Tim McGraw "Tim McGraw and the Dancehall Doctors" Album
Tracklisting & Lyrics
1.
Comfort Me lyrics »
2.
Tickin' Away lyrics »
3.
Home lyrics »
4.
Red Ragtop lyrics »
5.
That's Why God Made Mexico lyrics »
6.
Watch The Wind Blow By lyrics »
7.
Illegal lyrics »
8.
Sleep Tonight lyrics »
9.
I Know How To Love You Well lyrics »
10.
Sing Me Home lyrics »
11.
She's My Kind Of Rain lyrics »
12.
Who Are They lyrics »
13.
Real Good Man lyrics »
14.
All We Ever Find lyrics »
15.
Tiny Dancer lyrics »
Reviews
Just as his wife, Faith Hill, gets slicker and more hermetically sealed on each album, Tim McGraw reaches back on this record to a time-honored, if now rare, country music tradition--recording with his road band. Like Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, and Merle Haggard before him, McGraw craved the artistic freedom and rawer sound he enjoyed with his road boys, and he was correct in thinking the Dancehall Doctors would leave their own honest stamp on the music, as well as a '70s rock & roll feel. Retreating to a studio in upstate New York, they recorded 15 keepers. Only one, a cover of Elton John's "Tiny Dancer," lands with a thud, as McGraw tries to duplicate John's vocal nuances and never takes control of the song. But elsewhere, he and the band are surprisingly emotional, soulful, and vulnerable. Together, they turn "Red Ragtop," a song about teen lovers who abort their child, into a universal lyric about choices and regrets, and fashion the two songs about revisiting the people and places that shape who you are ("Sing Me Home," "Home") into something profound. The album sags in spots, and McGraw and his coproducers misstep in adding faux R&B vocal washes here and there. But this is a good, solid effort to make music and not just the radio charts. ~Alanna Nash, Amazon.com
Tim "Outlaw" McGraw has been one of the most consistent of the late-'90s country superstars. Never content to reply on his reputation, he continually pushed at the pillars of the hall that created him, namely Nash Vegas. McGraw's particular gift as an interpreter of other songwriters' works is almost singular among his generation of singers. Not relying solely on production, McGraw uses numerous voices to get to the heart of a song. On this album, McGraw convinced his label and co-producers, Byron Gallimore and Darran Smith, to use his road band, the Dancehall Doctors, to make a more organic and immediate sounding record. It worked. From the stunning opener, "Comfort Me," by Craig Wiseman and Don Poythress, an ancient military sounding snare drum and a bleeding guitar note usher in a tune that is the only non-cloying patriotic song that was recorded after September 11, 2001. It's a hymn equal parts country and Celtic that is an homage to all of those who entered this country by going past the Statue of Liberty and entered the American experience. When he reaches the end, "I am the tired, I am your poor in spirit/yearnin' to breathe, breathe free...," the listener is caught up in the "us" of the song; it's inclusive, and captures in McGraw's prayer for comfort, for deliverance not from something else but to the space that freedom is -- defined both individually and collectively -- is unique among the country songs that came up after the disaster struck. Interestingly enough, it sets the tone for a record full of romantic archetypes, not only the icon of Lady Liberty, but family ("Home"); the reliving of experience unconsciously ("Red Ragtop"); escape and recreation of oneself ("That's Why God Made Mexico"); the idealization of love as a force in and of itself ("Watch the Wind Blow By", a killer soul-oriented track by Anders Osborne, and McGraw sings the hell out of it); dislocation and the realization that home isn't such a bad place to be ("Sing Me Home"); and others. McGraw closes the record with Elton John's and Bernie Taupin's "Tiny Dancer," and for a verse or so, you'd swear it was the same recording. It's frightening how close to the original it is. Why would anyone try to recreate a song so close to its original version; simple, because they love it. And McGraw's version is gorgeous, soulful, and deep like the rest of And the Dance Hall Kings. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
