Owen Temple & Susan Gibson: A Tale of Two Texas Records

Texas has become quite the recording hot-spot, with Austin being the central source of heat.  Simply because an album happens to be recorded in the Lone-Star State doesn’t make it a “Texas Album”, in my not-so-humble opinion.  Honesty, simplicity, distictive voices, and even more distinct writing is the combination of components of what I consider to be real “Texas Records”.  Red-Headed Stranger, and Jerry Jeff Walker’s Viva Terlingua-Live at Luckenbach album come to mind when I think of quintessential Texas recordings that feature the above combination.  While Two Thousand Miles from Owen Temple or New Dog, Old Tricks by Susan Gibson may not ever achieve canonization the way that Willie and Jerry Jeff’s finest works have, but they are great examples of raw, genuine and positively-Texan works of song.

Owen Temple has been banging around Texas for years, taking a recent break for a little grad-school up north.  His return to music sees him rocking a bit more than in his past.  The louder, electric songs make up a majority of the disc, and are where this album shines for me.  The opening track, “You Want to Wear That Ring” simply explains to a friend the things about marriage that make you as crazy as they make you soar without sounding like Dr. Phil.  “Swear it Off” is another rocking track that deals with love, but in this instance the love is not for a wife, but for the rodeo.  I will again mention simplicity.  There is a difference between the type of “simple” that equates to blandness (see: Josh Gracin, Chuck Wicks, etc..) and the simplicity that is born out of honesty (see: Hank Sr. or Kris Kristofferson).  We see this honest simplicity in the lyrics of “Swear it Off“, when Temple sings, “I ride in the rodeo a few times a year/ I get stomped and bucked and then/ I ride enough I get muddy and bloody/ Then I swear it off again“.  No one will mistake Temple’s lyrics for the any of the great metaphysical poems of John Donne, or his vocals for many of the smoother voiced Texans like Brandon Rhyder, but that isn’t the point.  The point is to tell a story, sing a song, and make you want to keep listening, which Temple does with great success.

Susan Gibson is well-known for her tales of life and the things that make living anything but simple (she wrote the hit, “Wide Open Spaces“).  With New Dog, Old Tricks (produced by the great Walt Wilkins), Gibson unearths many of her songs from years past.  My favorite of the disc is the quiet, soulful “Gatesville“.  When Gibson opens the song with, “Gatesville, sleepy town/ 3 beauty shops and a burial ground/ we all want to look our best when they put us down/ In Gatesville“, you again can’t help but be struck by the honesty with which she dishes on this tiny town.  Gibson’s writing is her strongest feature here, but I also appreciate her slightly nasal, organic vocal that lends itself well to a rousing urgency or somber sadness, depending on the song.  That vocal urgency is in full employ as she rollicks through “Perfect World” which is also showcase for Wilkins’ stellar guitar work. This disc helps cement Gibson’s rep as a songstress that fits effortlessly on a loud “Red Dirt” festival bill or a small, acoustic coffee house stage.