Search - Chip Taylor :: Unglorious Hallelujah

Many Americana fans know that Chip Taylor's early songwriting spawned huge Top 40 hits ("Wild Thing" and "Angel of the Morning" among them) and that he's the brother of Jon Voight and uncle of Angelina Jolie. But on this homespun, off-the-cuff, double-disc set, he sounds more like the long-lost New York cousin of Guy Clark. He evokes the inspiration of Clark and other influential songwriters on "What Would Townes Say About That," and his music shares a similarly organic approach to songwriting, phrasing, and stripped-down intimacy in the arrangements. This is Taylor's first solo release in six years, following a series of cross-cultural, transgenerational duets with Carrie Rodriguez (who provides harmonies here). The first disc, Unglorious Hallelujah, is more topical and frequently darker, while Red Red Rose, the second disc, is lighter and more saturated with love songs. There's a thin line between serendipity and slapdash, and it occasionally seems that Taylor feels anything he can make rhyme is worth recording. Yet "Unglorious Hallelujah" represents his songwriting at its most ambitious, "Christmas in Jail" is the most lacerating sort of confessionalism, and "I Don't Know Why I Love You (I Just Do)" is one of the many songs here that sounds straight from the heart, without letting the head get too fussy with it. --Don McLeese