{"id":19186,"date":"2020-08-22T05:30:52","date_gmt":"2020-08-22T09:30:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=19186"},"modified":"2020-07-21T10:06:06","modified_gmt":"2020-07-21T14:06:06","slug":"album-review-bill-kirchen-the-proper-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2020\/08\/22\/album-review-bill-kirchen-the-proper-years\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Bill Kirchen \u2013 The Proper Years"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-19187\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/bill_kirchen.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"350\" height=\"314\" srcset=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/bill_kirchen.jpg 350w, http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/bill_kirchen-300x269.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/>What to make of possible hyperbole? When I read that Bill Kirchen is known as \u201cThe Titan of the Telecaster,\u201d I wasn&#8217;t at all sure what to think. At first I thought I was wholly unfamiliar with his work. A cursory big of digging reminded me that he was a longtime member of Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen. Okay, good enough; now listen to this 2CD best-of collection drawn from his decade\u2019s worth of album for the Proper Records label.<\/p>\n<p>That era saw the release of six albums, kicking off with the playful, good-natured riff on his reputation, <i>Hammer of the Honky-Tonk Gods<\/i>. It continued through his last album of new material to date, 2016\u2019s <i>Transatlanticana. <\/i><\/p>\n<p>As the titles make plain, Kirchen\u2019s work falls squarely into the country\/Americana bag. But not unlike another guitar slinger \u2013 Junior Brown \u2013 his music has a wide appeal that draws in fans whose tastes might not ordinarily lean in a twang direction. His sense of humor shines through many of the tunes, as telegraphed by song titles: \u201cRockabilly Funeral,\u201d \u201cGet a Little Goner,\u201d \u201cMama Hated Diesels.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He traffics in pathos, too; for a taste, just give a spin to the crying-in-my-beer \u201cSkid Row in My Mind.\u201d His brief solo on that tune is a thing of taste and beauty, smoldering where other tunes display fireworks.<\/p>\n<p>And his skill at interpreting the works of others is well documented on <i>The Proper Years<\/i> as well. He tackles Dylan\u2019s \u201cIt Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry,\u201d and he digs into \u201cDevil With a Blue Dress\u201d in a way that successfully reinvents the tune. \u201cOne More Day\u201d feels like Bob Willis crossed with St\u00e9phane Grappelli.<\/p>\n<p>At nearly 40 tracks, <i>The Proper Years<\/i> collects nearly everything of value from the albums Kirchen made for the label. And for those (like me) who don\u2019t know much of his work, consider that if you enjoy Nick Lowe\u2019s c&amp;w-leaning material, or Junior Brown\u2019s guitar pyrotechnics, or just a good boot-scootin\u2019 tune, you\u2019ll delight in this set.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What to make of possible hyperbole? When I read that Bill Kirchen is known as \u201cThe Titan of the Telecaster,\u201d I wasn&#8217;t at all sure what to think. At first [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19187,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,19,49,65],"tags":[4262],"class_list":["post-19186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-americana","category-compilation","category-new-release","category-review","tag-bill-kirchen","cat-6-id","cat-19-id","cat-49-id","cat-65-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19186"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19186\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19215,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19186\/revisions\/19215"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}