Eric Woodring - The Upside of Lonely (2022)

With a retro country deep baritone like the late Jim Reeves after a few shots of moonshine, Eric Woodring has a nice back-country authenticity to his upbeat repertoire. There are so many old-school country singers & outlaws who would be comfortable on this South Texas singer’s front porch.

It would be easy to say some songs are hokey but that may be for a city boy’s ears – the instrumentation here is too fiery & proficient to dismiss. Then if you listen to the lyrics they’re pretty well damn country-poetic. He may be cut from the same cloth as a Waylon, Merle, Billy Joe Shaver but he’s closer in tradition as a songwriter to Roger Miller (his more serious material like “River In the Rain”) & Chip Taylor.

The Upside of Lonely (Drops May 6–Independent) is not Eric’s first LP but this new CD offers 7-cuts produced by Jack Saunders (guitar/bass/percussion & background vocals) wrote one cut for the LP — the excellent “Someone Made For You.” It’s a somewhat ass-kicker on fiddle & drums, sung with a rootsy dynamic voice that many would kill to have.