Roger Alan Wade - Deguello Motel (2010)

As impressive as the first two songs are, my favorite of the album is “Ruins of Paradise” where Wade bears all, singing with such emotion, such conviction you wonder if he can hold it together till the end, with deep breaths punctuating the pain in lyrics not afraid to bear weakness. It also shows Wade’s adeptness with chords and changes to create the mood; a trait of Roger’s music that can be overlooked because of the mesmerizing nature of the words.

The heart of the album is restless, with lots of movement and lost love, and running from past mistakes. Themes and characters are introduced and revisited. Songs like “Dequello Lullaby,” an addiction-infused nursery rhyme that does an excellent job of painting the absolute submersion that a life of sin endures, reminds you this is all taking place in the “leave or die” atmosphere of addiction.

One thing that could have improved this album would be fleshing out a few songs with a full band. That might have helped sell the concept even more. But even just with Roger and his guitar, Deguello never gets boring like some acoustic solo albums can. And that’s the fun of being a songwriter: you create the skeleton, and then other performers can come in and elaborate.

In the final song “3rd Chance Blues,” Wade cans all the indirect language and illustrations, and spells it out cold. Something he pointed out to me when I interviewed him in April was that he never uses curse words in his songs. You think he would with songs like “Poontang” and “Butt Ugly Slut,” but like Seinfeld, he felt cursing was the easy way out. With the final song he breaks this tradition, to say what he needs to say.

I had to give up what I was good at, and get back down to good things. I quit that shit before it killed me, but not before it made me not wanna bend them guitar strings.

This simple life it suits me, my dreams are wild, my mind is strong and clear. Truth is I just got sick of dying, ain’t no telling what kind of shit you’re gonna hear.

I wouldn’t walk away with the impression that this album is preachy. Wade may preach to himself, or about himself, but you’re too busy enjoying the album to feel like he’s preaching to you, or trying to. He is singing about his experiences, and songs like “Honkey Tonk Rose” and “Old Dixie Highway” are just good old country songs that only follow the recovery theme loosely.

Deguello Motel is THE album from Roger Alan Wade, the one that brings him out of the shadow of being Johnny Knoxville’s cousin or a writer of silly songs, and puts him in the company of people like Guy Clark and Townes Van Zandt as a premier songwriter.

It may have taken Wade 30 years to get here, but however long it was going to take, Wade, and the world, are better for it.