[rating=8.00]
For many artists, it can take years to forge a clear identity in their music, but J.P. Harris makes it look easy. Leading his incredibly tight band the Tough Choices, Harris is a rising country artist with a voice you won’t soon forget. It’s deep, it’s smoky and it’s perfectly suited to his honkytonk spirit. On their new record Home is Where the Hurt Is, Harris and the Tough Choices continue the string of timeless country western songwriting from their last release I’ll Keep Calling.
Harris’ baritone harkens back to the style of an artist like Waylon Jennings, but with his own unique inflections that show themselves on tunes like “A Breaking Heart” and “Maria”. He doesn’t try to do anything fancy, he’s just wholly himself. And truthfully, his songs don’t need it. Tales of love lost, hard drinking, and dark juke joints, the songs on Home is Where the Hurt Is are atmospheric, but never too foreboding or heavy. Rich accents of steel guitar and Spanish sounding acoustic guitar add texture and a whole lot of fun to “Maria”. With those harmonies, too, it could be a long lost gem from some amazing, dusty country record from the 1970s if you didn’t know better.
That’s the thing about JP Harris and the Tough Choices. Their songs are immediately classic, never tired or overwrought, just totally classic, like they could be plucked from almost any era of country music past. Harris’ unbelievable knack for channeling that old school affect is what makes him such a special contemporary artist. Today, country music is so overly swarmed with watered down, unsubstantial, sugary concoctions, but Harris’s music rings true. His sound is appreciative of what came before, and when he sings about women and guitars, you actually believe it. “Young Women and Old Guitars” is one of the strongest moments of this record, and if it doesn’t draw you to the nearest dance floor, nothing will.
There’s not a phony note on Home is Where the Hurt Is. It’s authentic and genuine, and transports you to a dim roadside bar in the South, where cowboy boots shuffle around the floor. The depth of Harris’ voice only brings you further, and you can practically smell the beer and whiskey on his breath as he sings “South Oklahoma”, a pretty story about a doomed love in a certain kind of town that time forgot. For all the time he’s spent on the road, Harris captures that grittiness and loneliness just right. His songs have heart, even when they’re describing the dark stuff, like the magnificent “Truckstop Amphetamines” and “One for Every Day”, both stories about overdoing it to the point of no return.
Known to cover a few classic country tunes in their live shows, Home is Where the Hurt Is only features original songs from Harris and the Tough Choices. He wears his influences on his sleeve, but ultimately you’ll thank him for it. With so few country artists staying true to the music nowadays, an artist like Harris is few and far between and should be treasured like the legends that paved the way for him.
