November 2003
Texas
February 2004
The White House Session
Over & Over/Twangy Guitar/(Ain't Enough) Whiskey/Guitar Man/The Buffalo Grass
Dallas/Texas In My Dreams/(I Overheat In A) Heartbeat/Good Old Boys/Whiskey's Fine
Producers: Clay Canfield & Polly Waters
Self-release CC1203 (36:38)
****
No, not a performance before the President of the United States, but a recording cut in
White House, Tennessee. This set follows The Comanche Session , Clay Canfield's
debut album which he cut in a single day in 2001 with just his gutiar and harmonica
for accompaniment. The formula is repeated here, but this time the excellent
singer-songwriter speeds up some - the entire White House Session was recorded
in just one afternoon.
An accomplished guitarit, Canfield switches between gentle arpeggio picking
to a driving rock style on Twangy Guitar, before hitting the listener with a
bottleneck blues on Johnny Winter's Dallas, one of two outide songs. The second
is Bob McDill's Good Old Boys which Clay performs in an even more laidback
way than the song's hitmaker, Don Williams.
Clay is a fine writer annd any of his eight songs on this album could be successfully
recorded by bigger names. Echoes of Marty Robbins can be heard in Over & Over,
a lament from a loser in love, and Canfield should certainly pitch it to Don Edwards.
(Ain't Enough) Whiskey is a real tear-in-my-beer barroom waltz that George Jones
would lap up, while Texas In My Dreams would delight any number of singers
from the Lone Star State.
Followers of Chris LeDoux who bought his latest Horsepower album will have
already heard Canfield's The Buffalo Grass, a great song which perfectly captures
the anxiety of a small time rancher a he sits out a particularly bitter winter.
Hopefully, a British promoter will get to hear Clay, stick his neck out and bring
him across for a tour. I'm sure he would go down well in the few remaining
listening clubs around the country.
Yet when talented artists like Dave Mallett, Andy Wilkinson and David Olney
are failing to draw respectable crowds (largely because they get very little radio
airplay and remain almost unheard of), I'm not sure Clay would fare any better.
A pity - but that's the sad state of the country music scene these days.
(www.claycanfield.com)
Al Moir
