Album Review: Stoneman Blues, by Chance Ray & The Good Sinners

Chance Ray & The Good Sinners are out to bring you to the dark side of Springfield, Missouri’s music fandom with Stoneman Blues, the country-loving side the city has but doesn’t like to talk about. That’s the band’s perception, anyway, an idea put forth on the song “Nashfield,” where the band brings up–without naming any names–the advice of club owners and more who don’t acknowledge the genre’s popularity in the city. The rest of Stoneman Blues attempts, in a variety of ways, to offer up the most palatable and accessible album possible while adhering to country’s stylistic heritage. In other words, it’s not a get-on-CMT pop-country album. In fact, it professes the band’s dislike for such albums. Take that, Rascal Flatts!

The album’s production style, helmed by former Arkamo Rangers member Jimmy Rea, is noticeably retro, with the rhythm section de-emphasized in the mix similar to popular country albums of the late ’70s and ’80s. Many of the songs feel as though they would be comfortable in that era, too, including the opener “Excuse Me,” the ode to a woman’s tush “Busted Can of Biscuits,” the Allman Brothers-sounding “Gone” and “The Legend of John David Brown,” Ray’s personal take on the mid-’80s murder case that led to the state’s longest manhunt at the time and that was only just solved in 2006.

Not every song on Stoneman Blues works; “What Would Johnny Cash Sing” and “Here Comes the River,” for example, stumble lyrically where other songs on the album walk and run, but one can concentrate on the music and still enjoy. Even in its weak spots, Stoneman Blues remains an album played by five men who understand not only the music they make but the music they drew its inspiration from. The result is a safe approach to what has become a daring idea: a country album identifiable as such by more than just the sporadic banjo or fiddle flourish. Who knows, maybe by easing people back into that concept fans and venues alike can admit they liked it all along.