Ralston Bowles (a.k.a. Ralston) and his album, Carwreck Conversations, came to my attention after hearing the track, "Everybody But You," on the April/May Paste magazine compilation. "Everybody But You" is a blues-upped, countrified folk song. It rocks along while discovering someone who acts truly graciously ("Everybody wants something from me but you. . .Tell me please what did you find/That made you want to treat me so kind"). These lyrics are laid over a great guitar jam--acoustic and electric.
Based on this track, then, I was surprised at how the album begins. Ralston uses Mark Heard's "What Kind of Friend" with haunting precision. It is Ralston's voice, an understated keyboard adding atmosphere, and a bass kick/brushes on snare. The song acts like a musical overture--calming the crowd, hushing the conversations, bringing all attention on the dimly lit stage. The music is about to begin. The song acts like a thematic overture--friendship, love, death, and the ability/inability to overcome our own selfish wills. Introspection is about to begin.
From here, Ralston slips right into the electric guitar, slips right into a Country-influenced Rock (with folk being not far behind). The second track, "You Already Knew That," is one of the carwreck conversations of the title. A song of an accident, a song of a relationship, it saunters but is fully accented by the electric guitar, adding dimension to the scene like flashing lights, firefighters using the jaws-of-life, and police officers setting out flares to mark the scene.
Ralston's ability to write short stories in his songs places him next to James McMurtry. Both McMurtry and Ralston share that Country-influenced sound while it could easily be stripped away to leave you with a folk singer. These songs of Ralston are like short stories, not just because "they tell a little story." A great short story leaves you wanting more, leaves you wondering from where the characters came and where they're headed. You want another 5 stanzas, keep the groove going, tell me more about Mary Jean.
In "James Dean," Mary Jean is an Alzheimer's patient, just waiting for her death. She wants to come quickly, to come like James Dean's death that happened in an instant in a carwreck. (We're back to our album title). "I'm not talking about no highway crash, not talking mercy death/Just let me meet my Maker fast/Let His name be my last breath." The song drifts off--it's an outstanding blues vamp--and I want more. The song drifts off--and I want to know what happened to Mary Jean.
Spiritual themes abound on this album. Invoking Mark Heard's name brings about certain expectations (is Ralston a Christian singer/songwriter?). That's an unfortunate question, because I think it is liable to distract you from seeing the outstanding spiritual questions and themes of grace on this album. As Christians have gotten more and more used to having contemporary Christian music, rock singers that have Jesus tattooed on their arms, I think we've also gotten more and more narrow in how we approach musicians. It's like, "Well, he sings a Mark Heard song. That must make him a Christian."
Singing someone's song never makes someone a Christian. You are a Christian through believing in Jesus Christ alone. Besides, look at all of the singers who use Gospel tunes and spirituals, but Lord knows, they're not Christians. Even Neil Diamond and Barbra Streisand did Christmas albums.
When you listen to Ralston's Carwreck Conversations, put aside the question of his faith for a moment. Listen to these songs as they explore grace--a theme evidenced in many places (obvious place: the song called "Grace," less obvious place: the song "What About Me" which talks about first romances and true love). When you set aside the question of the singer's faith, you see what is coming through the music. After all, that's what he's put out there for us to hear, mark, and inwardly digest.
Ralston gives us a lot to digest, and it tastes extremely good. Oh, I mean, some of it is bittersweet--themes of loneliness, lost love, lost respect--but who doesn't like to grab a handful of bittersweet chocolate chips? Yet, bittersweet is an excellent way to explain God's grace. We rejected God (bitter); He gives us the gift of His love (sweet). That offering of the gift of love comes through in many of Ralston's short stories.
What makes Marvin Etzioni's production most outstanding is how he used all of the instruments as ways to accent, punctuate, articulate, and stimulate these short stories to life. The embellishments, the grace notes, the entrances, the exits, they're all there for a reason--to bring Ralston's songs to three-dimensional life through sound.
4 tocks
Other coverage for this album
The Phantom Tollbooth 2004Reviewed by Brian A. SmithOne of the unspoken rules at the Phantom Tollbooth is that any discs that go unclaimed, or for some reason, have not been reviewed, get sent to me. This leads to some challenges -- i.e. how to say something positive about a less than enjoyable CD, a lack of familiarity with the performer, and a likelihood that we may never hear from this artist again. Every so often, though, I get a disc that…Similar sounding releases
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