We've all encountered 'tribute' albums along the way and if you're a regular around these parts, you've probably encountered me tearing strips off a good few of them. However, while there are mere 'tribute' albums, there are also those projects which go the extra mile: long-term labours of love which transcend the sum of their parts.
Such projects are relatively few and far between, but CHUCK PROPHET'S 'Dreaming Waylon's Dreams' is one of them. It's not merely an exercise in covering a 'greatest hits' selection, it's a cover of Jennings' entire 'Dreaming My Dreams' album from 1975 and it makes it abundantly clear to even the most casual listener that there's a damn sight more to Mr. Jennings' back catalogue than that damn Dukes of Hazzard theme.
Although these days largely revered in Country music terms, we must of course remember Waylon Jennings had a tough initiation himself. Before the success of 'Dreaming My Dreams' (where Jennings mostly put his own outlaw spin on Country classics as well as delivering his personal tributes to Hank Williams and Bob Wills) he was anything but accepted by the conservative Grand Ole Opry hierarchy in Nashville. Having travelled a similarly tough, pioneering path with influential Country-tinged rockers Green on Red, it's no surprise that Chuck Prophet can empathise with Jennings' chequered journey and it's certainly true that he puts his own very individual spin on the eleven songs making up the album.
The press release suggests that Prophet also sees the album as a mental tribute of sorts to Alex Chilton's critic-dividing 'Like Flies on Sherbet', but to these ears there's nothing quite as unhinged as that to wade through here. Probably the major chaff-sorter is the crazed electro-tinged re-invention of 'The Door Is Always Open' which – with its' beat boxes, electronic blipping and mad, echo-y vocal narration – sounds more like The Fall at their most claustrophobic than anything vaguely resembling Country-Roots.
There's nothing else quite so radical, but Prophet's take on the album is certainly suffused with Jennings' original outlaw spirit and there are times when that spirit can Rock very hard indeed. 'Waymore's Blues' is especially funky, groove-bound and dangerous and features a wonderful, crawling alley cat of a slide guitar solo. 'High Time (You Quit Your Low Down Ways)' is driven along by monster Duane Eddy-style riffs and a boisterous, rubber-burnin' take of the Honky-Tonkin' 'Bob Wills is Still The King' is the perfect way to send us home in a Lone Star state of mind.
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All of these are enough to get you up and dancing, but however good they all are (and they are) it's probably the ballads which are the real heart of the record. 'Let's All Help The Cowboys (Sing The Blues)' gets a nice ironic gender reversal courtesy of Stephanie Finch's poised, throaty vocal, while the ghostly, reverb-y version of 'Dreaming My Dreams With You' (you'll know it, believe me) finds Chuck and Steph doing their finest Gram and Emmy Lou. Both of these are fine and dandy, but it's the slow and sozzled takes of 'I Recall A Gypsy Woman' and 'I've Been A Long Time Leaving' – where Chuck's voice cracks and the emotion bleeds from every pore – that really hit you in the gut. Funnily enough, it's not so much Alex Chilton's 'Like Flies on Sherbet', but Big Star's flawed masterpiece 'Third' that springs to my mind when I hear these.
Ultimately, it's probably Prophet's version of 'Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way?' that's the most resonant track of all. The song is already a disdainful put down of plastic Nashville (“rhinestone suits and shiny cars, it's been the same ways for years...we need a change!”), but with screes of feedback akin to Sonic Youth and an expressively dirty, Stones-style guitar solo, Prophet's fine re-invention is beautifully realised and a clarion call for the importance of ongoing musical evolution. Regardless of genre.
Like the original, Chuck Prophet's 'Dreaming Waylon's Dreams' may well irk the purists, but it's from the heart and every bit as much about paying dues in an inspirational fashion as it is about smashing what came before. It's a sincere and exhilarating gift from one influential trailblazer to another.
Chuck Prophet MySpace site
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