CD: "Tiny Pilot" by Michael Perry and The Long Beds
"First time I ever heard Waylon Jennings," says Michael Perry, "was on an 8-track tape in a four-wheel drive truck doing sixty miles an hour down a Wyoming hay meadow. We were running late for Bible study." The songs on Tiny Pilot are a direct reflection of that experience. Sunday mornings instilled in Perry a love of singing "clear and pure" that can be heard throughout Tiny Pilot - most especially on the songs, "842 Miles," "If They Give You Wings," and "Sweet Edge of Time." Conversely, anyone introduced to Ol' Waylon by means of a four-wheeling 8-track is bound to shoot for some boogety-boogety now and then, as Perry and the Long Beds do on "Undone," "Somewhere South of Sunday," and (in a respectful nod to Ol' Hoss himself) "After Waymore's Blues." While the music made by Perry and the Long Beds has been variously described as 'country folk,' 'roughneck folk,' 'folk-twang,' and Americana, they prefer the description given by an audience member after a benefit concert in Perry's old high school gym: "You sound just like Gordon Lightfoot... only zippier!" Nice - but there are limits.
