Chad Elliott - Wreck and Ruin (2015)

Like the dark earth of his Iowan origins, Chad Elliott's life has served as fertile ground. Elliott has turned love, loss, fatherhood, divorce, homelessness and bouts with depression into lyrics. He performs more than 200 shows each year, like a steady shower of rain sweeping the nation. He has cultivated more than 1,000 songs in his career in addition to becoming an accomplished painter, sculptor and children's book author/illustrator (Wilderman’s Treetop Tales).
Elliott’s earlier career demonstrates a love of folk, roots and singer-songwriter music. He has worked with many greats and even shared the bill with artists of the highest caliber: Odetta, Tom Paxton, Loudon Wainwright III, R.L. Burnside, Greg Brown, Bo Ramsey, etc. Today, his songwriting has made a marked shift to Americana.
On his 20th album, “Wreck and Ruin”, Elliott dives into his love of roots-rock, soul and blues music with a rocking band behind his artfully crafted songs. Producer and drummer, Ken Coomer (Wilco, Uncle Tupelo) lined up the best rhythm and lead players in Nashville to create Elliott’s greatest album to date. Guitarist and bassist Kenny Vaughan and Dave Roe, legendary Nashville players, add the needed touches to rocket Elliott’s songs into a new arena of hard driving Americana.
The title track of “Wreck and Ruin” was conceived after the Moore, Oklahoma tornado of 2013. Elliott didn’t think too much of the song and put it aside as he often does. It’s lyrics spell out a hopeless situation of a family expecting twins (Elliott being a twin himself). As the mother goes into labor the family finds themselves in the back of a broke down Chevy as a tornado bears down on the land. Nothing is left standing, except the family, now with two babies named “Wreck” and “Ruin.”
One year after writing the song, on Mother’s Day of 2014, Elliott and his family were celebrating at his mother’s Iowan home. His hard-working, single mother raised four children alone. No one minded when festivities closed early, so his mother could treat herself to a Lyle Lovett concert. Two hours after Elliott and his wife and children left his mother’s home, a tornado leveled the house. Thankfully, no one was home. It could have been worse - the whole family would likely have been home, kids and all, if not for that Lyle Lovett concert. Elliott brushed off the “Wreck and Ruin” song and adopted the motto “Lyle Lovett Saves Lives.”
Chad Elliott has learned not to ignore the machinations of fate, but to pay homage to them. He writes them into songs and carries their lessons with him on tour across the country.