I confess to tell you about this artist puts me a little in awe. Of course, I already did it on my blog two years ago for his latest album The Rain (https://www.trexroads.com/the-rain-dallas-moore-2021-english/) but every time I feel like this.
The reason is soon explained: Dallas Moore is a true living legend of Texas country music (and not only). I do not use this word lightly, it really is and without fear of being denied or contradicted.
Dallas is the quintessence of the independent country artist and he has been doing it for more than 20 years, since his real debut was in 2000, 10 records ago.
23 years is an enormity if you think that ours has never signed for a major, is promoter of himself, public for an independent label and for all these years has toured Texas and the States for more than 300 dates a year.
Three hundred, friends: you got it right.
Dallas has never stopped since he was 17 years old and fearlessly climbed the stage of a true legend and with his guitar enchanted the audience.
The above legend is the real protagonist of this new album by Dallas Moore, in fact the 10 songs that compose it are a tribute to one of the heroes, unknown to the masses, of honky tonk music: Billie Gant.
Do not worry if you have never heard of it, because it is a well-known name, but only to the fans who crowded the bars where the good Gant put iron and fire the boards of the boxes.
One of those cult artists who never got the success they deserved and never had the merit, had a fundamental role in the development of a genre.
Gant was called the first outlaw when outlaws didn’t exist.
The word outlaw to define this type of country music appeared after the famous album Wanted! (1976 by Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Jessi Colter and Tompall Glaser) and is to indicate that kind of country not loyal to the rules of the genre, infiltrated by rock and blues music and light years from what they asked for their radio and labels.
Billie Gant played that kind of music around clubs, until a very bad accident forced him to withdraw from the scene since it took him 13 years to fully recover.
No God in Juarez is therefore the tribute that the great Dallas Moore wanted to do to one of the inspirers of his twenty-year career of true outlaw who rides his Harley Davidson rages the stages of Texas and surroundings.
But this album is also dedicated to the memory of Moore’s great friend and guitarist, the legendary Chuck Morpurgo, who died a few months ago.
There are therefore all the ingredients for a great record of outlaw country, played and sung by a great artist with a band of very high quality and expectations were not disappointed.
Dallas Moore’s powerful and rock-tinged voice is well known and in these 10 pieces it delivers truly exceptional performance.
It seems that the forced pause brought by the events we know of 2 years ago, have given good Dallas new energy and new life.
He said after the release of The Rain (the album of the link I put at the beginning) that this rest, after being accustomed for years to play almost every day, made him rediscover the simple things and, probably, gave him new inspiration.
Press play, friends and let yourself be carried on the motorcycle of Dallas, drive him, but hold on tight you will not stay still for long.
It starts with a country with a honky tonk flavor, Halo Too Tight is fun, it’s guitars, it’s piano and it’s a voice that stays in your mind.
It would take pages and pages, it would be necessary to talk about all the songs of this wonderful record as the wonderful attack of guitars at very high speed of The Ballad of Reuben Dixon, honky tonk class played by a band to lick the mustache.
They are strong, intense, fun songs, but they were meant to be played in front of people, from the dusty planks of a Texas bar and the feeling while listening is to be catapulted into one of those legendary clubs.
The title track has a Mexican flavor not only in the title, but also in the guitar lap, the voice of Moore so intense pushes the dust of the Texas desert out of the speakers and in we ride towards sunset with him.
A movie, this piece is like an old-fashioned western. Wonderful.
Want to know how the outlaw country sounds today after 50 years? Sit back and let Truckin’ Outlaw Blues play. It doesn’t take a lot of explaining, but it’s gonna be hard to sit still, trust me.
The work ends with the wonderful ballad The Emperor of Tejon Street and here too we have to disturb a film vision, a song that could easily have been the soundtrack of a western story between John Wayne and Clint Eastwood.
Dallas Moore’s narrator is pure art, few tools, a lot of passion and an extraordinary talent. Moreover, his way of playing the guitar is divine, a complete artist.
No God in Juarez is a little gem, a record that seems to come out of the 70s to explain to the modern world, dominated by the mainstream and its garbage, what it was, indeed what is still, the outlaw country movement.
Despite it is a cover album, Dallas Moore makes these songs his own and with its overflowing character gives these pieces new life and pays an extraordinary tribute to Billie Gant, an artist who should be celebrated with all the honors as he deserves.
If you have any doubts about what this genre is, If you want to know the nuances put on the plate this disc and let yourself be guided on the dusty streets of Texas outlaw by an artist who has earned the title of legend and riding his Harley continues to give us pearls of absolute value.
Thank God for Dallas Moore, Mr. Honky Tonk.
Good listening,
Trex Willer by http://www.ticinonotizie.it
(in Ticino Notizie web site you can find original italian version of this article)
