Kevin Gordon – The In Between
Crowville Collective
10 songs – 37 minutes
Kevin Gordon is one of those artists who seems to consistently fly under the metaphorical musical radar of mass success, despite releasing a series of first class albums. The In Between is Gordon’s seventh album and his first since 2018’s critically acclaimed Tilt & Shine and is probably more unapologetically rock & roll than any of his previous releases. Since 2018, of course, the world has lived through the Covid-19 pandemic and Gordon has lived through radiation and chemotherapy to successfully treat his throat cancer. The In Between was recorded partly before his diagnosis and partly after completion of this treatment. Thankfully, his singing voice survived the process, and it crackles with life on every song.
Gordon wrote all 10 tracks on The In Between and he is backed by a crack band, including producer Joe V McMahan on guitars, Ron Eoff on bass, Dave Jacques and Josh Hunt on drums, Fats Haplin on fiddle, acoustic guitar and pedal steel and Luella Wood, Todd Bolden and Adrienne Reagan on backing vocals.
The album opens with the lead single, “Simple Things”, a track written during the pandemic that explores the importance of human contact and interaction through Gordon’s own personal perspective as an artist interacting with an audience. The grinding, bluesy, swampy “Keeping My Brother Down” follows, nailing a righteous fury as Gordon traces a line from Emmett Till to Eric Garner and the events of Ferguson, MO.
Autobiographical lyrics pervade the album. Both the title track and “Coming Up” have echoes of another great American songwriter, Tom Petty, in their simple structure and ear-worms of a vocal melody. The latter song addresses the break-up of the marriage of Gordon’s parents in 1980 and his escape into playing electric guitar in a punk band, while the proto-punk of “Love Right” sees Gordon casting an analytical yet forgiving eye over his father’s failings as a parent and as a human being.
“Marion”, a tale loosely based on a real-life coworker at Gordon’s first job, as a dishwasher in a restaurant owned by a gay man in Monroe, Louisiana, recalls the wistful longing of peak-era John Hiatt. Meanwhile, the gently sway of the fiddle in “Tammy Cecile” belies the wretchedness of a doomed relationship as remembered by Gordon.
There is an easy poetry to the lyrics that at times recalls another brilliant Louisiana songwriter and poet, Chris Smither.
It’s probably fair to say that The In Between is more of a rock & roll album than a blues/Americana release, but if your tastes lean towards the rockier end of the musical spectrum, you will find a lot here to enjoy.
There seems to be something about the Deep South and its relationship with its past or, as Faulkner put it: “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” Likewise, Kevin Gordon has looked to both his own past and the music of earlier generations to produce a thrillingly contemporary album. Really good stuff.
