Album: Drivin' n' Cryin', Whisper Tames the Lion, 1988
Acquired: I bought this at a Books, Strings, n' Things. I can't remember which year or whether it was the store in Blacksburg, Charlottesville, or Roanoke. Regardless, score for me.
Best Track: "Catch the Wind"
Lasting Memory: I don't have any specific memories tied to this this album or any of its songs, so let me reflect on the time I saw Drivin' n' Cryin' live in concert in McBride 100, a lecture hall at Virginia Tech. Loud. Check. Rocking. Check. But you haven't really lived until you've seen a country metal act set off smoke pots and work a laser light show on the same stage from which, earlier in the day, you copied slides of the Krebs cycle into your Mead three-subject notebook.
Having played Whisper Tames the Lion through a couple of times this morning, I'm regretting not giving the album more attention over the years. Even more than Scarred But Smarter, Whisper is a split disk of the better sort of hair metal and the best sort of contemporary country.
Ninety percent of the bands that never made it off Hollywood's Sunset Strip in the 1980s wished they could have created "Powerhouse." Whereas John Denver himself never rcorded a better early spring, little too fast drive through the foothills song than "Catch the Wind." And "Can't Promise You the World" does a little bit of rock and a little bit of country.
Up Next: Drivin' n' Cryin', Mystery Road, 1989
Note from Management: Another short post today. I have a bad head cold. It's not flu -- no fever, no coughing, no nausea. But I am muddleheaded and sore-throated, and if I produced any more phlegm, I'd be Mucus Tick. All things considered, though, now is a good time to be down because I have no deadlines until Tuesday.
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