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A D V E R T I S E M E N T
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A D V E R T I S E M E N T
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Radney Foster
This World We Live In\r\n(Dualtone Records)
By Jennifer Robertson
You’ve heard his songs: “Real Fine Place to Start” performed by Sara Evans, “Raining on Sunday” by Keith Urban, “Sweet Dreams (Godspeed)” by the Dixie Chicks, “Texas in 1880” by Pat Green, even the alty pop-rock “I Got What You Need” by Hootie and the Blowfish. But to close followers of Texas Music, Radney Foster is a rare musical find: equal parts significant songwriter and bombastic entertainer.
He now applies his keen songwriting pen to This World We Live In, and his seventh album is introspective, revealing, and entertaining as all hell.
Since Foster was a behind-the-scenes songwriter before becoming a performer — and apparently remains a craftsman first — he pays extremely close attention to the form and content of each tune. For a relatively young guy, he can churn out lyrics that seem old-school legendary. There’s his whimsical look at being “Drunk on Love”: “I’ve been down on my knees before the porcelain throne / Sufferin’ the wrath of the god of tequila / After dancin’ on a bar doing my very best cowboy ballerina.” His take on the “Kindness of Strangers”: “He was nervous and excited when he walked in / She poured him a drink / And they discussed the price of sin.” And, finally, his coming clean in “Half of My Mistakes”: “Half of my mistakes I made stone-cold sober / Half of my mistakes I made at closing time / Half the time I never saw it coming ‘til it was over / Half of my mistakes I made with love on the line.”
The at-times jiving disc is considerably more upbeat than Foster’s last outing, 2004’s intimate just-him-and-a-guitar release, Yet and Then There’s Me (The Back Porch Sessions). But This World We Live In is no less insightful.
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