Terry Allen - Juarez '2016

Tracks list

Tracklist

01. The Juarez Device (aka Texican Badman)
02. Dialogue: The Characters (A Simple Story)
03. Cortez Sail
04. Border Palace
05. Dogwood
06. Writing on Rocks Across the U.S.A.
07. The Radio … and Real Life
08. There Oughta Be a Law Against Sunny Southern California (Jabo I, II, III)
09. What of Alicia
10. Honeymoon in Cortez
11. Four Corners
12. Dialogue: The Run South
13. Parts: Jabo / Street Walkin Woman
14. Cantina Carlotta
15. La Despedida (The Parting)

Terry Allen is, first and foremost, a visual artist. He just happens to make
brilliant, idiosyncratic albums on the side. In fact, his first album, 1975s
Juarez, wasnt even initially conceived as an album, but as a set of songs
recorded to accompany an artwork installation. Original copies of the album were
released with a set of lithographs illustrating the characters who populate the
albums world, an elliptical place where motivations and desires are often
shadowy to the point of inscrutability, but the characterizations are almost
three-dimensional. The story of two couples on a drinking spree that turns into
a murderous chase through the southern California desert, Juarez is a
tough-as-nails narrative with the deadpan, biting humor of crime fiction writers
like Jim Thompson or Chester Himes. The album was recorded quickly and on a low
budget, so the musical settings are ultra-spare, with Allens whiskey-cured
vocals and thumping piano often the only musical elements. As a concept album,
the individual songs dont work as well out of context, but listened to as a
whole, Juarez is one of the more fascinating country albums of its time, like
Willie Nelsons Red Headed Stranger as reimagined by Quentin Tarantino.

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