, or I could hand in my resignation, which is exactly what I did. This, of course, was no great loss to the team, but, looking back, I have sometimes wondered if the coach was in on the whole thing from the beginning. If it was, in fact, his way of culling poor performers from the roster, he could have done it in a much more grownup, civilized manner by simply taking me aside and advising me to choose a different path. But I chose one for myself.

I could have ground out the remainder of my school years in PE class but, at the suggestion of a friend, I joined the high school marching band. I loved music and had always thumped away on my schoolbooks with pencils or beat out cadences on dashboards with my fingers. So I took up drumming. Having missed the first year of "beginner band," I was primarily self-taught. But I eventually landed the position of drummer in the high school stage band and in my friend's Dixieland jazz combo. From 1963 to 1970, this band went through several incarnations, eventually becoming one of the more popular locally based rock bands on the circuit. We wore out two Ford Econoline vans, driving all over the Texas-Oklahoma-Arkansas-Louisiana area, playing everything from smoky clubs to beer-soaked frat parties to fancy debutante balls to Knights of Columbus halls. It wasn't always fun and we weren't getting rich, but I was making enough money to support myself and pay a portion of my college tuition. The independence felt good. I was considered a long-haired freak in most quarters, but my parents were tolerant and proud.

One day in 1968, my bandmates and I chanced to meet Kenny Rogers in a Dallas clothing boutique. He was in town to do a show with his band, the First Edition, which was enjoying national success. We boldly asked Kenny to come and hear us play at a Dallas club and, to our surprise, he did. He was looking for artists to produce and he eventually got us a recording contract with a small Los Angeles-based label. We were over the moon about our good fortune, but there were a couple of problems. As his success continued to grow, Kenny was extremely busy touring with his band and promoting their recordings. He would have to find the time to produce our album. The fact that we lived in a small East Texas town, about 1,600 miles from Los Angeles, was also a challenge. We had, at intervals, lived in Dallas, but we were still basically small-town boys. We knew absolutely no one in L.A. except Kenny Rogers.

But there was another problem, at least as far as I was concerned. In 1968, my dad's health had begun to fail. His decline was precipitous. Seemingly overnight, he went from running his business to being retired and housebound. Tests revealed that he suffered from acute atherosclerosis. Having lived through the Great Depression and always putting my mother and me first, he refused to spend money to get the best private medical care, opting instead to go to veterans hospitals, where he was treated with varying degrees of competency.

In addition to playing in my local rock band, I had been attending college since the fall of 1965. But as my dad's condition worsened, I decided not to return to college for the spring semester of 1969. During that historic year, while I sat at my dad's bedside in one depressing VA hospital after another, the Beatles gave their final performance on a rooftop in London; the Apollo 11 spacecraft carried the first men to the moon; thousands of young people flocked to Bethel, N.Y., to attend the Woodstock Music & Art Festival, and a war raged on in faraway Vietnam—a war to which I might still be called.

My bandmates and I had kept in touch with Kenny Rogers and, as 1970 dawned, word came that it was finally time to record in California. Kenny graciously offered to lodge us in his home during the initial sessions. Once again, I had a decision to make: Stay at home, maybe finish college and then … who knows what … or go for what was almost certainly a long shot in far-off L.A. My dad had already had one heart attack and it was hard to contemplate leaving, knowing I might not see him alive again. But he, along with my mother, had worked and saved since the day I was born, to give me opportunities that they never had, and they didn't want me to miss this one.

The album we recorded with Kenny wasn't successful (as songwriters, we were very green), but the project brought us to Los Angeles, where we were able to go on to other things. I will be forever grateful to my parents, my bandmates and Kenny Rogers—and to that junior high football coach—for the opportunity.