MARCIA BALL

Roadside Attractions

Alligator Records

By Stephanie Schorow

            If you don’t get a mood adjustment from the first song on Marcia Ball’s new CD, then you likely don’t have a pulse. From the first rocking chords of the boogie-woogie piano by the veteran Texas/Louisiana songstress, right through the line “it’s not the destination, it’s the trip” of “That’s How it Goes,” Ball sings like she is having the time of her life on the road of existence. You’ll be sticking out your thumb, begging for a ride.

It’s a theme that resonates throughout “Roadside Attractions” – Ball’s 15th solo album and her fifth with Alligator Records. With all the songs either written or co-written by Ball, this is, she says, one of her most personal, if not autobiographical, records. It seems that the highway of Ball’s life makes pit stops at the exits for Joy, Change, Loss, Betrayal, Endurance and Exuberance.

Like the title track of her previous album, Peace, Love & BBQ, in which she turns a simple family cookout into a moment of sublime bliss, Ball finds moments of transcendence in the small stuff of existence. In Roadside Attractions, however, her voice gets grittier, both sweeter and rougher, as if she is cutting deeper into the meat of the music. But let’s not get all existential here – these are tunes at home in a get-down-and-dirty bayou bar as well as any Austin college hangout.

            With the able guitar work of Colin Linden (a standout on the title track) backing vocals by Wendy Moten and guitar by Mike Schermer, bass by Don Bennett and drums by Damien Llanes, Ball and producer Gary Nicholson (who also co-wrote some of the songs), keep things rolling.

Sometimes the songs seem to bookend contractions: the tribute to young love that that takes chances in “We Fell Hard,” is followed by the cautionary lyrics of “Look Before You Leap.” The rancor in “I Heard it All” comes before the tribute to the give-and-take of a successful relationship in “Believing in Love.”  On “Everybody’s Looking for the Same Thing,” Ball trots out that old metaphor of the lovesick hound dog on the hunt.  But she gives that old dog a new metaphorical bone, thus turning the tune into a sassy, upbeat saga.

And channeling the spirit of Billie Holiday in “Mule Headed Man,” Ball aims to stick by her hard-living, self-destructive man who would “rather have his whiskey than live.” But with the merest flicker of cool intelligence, she turns the song into an anthem for Al-Anon and a woman who gets what she wants. The track also gives Marcia a chance to cut loose on the piano and for Schermer on guitar.

Yet, despite the album’s upbeat thrust, the best song is the darkest – “I Heard it All” in which the singer overhears her man begging forgiveness from his betrayed wife. Ball turns what could have been a moment of furious revenge into a triumph for a lover who refuses to go gently into that good night. The sparer arrangements showcase Ball’s vocals to perfection.

A few times, Ball slips from sentimental into cloying, particularly in her prettified look at bucolic rural life in “Between Here and Kingdom Come,” which may make you suspect that small-town life looks better in the rear-view mirror than the front windshield. “This Used to Be Paradise” laments the loss of Gulf fishing and its lifestyle with the arrival of the “oil man.”

Would that life could actually end on a high note like Roadside Attractions does, with the fabulously energetic “The Party’s Still Going On,” a rockin’ tribute to dancing the night away. Marcia Ball might be sixty-something, but she’s still doing 100 mph on the road of life.

Stephanie Schorow is a Boston-based freelance writer and book author. Her web site is: www.stephanieschorow.com

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