The Comeback Album
Eric Brace & Peter Cooper
Red Beet Records
A comeback
album? Only these guys would slap such an
ironic title on a record. 2011’s I Love: Tom T. Hall's Songs of Fox Hollow was a remake of Hall’s classic children’s
record, nominated for a Grammy, one of my favorite albums that year, and Eric
Brace and Peter Cooper were all over it, organizing, producing, coordinating, singing. Their 2010 duo record, Master Sessions, featured pedal steel king Lloyd Green and
dobro wiz Mike Auldridge (The Seldom Scene). On this, their third record
together, Brace and Cooper complete each other’s lines like a
married couple finishes each other sentences. This familiarity breeds not
contempt but better performances. Brace is the more
emotional songwriter, while Cooper is adept at wry lyrics. Brace is literal,
where Cooper is literate. But instead of each song being a Brace song or a Cooper
song, this time out they’re Brace and Cooper songs. On Johnson City, Brace takes the more
direct route, singing about being locked up in the Tennessee town’s pokey (“I know the way to Johnson City/ now I just
gotta find my way out”) while Cooper comes in on the bridge detailing a surreal
jailhouse conversation with God.
The opener Ancient History is one of their tradmark
clever, up-tempo tracks, a meditation on the impermanence of existence using
stage names and nicknames as a metaphor for change in life. (“Richard Nixon was Tricky Dick/Dick trickle
was a race car driver, no really he was a race car driver, a talented popular
race car driver”). Baseball references are scattered throughout (also from Ancient History: “Sid Bream was safe at home…the eighth world wonder was the Astrodome”), although
I wish they had included Cooper’s fine song Opening
Day on this release. Nine of the
twelve tracks were written by Brace and/or Cooper, with one of the covers
coming from the aforementioned Tom T. Hall, Mad,
which features guests Duane Eddy, Mac Wiseman and Marty Stuart (“When she’s mad, that’s a dangerous game/in
the obituary column, they’ve already printed my name.”). Recorded in
Nashville (of course) by Thomm Jutz, the album features a core of stellar
musicians, including Paul Griffith on drums, Dave Jacques on bass, Green on
pedal steel, and Jen Gunderman on keys.
The overall
theme here seems to be one of uncertainty, whether the protagonists in the
songs are in jail looking for bail, a perennial loser buying lottery tickets or
a sailor adrift in the darkness. But that doesn’t mean the album is dark or
completely introspective. Eric Brace and Peter Cooper see to that through their
solid songwriting, singing and impeccable harmonies. The Comeback Album may not be an
over-the-fence, Ruthian home run, but it’s a solid rap into the gap, a triple
and with a combination of determination and talent, Brace and Cooper
score. Just like Sid Bream.
Curtis Lynch
May 2013
