Chris Knight - Little Victories

If you were to paint a portrait of a singer-songwriter and ex-mine reclamation inspector  hailing from 90 acres in Slaughters, KY, Chris Knight would be the visage on the canvas. Writing songs from a common working mans perspective, Knight writes compelling songs filled with characters drawn not from TV or documentary portrayals, but from real-life, sweat and blood insight into the average 21st Century American's existence.

Knight is a man who prefers to let his music do the talking. If you are as contemptuous of modern "Country" music as JS-NYC and lucky enough to see any of his mainstream CMT-type interviews, check in to see Knight maintaing a level of interview enthusiasm halfway between Robert DeNiro and J. Mascis and watch the plastic hosts wither. His records come out every four years or so and perform as respectively as any other singer-songwriter on the circuit, but Knight keeps the lights on with the royalties from the covers of his tracks by mainstream acts like Montgomery Gentry and Ty Herndon.

Little Victories is a solid collection of songs, filled with portraits of good common men and women trying to make it through another day, not living high on the hog, but living nonetheless.  Co-conspirators include Buddy Miller as well as personal Knight hero John Prine, who pops in to take a pretty aces guest verse on Little Victories. Nothing On Me and You Can't Trust No One are two other high points, but there really isn't a bad song on Little Victories. I'd pick it up with the quickness.

As Knight thinks globally, but performs most locally around the South, those North of the Mason-Dixon line are best advised to get hard copies of Little Victories here from the Chris Knight web presence. Stay tuned to JS-NYC for news of any dates in town.

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Chris Knight - The Trailer Tapes II

The Trailer Tapes II is (shockingly enough) the second installment of demos from the proud son of Slaughters, KY that is Chris Knight. Knight has been pretty successful in recent years as a songwriter for other Nashville acts. His tracks have charted highly for ear-rape ensembles like Montgomery Gentry and Confederate Railroad, affording him the luxury of touring sporadically while still keeping the lights on. TT II features 12 more tracks recorded solo and acoustic in a double-wide trailer way back in 1996. Nine of them eventually appeared on later Knight releases and three unreleased tracks that are pretty much as good.

You can pick up a copy of Trailer Tapes II from our dear Mr. Knight via this link. Turn that Toby Keith CD into the coaster that it deserves to become and remind yourself what real songwriting sounds like.

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Live: Chris Knight at Mercury Lounge 11.22.8

Scott Miller once described Chris Knight as 'country as a chicken coop'. At the time, even though I knew Miller was a dyed-in-the-wool Virginian, I thought that came off a little condescending. Then again, I am a Yankee, albeit one who is half-Texan. That unnecessarily elucidated, Scott ain't lying. Steve saw Knight on some CMT type program recently and described him as Cro-Magnon, and he ain't lying either. 

Not that Chris Knight is dumb (or that he couldn't dispatch me to the afterlife in a hundred simple ways). He has an Agriculture degree and worked for his home state of Kentucky for years before his songwriting career bore fruit. While his own releases haven't been huge successes sales-wise, he's had a gang of the songs from those records covered by artists from Montgomery Gentry to Gary Allan, affording him a comfortable living, especially if you still live in Slaughters, KY. 

The Chris Knight demographic is not a Northern one for the most part, and as a result we get him in NYC once a year, at best. With gas prices and the economy being what they are, they are almost always solo shows, but this one happened to be a duo show with a stunt guitarist. Wonderfully enough, the set was an early one and billed as "An Evening With" without an opener. God Bless The Mercury Lounge. The lovely Essie saw fit to comp me and I arrived as Knight and his sideguy took the stage. 

Knight is not exactly John Prine when it comes to stage banter. The first minute or so was filled with plinking into a tuner. He may have grunted hello, but pretty much launched into his first five songs without hesitation. When he did pause and some woodchuck called out a request, he acknowledged the shouter by grinning and offering, 'we got a new song for you called shut the hell up'. This is not a man who suffers fools or foolishness gladly. The set went maybe an hour and a half or so, featuring most of the new record, Heart Of Stone as well as some dips into early tunes like House And 90 Acres. The set was pretty well received by the bridge and tunnel redneck set that ventured out. They drank heavily and sang along loudly with most songs, cheering extra loudly for the ones that featured the enforcement of the Second Amendment.

Knight shows North of the Mason-Dixon Line are a rarity, and the sparse crowd may very well make it another year or so before we see him again, but check out his webpage here to find out when you might see him next. He's also got a MySpace, amusingly enough. I would venture that he's not administering that himself. The new record, Heart Of Stone is a hell of a good record, perhaps the best since his first. Pick it up here and get off the couch next time he comes through town. 

Chris Knight - Heart Of Stone

For the uninitiated, I have an awesome sister. The awesomeness is a general component of her bearing, but every once in a while, it really flares up. Let's backtrack a bit. There aren't a lot of people that recommend music to me, mostly because I get a ton of it sent my way but also due in large part to my inability to rein in my sneering contempt for stuff I don't like. It's a gift. I don't normally subject my sister to it, but what I'm trying to get to is that ten years ago my sister told me to check out Chris Knight and I was shocked that I hadn't heard of him. Granted, he only had his self-titled debut in the racks, but he was a obviously a strong, strong songwriter with a staggeringly good debut record. 

House And 90 Acres was the single from his eponymous debut that got Knight the most attention. It didn't hurt that one of the first places he played it live was at Farm Aid. His record's Mellencamp-ian populist politics resonated with the thousands of attendees and Knight was off to the races. He's sold a respectable amount, but has been much more successful with the songs that have been covered (more often than not inferiorly) by a gang of mainstream country artists ranging from Randy Travis to Montgomery Gentry. While it's sometimes shocking how poorly done some of those covers are, it must undoubtedly be what Steve Earle would call 'a financial pleasure' for the man, if nothing else.

I found the next three or four Chris Knight records to be kind of hit or miss. One day I heard Louie playing what I was pretty sure was a new Knight song at Academy. He was quick to say how great it was and even took it off the house system to sell to me the advance. That's a good man, there. It's nice to know that every once in while, being a record store hanger-on has it's privileges. That record ended up being Enough Rope and it was real good. As luck would have it, Knight was in town a week just or so later at Mercury. It's a slippery slope for Knight up North, so a lot of times it just him and another guitar. That was the case this evening and the ease with which the duo slayed the room asserted one thing absolutely: Knight's mainstream fans are a rabid lot. It's appropriate, as most of them are dyed-in-the-wool, straight up woodchucks. 

Knight's average NYC crowd is terrifying in a lot of ways. Don't get me wrong, my background is far from royalty and I have all the respect in the world for hillbillies and their redneck ilk. Say what you want, I wouldn't want to live that life, but at least they are real. I would willingly take a crowd of them over four or five of the haircuts that Drew and I saw at Guitar Center yesterday. That qualified, Knight's most fervent fans appear to have arrived by freight-car straight from Appalachia. Most of them are female and they will shout and caterwaul like strays in heat from the moment he takes the stage, thankfully clamming-up instantaneously the minute he steps to the mike. His is a classic country voice with a Kentucky edge that deserves every bit of the adulation it receives. 

Heart Of Stone is the most fully realized Chris Knight record yet, with the best mix of hooks and populist sentiment he's ever put together. Starting with a couple of solid midtempo tracks, it picks up a solid head of steam with the title track and Almost There. Maria and Miles To Memphis up the ante even more and by the time you reach the closing Go On Home, there's no chance you won't immediately hit play again. Knight is a little bit left of center of mainstream country music, but he is country the same way Steve Earle and Gary Allan are, and that's not a bad place to be. You have a dedicated fanbase, you don't have to play real shitty places and everybody wants to cover your songs. Doesn't sound like a bad deal for a guy with ten or twelve charted covers who still lives on his family's ancestral Kentucky land. 

Knight will be up this way in November. He vowed to bring a full band this time, but I'm pretty sure that gas prices will make it a solo show. For a lot of performers, that might be an iffy proposition, but you have nothing to worry about with this Kentucky boy. You've got some time before he's in town, so while you're waiting, buy Heart Of Stone here and check out the links below for gang of other audio-visual delights.

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