Big & Rich
Saturday, May 28, Harrah’s

Big & Rich wrapped up 2004 riding a crest of good press, and it’s not hard to see why: the button-down boots-and-Stetson world of contemporary country music was ripe for a little oddball irreverence, and Big & Rich delivered plenty on their double platinum debut Horse of a Different Color. Here was a cowboy carnival of chip-kickin’ border-crossing “expandalism,” to use Big Kenny’s phrase, a country record that gave shout-outs to Stevie Wonder and arena rock and yet still smelt strongly of Nashville. Even more noteworthy, Big & Rich’s opening anthem “Rollin’” featured a cameo from Cowboy Troy, the world’s first bilingual black country rap star. Big & Rich call the country-rap mash-up “hick-hop,” and it’s a good bet that Horse of a Different Color was the only album on last year’s country charts to contain the lyric, “When the party is crunk, the girls back it up.”

And backin’ it up they were, not just to “Rollin,’” but to the saucy sing-along “Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy).” Big & Rich call their style “country music without prejudice,” and that alone is reason to rejoice: their embrace of inclusion, experimentation, and risk feels particularly fresh in a genre better known for rock-ribbed conservatism. As their sales soared, Big & Rich (and the loose Muzik Mafia collective to which they belong) loomed as saviors in Nashville: one country exec called Horse of a Different Color the most important country album since Willie n’ Waylon went outlaw back in 1976.

Big talk, all that, which is why the experience of actually listening to Horse of a Different Color is such a disappointment. Yes, there are tricks and novelties and guffaws and contrasts and even a few boot-stompin’ riffs, but Horse of a Different Color fails to really fly. The aforementioned “Rollin’” is the most interesting song on the album; I’m sure I could listen to Cowboy Troy at least five or six times before my interest faded. But get past the rock-n-roll ambitions and the amusing little larks and there is not a whole lot that is deep or different or new here. Indeed, what is most surprising upon first listen is how predictable the album sounds. Don’t believe the hype: Horse of a Different Color is full of Nashville conventions, from the rounded sound to the bland studio touches, from the sing-along choruses to the country-drunk confessionals, from the ordinary-guy-in-a-mixed-up-world condescension to the two requisite pieces of pious introspection (or is it three?). What’s more, Big Kenny and John Rich are mediocre vocalists, and the duet format only makes their mediocrity more evident. (Example A: the attempted soul on “Saved.”) If this is the great hope for Nashville, let’s go ahead and put a stake through its heart right now.

I’m being too tough, I know. If I had heard the other 19 albums on CMT’s year-end Top 20, I’d probably be foaming over Big & Rich too. But however exciting Horse of a Different Color is in the context of mainstream Nashville pap, it’s nowhere near the best country or crossover music that’s being made today. For that, you’ve got to leave Music Row and look up a few of the acts on Bloodshot or New West, read the latest issue of No Depression, or, what the hell, dial up a few of those old-timers who are still kicking around. There’s plenty of expandalism going on out there, and some damn good traditionalism as well: it gets better than Big & Rich.

That’s not to say that Saturday’s show won’t be entertaining. Long before Horse of a Different Color dropped, Big & Rich had a local reputation for hosting hellacious live shows, part carnival and part concert, with a good-time love-everybody feel. They call it the “Wild West Show” and it just may be that. Let me know how it goes.

Shows start at 6:30 and 9:00 and tickets are $45 and $60. Call 1-800-HARRAHS for more info.

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Three Good Bluegrass Musicians Who Got Their First Break in Jimmy Martin’s Sunny Mountain Boys

1. Doyle Lawson

2. Alan Munde

3. J.D. Crowe

They Said It

“Somewhere along the way, moonshine and dynamite collided. The result is the musical genius and three-chord scholar named Jimmy Martin.”

— Marty Stuart, in the introduction to Tom Piazza’s book True Adventures With the King of Bluegrass. Martin died on May 14 after a long battle with bladder cancer.