Porter Wagoner Wagonmaster Album Review, Songs, Rating

Home > Music > W > Wagoner, Porter > Discography

Albums | Compilations | Singles | Videos

Porter Wagoner
Wagonmaster
Release Date: 2007 06 05
Running Time: 52:51
Label: Anti
Rating:

That Porter Wagoner released a new album during the year of his 80th birthday -- some 55 years after his first recording -- is an event worth celebrating in itself. That it is consistent with the best work of his career is remarkable. Wagoner has always played it straight -- his brand of mainstream country-tonk never was as fashionable as his spangled stage outfits, and he never pretended to be an outlaw -- and that's just what he continues to do here. Though his baritone is more weathered than during his prime, Wagoner sounds decades younger on Wagonmaster, and there remains a youthful exuberance to the music. The only obvious signs of his age surface during the spoken word sections, such as the intros to "Albert Erving," a song of abject loneliness, and "Committed to Parkview," which Johnny Cash wrote for Wagoner but never recorded himself. Like many songs in Wagoner's canon, it's eerie, creepy, and more than a little bit sad, a vivid account of life inside a Nashville asylum, listening to the "guests," one of whom "thinks he's Hank Williams." One of the highlights of Wagonmaster, the song was presented to Wagoner -- himself a former "guest" at the facility, as had been Cash -- by Marty Stuart, who took a no-frills, purist's approach to his production of Wagonmaster (pedal steel rules!). There are songs of hard loss ("The Late Love of Mine," "Be a Little Quieter") and hard work, songs of faith (the back-to-back "Brother Harold Dee" and "Satan's River"), and songs of good times too -- all of them are classic Wagoner, one of the last of the true giants of Nashville's golden era. Jeff Tamarkin, All Music Guide

Tracks:

	Title	Composer	Time
1	Wagonmaster, Pt. 1	Stuart	:48
2	Be a Little Quieter	Wagoner	2:25
3	Who Knows Right from Wrong	Butler	3:17
4	Albert Erving	Wagoner	4:18
5	Place to Hang My Hat	Hill, Camp, Long	3:24
6	Eleven Cent Cotton	Stuart, Wagoner	2:39
7	My Many Hurried Southern Trips	Parton, Wagoner	3:19
8	Committed to Parkview	Cash	3:40
9	Agony of Waiting	Wagoner	3:36
10	Buck and the Boys	Stuart	:52
11	Fool Like Me	Wagoner	2:51
12	Late Love of Mine	Wagoner	3:11
13	Hotwired	Camp, Sanders	3:35
14	Brother Harold Dee	Wagoner	4:23
15	Satan's River	Wagoner	3:21
16	Wagonmaster, Pt. 2	Stuart	1:08
17	Porter & Marty: Men with Broken Hearts/(I Heard That) Lonesome Whistle	Williams, Davis	6:04

Browse More Music:
# A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Starpulse.com

Your Entertainment Destination

Porter Wagoner:

Follow Starpulse