Josh Turner Albums (3)
'Everything Is Fine'
Release Date 10/29/2007
Tracks 12
Label Humphead
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What The Critics Say
The man with the biggest, most distinctive bass voice in country since Johnny Cash is back with album number three. Josh Turner scored big with the "Long Black Train" on his debut and took it over the top with the two big singles off his breakthrough sophomore album "Your Man," (the title track) and the monstrous hit "Would You Go with Me." While it's true that Turner kept producer Frank Rogers on board, along with mixing king Justin Niebank and many of the same musicians, there is still more of his actual personality on Everything Is Fine than on his previous albums put together. Interestingly, Turner has made very few concessions to the modern Nashville sound of big rolling guitars that are compressed to the point of being brittle, echo-laden drums and Hammond B-3s that all try to simulate the '70s sound of Southern rock. The opposite is true here. Turner is a country singer from the old school whose singing can be traced back through Randy Travis and George Strait to Merle Haggard, George Jones, and the great honky tonk singers. If anything, the music on Everything Is Fine is what Nashville's hit music should sound like in the 21st century. It uses the best technology has to offer in terms of clarity, but not at the expense of acoustic and electric stringed musical instruments sounding like themselves: Telecasters sound like Telecasters, pedal steel guitars sound like Sho-Bud's, banjos, mandolins, and unplugged six-strings, all come off sounding natural. But that's only the production angle. It's songs that make a record and this set is stacked with them. Turner wrote or co-wrote seven of the dozen tunes here. These include the sizzling fiddle and electric guitar stomping shuffle of "Firecracker," written with Shawn Camp (another part of the steady stable here) and Pat McLaughlin, and the banjo, steel, fiddle-drenched title number that opens the set (with Wes Hightower's backing vocals that double up the down-low basso profundo to stellar effect). It's an honest to goodness country song that is picaresque, relaxed, and feels authentic. Then there's his "only-in-country" burning, modern honky tonker "Trailerhood." There's a moving duet with Trisha Yearwood on "Another Try," written by Jeremy Spillman and Chris Stapleton. It's a love song with gorgeous dobro and fiddles that build to a crescendo of strings (countrypolitan did a lot of that once upon a time) whose sound is the only concession to the postmodern, post-country sonics of modern Music City, but, since it's a ballad, they are entirely appropriate and effective It's a destined hit. Yearwood, who is singing better in 2007 that at any time in her career (perhaps because she is unfettered by no longer being part of the "star system"), adds exponentially to this song emotionally and texturally. And Turner can write a love song: "Soulmate" is among the most direct and spare tunes in his résumé, but its natural soul and depth is refreshing and clean as well as romantic. There's also a popping cover of Johnny Horton and Tillman Franks' "One Woman Man" from way back in 1956. This is the tune that offers proof positive that Turner is a vocalist and writer who descends from the grand tradition. It's only two-and-a-half minutes long, but it rocks, rolls, and struts like a rooster in a barnyard. Everything Is Fine is the jewel in Turner's brief career so far; it's consistent, soulful, and natural. When it busts the sales field wide open (and it will), hopefully Nashville's label heads will follow A&R boss Luke Lewis' lead and let artists of this caliber make more of their own decisions. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Josh Turner's second album is deliberately steeped in country music tradition; at one point or another, he name-checks Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton, Charley Pride, and Red Sovine; sings with John Anderson and Ralph Stanley; and borrows songs from Anderson and Don Williams. At a time when country music, as so often, was flirting with pop, Turner took a leaf from his main immediate influence, Randy Travis, and established a sort of neo-neo-traditionalist approach with his first significant hit, "Long Black Train," in 2003-2004. Although it topped out at only number 13 in Billboard's country chart, the song established Turner, whose debut album, named after the single, went platinum. There isn't anything as arresting on this collection (the title song, an ordinary love ballad, inched into the country Top 20 prior to the album's release), but it is more consistent overall. Producer Frank Rogers constructs conventional country arrangements that do not draw any special attention to themselves, which is appropriate since all they need to do is serve as background to the real attraction, Turner's resonant bass baritone. It's that voice that matters, more than the music and more than the songs, although Turner and Rogers have put together a nicely balanced selection that includes a heartfelt ballad in "Angels Fall Sometimes" (one of five songs out of 11 that Turner wrote or co-wrote); the honky tonk duet "White Noise," a surprisingly successful pairing with Anderson; the dumb-but-no-doubt-sincere "Me and God," sung with Stanley; the rollicking novelty "Loretta Lynn's Lincoln" (a video waiting to happen); and the winning revival of Williams' 1977 hit "Lord Have Mercy on a Country Boy." Turner doesn't quite have the sense of wry humor necessary to make Anderson's (or songwriter Shawn Camp's) "Baby's Gone Home to Mama" his own -- he's still a better technical singer than he is an interpreter -- but he's still young, and improving. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
'Long Black Train'
Release Date 7/22/2003
Tracks 11
Label MCA Nashville
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
The centerpiece of this debut album by South Carolina native Josh Turner is its lead track, the traditional-sounding "Long Black Train," which could be a country gospel song out of the 1940s. Penned by Turner, the song rolls death, temptation, and redemption into the metaphor of a funeral train, and sung in Turner's deep voice, it rolls across country radio like nothing else on the scene, the ominous breath of hellfire in the lyrics conjuring up the ghost of Johnny Cash. It is also a hard act to follow, and although there are some strong songs here, nothing else on this record comes up to the level of "Long Black Train." Turner has a deep, commanding voice full of a kind of intimate sadness, and that alone carries songs like "She'll Go on You," setting them apart from what passes for Nashville sincerity these days, but there is simply too much filler here, and with "Long Black Train" as the lead cut, everything else seems like a long breath being exhaled. ~ Steve Leggett, All Music Guide
