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* "you're the only quarter-horse in this stock-car race..."

In today's mail came an advance of a new disc from Confederate Railroad on Shanachie (which is apparently positioning itself as a refuge for once-mainstream country acts, this disc having been recently preceded by similar efforts from Daryle Singletary and David Ball). It seems a decent enough project -- covers of songs by the likes of Billy Joe Shaver, Johnny Paycheck, Charlie Daniels, Alan Jackson and others -- but that's not why I'm calling attention to it in this exposition.

What caught my eye was this: Of the disc's eleven songs, ten are properly credited to their writers on the accompanying press release -- the lone exception being the second track, "Hard Livin'", which is listed simply as "orig. recorded by Keith Whitley". I'll cut Shanachie some slack here and will assume they'll provide the proper writing credit to David Halley by the time the actual CD hits the stores. In the meantime, though, the mere fact that Halley's credit would be the only one absent on such a list tells me that maybe I need to step up for a moment and testify.

In the late 1980s, the division between Austin's college/indie/alt-rock scene (Reivers, Wild Seeds, Doctors' Mob, Glass Eye, et al.) and its country/folk/singer-songwriter scene (Butch Hancock, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Robert Earl Keen, Jimmy LaFave, et al.) was rather wide, with very few figures floating between the two camps. Probably the most conspicuous one who did was Alejandro Escovedo, who'd been a major part of the rock scene with the True Believers in the mid-'80s but had made some ties in the country camp during his early-'80s tenure with Rank And File.

So it was that one casual Tuesday night in January 1989 at Club Cairo, a long-dead Sixth Street joint which was home to the alt-rock community for a brief time, Escovedo played host for one of the club's weekly "Hoot Nights" and presented an intriguing mix of acts that crossed the streams of those scenes. According to my brief notes from way back then, alongside the alternative likes of Shoulders (who I remember well) and the MakeOuts (who I've competely forgotten), Escovedo presented country-centered acts such as Dickie Lee Erwin and the Barnburners. The latter was a ringer of sorts, a short-lived supergroup featuring ex-True Believers bassist J.D. Foster (now an accomplished producer), guitarist Rich Brotherton (now Robert Earl Keen's right-hand man), and banjoist Danny Barnes (later the frontman for the Bad Livers).

The real shining star that night, though, took the stage somewhat inconspicuously, with the exception that Foster and Brotherton were among his backing crew -- a sign that something probably was up. These Hoot Nights were casual midweek gatherings, each act playing just three songs, often startup acts still trying to establish an identity. Frequently the night was largely just an excuse for friends to hang out and drink and chat amongst themselves.

I was doing just that as David Halley began singing...but soon enough I found myself completely distracted from whatever conversation I was having, transfixed by the songs, and the sounds, emanating from the stage. This was waaaaaaaaay above typical Hoot Night fare. I knew Foster and Brotherton's reputations well enough to know they didn't latch themselves on to just anybody...but just where had they come across this ace in the hole?

Turns out he was already an established character...sort of. He'd written a song that had reached the country charts a few years earlier -- yes, the aforementioned "Hard Livin'" via Keith Whitley's version, though it was NOT "originally recorded" by Whitley (Joe Ely had done it first on Musta Notta Gotta Lotta, followed by Jerry Jeff Walker shortly thereafter). More recently, Jimmie Dale Gilmore had put Halley's "Rain Just Falls" on his 1988 album Fair And Square. But Halley had never released a record of his own, and so remained largely under the radar in Austin.

Things started to change not long after that Hoot Night appearance. Turns out Halley had been in the studio with Foster and Brotherton, recording what would outrageously be issued as a cassette-only release. This was right in the midst of the transition from LPs to CDs; if you didn't have a record deal, it was somewhat impractical to press up quantities of either format on your own. And so, probably the best single singer-songwriter record to come out of Austin that decade was on nothing but tape.

Yes, it was that good. Later it did get pressed onto disc (under the title Stray Dog Talk, first by UK's Demon in 1990, then by Austin's Dos in 1994), with a couple songs added from the original cassette version (including Halley's own version of "Hard Livin'", which remains his most successful song but actually quite far from his best). Foster (who produced) made some bold choices in the studio, juxtaposing roots-scene veterans such as drummer Davis McLarty and fiddler Champ Hood with alt-rock up-and-comers including trumpeter David Crawford (Poi Dog Pondering) and guitarist Mike Tamas (Water The Dog). The clincher was Syd Straw, a sultry/spunky chanteuse with her own fast-rising career (her Virgin Records debut surfaced at about the same time) who contributed backing vocals on several cuts.

The end result was perhaps the most definitive example of "alt-country" ever made in Austin. The songs were rooted in country -- as was Halley, having been raised in Lubbock and coming of age just on the tail-end of the Flatlanders' initial heyday there -- but the tone and arrangements borrowed considerably from rock and pop. Nearly twenty years later, it remains an almost perfect record.

Halley's writing is sharp, witty, rhythmic and lyrical: "And you wonder of course if you can handle the pace/You're the only quarter-horse in this stock-car race/And it's kind of a drag/'Cause it's a mighty long way to that checkered flag," he sings slyly in "Live And Learn". On "Opportunity Knocking", he observes that his baby has a "tight little dress cut up high as the national debt."

Elsewhere, he's heartachingly straightforward: "If you should ever doubt your worth/Let me show you what I see," he vows in "If Ever You Need Me", perhaps the best love ballad never to have been tapped by Music Row. "Rain Just Falls" (covered more recently by Stacy Dean Campbell, in 1999) opens with remarkably poignant poeticism: "In the still of the night/All the feeling inside me/Is concealing any sight from sore eyes."

On "Tonight", "Darlene" and "Walk The Line", Halley delivers ultra-catchy upbeat twangy country-pop that compares well with that of his fellow Lubbock native Buddy Holly (Straw's sassy harmonies sparking the last of those three especially). Rich Brotherton's classic-Glen-Campbell-esque bold-faced guitar riff dominates the the pointedly disillusioned "When It Comes To You", while Dave Crawford's free-jazzy trombone gives precisely the right touch of spook to the otherworldly "Dreamlife".

Somehow, nothing ever really happened for Halley. He followed up the debut with Broken Spell, which was more hit-and-miss but includes some very high highlights (the soaring pop opener "Sky", the hard-hitting ballads "It's Just As Well" and "Man Of Steel", the emotional confessional "Close To Your Heart", the offbeat charmer "Girlfriend"), and then, well, he pretty much disappeared from sight. At some point he moved to Nashville and tried to make a go of songwriting there; I recall him telling me in 2000 that he was working on a song called "I'm Giving 'Giving Up' Up", but apparently he gave up on that eventually (the song and the whole Music Row stock-car race). He's since moved back to Texas, though as far as I know, he's not playing out much.

Anyhow, I've made a short story rather long, and should probably stop rambling now. Check out Confederate Railroad's disc when it comes out, but follow "Hard Livin'" back to its source. David Halley deserves better than to be the lone guy who's been forgotten when it comes time to roll the credits.

adios,
peter

p.s. -- direct comments, if you wish, not to the "comments" section on this board (which we've disabled), but via email to: peter at no depression dot net

Posted by peter on March 12, 2007 10:48 AM | Permalink