Stoney LaRue - The Red Dirt Album (2005)

Tracklist

01. Down in Flames
02. Closer to You
03. Idabel Blues
04. Downtown
05. Solid Gone
06. Walk Away
07. Texas Moon
08. One Chord Song
09. Bluebird Wine
10. Let Me Hold You
11. Forever Young

Stoney LaRue is a singer/songwriter based in Stillwater, OK, one of the leaders of a local outlaw country scene collectively dubbed Red Dirt, after the dominant topographical feature of central Oklahoma. LaRue's debut, The Red Dirt Album, is both a personal coming-out of a fairly gifted singer/songwriter and the mission statement of an entire collective of bands, including Cross Canadian Ragweed (led by singer/songwriter Cody Canada) and Jason Boland & the Stragglers, key figures from which appear here in vocal, instrumental, and songwriting roles. It's as if the Elephant 6 bands had been heavily influenced by Jerry Jeff Walker's Viva Terlingua and the rest of the Luckenbach, TX, scene of the '70s. However, LaRue's whiskey-smooth growl of a voice and his smart, traditionalist songwriting are the focal points throughout The Red Dirt Album, a twangy, rock-influenced collection of solid two-steps, ballads, and rockers. LaRue wrote or co-wrote all but two of the songs, the ringers being a sensitive reading of "Bluebird Wine," a Rodney Crowell tune popularized by Emmylou Harris, and a triumphant, sweet version of Bob Dylan's "Forever Young" that closes the album. Both sound like they could be originals, testament both to LaRue's vocal skills and strength as a songwriter.

DOWNLOAD ALBUM [flac]