Nothing's ever the way it used be or quite the same as it once was. Time passes, lives come and go, we get born, grow up and die off.
No-one knows this better than Barna Howard who devotes most of his second album of gentle, folk songs to a range of related topics: old rodeos, farm roosters, carnies, cold rivers, train whistles, Honky Tonk bars, old town drunks, former lovers and his first kiss.
Hands Like Gloves, about a wife beater, is pretty much the only song not based on this store of personal recollections.
Viewed from his current base in Portland, Oregon the nostalgia he feels for his home town of Eureka, Missouri knows no bounds. Regrets, he's had a few, but his songs are more blue than bitter.
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There are no gimmicks or catchy hooks; this is just one man, an acoustic guitar and a bunch of memories. So gather 'round people, wherever you roam, and Howard will tell you how things were, back in the day.
Barna Howard's website
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