Porter Wagoner
Wagonmaster

Anti- 2007

By Tiffany Rainey

Porter Wagoner often comes off as the old, wrinkled drunk at the end of the empty bar. He’s the one who will listen to your sob stories and validate them with an equally heartbreaking, overly rambling tale of his own. And just when your guard is down and you’re about to confess your seventh deadly sin, he lowers into sleepy, Southern Jesus-talk and you decide to pay your cocktail more attention.

In his latest incarnation, the wizened country crooner and Grand Ol’ Opry performer doesn’t wear the Nudie costume he’s infamous. Southern sequined attire is a little more flamboyantly Americana than most imaginations can muster.

No one other than my backwater Bible Belt grandfather has any idea who Porter Wagoner is. He’s one of those guys we’re supposed to know, suddenly, as of this year.

On Wagonmaster the country singer imparts tales of tainted love, drug abuse and religious revival that ring true whether you’re blue collar in Alabama or topless in Panama City. “Committed to Parkview,” a ballad penned by Johnny Cash then handed over to Wagoner, only to be lost and recently rediscovered, recounts days in an asylum, where both classic country singers once called home. In “Albert Erving” Wagoner paints the picture of a lonely old man who’s only love is one that he’s created in his teetering daydreams. Delivered in a smooth baritone forgone the cracks of age, you get a sense of wisdom without the damp geriatrics. It is only in the outtakes and intros that you see the country legend’s true age in pronunciations that haven’t been part of popular vernacular since television was slapped by Technicolor.

The bluegrass picking and steel pedals lend the simplistic lyrics a twang that’s inescapably country but refreshing in its lack of pop crossover. Though you’re likely to never come across this album unless you specifically seek it out, it’s worth the time. And the time is dwindling, as this still-surviving American cultural sect that included Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton and hillbillies drinking Pabst fades amidst generations of college graduates and their desire to avoid life’s wrinkles.

This discourse of Porter Wagoner 's Wagonmaster is written by Tiffany Rainey for ignore Magazine, copyright 2007.