Chad Charms the Birds - Chad Morgan

Albums by this loony Australian country legend are hard to come by, so there might be a certain delight in finding any of the dozen some album titles Chad Morgan has waxed. And there is an urge to give any and all Morgan products five stars because he is such a loveable nut, with the weirdest looking teeth in country & western music, performers from Arkansas excluded. This album comes a bit later in Morgan's career, when he was beginning to look on himself as a survivor and a legend. In fact, he even wrote a song about himself for the session entitled "The Legend," but must have gotten bashful because he credited it to a scrambled version of his own name, Dach Nagrom. So he hasn't exactly calmed down here, but he is in a good-sounding studio with a professional backup unit that gives him a pretty straight-ahead country sound. The overwhelming Australian flavor of the material might overwhelm some country fans, but this sense of place and background is a strong part of any country & western music. Witness to what extent American country performers will go to make their material sound authentically "Southern," for example. No listener will doubt for a moment that Morgan is Australian. Unlike George Jones who might sing about smashing up his car, it is a kangaroo that Morgan hits when driving on a bender. And so forth, with the pile upon pile of Australian slang, gibberish, and jargon combining with the sameness of the music to create an overwhelming feeling of ennui -- not the normal state when listening to a Chad Morgan album, if that experience could ever be described as normal. Strangely enough it is the serious "A Lover's Plea" that stands out, with bassist Glen Mooney adding a superb line. Morgan overdoes the affectation of ending many tracks with rambling narrative that slowly fades out. The material is just not crazy enough to support this kind of stuff. ~ Eugene Chadbourne, All Music Guide