Chris Knight Albums (7)
What The Critics Say
Back in 1996 -- when he had yet to record his self-titled debut album for MCA -- Chris Knight recorded some demos in a trailer in his native Kentucky. It was nothing elaborate -- mostly just Knight on vocals and acoustic guitar -- but emotionally, the performances were worth their weight in gold. Some of those performances became commercially available when The Trailer Tapes was released on the Drifters Church label in 2007, and Trailer II picks up where The Trailer Tapes left off with 44 minutes of additional performances. Knight's longtime fans will be familiar with "Love and a .45," "Bring the Harvest Home," "It Ain't Easy Being Me," "Summer of '75," and "The River's Own," all of which appeared on Knight's self-titled debut album in 1998. "Send a Boat" and "Highway Junkie," meanwhile, are gems that Knight included on his second album, A Pretty Good Guy, in 2001. But the acoustic versions heard on Trailer II are much rawer than the official studio versions, and Knight's performances are as compelling as they are intimate. The sparseness of these performances, in fact, really makes the power of Knight's lyrics jump out at the listener. Knight is one hell of a storyteller; his songs paint an amazingly vivid and often gritty picture of working-class life in rural America -- and unlike all the slick corporate country that is about as authentically working class as Sarah Palin on a shopping spree, Knight's music isn't an empty pose. It is obvious that life in small-town Kentucky is something that Knight has first-hand knowledge of. Although these demos weren't recorded in an actual studio, the sound quality is quite good -- and those who enjoyed The Trailer Tapes won't find Trailer II to be any less absorbing. ~ Alex Henderson, All Music Guide
'Heart of Stone'
Release Date 8/19/2008
Tracks 12
Label Thirty Tigers
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
Heart of Stone adds to Chris Knight's already impressive collection of hardscrabble songs reflecting life in rural, small town America. In the dozen tunes here, the Kentucky native explores, with an unflinching honesty, the lives of troubled ordinary folks. There's the meth-maker in "Hell Ain't Half Full" who sees a world where there's no law, no love, and "God wasn't paying much attention at all", and the working man in "Another Dollar" who realizes that "I'll never make enough money to get me what I need." The title track spotlights a man who was abandoned by his dad and now worries that's he turning out like his father. Knight has a knack for populating his songs with small but telling details, like the winter coat in "Miles to Memphis," that a man thinks his estranged wife might need, or the guy in "Something to Keep Me Going" (another tale of lost love) who holds on to his ex-love's photograph while admitting "I don't know why I don't throw it away." Two of Knight's finest efforts here are "Danville" and "Crooked Road," a pair of rough-hewn story-songs that rival John Prine's best. The former is a harrowing tale about a woman escaping from her abusive husband -- whom she calls "the devil's little brother" -- but Knight also weaves in how the woman's hometown believes she's to blame (because "it's half filled with people with his last name") as well as her sadness over not being able to see her mother's grave. "Crooked Road," another subtly complex narrative, concerns a coal miner's hard life, where "things have turned out a little worse than they should." Besides talking about his difficult life, the song also delves beneath the coal miner's skin and gets into his soul. In fact, Knight delves more deeply here into his characters' psyches and concerns himself less with describing the bar fight body counts. "My Old Cars," for instance, uses memories of old cars to trigger thoughts of an old love. This disc also finds Knight turning up the guitars a little more and giving his songs a harder edge to go with his hard-edged lyrics. Part of this rockier approach might be due to the presence of ex-Georgia Satellite Dan Baird as producer and guitarist (he also produced two of Knight's earlier discs Pretty Good Guy and Jealous Kind). The opening track "Homesick Gypsy" is a rather standard "life on the road" number that's juiced up by some raucous roadhouse guitar work. Similarly, the electric guitars on "Hell Ain't Half Full" (one of the several co-writes here with top Nashville tunesmith and another returning Knight collaborator Gary Nicholson) provide the tune with added grit. After over a decade of troubadouring, Knight's body of work places right up there with the John Prines, Steve Earles, and James McMurtrys of the Americana singer/songwriter scene, even if he isn't as well known as these brethren. Heart of Stone, another excellent example of Knight's terrific talent, offers a vividly written gallery of characters struggling with the hardships and heartbreaks that life has dealt them. ~ Michael Berick, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
A couple years before releasing his 1998 Decca debut, Chris Knight demoed some of his songs with that disc's eventual co-producer, Frank Liddell. These were the days before computer software made it easy for home recording, so Liddell wound up recording Knight in an old trailer on Knight's Kentucky farm. Ten years down the road, these tapes got cleaned up by ace engineer/producer Ray Kennedy, and the results are quite wonderful. Only three of these 11 tunes ("Something Changed," "House and 90 Acres," and "If I Were You") later appeared on official Knight releases, but there isn't a drop-off in quality with the previously unreleased songs. The Trailer Tapes reveals Knight already to be a mature, gifted songwriter. The territory that he has addressed throughout his career -- hard-living working men, heartbreak, and stifling small-town existence -- is all here in impressive form. The disc is packed with powerful portraits of rural working life. On tracks like "Backwater Blues" and "Here Comes the Rain," he eloquently uses nature metaphors (the river in the former and farming and rain in the latter) to discuss heartache. With "Hard Edges" and "Move On," he offers vividly detailed studies of small-town life. The John Prine-ish "Hard Edges" poignantly profiles a woman who went from a grade-school ballerina to a blue-collar bar stripper, while "Move On" tackles the city-versus-country class struggle in the menacing tale of a bar fight. This tune, one of several mentioning pistols, contains a fine example of Knight's "redneck" but sharp-edged writing in the couplet "You say you're from college/But you don't seem too bright/You just brung a switchblade/To a pistol fight." Knight also tackles country versus city life in the memorable closing number, "My Only Prayer," where the Kentucky-based Knight finds nothing to love in the big city. This moving lament also spotlights the disc's spare, almost rudimentary sound. Some reviews of his debut album noted that the standard country-rock arrangements distracted from Knight's songs. Here, however, it is just Knight singing to his acoustic guitar, allowing the listener's focus to fall on his ample songwriting talents. While his character-rich tunes and husky country twang reveal the influence of Prine and, more prominently, Steve Earle, Knight demonstrates that he is a natural storyteller and chronicler of the rural life. Although these tracks started out as demos, they are worthy additions to Knight's body of work. ~ Michael Berick, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Chris Knight's Enough Rope is a tribute to blue-collar America, to the simple life and to the desperate hardships and the unmatched joys that people who aren't part of it will never know. It's blatantly honest, often empathetic and frequently beautiful. The album never dips from its high level of songwriting skill, energy, and passion, though some songs are more touching and standout than others. Enough Rope is a great mix of uptempo highway driving songs and sentimental, nostalgic ballads. "Up from the Hill" is a rollicking Southern rocker and "Bridle on a Bull" is country-tinged blues at its finest with distorted slide guitar delivering a howling solo: "If your mule don't want to plow/Talk to him with a two-by-four/And if he still don't want to plow/Talk to him just a little bit more/And if he just don't want to listen/Haul him off to the dog food store." The best aspect about Enough Rope is the stories Knight tells. The most touching song on the album is the medium-tempo "Old Man": "Don't wanna die till I've lived too long/They'll sell this place, whenever I'm gone/I miss my sweetheart so, and the way she used to smile/I miss them kids of mine, running wild/When the daylight fades in late afternoon/About all I know is it was gone too soon." "William's Son" is a tale of a maverick youth who grew up tough after escaping from his abusive father: "I'm kinda glad my dad got blown away/I know he grew up hard and he grew up mean/But me and my sister was not to blame." The album comes to a close with the perfect song: "Enough Rope" is a heartland rock ballad, reminiscent of a John Mellencamp tune (Knight's voice is a little grittier, but similar). It's slow, reflective, and simple, with acoustic guitar and violin -- a tribute to hard-working people who never got to achieve their biggest dreams. "Well, I work for the city, in the town where I grew up/Some days I run the backhoe, some days I run the dump/If I had other plans on my graduation day/Then several years ago, I guess I hauled 'em all away/She told me she was pregnant on the day I turned 18/And I did what you're supposed to do, I bought her a ring." Knight's music is the perfect blend of Americana and country-rock; it's clean at times, but it's far too soulful to be considered only contemporary country. His sound and style change little from album to album, but there's no need for change. Knight has discovered his niche as a songwriter, and Enough Rope is just another testament to his talent. ~Megan Frye, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Chris Knight's third album, The Jealous Kind, is of a piece with his first two, Chris Knight and A Pretty Good Guy. Once again, Knight sings in a throaty tenor with a Texas twang, a voice that will remind many listeners of Steve Earle. Doubling that resemblance are Knight's songs, which run to midtempo country-folk-rock arrangements of tunes with lyrics about a variety of ne'er-do-well lowlifes who struggle with controlling their drinking, holding onto their jobs, getting back their girlfriends, and committing petty (and sometimes not so petty) crimes. A typical effort is "The Border," co-written with Christie Sutherland, in which a couple, Jim and Loretta, hook up in a dive in Brownsville, party there and in Mexico, and, when their money runs out, rob a liquor store. "Carla Came Home" tells the story of a father's murderous revenge against a son-in-law who abused his daughter, while "Long Black Highway," performed as an acoustic dirge, is a ghost story about two young men who party through the Midwest and, when their money runs out, rob a gas station. Knight occasionally turns more thoughtful, as on "A Train Not Running" and "Broken Plow," which deal with rural economic desperation, and "Hello Old Man," a meditation by a son on his father. But his focus always remains on scruffy, down-and-out types, getting in trouble due to a combination of circumstances and their own weaknesses. "We all do some things we come to regret," he sings in "Staying Up All Night Long," "We get forgiven but we can't forget." It's those "things" that interest Knight most as a songwriter. (The CD features a music video of "Oil Patch Town" from A Pretty Good Guy, accessible via computer.) ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Ah, the return of true redneck rock. Chris Knight, who received more than a few kudos for his self-titled MCA debut, is back with a dirtier and more satisfying effort now that he's been allowed to record exactly what he wants. A victim of the MCA (and every other major label) "let's-throw-it-at-the-wall-and-see-if-it-sticks" theory of ripping off artists and insuring profits no matter who gets hurt, Knight proves he's better off without them. For those who haven't heard Knight, he's got the same rowdy, earthy, Saturday night sensibility that Jerry Jeff Walker blessed us with in the 1970s, the raucous rock & roll smarts of the Faces, the poetry of John Mellencamp all graced with the swampy blues mark of Tony Joe White. It's a damn shame the cat won't be played on the evil empire's radio stations, but given the networking of the alterna-country enthusiasts and the occasionally visionary American programmers, he might get a nod. If Knight was allowed to make a video and his records -- especially this one -- were to get played on the air, he'd make someone beside himself a cool million or so. The cat's got it all in spades: a vision that rides as far as the border of his own town, a wistful romance for the everyday, and a pissed-off streak that honors every American male with dirty hands and scuffed shoes. The set opens with the gambler's lament "Becky's Bible," with guitars charging through the center of the mix, so loud that Knight has to emphasize everything to be heard, which is good because his words are not to be ignored. Dan Baird's production (the Georgia Satellites guy) is tight, raw, and immediate. He equalizes everything at around ten and a half. Any man who starts a song with the words "empty beer bottles rattle on my pistol on the seat of my Chevy pickup truck," you know he means business. He isn't shooting anybody, but he's scared, rock & roll scared, trying to leave a trace, trying to find a placer just to live inside his own shoes. "Oil Patch Town," is an elegiac anthem to the crazy innocence of high school glory days that weren't so glorious. Knight's brutal; he doesn't paint anything romantically or make it darker than it has to be. He understands the power of both country and rock & roll to carry the message as long as the message is pure, simple, and direct. He doesn't get in the way, and therefore is a hell of a storyteller. One listen to the chilling "Down the River" is enough to make the weak-kneed -- or those who deplore violence -- go elsewhere for their listening pleasure, but Knight makes his stories, no matter how brutal, white-knuckle rides through the dark side of the imagination. He does so without judgement, reporting the facts as he dreams them just as they are. Baird's electric guitars and Rusty Young's lap steel bring drama and pathos to the stark lyric and drive the tale over the edge into rock tragedy. The way Baird and Knight use fiddles and banjos in tracks like "North Dakota" brings back the feeling of the Band's gothic Americana with Garth Hudson serving as multi-instrumentalist. The dirty-water Dylan-inspired blues-rock of "Highway Junkie" is a stomper. With its open E slide guitar slinging and wrangling greasy poetry, it feels like the Faces' "Loose" and Dylan's "Highway 61" brawling at the local truck stop. In all, Knight has made a far better record this time out -- and his first one was pretty damn good. The songs feel more like him and less like Nash Vegas and they have a looser, more heterogeneous feel as the big guy gets to stretch his blues heart and flex his rock muscle in what is at heart, the body of a country singer and songwriter. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
With Chris Knight's debut album, released on MCA Nashville's sister label Decca, critics of the new country sound of the late '90s began to hold out hope that Nashville could return to the genuineness that it had been so lacking for years. That hope was rooted partly in Knight's singing, full of country-rock phrasing clearly modeled after Knight's hero, Steve Earle, but even more so in Knight's songwriting. His flair for describing the lower-middle class in Middle America, their difficulties making a living, and run-ins with the law, evokes Earle and even early Bruce Springsteen. For example, "Love and a .45," co-written with Fred Eaglesmith, describes how two lonely people on opposite sides of the law, a cop and a prostitute, find each other. One of Knight's most literate songs, "The River's Own," details the singer's father's (and ultimately, his own) union with the river that runs by the family farm. And on the album's most poignant song, Knight tells the story of "William," a boy who "grew up hard and mean," beaten by his father, only to inflict some of the same pain on his family as an adult and die in a drugstore robbery. The only problem with this album is the instrumental arrangements. Some of Nashville's top studio musicians perform, and therein lies the rub. While technically proficient, the playing never matches up to the raw energy of Knight's songs. Thus, recording for a major label was a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it gave Knight a chance to be a major force in starting a new trend in country music, but on the other, the music might have been more effective had it been recorded live for a small independent record label. ~ Brian Wahlert, All Music Guide
