Chris Knight was admittedly surprised at the public’s reaction to the raw recordings of The Trailer Tapes. I’m not sure why, this genre has a fan base that prides itself as much on unreleased demos recorded on a Radio The Shack cassette recorder as it does the latest proper album release.
While Trailer Tapes II is technically a sequel to The Trailer Tapes, it differs at its core. See, while Trailer Tapes was a raw collection of songs that were largely unreleased, Trailer Tapes II features the original Chris-and-an-acoustic stripped-down versions of what ultimately became some of Chris’ most popular songs. These recordings spawn from that same summer recording session in 1996 featuring a recently signed, but still unknown Chris Knight that birth to The Trailer Tapes, taking place inside a singlewide trailer in Kentucky. When asked about the tracks on Trailer Tapes II, Chris had this to say, “I’ve been playing most of these songs every night on the road for the past 12 years. I know I sing 2 of them way different now than when I did then. What you’re hearing is a guy who had written those songs at his kitchen table and barely knew how to sing them into a microphone. Still, there are moments where I can hear the beginning of what I do now.”
I’ll admit that Trailer II doesn’t quite possess the same power that The Trailer Tapes did, but Chris at 3/4 power is better than many folks at full throttle. And even on Trailer II, when it’s on there are few better.
Chris Knight – Highway Junkie
Chris Knight – Old Man
Chris Knight – Love and a .45
Chris Knight’s Official Site, Chris Knight on myspace, Buy Trailer Tapes II
From the bitter lament of the rail worker in Spike Driving Blues to the battling lovers of Back Water Blues to the high school sweetheart turned murderer of Rita’s Only Fault these were the first glimpses into Chris’s unapologetic style of telling the stories of the blue collar man.
In the vapid ‘Save a Horse Ride a Cowboy’ tarted-up world of country music, a songwriter of Chris Knight’s caliber is either a) flat out ignored or b) too deep for the pop with a fiddle Clear Channel country music fan. There are no parties for Chris’s characters, no Honky Tonk or Badonkadonk’s. Chris’ characters are doomed to lives of jail cells, calloused hands, black eyes, beaten wives and unpaid bills, all told by one of the consistently best songwriters I’ve heard since the Drive-By Truckers. Eschewing hooks for stories, Chis Knight writes the kinds of songs that cut right to the reasons why I love music in the first place and heads straight to the