Punk rock has produced few singers with the strength and chops of
X's
John Doe, and the force and presence of his vocals (and songwriting) on albums like
Wild Gift and
Under the Big Black Sun rank with the most satisfying
rock & roll of the 1980s. But on
Doe's recordings with
X's acoustic incarnation,
the Knitters, and on his debut solo album,
Meet John Doe, he showed he was every bit as gifted with
country-influenced material, and for years a handful of
X fans has been patiently waiting and wishing for
Doe to cut a straight-ahead
country album. It took a while, but
Doe has finally done it, and he's done it right;
Country Club is a collaboration with the great Canadian
roots rock combo
the Sadies in which they interpret a handful of classic
country sides in a style that fuses the moody late-night atmosphere of Nashville's
countrypolitan era with the straightforward guitar-based sound of vintage
Bakersfield acts like
Buck Owens and
Merle Haggard. As musicians,
the Sadies are as tight and as capable as anyone walking into a recording studio these days, and their touch on these songs is all but flawless, fusing Prairie soul with a high lonesome sweetness and a subtle but expressive sense of aural adventure that turn their interpretations of
"Night Life" and
"Till I Get It Right" into something truly special. And
Doe's vocals are a wonder; he never forces false melodrama or histrionics into these performances, but uses his rich, roomy voice to explore the spaces within these tunes with patience and a heart as big as all outdoors. Most
country fans have heard
"Help Me Make It Through the Night," "Detroit City," and
"I Still Miss Someone" a few hundred times (at least) from dozens of artists, but
Doe makes the heartache in their lyrics real and genuine, and few performers of the Nash Vegas era can match the innate understanding of classic
country weepers that
Doe reveals on this set.
Doe and
the Sadies contribute one new song each to these sessions (the band also tosses in two brief instrumentals), and
"It Just Dawned on Me" and
"Before I Wake" are good enough that you wouldn't guess they weren't copyrighted in the 1960s if you didn't read the credits. Plenty of
rock singers have tried to honor the sound and traditions of period
honky tonk music over the years, but you'd be hard-pressed to find one who sounds as ineffably right singing this stuff as
John Doe, and
Country Club is a casual, no-frills masterpiece. ~ Mark Deming
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