Paul Burch & The WPA Ballclub – Blue Notes
I admit I’m a sucker for slow, sad, and blue — songs such as “Willpower”, for instance, the lead track on Paul Burch’s latest album, Blue Notes. It’s a barroom downer littered with lines of lethargy and stale self-pity, and it shuffles forward accompanied by a hazy pedal steel and Burch’s slow, drawling voice. As a singer, Burch is no George Jones, but he’s figured out how to use what he has, and in the end, isn’t that what really counts? The song gives off fumes of cheap whiskey and gone-to-seed dreams, and it draws me in like an addiction.
A native of Washington, D.C. and a graduate of Purdue, Burch moved to Nashville for the same reason thousands of other dreamers have: to chase his love for country music. But instead of joining the songwriting staff at a Music Row publishing house or hauling gear for Tim McGraw, he took a gig playing to the drunks and tourists at Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge. There he hooked up with players such as Greg Garing and steel guitarist Paul Niehaus; he also joined Lambchop. Before long, Burch and Niehaus took the next logical step and formed their own group, the WPA Ballclub.
On the Ballclub’s previous two albums, Pan American Flash and Wire To Wire (both on Checkered Past), Burch proved he had more than just a passing fancy for stripped-down honky-tonk and western swing. But while those efforts showed promise, on Blue Notes Burch bridges the gap between respectable alt-country stylist and a musician running his own course and at his own pace.
Though the album title might imply it, not every song is blue in subject, arrangement, or mood. “Tonight, Tonight” — about a man on the verge of a breakup — and “Hitting Bottom” certainly are, but “Foolish Things The Lonely Do”, accented by steel guitar and a shimmering Hammond B-3, has a genuine current of hope. And then there’s “Forever Yours”, an out-and-out love song Burch wrote for his wife. “Long Distance Call” is a straight-shooting rockabilly reflex, “How Do I Know” has the raucous vibe of a Saturday-night string band, and “Carter Cain” — a cowboy-outlaw ballad and a standout here — is lean, bitter and swift.
From the first song on, it’s clear Burch and his bandmembers have a deep confidence — and, ultimately, trust — in what they’ve created. The arrangements are low-key yet well-considered, the emotions are honest and up-front. Blue Notes shows Burch stepping forward and coming into his own.