[rating=8.00]
This is a different gig than the solo Will Kimbrough and Tommy Womack projects. Together as Daddy on Let’s Do This, their third album as a duo, they stay in the Daddy groove, meaning cranking it up and letting loose. Their witty songwriting is still very evident but is commentary on serious social issues, while present, mostly takes a back seat. This one’s mostly about guitars.
The album was recorded in January of 2017, but it was put on the back burner while each, especially Kimbrough, tended to a myriad of other projects as sideman or producer, not to mention, per the group name, their roles as fathers. However, Womack learned in September last year that the cancer he had been fighting, returned and given his history with health issues, he decided he really wanted to get this project done. Thus, the urgency of the album title.
Originally recorded in Nashville’s Blackbird Studio, finishing touches were made at Kimbrough’s Super Service Studio, with the main adds being Lisa Oliver Gray’s soulful harmonies and, on the track “Half Drunk,” Danny Mitchell’s muted trumpet. These additions just embellish what is, at its core, a glorious rock n’ roll romp, especially in the mid-section of the album. True to their, Kimbrough-dubbed “holy trinity of our band’s rock n roll – Dylan, Stones, and Muddy,” Kimbrough is often Mick Taylor to Womack’s riffing Keith Richards. Kimbrough is a widely sought out session player and producer, acknowledged as one of the most versatile and skilled musicians in Nashville. He did win the Americana Music Association’s 2004 Instrumentalist of the Year and his stature has only grown since.
The first three tracks – Kimbrough’s low-down “Start All Over,” Womack’s sarcastic “Pissed Off at the World,” and Kimbrough’s churning “Don’t Kick Me When I’m Down” pack plenty of punch but serve as appetizers to the main course found in tracks four – seven. Womack’s “Friday Night at the Villager Tavern” is a showcase for Kimbrough’s dexterous picking. “Cadillac Problems,” the single, is Kimbrough’s hilarious take and nod to Chuck Berry. Womack’s “State of Blue” slows it down but features heavy Stones-like chords and another wild Kimbrough solo. “Rock n Roll, Part 3,” as you would expect, just blazes.
From this point, the tone and energy ratchets down several notches for some acoustic tunes with Kimbrough often on mandolin. The best of these is “Two Birds Blues,” an old-timey/ragtime tune, as is the case with many, full of witty lyrics. Womack, a two-time Nashville Scene Best Song winner, maybe the wittiest writer in Americana and all of that is on display in “When Disney Takes Jerusalem,” curiously omitted from the liner booklet which has the lyrics to all other tunes.
Together with Nashville studio stalwarts Paul Griffith on drums, Dave Jacques on bass, and John Deaderick on keys, Womack and Kimbrough have fashioned a deceptively simple rock n roll record that will have lasting power due to Kimbrough’s brilliant axe work and witty lyrics that may not emerge until you stop stomping your feet and listen a bit more closely.
