By Brian Rock
Husband and wife duo, The Waymores, gallop through country’s golden age on Greener Pastures. Evoking the dueling duets of Johnny Cash and June Carter as well as George Jones and Tammy Wynette, the pair alternates from exchanging words of love to trading insults. Their top-notch backing band provides them with the perfect honky-tonk, Bakersfield, backroad bar ambience to showcase their classic vocal style.
“But I Don’t,” exemplifies their revivalist charm. Steel guitar, parlor piano, and a waltz time drumbeat set the stage. Kira Annalise takes the mic and sings this forlorn accusation: “If you had a heart, this song would break it.” Husband, Willie Neal responds with an accusation of his own: “If you had eyes, you’d see me achin’, but you don’t. So I pretend my heart isn’t breakin’.” A brilliant exploration of how inability to communicate can slowly erode a relationship, the song is the rare break up song where you feel sympathy for both parties. Joining together in vocal harmony, the duo sings, “Being together is like being alone. Ain’t much of you left, and I’m mostly gone… Half of a heart don’t make much of a song.” The piano and pedal steel combine to mimic the sighs of grief and trickling of tears in perfect synergy with the lyrics. Feeling bad never sounded so good.
Annalise channels her inner Tammy Wynette as she takes lead vocal on the pedal steel drenched heartbreaker, “Hill Country Waltz.” The couple combine vocals again on their cover of the Marty Robbins ballad, “Don’t Worry.”
But The Waymores don’t just wallow in heartbreak. Sometimes they take it out on the dusty, wooden dance floor and give it a spin. “She’s Gone,” is a barrelhouse piano driven honky-tonker that sounds like a Saturday night drinking song, even though the lyrics are about missing an ex-lover. It is way more fun than a breakup song should be. “Tavern Time,” “Time To Ramble,” and “Under Your Spell,” are all similarly cheerful breakup songs. “Flashbacks Of A Fool,” is also a merry teardropper, but this time with 60’s girl group vocal harmonies.
Finally putting the heartbreaks behind them, the duo find stability in the piano and electric organ infused honky-tonk of, “You’ve Got Gold.” Now that they’ve finally found each other, there’s nothing left to do, but head off to, “Greener Pastures.” Bakersfield rhythms permeate the song as the couple trade vocals singing, “You and me, we’ll ride in style in my old Chevrolet, mile after mile. Well, I’ll navigate, and we’ll go faster. Let’s get after greener pastures.”
With their Bakersfield-drenched style of honky-tonk, the Waymores prove that “Greener Pastures” isn’t always a place; sometimes it’s a musical state of mind.
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Brian Rock
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